He was quick and to the point. It was quite clear that he had no interest in speaking to her beyond the formalities of the job.

"I need some information on a woman named Debbie Toms, particularly her current place of employment."

"Is this for the firebug case?"

She sighed, not wanting to get into it with him. She reminded herself that as far as Ramirez, O'Malley, and Connelly were concerned, Phillip Bailey was the guilty party and they currently had him in custody.

"Can you just get someone on that for me, please?" Avery asked.

"Will do. I'll get someone to call you with it as soon as possible."

"Thanks," she said, but the line was dead before the word was out of her mouth.

Well, if I hadn't p.i.s.sed him off enough before to scare him away, I sure as h.e.l.l did a great job of it last night.

She went back to her car and looked over the material on Roosevelt "Rosie" Toms again. She knew there was nothing of real use there, but she wanted to drill the information into her head.

As she read over it, her phone rang. Again, she was surprised to hear Ramirez on the other end. She'd been sure he would have tasked someone else with the menial job of finding someone's current employer.

"I've got that information for you," Ramirez said without any sort of greeting. "Debbie Toms works as a packager for a Dollar General distribution center. Looks like a shift-work sort of deal."

"Can you shoot me the address?"

"Yeah. And look...the reason I called you back...I'm going to ask O'Malley to a.s.sign me to something else today. Agent Duggan is out of the picture now because he's convinced Bailey is the guilty party, too. So I'm solo again. I'm not going to tell O'Malley what you're off doing right now because it might p.i.s.s him off. There's a possible kidnapping that was reported this morning. I might see if I can get some action on that."

"A kidnapping?" Avery asked.

"Well, not a kid. Some woman went missing. Sophia Lesbrook. It's an interesting one because her husband died a few months ago. There's some speculation that his death might be connected to her being taken."

"Well, good luck on it. Let me know if you need any h-"

"What?" he asked.

It's a long shot, Avery thought even before she replied. Still, it was worth checking out. "Do we know how her husband died?"

"Car accident. He hung on in the hospital for a few hours but it was a lost cause from the start from what I hear. Why?"

"Where was he buried?" she asked.

"What kind of question is that?"

"Can you just answer it?"

"Hold on," he said bitterly. "Hold on. I've got the files right here. Um...well, he wasn't buried. He was cremated and...oh, Avery. That's a stretch. That's more than a stretch. That's more like a bend."

"Can you do some digging for me?" she asked.

He sighed but it might as well have been a yes. "What kind of digging?"

"Look into Keisha Lawrence and Sarah Osborne. See if they had any loved ones pa.s.s away over the last year or so. And if there were deaths, see if they were buried or cremated."

"Are you serious?" he asked. But even in that question, she knew she had him hooked. She could hear the edge of excitement in his voice.

"Yes, I am. Can you do that for me?"

Again, another heavy sigh came from his end. "I'll get back to you as soon as I get the results."

"Thanks, Ramirez."

"Uh-huh."

The line went dead and Avery supposed that an uh-huh was much better than a cold disconnection like the last time. Within a few seconds, as promised, he texted her the address to the distribution center Debbie Toms worked at. It was almost like he was right there by her side, helping her out again.

With things slowly starting to fall into place like a morbid puzzle in her head, Avery plugged the address into her GPS. Finally, she felt like she was getting somewhere. She was so certain that it took everything within her not to cut the flashers and sirens on to race across town to find out if her hunches would pay off.

The distribution center was an enormous maze of a place. Without the receptionist to lead her through the stacks and stacks of merchandise being shipped out, Avery would have never been able to find Debbie Toms. As it happened, Debbie was working along one of the conveyor belts that sent the merchandise to several other belts to then be sorted into the delivery trucks. The receptionist had a word with the shift supervisor and the supervisor then led Avery to a woman at the far end of the belt.

Debbie Tom was a small woman who probably looked older than she really was. There was a slight slump to her posture and her face looked as if the muscles around her mouth had been frozen into a permanent scowl.

The supervisor gestured toward Debbie as if to say she's all yours now and then went back to his station. Avery approached her, almost feeling sad for the woman. Avery guessed her to be about sixty to sixty-five-and this was the type of job a woman of that age took mainly because there was very little retirement money waiting for her.

"My name is Detective Avery Black," Avery said. "I need to speak with you for a moment. Your supervisor has offered his office."

