Samantha’s reference to his looks had hit a nerve. Either that or he was completely unaware of his own physical beauty and had his thoughts totally immersed in the case.
She gave a mental shrug and finished tying the plastic apron around her waist. She didn’t know much about him—hell, she didn’t know anything about him. Apart from the fact that he was drop-dead gorgeous and was an old friend of her boss.
Oh, and of course…that he was a Fed. She couldn’t forget that.
“I found this in the bag when I emptied it out onto the gurney.” Samantha held up a bloodied gold chain with a small round stone pendant hanging from it. Ellie moved closer.
“I’ll DNA the blood on it, but it’s my guess it belongs to the victim,
”
Sam added.
Clayton shifted closer and made his way around the opposite side of the steel table. His eyes were like flint as they stared at the mess of decomposed body parts spread out in front of him. “What kind of a sick bastard does this?”
The words were thrown out in a snarl. Ellie felt the heat of his anger as it swirled across the gurney, enveloping her. Her gaze locked onto his and she almost gasped at the fury she saw in them.
Not that she blamed him. She felt exactly the same way. Her gut tightened as she took in the display before her. The girl’s arms and legs lay in a bloated, brackish-green heap. Samantha had arranged the pieces in their anatomical position. The open wounds at the juncture of two of the girl’s limbs were dark with congealed blood. The sight of it didn’t bode well for the manner of her death.
Ellie swallowed the bile that rose up in her throat and turned away. Clayton was right. How could one human being do this to another? Not even animals carved their prey up in such a sadistic way.
Samantha bent over the table, closely examining the severed limbs. “It looks like saw striations through the bones. I can’t say for sure until I check them under the microscope, but it looks like the same kind of saw that was used in the last case.”
Turning back to the gurney, Ellie willed the nausea to settle. She snatched small breaths of air through her surgical mask and tried to keep her mind focused on the job. Clayton looked across at her, concern now clouding his eyes.
Answering his unasked question with a grim nod of reassurance, she forced herself closer to the woman who lay in pieces on the table. A glint of something metallic caught her eye.
Reaching out with gloved fingers, she lifted one of the woman’s arms. Around her left wrist, a heavy silver charm bracelet swung slightly with the movement. The bracelet was dark with what looked like blood and debris, but was still intact.
Clayton saw it simultaneously. His gaze clashed with hers. Ellie’s hand shook as she lowered the arm back to the gurney. Clayton moved closer. His aftershave tickled her nostrils and smelled so good she immediately felt ashamed for even thinking of something so normal while she stood over the battered remains of the daughter of Jacqueline Caruso.
“It’s her,” Clayton murmured.
Ellie nodded. “Yes, I think so.”
His eyes darkened and he moved to stand beside her. His sleeve brushed up against her arm. “Are you all right?”
She drew in a steadying breath. “Yes.”
“Look at her hands. She put up a fight.”
Ellie looked. Angelina’s fingernails were long and neatly shaped. On her left hand, bright red paint had chipped off in pieces and one nail had broken off in a jagged line. Ellie peered closer and could see dirt and other matter backed up underneath them.
Samantha’s expression was sober. “I’ll take scrapings from under her nails and let you know what we find.”
“Let’s hope it’s something useful,” Ellie managed.
“The other hand doesn’t look quite as traumatized,” Clayton said. He held the girl’s wrist and turned over her right hand. The nails and crimson polish were intact. Only a shadow of some material could be seen beneath them.
He met Ellie’s curious gaze. “I’d say she’s left-handed.”
She looked away and cleared her throat against the sudden wave of emotion that threatened to undo her. All she could think of was how she was going to break the news to Jacqueline Caruso.
“I’m taking it you know who she is?” Samantha asked.
Ellie nodded. “We think it’s Angelina Caruso. Her head was brought in a few weeks ago. The jewelry matches.”
The doctor gave a brief, grim nod. “At least that means only one woman suffered the horror of being carved up alive. I guess we can be thankful for that.” She picked up a tool from the stainless steel tray beside her and bent over what remained of Angelina. “I’ll let you know what we get back from the lab. Let’s hope there are some skins cells under those nails.”
Ellie threw her a grateful smile. “Thanks, Samantha. We’d really appreciate that.”
“I’ll give you a call when I know something.”
Stepping away from the table, Ellie peeled off her gloves and other protective gear and threw them in the garbage bin and watched Clayton do the same.
“Let’s go,” she murmured.
He opened the door and waited for her to precede him. She caught his heavy sigh on the air behind her and knew exactly how he felt.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Clayton took a healthy mouthful from the icy bottle of beer and stretched out in the large beige armchair he’d moved close to the sliding glass door leading onto the balcony of his hotel room. The door was half open, allowing the crisp winter air to drift in around him.
The night sky had settled in and lights from a thousand or more office windows twinkled back at him. His gaze shifted to the myriad of blue and red and yellow neon advertising signs glowing off the tops of many of the skyscrapers. Earth Hour in Sydney would be surreal. With all the lights switched off, the night would be black enough to see the stars.
It was something he missed about Canberra. He’d been in Sydney almost a month and he’d yet to catch a glimpse of a single star. Too much artificial light, he guessed and too many tall buildings blocking the view.
Nevertheless, it was still an exciting place to be. Most of Canberra’s streets quieted down after six, but Sydney lay awake for hours, with people passing in the street below him, cars and buses and taxis, horns blowing and the occasional shout. There was something so alive about it. Despite the fact he was a country boy, he could definitely see its appeal.
