John Doe Read Online Free PDF

to support that. He died with three hundred thousand dollars in various accounts. That was his job.” Frost pointed to the victims’ photos on the screen. “And it looks like he was well paid for it.”
    “No wonder,” said Marquette. “Scanlon takes all the risks. Shows his face in public. Transports the women in his car to their own residences.”
    “Easy enough to get the addresses off their drivers’ licenses,” pointed out Frost.
    “And that’s when the second man shows up. The women are drugged, so they never see the man who’s actually assaulting them. The DNA isn’t Scanlon’s, so even if he is arrested, he can’t be convicted of rape. It’s a perfect partnership, with Scanlon as the employee.”
    “Whoever hired him is obviously loaded and pays him well,” said Frost. “But maybe Scanlon got greedy. Maybe he tried to blackmail his boss. That would be a motive for murder.”
    “Then why was Scanlon still working for him?” asked Marquette. “Because it seems that’s what he was doing Saturday night. He crashed that reception to look for the next victim.”
    And he chose just the kind of woman his employer craves, thought Jane. Intelligent. Attractive. Accomplished. All words that described Maura Isles.
    “He wants only the best,” she said softly, staring at the faces on Moore’s computer screen. “Maybe he’s afraid of women like this. Or he resents them. And this is how he conquers them, how he cuts them down to size. The question is, Why couldn’t he find these women himself? Why take on the risk of a partner?”
    “Maybe he’s deformed,” said Frost. “Unable to get close to them.”
    “Or he’s too prominent,” suggested Moore. “Someone who’s immediately recognizable.”
    That second possibility disturbed Jane. Money and power, she thought. Is that what they were up against? A killer who paid someone else to take the risks while awaiting delivery of his next victim?
    It would have been Maura .
    But on Saturday night, something went awry for those partners. It started off well enough at the reception, where Scanlon chose his target and slipped Rohypnol into her drink. He guided his increasingly wobbly victim to his car. In her purse, he found Maura’s driver’s license and jotted down her address on the back of her business card, which he tucked into his pocket. He drove to her house in Brookline, used her keys to unlock the door, and carried her inside, where he deposited her on the sofa, unconscious and ready to be taken.
    But for some reason, the partner did not claim her. Did he show up at all that night? Or did he decide he would wait for another time?
    He already knows where to find her .

CHAPTER FOUR
    It was late in the afternoon when Maura walked into the medical examiner’s building, and she saw Dr. Costas freeze beside the coffeepot, a cup clutched in his hand. She saw her secretary Louise staring at her over her computer screen. Maura said nothing, but walked straight past Louise’s desk into her own office and closed the door. No doubt they’d all heard the news; in both medicine and law enforcement, there were few secrets. Maura had not been present at Christopher Scanlon’s autopsy, but she knew that Dr. Bristol had performed it, which meant he knew the circumstances of Scanlon’s death. He knew that her home address was found in the victim’s pocket, that Scanlon’s vehicle was parked at her house, and that her fingerprints and her shoe were in that vehicle.
    But what tormented her most weren’t all the damning details that made her look like a suspect; no, it was the details that made her look like a victim. The gullible woman, charmed and drugged by a predator. Though she had not been raped, she felt as ashamed and exposed as any rape victim, and it had taken all her fortitude to walk into the building today. This is how you fight back, she thought. You start by just showing your face.
    Louise knocked and came into the office, closing the door