In Self Defense by Susan Sloan (phonics books .TXT) 📕

just better tell me,” she said, wondering why he was playing this silly game with her.

“Remember the audio tapes that were made of our stalker calling Laughlin?” he asked.

“How could I forget?” Erin said.  “Those were the ones we couldn’t find when we wanted to compare them to the Durant tapes.”

“Right,” Dusty confirmed.

“So?”

“So, they found them -- neatly tucked into the wrong evidence box, of course.”

“Well, what do you know?” Erin muttered, shaking her head.  “Better late than never, I guess.”

“Even better than that,” Dusty declared with a big grin.  “They sent them over to the lab and the lab boys ran them, and the report just hit my desk.  We didn’t wind up with egg all over our faces, after all.  They’re a spot-on match.  The guy is so cocky, he didn’t even bother to use a different voice changer.  We were right.  We had our stalker.  We had him right down to the short hairs.”

“Great,” Erin said.  “So we were right before we were wrong.  Now all we have to do is wait four years until he surfaces again, and then let someone else bungle it.”

“Well now,” he said with an even bigger grin, “before you go feeling all sorry for yourself, there’s something else we can add to the profile that should help if there’s a next time, and that might explain why there’s such a long gap between victims.”

“Yes -- what?”

“A bunch of notes left by Frank Pulansky got mixed in with the tapes,” Dusty told her.  “According to him, there was something that Laughlin and Medina had in common that was never made public.  And it fits Clare Durant, too.”

“And just what would that be?” Erin asked.

“They’re all brown-eyed blondes.”