He concentrated on the noise from the street, fifteen stories below him. His lips turned up into a wry grin. Already, it had become a faint murmur, a background noise that barely disturbed the weariness of his thoughts. He took another swig from his beer and relished the malty taste on his lips.
DNA tests had confirmed their suspicions. He’d gone with Ellie to see Jacqueline Caruso. The memory of the woman’s face, crumpling with grief and devastation would stay with him forever. Even though she’d known her daughter was dead, to have it hammered home all over again by two police officers coming to confirm they’d found some more of her must have been unbearable.
His jaw tightened. Frustration surged through him. They needed a breakthrough. Something, anything that would bring them closer to capturing Angelina’s killer.
It would be days, weeks even before the lab would have results on the material under her nails and even longer to identify the killer’s DNA—if they were lucky enough to find any, and if they did, that it matched someone in the database.
Panic nipped at his gut. He tamped it down. Now wasn’t the time to lose control. What he needed was a cool, calm head. To do what he did best. To put the pieces they did know into an organized framework and slowly but surely build a picture of the killer.
A pile of old case files lay spread across his bed. He’d requested them from the records department, had specifically asked for cases involving violent assaults and homicides that featured female victims. Though he’d spent the best part of the evening making notes on them he was still not completely convinced he was on the right track.
Then there was the art professor. Stewart Boston was definitely still on his radar. Now that they’d established both of the missing girls and Angelina had attended the university, interviewing the professor had taken on a greater urgency. What was more, the man fit the evolving profile.
He was a person people would trust—especially his students. A man who wouldn’t look out of place on the campus or on a suburban street. A man Josie Ward would have willingly accepted a ride from.
After numerous frustrating manpower hours trying to track Boston down, they’d at last discovered he’d left the country for Fiji. According to his flight details, he was due to touch back down in Sydney in two days. Clayton chafed at the delay, but knew he had no choice but to wait it out.
The plan was to follow the man home from the airport in the hope that if he were involved, he’d lead them somewhere significant. It wasn’t uncommon for a psychopath to return often to the scene of his crimes. Even if it didn’t work out that way, they’d ambush him anyway. A surprise interrogation was far more effective than one when the interviewee had a chance to prepare. Clayton relished the idea of confronting the professor. When they’d put the plan together, he’d insisted he would ride with Ellie when it was conducted.
Unbidden, images of Ellie swam before him. Her spicy, vanilla perfume teased his nostrils. Her hazel-green eyes, alight with intelligence and good humor seemed to mock him at the same time her generous lips curved into an inviting smile.
His body tightened in response, even though he knew this attraction was crazy. Who was he kidding? She’d never looked at him invitingly. Besides, he was still in love with Lisa. His wife. The love of his life.
Wasn’t he?
Of course he was. With an impatient shake of his head, he pulled himself upright and stood. Finishing the last of his beer, he dropped the empty bottle into the trash can near the sink and went to his briefcase lying where he’d left it on the table. He reached for the photo album that went everywhere with him.
The worn, black leather showed signs of age, but it was something he’d never part with. It had been a graduation gift from his wife. Given to him three days after their first anniversary.
They’d always planned to wait until after they’d finished university to get married, but Mother Nature had other plans. Well, that and Lisa’s forgetting to take the pill when they went away together for the summer break.
They’d gotten married right away, of course. Not out of any sense of duty, although he’d certainly felt that. But it was Lisa, his Lisa. The girl he’d loved and adored since the first moment he’d caught sight of her across the loud and noisy university courtyard during orientation week.
So what if they were only twenty-two? So what if things were happening a little ahead of time? They’d only had a year left of their studies. They’d already decided to get married straight after graduation.
She was going to be a teacher. She loved everything about kids. She used to giggle and wink at him and say she couldn’t wait to have a tribe of her own.
He was studying forensic science. With his father a District Court Judge and all four of his brothers in the police force, the law was in his blood.
Clayton took a seat at the small round table in the far corner of the room and opened the leather-bound album. His heart tripped over like it always did when he saw the photo.
With tender fingers, he caressed the white parchment of the funeral card, touching the soft features of his first-born child, forever captured on its cover.
Dominic Clayton Munro
21
st
October, 2006—23
rd
October, 2006
He’d lived for two days. Two whole days. Born early at twenty-three weeks and weighing just four hundred and fifty grams, the doctors had told them there was little hope.
Still, he’d sat by his son’s high-tech hospital crib and had watched and prayed for every second of those forty-eight hours. He’d seen the tubes and electrical devices and monitors and equipment of every description going into and out of his son’s tiny body and still he’d prayed he would make it.
But he hadn’t.
Lisa had been inconsolable. Clayton had felt the loss like a physical blow, but he’d buried his pain, along with his son, and had helped his wife look forward to the future. Less than a year later, they’d had Olivia.
Olivia. The thought of his precocious four-year-old brought a smile to his lips. He checked his watch and closed the album with a sigh. Olivia would be going to bed soon and he still hadn’t called her.
Pulling his laptop toward him, he connected to Skype and saw that she was already online. With a click of the mouse, the call went through. Anticipation built as he saw a fuzzy image of her face materialize on the screen before him. His heart lightened.
“Hey, baby, how was preschool? Are you being good for Grandma?”
* * *
Rick Shadlow drew a tortured breath deep into his lungs and wished he was dead. Curled up in a ball on the cold tiles of the filthy bathroom in his apartment, he hugged himself and willed the pain away.
She was gone. And it was all his fault. He should never have said the things he did. He should never have sent her away. They’d had fights before, but not like this. Never like this.