Debbie Toms said nothing at first. She just looked down to where her supervisor was still walking to the other end of the belt and rolled her eyes. "Okay," she said finally. "But can I ask what this is about?"

"I'm with the Homicide Division, Boston PD. We're neck-deep in a case that has raised the name of your son."

Again, Debbie gave a roll of the eyes. "f.u.c.kin' Roosevelt," she said. "Come on, let's get to it, then."

They were in the small and rather smelly office of the shift supervisor three minutes later. Neither of them sat, although Debbie's back seemed to scream for some sort of a break.

"You didn't seem surprised that I mentioned your son," Avery said.

"Not really," Debbie said. "He's never been in any real trouble that I know of. But he's the kind that's like a bomb. You know, one day he's just going to go off. I've felt that about him since he was sixteen and got into his first fight at school. Of course, I haven't spoken to him in nearly five years, so what the h.e.l.l do I know?"

"Did he ever do any jail time that you know of?"

"He spent two nights in jail when he was twenty-five or so for drunk and disorderly behavior. And there was one time when the cops were looking into him for some arson-related crimes. But no...nothing serious."

Arson, she thought. It keeps popping up. Maybe there's a reason I can't seem to get away from it as a lead.

"If you don't mind my asking, why has it been so long since you spoke?"

"He got involved with some girl that broke his heart," Debbie said. "Most boys come back home after that, you know? But Roosevelt was the opposite. He did some traveling...mostly within the States. When he came back around here and settled down, he wanted nothing to do with me. And as a mother, I hate to say this...but I didn't really care. He had changed somehow. He was darker if that makes sense."

"We've got some things on record about him being possibly involved with arson, like you mentioned. Do you recall him having any sort of obsession with fire when he was younger?"

"Not that I can recall. He used to burn things in the backyard. G.I. Joes, He-Man figures, little Matchbox cars, things like that. But I figured it was normal for a boy of his age."

That might be the first steps toward burning animals in coolers, Avery thought. And maybe even human bodies in some sort of hidden firebox.

"Do you happen to know where he's living now?" Avery asked.

"No clue. I know he had a job around here for a while at some crematorium. He was living in a rundown apartment back then. But I haven't heard from him since then. I ran into an old friend of his a few months back that said they were pretty sure he was living in Texas somewhere."

"I see," Avery said, slowly starting to feel this lead crumble away. She was just about to ask another question, anything that might link Roosevelt Toms back to the Boston area, when her phone rang. She glanced at the display and saw that it was Ramirez. "Sorry," she said to Debbie. "I need to take this. It'll just take a second."

Debbie nodded slowly, as if she couldn't care less. Avery stepped out of the office and put her finger into her ear to filter the noise of the machinery in the factory.

"I'm glad you called," Avery said in lieu of h.e.l.lo. "I need you to do every kind of search you can on a Roosevelt Toms. There's a good chance he's living in Texas and has a spotty record."

"Yeah, I can do that," Ramirez said. "But while I'm doing that, let me give you some news to soak in."

His tone was rather excited. Either he was managing to put the remarks of the previous night behind him or he had come across something that had changed his att.i.tude.

"What did you find?" Avery asked.

"For starters, the ident.i.ty of the third victim. Her name was Mary Sawyer, forty-one years of age."

"Any family to notify?"

"That's where it gets good," Ramirez said. "d.a.m.n it, Avery...you were right. We went back and looked deep into the other victims. Keisha Lawrence lost her mother about five months ago to breast cancer. They were a small family and Keisha had been put in charge of final arrangements. Her mother was cremated and her ashes were spread somewhere on a beach in North Carolina.

"Then there's Sarah Osborne. She's a real strange one. She was too young to have to make the decision to cremate someone. But when her golden retriever died earlier this year, she cremated it. According to what we know, Fido's ashes are still in a little urn somewhere in a stack of boxes that was taken from her apartment after she died."

"My G.o.d," Avery said. "And how about this new woman, Mary Sawyer?"

"A brother...died of heart failure at fifty-two years of age. He was cremated nine weeks ago."

"And the missing woman you were talking about, Sophia Lesbrook," Avery said. "Her husband was cremated."

"Yeah, we're working on the a.s.sumption that it can't be a coincidence. We're a.s.sembling a team to comb her house right now."

"Sounds good. In the meantime, please see what you can do to pull some information on Roosevelt Toms-maybe under the nickname of Rosie. If he's in Texas, he's an eliminated lead. But if there's any doubt of his location, I think he might be our guy."

