Harry muttered something that made young Kent hide a grin by dropping his head back down to search the area around the body yet another time. “Have we found anything?” Harry asked.
“Not yet.” Steven crouched down next to the body, a pen in his gloved hand. “Nude, no ID or clothing anywhere around. There’s enough left of her to know she was female.”
“Adolescent female,” Kent added and Steven’s head shot up.
“What?”
“Adolescent female would be my guess,” Kent said and pointed to the corpse’s mid-section. “Pierced navel.”
Harry’s gulp was audible. “How can you tell?”
Kent’s mouth quirked up. “You could see if you put your face a bit closer.”
“I don’t think so,” said Harry in a strangled voice.
Steven balanced himself on the balls of his feet, still crouched. “Okay, an adolescent female. She’s been here at least a week. We’ll need to run a check through missing persons.” He gently rolled the body over and felt his heart skip a beat at the same time Harry cursed softly.
“What?” Kent asked, looking from Steven up to Harry and back at Steven. “What?”
A grimness settled over Steven and he pointed his pen at the remains of the young girl’s left buttock. “She had a tattoo.”
Kent leaned closer, then looked up, still squinting. “Looks like a peace symbol.”
Steven looked up at Harry who wore a look of the same grim acknowledgment. “Lorraine Rush,” Steven said and Harry nodded.
“Who was Lorraine Rush?” Kent asked.
“Lorraine was reported missing about two weeks ago,” Harry said quietly. “Her parents went in to wake her up for school and found her bed slept in but empty.”
“No evidence of forced entry,” Steven added, looking at the corpse with new concern. “We had to assume she’d run away. Her parents insisted she never would run, that she’d been kidnapped.”
“Parents always insist their kids would never run away,” Harry said. “You still don’t know that she didn’t and just met up with some rough character along the way.”
Steven could see in his mind’s eye the picture of Lorraine as she’d been, the smiling girl in the photograph on the Rushs’ fireplace mantel. “She was sixteen. A year younger than my oldest son.” Steven let his thoughts briefly linger on his troubled son who’d undergone such a radical change in personality in the last month. But that was another worry. He’d dwell on his very personal problem of Brad after putting Lorraine Rush out of his mind. Whenever that would be.
“Damn shame,” said Kent.
Steven pushed himself to his feet and stared down at what was left of what had once been a beautiful, vibrant young woman. Pushed back the primal rage at the monster that could take the life of another so brutally. “I’ll make the call to the county sheriff’s office. They started the investigation on this one. We’ll need to inform her parents.” He didn’t look forward to that task.
Ever.
Breaking the tragic news of a loved one’s murder should have been easier after all these years.
Should have been.
Wasn’t.
Chapter Two
Thursday, September 2
98:55 A.M.
“How are you, Steven?”
Steven looked up from the folder Kent Thompson had left on his desk to find his boss, Special Agent In Charge Lennie Farrell, looking down at him with that troubled expression that made Steven want to groan. When most people said how are you, they meant how are you?, but when Lennie Farrell asked how are you, it meant they were going to have an impromptu heart-to-heart. In Steven’s case it would almost certainly include a discussion of “the incident” from six months before. Which Steven just didn’t have the emotional energy to go through. Not now.
Not after yet another argument with seventeen-year-old Brad last night over his oldest son’s month-old attitude that gave “sullen teenager” new meaning. They’d fought, screamed at one another and Steven still didn’t know why or who had won. Which meant nobody had won.
Not after yet another over-breakfast argument with his Aunt Helen over the “nice young woman” she’d lined up for him to meet this weekend. That he simply would not meet this weekend. Helen never seemed to understand that he was not looking for a mate, would never look for a mate, and was fully determined to remain a widower for the foreseeable future, at least until all three of his boys were grown and gone.
Steven pressed his fingers to his temple that throbbed already, even though it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. And he especially didn’t have the energy to rehash “the incident” yet again after trying to hug his youngest son before leaving the house and once again having seven-year-old Nicky push him away. Nicky and “the incident” were inextricably intertwined.
