across her chest. “I’m not handling this well. It pisses me off that, after all this time, I’m still so emotionally affected.”
“Stop beating yourself up. It is what it is. Delving back into the past is both a blessing and a curse. It reopens old wounds. It makes them bleed. But sometimes it also helps them heal.”
A hint of a smile. “When did you become so philosophical?”
“It’s called the voice of experience.”
“Yes, well, your experience held you emotionally hostage for thirty-two years.”
“You’re right. It did. Which is precisely why I’m the person you should be talking to.”
Casey couldn’t dispute that. “In your case, you found closure. I thought I’d found some level of closure with my case, too—when they located Holly’s body. But I was wrong. I guess I’ll never get closure. Because the bastard who raped and killed Holly when we were in college was never caught. And that’s what I’d need to find peace.”
“I know.” Patrick, as always, was blunt. “I also know that might never happen.”
“Unless it turns out that Jan Olson was murdered and that her killer is the same offender who raped and killed Holly,” Casey said quietly. “It’s possible, Patrick. The facts are closely related. Maybe our investigation into Jan Olson’s disappearance will lead us to Holly’s killer.”
Patrick didn’t look surprised by Casey’s theory. He’d obviously expected her mind to veer in that direction. It was natural, given the circumstances. “I hear you,” he responded. “And I’m not arguing that the parallels are strong. But identifying the murderer after fifteen years? It’s a long shot. And we were hired to find a body, not an offender.”
“You don’t need to remind me.” Casey’s jaw tightened. “Our job is to find the body of Daniel Olson’s daughter. To help him find peace. Stage four pancreatic cancer is a death sentence. He’s only got weeks or months to live.”
“By giving him what he needs, we’ll be paying tribute to your friend Holly,” Patrick said. “You could look at it that way.”
“My head knows that’s true. But I’m having problems separating my head from my heart. I need objectivity in order to run this investigation.” She turned to frown at Patrick. “And if you suggest that I take a backseat and let you head up this case—or worse, Marc, Ryan or Claire—I’ll punch you first and call you a hypocrite second.”
“Then lucky for me I wasn’t going to do that. You’ve got a mean right hook.” Patrick gave a wry smile—one that rapidly faded. “But, Casey, you’re thrown by this. Badly. You’ve got to work through that. Why don’t you tell me the details about your friend Holly? Marc was his usual tight-lipped self. He gave me just the need-to-know basics. You’ve discussed the details with him, and maybe even Ryan and Claire, but I think, in this situation, I’m the one who can help you focus.”
“Marc knows more than anyone, except Hutch. Hutch is the only one I’ve totally broken down to.”
Marc had introduced her to Hutch—Supervisory Special Agent Kyle Hutchinson—who was currently with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, and who’d become the man in Casey’s life.
“Okay, so Hutch and Marc know,” Patrick acknowledged. “Now it’s time you talked to a kindred spirit—me.”
“You could have researched the case yourself,” Casey pointed out. “You certainly have the contacts.”
“You’re right. I do. But they could only supply me with facts. They couldn’t offer me your perspective. Only you can. So I’m listening.”
Casey nodded, walking over to make two cups of black coffee from their Keurig, then returning to the conference room table.
She handed a cup to Patrick, then took her own cup and sat down.
“I was a freshman at Columbia. My friend Holly Stevens lived off campus. She was a loner, very shy and reserved. She had a few close friends. I was one of them. We met in Psych 101 and hit it off. One day, she told me she sensed she was being followed, even stalked. I urged her to go to the police. She did. They had nothing solid to work with, so they arranged for a few patrol cars to keep an eye on her apartment. It wasn’t enough.”
Casey drew a slow, unsteady breath, staring into her coffee as she spoke. “Holly’s body was found wrapped in a canvas tarp and tossed in a Dumpster a few weeks later. She’d been raped and murdered. It was a nightmare—one that could have been avoided with the proper resources.”
“You weren’t those resources, Casey. Not back then.”
“But I was the one Holly confided in. Irrational as it might seem, I always felt that maybe I missed an opportunity to prevent what happened.”
“That irrationality is what’s getting in your way now. Lose it. You may not have had the right resources to do what should’ve been done then, but you have the right tools for what you need to do now. You have Forensic Instincts.”
“Which is why I can’t let this case slip through my fingers. Not that I blame the police for what happened to Holly. I don’t. They did all they could. But a private investigative firm with our expertise could have done more. We could have focused our manpower and our skills on her predicament, dug deeper, put enough security on her to keep her safe. But, as you said, we didn’t exist, not then. Now we do. And now I’ve been approached to help a dying man find his daughter’s body—a man whose daughter could very well have been killed by the same psycho pervert who killed Holly. The time frame fits. The location fits. The victimology fits. If I’m right, that would make this bastard a repeat offender, maybe a serial killer. Which paints an even more gruesome story. He was never caught. Jan Olson’s body was never found. How many others were there?”
“That’s a question we might or might not be able to answer.” Patrick took a deep swallow of coffee, continuing to share his thoughts with Casey in a calm, straightforward manner. “I know you want to go back and solve it all—catch the killer, assign names to all his victims and provide closure for all the families involved. Maybe we can make that happen. I don’t know. What I do know is that the best way to increase our odds is to fulfill our obligation.”
Follow the case that’s been handed to us. Find Jan Olson’s body.
“That’s how it was with me, remember? Start with the present, step back into the past. This process is going to take you down some dark alleys. You’re going to lose a lot of sleep and relive some painful memories. But you need this. Otherwise, you would have squashed the case the minute I brought it to the team. You knew it was too close to home, that you probably should refer it out. But you didn’t. You’re the president of Forensic Instincts. You made the call for us to take on the case—and you made it without missing a beat.”
“You’re right,” Casey conceded. “I couldn’t have lived with myself if I didn’t see this through. For many reasons. Daniel Olson is dying. And if his theory is correct, if his daughter really did suffer the same fate as Holly, then she was raped, killed and dumped...somewhere. No father should have to die with those kinds of unanswered questions, and without his daughter’s body being found. Plus, if the offender really was the same bastard who did that to Holly, then I have twice the motivation to solve this.”
“Agreed.”