"And if Mary Sawyer is indeed the next victim," Ramirez said, "that shows that Phillip Bailey is innocent because he's been in our custody for the last twelve hours."

"And most importantly," Avery said, "it proves that the killer is still out there."

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

Sophia Lesbrook came to slowly. It was almost like waking up from a very bad dream, only there was pain to go along with the fear. It was a pain that started along the right side of her jaw and seem to trace its way halfway down her back. She tasted blood in her mouth and something about the inside of her mouth felt weird. She lolled her head to the right very slowly and realized the lower half of the right side of her face was badly swollen.

That's when she remembered the fleeting image of the man in her bedroom. She had no idea where he had come from and by the time she'd been aware that he was in bed with her and straddling her, it had been too late.

She opened her eyes quickly, an action that seemed to cause the pain in her face and back to intensify.

She was in a room that looked sort of like a bas.e.m.e.nt. She was lying on a cold concrete floor. There was light in the room but it was faint. She saw through her hazy vision that it was coming from a small lamp that sat on a table across the room. A man was sitting at the table, his back to her. He seemed to be concentrating hard on something but she could not see what it was.

She wanted to scream but fought the urge. She did her best to take a quick inventory of her body. Her face hurt like h.e.l.l and with each second she regained her consciousness, she started to realize that the pain that spiraled down her back seemed to also radiate at the base along the back of her neck.

The taste of blood in her mouth was thick but she didn't think there was any actively coming out of her mouth. Looking back to the image of the man in her bed, she instantly wondered if she had been raped but she didn't seem to be harmed in that way. Sure, he could have done a lot of things that would leave no pain or traces of foul play but for now, the fair certainty that she had not been raped was good enough for her.

Then what does he want?

It was a good question. And it was not one she could get an answer to at the moment. His back was still to her and she could still not tell what he was looking at. What she was aware of, though, was that he had started muttering to himself. It was a high-pitched and urgent sort of voice that made her wonder if he might be mentally challenged.

She then eyed the room she was in. Her head was resting in the far corner, giving her a decent view of the room. A few feet away from her head there was a rather large door. There was a strange-looking lock on the outside of it and the U-shaped handle reminded her of the walk-in freezer at the butcher shop her grandfather had once owned.

On the other end of the room, there was a standard door. It was closed most of the way but not completely. In the murkiness on the other side, she could see the beginning of a set of wooden stairs.

The idea of running for her life crossed her mind. His back was to her and he was preoccupied. As if to prove this farther, he continued muttering to himself. This time, she caught a few of the words.

"...too d.a.m.n hard...and now you killed the b.i.t.c.h...still burn but so what...?"

He thinks I'm dead, Sophia thought. I really could get the jump on him. If I move my a.s.s right now, I could make it to those stairs before he got out of his chair.

But she also knew that beyond those stairs, she'd be unfamiliar with the building above them. All it would take was one wrong turn and he'd have her. And then maybe he would kill her...and on purpose this time.

Best to play dead for now, Sophia thought. I'll play dead until I get a better idea of what he's up to...or when I know I can get a good head start on him.

Suddenly, he was turning in his chair. He turned toward her and she closed her eyes. She opened them the tiniest bit, into something thinner than slits. She could barely see him or the object he was holding in his hand. She was pretty sure it was something almost like a large can, something that had a dull shine to it in the lamplight from the desk.

He was looking at her, perhaps studying her. Hadn't he said something about burning? Was he sizing her up for something?

She didn't know. She concentrated on taking extremely shallow breaths, ready to hold in completely if he came over to her for a closer evaluation.

But he did not do that. He turned back around and placed the object he had been holding on the side of the desk. He started to study something else, setting something out on the desk with loving care. As she watched him, he pulled small box from under the desk. He piled more of it onto the desk. It was odd...but Sophia was pretty sure it was foam or some sort of insulation carpenters used before putting up drywall or sheetrock. She also saw a small container on the edge of the desk. It was yellow with a red top.

Is that lighter fluid?

The insulation and the lighter fluid were weird, sure...but when she was able to finally see the object he had placed on the desk, her heart sank and she felt the need to scream again.

It was an urn.

And she was pretty sure the man had not been talking to himself the entire time. Sophia was pretty sure he had been talking to the urn.

Oh my G.o.d, he's insane.