Love with the Proper Stranger Read Online Free Page A

right on target. But this time he’d used even stronger language. He
believed
Serena Westford was the Black Widow.
    Miller looked expectantly at Steven Taylor, waiting for him to continue.
    Taylor cleared his throat. “I, um, used the computer to search out the most likely locations the Widow would choose for her next target,” the young man told him. “She prefers small towns with only one or two resorts nearby. I programmed the computer to ignore everything within two hundred miles of the places she either met or lived with her previous victims, and narrowed the list down to a hundred and twenty-three possibilities. From there, I accessed resort records and used a phone investigation to query the resort staff, searchingfor female guests under five feet two inches, traveling alone, staying for extended lengths of time.
    “Frankly, there was a great deal of luck involved in finding Serena Westford. She’d arrived at the Garden Isle resort only two days prior to our call. When it became clear she was traveling under an alias, I went to Georgia myself to try to further identify the suspect.” He shook his head ruefully. “But as you can see, in all of the pictures we have of the Black Widow, her face is covered.”
    “But her legs aren’t,” Daniel pointed out. “Steve got plenty of pictures of Serena Westford’s legs.”
    “Her legs are visible in some of the other photos we found in the victims’ houses,” Taylor said. “We have no pictures of the Black Widow’s face, but we have plenty of photos of her legs.” He looked at Daniel and grinned. “Tonaka had the idea to take those pictures and
these
pictures and run a computer comparison. According to the computer, there’s a ninety-eight percent chance that the Black Widow’s legs and Serena Westford’s legs are one and the same.”
    Miller glanced at Daniel. Damn, the kid was good at finding creative alternatives. “A computer match of legs won’t hold up in a court of law as proof of identity,” he commented.
    “No kidding,” Taylor said, quickly adding, “Sir. But it’s enough to convince
me
that there should be a further investigation.”
    Miller passed the photograph to Captain Blake, and again his hands shook. The older man glanced at him, eyebrows slightly raised.
    Miller turned back to Taylor. “Tell me more,” he commanded.
    “When Serena first arrived, she had traces of bruising beneath her eyes,” Taylor continued. “I’d dare to speculate that that was from recent plastic surgery—probably a nose job to alter her appearance.”
    “We’ve been talking about the possibility of flying husband number seven’s former housekeeper to Garden Isle,” Pat Blake interrupted, “but if the Widow
has
had extensive plastic surgery, there’s no way she could make a one hundred percent positive ID. I want no room for reasonable doubt. This one isn’t going to walk away.”
    Miller nodded. What they needed was to catch the killer in the act.
    “She’s recently rented a beach house on Garden Isle,” Taylor continued. “That’s a clear indication that she’s intending to stay, although at this point, I don’t believe she’s targeted her next victim. I’ve compiled a list of all of the people—both men and women—whom our suspect has had contact with over the past several weeks. Out of forty-seven people, twenty-eight have since left the island. They were there only on vacation, and they’ve gone home. Out of the other nineteen, one in particular stands out.”
    Taylor took a series of photos from his file, spreading them out on the table.
    “Her name is Mariah Robinson,” he said. “Or so she says. According to our files, no such person exists. We’ve identified her as Marie Carver, former CEO of Carver Software out of Phoenix, Arizona.”
    Miller leaned forward to look at the photographs. One was of a tall young woman with shoulder-length dark hair, wearing a bathing-suit top and shorts, seated on a beach blanket. Another