Talking about cooking made Wade hungry, which prompted him to dig some gum out of his pocket and pop it in his mouth as he got back to business. He pulled up the pictures on his iPad, eyeing the similarities between the first scenes in Wichita Falls and the ones here in Tulsa.
“What I don’t get is how the hell he gets on site so fast. How does he manage to commit these murders while rescue crews are still at work?” Wade asked. “He hid among the Red Cross volunteers before, but there’s no sign of him with them now.”
“Obviously he can’t repeat that scenario because we know what he looks like. Although I would guess he has some burn scars now, after surviving that boat explosion,” Tate said. He was the profiler in the team and they depended on his instincts and knowledge.
“We’ve furnished both the Red Cross and local authorities with a photo of Hershel Inman, but it doesn’t mean much, not when we know how skilled he is at disguises.”
Wade stepped around the broken headboard of a bed, saw what was left of a child’s stuffed teddy bear and had a moment of déjà vu, remembering finding the giraffe at his son’s grave.
He was sad for the end of his marriage and the loss of his son, but he was still damn mad at Jolene for shutting him out. He’d been just as devastated as she was by the baby’s death, and yet she’d taken all the burden of grieving as her right only, and acted as if he’d lost nothing but the time he’d invested in the marriage.
He looked away from the toy and then glanced up as a police car sped past three blocks up, running hot with lights and sirens. He wanted this killer caught and put away so bad he could taste it. Then he shook off the anger and got back to the work at hand.
“So, taking it as a given that Hershel Inman’s appearance has changed, he’s apparently changed his method of killing to go with it.”
“If you think about the kill sites, it makes sense, though,” Tate said. “The first victims were stranded in rural areas by high water, so the sounds of gunshots would not be a concern. Now that he’s moved into a city, that kind of noise would be noticed. His method now needs to be swift and silent. The Taser would render the victims both mute and immobile. Strangling them afterward would be simple if they couldn’t fight back, and leaving the bodies naked further feeds his need for domination.”
“That’s damn cold,” Wade said.
Tate thought about how close Hershel had come to killing Nola. “Yes, and so is Hershel Inman’s heart.”
* * *
Hershel would have been pleased if he’d known they were talking about him. He hadn’t seen them in months. Now here they were going through the rubble while he was sitting less than two hundred yards away, watching. They weren’t so damn smart after all.
There were only two of them this time, which made him wonder where Winger was, but then he let it go. As long as he had their attention, he didn’t care how many people they sent to cover his handiwork.
He rolled down the window, aimed his camera, and took several pictures of the agents as they poked through the debris. Every time the camera clicked, he imagined he was looking through the sight on his rifle, pulling the trigger and taking them out one by one. When Luckett stopped digging around and started to turn around, he rolled up the window and drove away.
* * *
It was nearly four o’clock in the afternoon and Cameron Winger was in the police station in Wichita Falls, Texas, waiting for his witness Coyle Hardison to show. Clouds were building back in the southwest part of the state again, and some forecasters were predicting another round of storms. He knew Hardison had left the city after the storm, but when contacted by the FBI he had willingly agreed to come all the way back from his grandfather’s ranch over two hours away to give his statement again.
They had given Cameron use of an interrogation room, and he’d already set up his camera to record the witness’s statement when there was a knock on the door. He turned around just as an officer escorted a young man inside. The man was dressed in blue jeans, work boots and a T-shirt. When he saw the agent, he promptly took off a wide-brimmed cowboy hat and ran a hand through his hair to smooth it down. There was a healing cut on his forehead, a bruise under one eye, and both the backs and palms of his hands had bruises and shallow cuts, as well. It appeared he, too, had suffered some from the storm.
“Agent Winger,” the cop said, “this is Coyle Hardison. Do you have everything you need to proceed?”
“Yes, I do, and thanks,” he told the officer. He started to shake the young man’s hand and then stopped. “Uh, sorry, it looks like you need to skip handshakes for a while, but thank you for coming back. Have a seat and we’ll get started.”
“Yes, sir, happy to help,” Hardison said.
The officer shut the door as the young man sat down. He looked a little nervous, but also curious.
“Are you going to film me?” he asked.
Cameron nodded. “Yes, but it’s only protocol. Just relax and answer the questions as best you can.”
“Okay,” Coyle said, then locked his fingers across his belly and leaned back.
“State your name, age and occupation.”
“Coyle Hardison, twenty-two years old, and I work in construction.”
“How did you come to be in the neighborhood right after the tornado hit?”
“I live there. At least I used to before my house blew away.”
“How did you know James Atwood?”
“We lived in the same neighborhood. I’ve known him and his wife, who died last year, just about all my life.”
Cameron moved to stand beside the camera, making sure the man was facing it as he answered.
“You stated earlier to the police that you believed you saw the Stormchaser. Would you please explain what you saw, in detail, and what led you to this conclusion?”
Hardison nodded, and then began to relate his story again.
“It was right after the tornado had gone through my neighborhood. Me and my friend Charlie Reeves were out checking on neighbors and helping in any way we could. It was still raining, and we were making our way down the street, dodging debris and downed power lines when a guy came out of the dark from behind a big pile of rubble, walking straight toward us.”
“Did you know where you were at the time?”
“No, not at first. You couldn’t tell anything in the dark, but I remembered just after we saw him, we also saw the street sign bent over at a ninety-degree angle, and that’s when I realized we’d just passed Mr. Atwood’s house.”
“What time was this?” Cameron asked.
“It was less than thirty minutes after the tornado went past, but I can’t be more specific than that.”
“Okay. Describe the man you saw.”
“It was very dark. The power was out all over that part of town, so it was hard to see where we were going. Some people were out and about. You could hear some people calling for help and others yelling. It was weird, hearing all that without being able to see who it was, and the rain was hard enough that it buffered the sound. We had a flashlight, but we were shining it down on the ground to make sure we weren’t stepping on any hot power lines. There was a flash of lightning just as I looked up. That’s when I saw him, and then only for a moment. But I can say for sure he was middle-aged, wearing all dark clothes, and with the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up over his head. It was hard to tell, but I think there were scars on one side of his face.”
Cameron’s heart skipped a beat. That fit with what they believed Hershel Inman must look like now.
“Could you tell how tall he was, or his general build?”
Hardison