And Steven would rather date one of Helen’s debutantes than go through it again.
But Lennie’s expression said that’s what he’d come to talk about and although Steven had learned from experience that Lennie would not be deterred, he did know his boss could be distracted. So to his boss’ how are you, Steven replied, “About like you’d think after looking at pictures of a mutilated, animal-scavenged corpse all morning.” He pushed Kent’s folder to the edge of his desk and waited for Lennie to take the bait.
Lennie took it, flipping through the pictures of the body in the clearing, his seasoned cop’s face showing no sign of emotion. But he swallowed hard before closing the folder and Steven knew he’d been as impacted as Steven himself had been, both at the glossy eight-by-tens and the mental images that wouldn’t let him rest even when he did manage to get some sleep.
“And our suspects?” Lennie asked, his eyes still on the folder cover.
“Not many,” Steven said. “Lorraine Rush was a well-liked girl, a cheerleader at High Point High School. Sixteen, no boyfriends her parents knew about. Her friends are stunned.”
“And her teachers?”
“Nothing there either. We’ve checked her whereabouts every day for three weeks before she was reported missing and nobody stands out as a potential perp. Lorraine was a clean-cut all-American girl.”
“With a tattoo on her buttock,” Lennie said, his tone clearly indicating that butt-tattoos did not fit his picture of the all-American girl.
Steven shrugged. “She was a teenager, Lennie. They paint and pierce themselves, God knows why. In my day it was dyeing your hair green and sticking safety pins in your nose. We ran a tox screen on what was left and didn’t find any evidence of the usual teenage party scene.”
“So, in other words, no suspects,” Lennie said, frowning.
“Nope.”
“And the Forensics report?”
“She was killed there in the clearing. Her blood was found soaked three inches into the soil.”
“It’s been so dry lately,” Lennie murmured. “The ground just drank her up.”
Steven eyed his half-drunk coffee with new distaste. “Yeah. Cause of death may have been stabbing, but the ME wouldn’t swear to it. There just wasn’t enough of her body left. She’d been there five days based on the larval state of the maggots that were busy eating what the animals left behind. She was probably raped, although the ME wouldn’t swear to that either.”
Lennie’s mouth tightened. “What will the ME swear to?”
“That she’s dead.”
Lennie’s lip twitched. Once. Through all the horror of the job, they had to find ways to lighten the stress. Humor normally sufficed, as long as they kept it to themselves. But the humor was merely a trapping, a cover that just hid the horror for a moment or two. Then it was there again, staring them in the face.
Steven sighed and opened the folder. “Kent also found what looks like a new tattoo on the Rush girl’s scalp. Whoever killed her shaved her bald and left his mark on her.”
Lennie bent down and squinted at the picture. “What is it?”
“Not enough left to say. Kent’s investigating. Whoever shave
d her head didn’t do it there in the clearing or if he did, he’s one meticulous sonofabitch. We picked at the grass with tweezers for two days and didn’t find a single hair. Nothing,” Steven added irritably.
It was Lennie’s turn to sigh. “Well, now you’ve got another place to look.”
Steven straightened in his chair. “What are you talking about, Lennie?”
Lennie pulled a folded sheet from his pocket. “We got a call from Sheriff Braden over in Pineville. His sister went in to wake his sixteen-year-old niece for school this morning and—”
Dread settled in the pit of Steven’s stomach. Two of them. Two meant the “s” word that no law enforcement agency even wanted to say aloud. “S” for serial. As in serial killer. “And the girl was gone,” he said woodenly.
“Bed slept in, no evidence of forced entry, window left unlocked.”
“Could be unrelated,” Steven said.
Lennie nodded soberly. “Could be. Pray they are. Steven, this one’s yours and I have to ask you if you can handle it.”
Irritation bubbled and Steven let just a little of it show. “Of course I can, Lennie. I wish you’d just leave it the hell alone.”
