“My God,” Ian murmured. He walked around the victim.
“This is… unreal.”
Carleton had followed him in. “It certainly is… except
it’s very real.”
“Can you get a time of death, Ian?” Noah asked
wearily.
“Not right now. She’s got the same petachiae in her
eyes, the rope’s in the same position. He’s got this down to a science.”
Shaking his head, Ian went to work.
“Did you find her?” Jack asked, and Noah knew he meant
Eve.
“Yeah. Damn locals had her cuffed in the back of their
cruiser.”
Micki looked up from taking pictures, her brow creased
in an angry frown. “You unlocked her, didn’t you?” she demanded. She’d been
floored when Noah had told her the caller was Eve Wilson. She’d been outraged
when Noah had told her Eve worked with Martha Brisbane for Siren Song.
You
must have made a mistake
, she’d said, so adamantly Noah had wondered all
the way up here what Micki Ridgewell knew.
“Of course I unlocked the cuffs.” Noah studied Micki’s
face. “Why?”
Micki shook her head. “She’s just been through a lot,
that’s all.”
Noah knew Micki well enough to know that’s all she’d
say. He’d look it up later.
“This feels like Groundhog Day,” Jack said quietly.
Noah looked up into Christy Lewis’s “unnatural” eyes.
They were glued open, just as the others had been. “I know.”
“Oh God.” Ian straightened abruptly and looked around
the room, alarm on his face.
“What?” Noah looked around as well, but saw nothing
out of the ordinary. Nothing he hadn’t seen twice before anyway.
“Look,” Ian said, then lifted the skirt away from
Christy Lewis’s legs.
Rope burns around her ankles. “He tied her,” Noah
said, then saw what Ian was pointing to. He cringed, horrified. Twin pricks on
the side of her foot. “Oh my God.”
Jack bolted back a step, going pale. “
Fuck.
A
goddamn snake. I hate snakes.”
“They’re more afraid of us,” Micki said, then her lips
twitched. “Maybe not of Jack.”
“From the necrosis around the bite, it was venomous,”
Ian said.
Jack paled even more. “F—” He couldn’t even get the
oath out.
“Jack?” Carleton turned to study Jack’s face. “Are you
all right?”
“Yes,” Jack managed, but his rapid shallow breathing
and pallor said no.
Carleton gave Micki a look of reproof. “It’s not
funny,” he said seriously.
Micki took pity on Jack. “Everybody out until we know
the house is clear,” she said.
Jack didn’t have to be told again. “Bye. Meet you by
the car.”
Carleton checked his watch. “Luckily I have a patient
appointment at 6:30, so I’ll leave you all to your snake hunting.” He took a
last look at the victim. “This killer is a fascinating personality. I don’t
think I’ve ever read anything like this in the literature. I’ll do some
in-depth research tonight. Consult with my colleagues.”
“Can you check on Jack?” Micki asked. “I’m feeling a
little bad for laughing at him.”
Carleton nodded, a frown of reproach on his face. “I
will. And you should.”
“I’ll wait outside with Jack,” Noah said when Carleton
and Ian had gone, leaving just himself and Micki. And the victim, of course. He
thought of Eve Wilson, sitting outside in his car. “And I want to know how Eve
connects to it all. What do you know, Mick?”
“What happened to her, in Chicago… was bad. Any more
needs to come from her.”
“Suggestions?”
Micki’s eyes shadowed. “If you run into a wall, call
Olivia Sutherland.”
“Olivia?” She was one of their homicide detectives.
“How does she connect?”
“She’s a friend of Eve’s family. Just… be kind. And
keep Jack muzzled.”
Monday, February 22, 5:15 p.m.
Detective Olivia Sutherland’s eyes were tearing over
her partner’s dinner. “Jennie’s going to kill you when I tell her what you’ve
been eating.” She waved the air between them. “Not that I need to. Those onions
will do it for me.”
“She’s out of town,” Kane said. “Back on Thursday.” He
waggled his brows in a way that always made her laugh. “Could be worse. Could
be sardines.”
