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the Louisville police. We’re operating under the assumption that the murder was perpetrated by the Southern Strangler. Which means I need to get the Louisville team up to speed on this. I need you to fax that information you’ve got in front of you to me immediately. Send it to this number—615-555-9897. And where are they taking Grimes?”

“He was declared here at the scene. Been transported to our M.E. Is there a family that we need to notify?”

“I’m going to call my boss. His name is Garrett Woods. He’ll call you and get everything worked out. Damn. Grimes was a good man. You take care of him, okay?”

“Will do, sir.”

They hung up and Baldwin sank into the sofa. Shit. What the hell had happened? He knew Grimes was tense and not holding up great. This was his fault, if he had stayed there maybe he would have been able to stop his suicide. He heard the phone ring and the fax tones kick in. He went into the office and watched as the photo of Noelle Pazia scrolled out of the fax machine. He looked in her eyes and for a moment thought he understood what Grimes had done. He’d been there himself once, too. But this girl, she was so full of i

Not strangled, her hands weren’t cut off. If it were the Strangler, he’d taken some kind of pity on this girl and hadn’t ravaged her like the others. Baldwin didn’t totally understand, but he could see that she was just so 298

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i

“That’s me, Special Agent in Charge Eleanor Walker. How can I help you?”

Baldwin identified himself. “I’ve got an ID for you on your brunette. Her name’s Noelle Pazia and she’s a student at UNC–Asheville. He took her and no one missed her right away. The killing is being attributed to the Southern Strangler, though the information I’m getting doesn’t match up with his MO. Am I correct in that information?”

“That’s the information we have. The fact that the girl is from Asheville would tell me that it’s the Strangler, but the absence of violence disturbed me, too. We’ve got an initial cause of death from the medical examiner up here—looks like she suffocated. High levels of histamine in her system, petechial hemorrhaging—he’s calling it SAA, sudden asphyxic asthma. She had a fatal, massive asthma attack. We’ll get as much evidence as we can gather, get it to Quantico ASAP.”

An asthma attack. Now, that was interesting. Maybe she died before he could kill her. That would explain why her body wasn’t interfered with.

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“I appreciate that, Agent Walker. Right now, all I know is what you know. I’m working a lead here in Nashville and I’ve just been informed that we’ve lost an agent. I’m kind of up to my ears right now.”

“Please tell me it wasn’t Jerry Grimes?”

“You know him?”

“I do. There’s been some rumors flying this afternoon. I talked with him earlier, sent him the crime scene photos of our Jane Doe, now ID’d as Noelle Pazia. He sounded drunk. Did he have an accident?”

Baldwin wasn’t about to divulge the nature of Grimes’s “accident.” “You could say that. Things are a bit uncertain right now.”

“Damn shame. Hate to lose one of the good guys.”

Baldwin deflated. Grimes’s death was going to haunt him.

“You’re right. He was one of the good guys.”

“In the meantime, I wish there was more information that you could give me, Agent Baldwin. We’ve got our own missing girl, and this one has been missed. Ivy Ta

Baldwin sat down hard. Shit. “Okay, there’s something you need to do. We’ve just realized that the killer is leaving poems when he kidnaps a girl. You need to look in Ivy Clark’s car, go through her personal effects. See if he’s left a note.”

“I haven’t seen that information in the files.” She sounded pissed, and Baldwin decided to head her off at the pass.

“We haven’t been holding back, we’ve only known 300

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about the poems for a couple of days. Do me a favor and get on it, see if there is one, okay? Get back to me as soon as you know.” He rattled off his cell phone number and clicked off his phone.

He ran his hands through his hair and made the call he’d been dreading. He dialed his boss’s number, heart in his throat. Garrett was not going to be happy with this call.

He answered on the first ring.

“I know already,” he barked. “You didn’t see it coming?”

“Well, maybe I did, but I certainly didn’t think it was going to come down to this.”

Garrett’s voice softened. “You’re going to have to let it go. I should have requested Grimes be pulled from the case sooner than I did.”

“Sooner. What do you mean, sooner?”

“I talked to Grimes a couple of hours ago. Told him to drop everything and get his ass to D.C. They convened a disciplinary hearing in his honor.”

“A disciplinary hearing?” He thought for a moment.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Nope. I did a little checking. Turns out Grimes has been doing a little off-the-record chatting with a certain news producer for one of the cable networks in New York. The producer was his son. Grimes was the leak. We talked to the kid, he denied talking to his dad at all. Refuses to release the name of his source for the information. But a quick check of Grimes’s phone records refuted his claim. They’ve been talking regularly for the entire duration of the case.”

“My, you’ve been busy.”

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“Yeah, and for what? A dead agent? Grimes wasn’t going to be part of the FBI anymore regardless. So this one is on me, Baldwin. There’s more than just this, in case you’re wondering. His whole life was falling apart. With Grimes’s death, there are several open issues that don’t have to be addressed. That’s all you need to know about that. Just keep moving forward. Don’t look back.”

Baldwin filled him in on the Jake Buckley scenario. Garrett concurred that they needed to have a conversation with Mr. Buckley, and fast. As they were hanging up, Garrett stopped him.

“Keep on it, Baldwin. You’re getting close.”

Thirty-Eight

Taylor had just hung up the phone with Qui

“What’s up?” she asked.

Lincoln came in and sat down heavily. Marcus lounged in the doorway. “We’ve got good news and bad news. Just got out of the Te

Lincoln flipped open a file folder and consulted his notes.

“We talked with the man Lucy has the restraining order against, Edward Hunt? He is a former cop, retired from Metro last year, went to work for a top-dog security firm here in town. Runs their entire operation, makes a ton more than he did on Metro’s payroll. Anyway, he and Lucy used to be an item, but he broke up with her. Seems Miss Lucy is quite the psycho, at least in his opinion.”