Lennie shook his head. “I can’t, you know that. From an administrative point of view, I don’t want one of my lead agents cracking in the middle of what could turn out to be a high-profile serial murder case. From a personal point of view, I don’t want you to have to go through another case where children are stolen out of their beds.”
Like Nicky had been, six months before when a rogue, wife-beating, murdering cop on the run took his littlest boy hostage to make Steven back down. Nicky was returned to him, physically unharmed less than forty-eight hours later, in large part due to the heroics of the rogue cop’s abused wife. But his baby had not been the same. Gone was his infectious laughter, the way he’d run up for hugs for no reason at all. Nicky had allowed no one to hug him since that day six months ago. He hadn’t slept in his own bed either, and he sure as hell hadn’t slept through the night.
Steven knew this because he sure as hell hadn’t slept through the night either.
Lennie broke into his thoughts. “So tell me now, Steven. Can you handle this or not?”
Steven looked at the picture of the mutilated body of Lorraine Rush and thought about the newest girl, missing from her bed. These girls deserved justice, above all else. Perhaps they would even find the newest girl alive.
He looked up at Lennie, his smile a mere baring of teeth. “I said yes, Lennie. I can handle it.”
Lennie handed him the report, concern still evident in his eyes. “Her name is Samantha Eggleston. Her parents are waiting for your call.”
11 P.M.
Thunder rolled off to the east. Or was it west? It really didn’t matter, he thought, scratching the back of his neck with the flat of the blade. With his very sharp blade. He grinned to himself. One slip and that would be the end of him. He glanced down at the ground and raised a brow thoughtfully. One slip would be the end of her, too. But why stop with just one slip? Never a slip and never just one. Not when he’d gone to so much trouble. Every movement must be planned. And savored. He rolled up his left sleeve, then transferred the blade from one gloved hand to the other and methodically rolled up the right while she watched, her blue eyes wide and terrified.
Terrified was good. He could handle terrified. Just looking at her lying there tied, and scared—and nude— made his skin tingle with anticipation. She was completely under his control.
It was like … electricity. Pure electricity. And he’d made it. He’d created it.
What a rush.
Rush. As in Lorraine Rush. No pun intended. Lorraine was a good practice run. A good way to return to the game after so long on the sidelines. He’d forgotten just how damn good it felt.
This new one, she hadn’t made a sound yet. Well, she was wearing a thick strip of duct tape over her mouth, so she really couldn’t scream now, to be perfectly fair. But he’d take the tape off eventually and she would. She’d try not to. She’d bite her lip and cry. But in the end she’d scream her bloody head off. They always did. And it wouldn’t make one lousy bit of difference. That was one good thing he could say about this godforsaken clump of Hicksville. There were places you could go and scream until your voice was gone and nobody would ever hear a single word.
Another roll of thunder rattled the dry ground under his feet and this time he looked up to the night sky, totally annoyed. It could actually rain. How irritating was that?
“The best-laid plans,” he muttered, then had to grin as he punned once again. Laid. That was the operative word here. One of ’em anyway. Then the wind changed, picking up, spreading the dank smell of moisture and his grin faded. Of all the sonofabitch nights to rain. Drought, drought, drought. The farmers whined every time they got the chance. When was the “gov’ment” going to declare North Carolina a disaster area, they all wanted to know. Then it did and the old farts still complained. Some people were just never satisfied.
He crossed his arms over his chest, holding the ten-inch blade out to one side, and frowned. He could just get it over with, but that seemed anti-climactic. He’d planned for quite a while to bag this little doll. She’d been so unsure. “I just don’t know,” she’d whispered into the phone, trying not to wake her parents and sound breathy at the same time. In his mind he mocked her maidenly refusals. If her parents only knew their little darling was a real little slut, meeting a stranger after they’d gone to sleep. No brainiac here. They’d raised a slut and an idiot.
He closed his eyes and brought the image of another to mind. He could see her face in his mind. So incredibly beautiful, so … pure. He’d have her someday. Soon. But until then … He looked down at the huddled form at his feet. Until then, this one would have to do.