“God, I’m glad you gave that up.” She shuddered. “I’d
forgotten about those.”
“What are you doing for dinner?”
“After that thing, I have no appetite. I got a few
pounds left to lose anyway.”
“You’re fine.” Which was what he always said, but
Olivia knew differently. She’d gained a little weight after some surgery a few
years back and she still wasn’t back to top condition. She’d expected her
metabolism would slow down, but she never dreamed it would happen at
thirty-one. And of course Kane could eat whatever he wanted and never gain a
damn ounce. It wasn’t fair. And it was disrupting her job.
“Which was why I lost that creep this afternoon,” she
muttered. To be outrun by a teenager was one thing, but to lose a middle-aged
dealer whose primary exercise was the heavy breathing he did while snorting coke…
She was still kicking herself.
“Liv, he caught a ride. No way he could have outrun
you like that. He’s probably in the wind,” Kane said, speaking of the DA’s star
witness, the dealer who’d given her the slip. “We wait until he pops his head
up again. DA doesn’t need him till next week.”
“You’re right,” she murmured, then answered her cell
phone, knowing it was Abbott as soon as she heard the opening bars from “Bad to
the Bone.” “Sutherland.”
“I need you two on this hanger case. We need to find
one Cassandra Lee. She runs a phone sex operation called Siren Song.”
“We’re looking for Dustin Hanks,” she said. “DA needs
him in court.”
“This is more important. Faye’s waiting with the
addresses we have for this Lee.”
Olivia handed the phone to Kane. “It’s Faye. We’re
being pulled into Webster’s hanger case. And try not to get onions in my
phone.”
Monday, February 22, 6:45 p.m.
At least they hadn’t cuffed her again. Eve sat alone
in the interview room at the precinct. It had been almost an hour. A cup of coffee
sat untouched, its aroma taunting her churning stomach. All she could see in
her mind was Christy Lewis. Hanging there.
Three women were dead. Somebody killed them.
And
they think I know who.
You have to tell them, Eve. You have to tell them everything.
Deliberately Eve turned her head and stared at what
she knew was a two-way mirror. Her own eyes stared back, dark and angry.
“Fine,” she muttered. “I will.”
“Excuse me?” The door opened and Webster came through
it. Jack Phelps was right behind him. Jack had spoken. “We missed that.”
“You were watching me? All this time?”
“No. We came in just as you spoke.” Webster put a bag
on the table. “A sandwich.”
She pushed it away. “I can’t eat. But thank you.”
Webster sat across the table. “We’ve been trying to
get in touch with your boss.”
Eve kept her face expressionless, but her stomach
turned over. Donner was going to shit a ring. When this had been about suicide,
it had been possible a discipline committee would have taken her side over his.
But it wasn’t about suicide or Martha’s state of mind. She was a lowly grad
student who’d broken double-blind.
I’m on my own
.
The help she’d give the police would be at her own
professional peril. “My boss.”
Webster’s eyes were steady as he studied her.
Something had changed from when he’d first removed her cuffs and placed her in
his car back at Christy’s house. He’d been disapproving then. Now, she saw
gentleness. And concern. And compassion.
Dammit.
He
knew. She could always tell when they knew. No one in the bar ever asked,
unless they were drunk, and Sal would kick their asses out of the place. But
when they found out, they’d always look, and they’d whisper.
“Yes,” he said, “your boss. We need a personnel list.”
Eve frowned. “Why?”
“Because we need to know who’s in danger there.”
A personnel list? That didn’t make any sense. She was
about to tell him so when the door opened and a well-dressed man in his
mid-thirties entered.
“Don’t say a word,” he cautioned. It was Callie’s
defense attorney date. “I’m Matthew Nillson. I’ve been retained as Eve’s
attorney. May I speak with my client?”
“When did you call a lawyer?” Webster asked.
Eve shrugged, her eyes wide. “I didn’t.”