Thunder rolled again.
He needed to make up his mind. Either hurry up and finish before the rain closed in or pack her up and store her until the storm passed through. Either way he was taking a chance being out here in the rain. A hard rain would leave the ground soft. Soft ground left footprints and tire prints and cops were pretty good about tracking those kind of clues these days. Damn forensics. No matter. He was as smart as they were. Smarter.
Hell, a baboon was smarter than the cops. If he’d waited until the cops had discovered little Lorraine’s body on their own, there wouldn’t have been enough left of it to identify.
And he wanted little Lorraine’s body identified. He wanted everyone to know. To fear.
Fear me.
Your daughters aren’t safe even in their own beds.
Fear me.
He’d wait, he decided. He’d rushed the last one and it was over too fast. Like an amusement park ride you stand in line for two hours to ride and the damn ride only lasts three and a half minutes. He’d gone longer than three and a half minutes with the last one, for sure. But it was still over too fast. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again. It had been his only mistake, he thought, rushing the grand finale. Everything else he’d done to perfection. Not a single thread of evidence left behind. No surprise there. He was thinking much more clearly now. Much more clearly.
Practice makes perfect, he thought with satisfaction.
Carefully he sheathed his blade and slipped it under the front seat of his car, popping the trunk latch on his way back to where she still lay, eyes still wide with terror.
“C’mon, sugar,” he drawled, scooping her up and tossing her over his shoulder. “Let’s go for a ride.” He dropped her in the trunk with a loud thud, then patted her bare butt fondly. She managed a whimper from behind the duct tape and he nodded soberly. “Don’t worry, sugar, we’ll come back tomorrow morning. Until then, sit tight and entertain yourself. You could think about me,” he suggested brightly. “You do know who I am.” She shook her newly bald head hard, denying the inevitable and he laughed. “Oh, come on, Samantha. You have to know who I am. Don’t you watch the news?” He leaned a little clo
ser and whispered, “Don’t you have a good imagination?”
Her eyes shut tight and she pulled her nude body into a fetal position, shaking like a leaf. Two tears seeped from her eyes and slid down her cheeks.
He nodded again and slammed down the trunk. “Good girl. I guess you do.”
THE EDITOR’S DIARY
Dear Reader,
Starting over can lead to a second chance at love. And who wouldn’t want to start over with Cajun bad boy Remy LeDeux and sexy professor Max Hunter? You can treat yourself to them both by reading our two Warner Forever titles this July.
According to Publishers Weekly, Sandra Hill brings “a singular blend of humor and romance” to her books and that proves to be the case with her Warner Forever debut TALL, DARK, AND CAJUN. Thirty-something Rachel Fortier has had it with her fiancé. Their seven-year engagement has no end in sight! So she packs up and heads south to meet her great-aunt and regroup for while. Rachel finds herself stepping into a feud her great-aunt is having with a local Cajun— Remy LeDeux, a helicopter pilot and Air Force vet whose face is scarred from battle. But when Remy sees Rachel getting out of a red truck, it’s love at first sight for the long-time bachelor. Despite all the turmoil she brings into his life, especially with her crazy great-aunt threatening his life, Remy knows that getting Rachel to say “I do” may very well be worth it!
Switching from love and laughter to heart-stopping suspense, we offer you Karen Rose’s DON’T TELL. New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner calls this thrilling debut novel “utterly compelling … Rose delivers high-wire suspense that keeps you riveted to the edge of your seat right up until the climactic end.” Suffering at the hands of her abusive husband, Mary Grace Winters fakes her and her son’s death to escape sadistic police officer Rob Winters. She becomes Caroline Stewart and relocates with her son to another town to start a new life. After nine years, Caroline has almost forgotten her nightmarish past, and has even taken a chance on love with Max Hunter, a man with tender wounds of his own. Then, her car is found at the bottom of a lake. With her husband stopping at nothing until he finds them, Caroline’s peaceful existence that she so painstakingly recreated is in danger ….