Matt shot her a warning look. “Make sure you turn the
speaker off, Detective.” When they were gone, Matt sat. “Do you know the
meaning of ‘Don’t say a word’?”
She ignored that, going for the obvious issue. “I
can’t afford to pay you.”
“It’s okay. I do pro bono every so often. Callie
called me. She drove to the scene, but the police said you’d been taken away.
She was very upset.”
“I didn’t mean to scare her. Look, Matt, I really
appreciate you coming, but I don’t think I need an attorney. After today I’ll
need a new career, but not an attorney.”
“Callie said you’d say you didn’t need me. Did they
let you keep your cell phone?”
Eve sighed. “No.”
He nodded, as if that were all the proof he needed.
“Tell me your story, Eve. Let me decide if you need me or not.”
Eve considered it. “You’re my lawyer, right? So
everything we say is privileged.”
He lifted his brows. “With a few exceptions.”
“I didn’t kill anybody. But, if you can secure
anonymity for my testimony, that would be a big help. So. From the beginning.
Two years ago I got into grad school…”
Monday, February 22, 7:00 p.m.
Abbott, Jack, and Noah stood at the mirror, watching
Eve in the interview room with Matthew Nillson, the speaker turned off. “I want
to know what she knows,” Abbott said. “Damn attorneys.”
“She’s probably worried she’s in trouble for being a
phone sex provider,” Jack said. “We should have questioned her in the car.”
“Why didn’t you?” Abbott asked, annoyed.
“I wanted to,” Jack said. “Mr. White Knight here
wouldn’t let me say a damn word.”
Noah glared at him before returning his attention to
Eve. “I wanted to know what I was dealing with.” Now he did. And it was worse
than he’d ever imagined.
Abbott blew out a breath. “Now she’s lawyered up.”
“I don’t think she killed any of these women, Bruce,”
Noah said. “Do you?”
“I don’t want to. But until she tells us what she
knows, she’s a suspect. Got it?”
Noah opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. “Got
it.”
“So what are we dealing with?” Abbott asked.
Noah didn’t take his eyes off her face, not wanting to
remember all the things he’d just read about Evelyn Jayne Wilson, knowing he’d
never be able to forget. “She was assaulted, almost six years ago, left for
dead. In fact she did die, twice, on the way to the hospital.” Bile burned his
throat, thinking of what Eve had endured. Stabbed, strangled. Assaulted. “She
recovered, some. Then two years later, she was kidnapped.”
Abbott’s eyes widened. “Same perp?”
“No, different one. She was working for a shelter
aiding battered women escaping their abusers. Dangerous stuff. You remember
that woman in Chicago a few years back? The one that kidnapped a deaf kid, then
killed something like a dozen people?”
“Yeah,” Abbott said slowly and pointed to Eve. “You
mean she…”
“Was kidnapped by this killer, too. The Chicago cops
credit Eve with saving the kidnapped boy’s life. She didn’t kill these women,
Bruce.”
Abbott sighed heavily. “But she knows who did.”
“She knows something. I think if she knew who did it,
she would have already told us.”
“See if you can get her to talk about Siren Song, at
least to tell us where we can find the owner, Cassandra Lee. I’ve got
Sutherland and Kane looking for her.”
“And Sutherland and Kane found her.” Olivia Sutherland
entered the observation room from the hall. “And lost her again. Faye said I’d
find you here. Cassandra Lee lives in Uptown. By the time Kane and I got down
there, she’d left. Her doorman said he hailed her a cab. He said he didn’t hear
where she told the cab to go.”
“Did you believe him?” Noah asked.
Olivia shrugged. In her early thirties, she was
blonde, graceful, and a damn good cop. Micki said Olivia was Eve’s family
friend. Noah had questions, but he’d save them.
“No,” she said, “but we couldn’t prove he was lying.
Kane’s pulling her credit cards to try to track her. We alerted area airports,
bus stations, and rental car facilities.” She started, staring at the mirror.
“What’s Eve Wilson doing here?”
“She found the last victim,” Noah said. “She called
me.”