by Tami Dane
And I was sitting on Mom and Dad’s front porch, on the phone, answering yet another hysterical call from Dale Nessinger. Meanwhile, Elmer flapped his hands, trying to convince me that I didn’t need to tell her he was standing right there.
He failed.
“As it turns out, he’s right here,” I said.
Elmer’s face turned the shade of flour paste.
I mouthed, “Do it or else”; then I made a slashing gesture across my neck.
Elmer took the phone from me, cupped his hand over it, and said, “Fine. You win. I’ll go, but only if you go with me.”
“I can’t.” I pointed at JT, whose nose was buried in the grass. “Someone needs to make sure he doesn’t suffocate.”
“Bring him with you.”
JT groaned and snorted.
I snorted too. “Are you kidding?”
“He’ll fit right in. Take my word for it. Besides, there’s always a medic on the set. We need one with all the insane girls getting drunk and cracking their heads open, falling down stairs and stuff. You can have her keep an eye on him. She could at least make sure he doesn’t dehydrate.”
That part actually sounded good. In fact, it sounded darn good. “Okay.”
“I’ll be there within the hour,” Elmer said into the phone. After clicking off, he handed it back to me. “You have no idea what you’re in for. But at least now you’ll see what I mean.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
And this time, Elmer snorted.
“Are you kidding me?” I was standing in the center of a melee. At least, that’s how it appeared to me. All around me were nearly naked, sexy women, staggering around, calling each other names, pulling hair, stripping off clothes—and worse.
“See what I mean?” Elmer said, grinning. “I wasn’t exaggerating. These women are all freaking nuts. I can’t marry any of them.”
“Let me see what I can do.” Leaving Elmer, I went to find a quiet spot, where I could make a phone call. I had to go a long, long way. I dialed Dale Nessinger’s number. It rang no less than fifty times, or so it seemed, before it clicked to voice mail.
“This is Sloan Skye. I need to speak with you as soon as possible regarding Who Wants to Marry an Undead Prince? Thank you.” I hung up and returned to the set, making myself invisible behind the director. Standing there, I watched in horror as Elmer was subjected to the insanity of over twenty vicious, sleazy, wannabe actresses. This wasn’t what either of us had had in mind when we’d signed on.
“Bitch!” screamed one, a redhead.
“He’s mine,” shrieked another as she threw herself at Elmer and plastered her fake boobs against his chest.
Elmer’s face turned the shade of bleached rice.
“Cut!” shouted the director. “Prince, I need you to look like you’re not completely repulsed by Jessica.”
Elmer’s lips thinned. “I’ll try.”
“She’s not repulsive,” the one who’d called Jessica a bitch said. “What’s your problem?”
“Thanks, hon.” Jessica blew the screamer a kiss.
So much for reality.
Elmer’s sad eyes found me. He mouthed, “Get me out of here.”
I wished I could. I mouthed back, “I’m sorry.”
“Let’s take it from the top. And . . . action!” the director yelled.
“You bitch,” the screamer screeched.
Jessica threw herself at Elmer, smooshing her fake boobs against his chest, and snarled, “Get lost, whore! He’s mine.”
The water is crystal clear. The gorgeous, cloudless summer sky reflects on its mirror-like surface. The sun is warming my back. I sigh. Content. Relaxed.
Hands work the tight knots out of my shoulders.
Now, this is the way to spend a summer day.
Turning my head to the side, I take in the sight. There are at least four men surrounding me. All drop-dead gorgeous. All naked from the waist up. Mom must have hired some new help.
I love my mom.
“A little lower,” I murmur to the one rubbing my back.
The hands move down, finding the tight spot, right between the shoulder blades.
“Yesss. That’s it. Right there.”
A bumblebee buzzes in my ear. I swat it away, but it comes back. Getting louder. Louder.
Sheesh, what kind of bee is that?
“Sloan,” someone said.
“Ignore it,” I whispered. “It’s nothing.”
“No, it’s time to wake up,” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Sloan. Get up.”
I jerked upright.
I wasn’t lying by a pool. There were no beautiful men surrounding me, lavishing me with their undivided attention.
Reality was such a downer sometimes.
JT was standing next to my bed, looking a lot better than I would’ve expected. I had to attribute his miraculous recovery to the IV fluids he’d been given on the show set.
“You look like hell,” he said.
“Gee, thanks. Excuse me while I go make myself presentable.” I threw the covers off and sidestepped around JT to get to the bathroom.
“There’s been another murder,” JT called after me. “The chief called about an hour ago.”
“Damn. But I’m working undercover. I shouldn’t go.”
“It’s a little after five A.M. on a Saturday. Most of the kids are nursing hangovers—at least, the ones we need to worry about probably are. Nobody’s going to see you.”
“All right. If you think it’s okay, I’ll go with you. I’ll hurry.” I closed the bathroom door and went about the business of preparing to visit yet another grisly crime scene. Roughly a half hour later, I smelled much better and my hair wasn’t sticking out like I’d stepped on a live wire. A layer of cover-up was somewhat hiding the dark circles under my eyes. But nothing was taking care of the red eye, not even Visine.
After throwing on some of Mom’s nicer, non-slutty clothes—a somewhat cute skirt, a lightweight knit top, and a pair of comfy kitten-heeled shoes—I headed down to the kitchen in search of large amounts of caffeine.
JT was sitting at the breakfast counter, a protein bar in one hand and a bottle of vitamin water in the other. “Ready to go?” JT pushed out of his seat.
“In a few. I need caffeine.”
JT returned his butt to his chair. “You’ve got five.” He guzzled about half of his water. “Um, what happened last night?”
“You don’t remember?”
“No.” He glanced at the bandage on his forearm. “Did someone poke me with something?”
“Do you remember the party?”
JT scrunched up his face and lifted his eyes. “Um . . . no. Not really.”
“So you don’t remember sucking a gallon of beer down a plastic tube?” I filled the coffeemaker with grounds and powered it up.
JT’s eyes bugged. “I . . . ? Oh. I do kind of remember doing something like that.” His face turned the shade of his car—officially called “Ruby Red.” He muttered, “Shit.”
“Hey, you were upset. People do things when they’re upset.”
“I don’t drink.”
Anticipating the first glorious drips would be exiting the coffeemaker any minute now, I grabbed a clean travel mug from the cupboard and put it where the carafe normally sat. “You did last night.” I motioned to his head. “At least you’re not hungover. You can thank Elmer for that.”
“What’s he have to do with anything?”
“He arranged for the IV.” The mug full, I put the glass pot back where it belonged and then dug in the cupboard for something portable to eat.
JT’s gaze dropped to his arm again. “Ah, I see.”
“So, no harm, no foul. You went on a little binge, but nothing bad came out of it. Oh, except . . .” I crinkled my nose. “We’re going to have to borrow my mom’s car today. Yours is going to need to be cleaned out. The drive home was a little rough.”
JT dropped his head into his hands.
“Are you saying I . . . ?”
“You vomited all over your floor. We managed to keep it off the leather seats . . . for the most part.”
“I guess I owe you my gratitude, then.”
“Accepted.” I pocketed two boxed brownies—I’d save them for later, an hour or so after we’d left the crime scene—and motioned toward the door. “Now I’m ready. I hope this time we find something useful.”
“You and me both. Forrester’s had a guy on Barnett since Stephanie’s murder. I don’t think he’s our guy.”
Out we went, into a sauna. It was very early, and the birds were just waking up. Already the air was so thick and hot, I could practically see it. The interior of Mom’s car was like an oven. I cranked open the windows and set the air-conditioning on high.
JT slumped into the passenger seat. “You have the air on. Shouldn’t you close the windows?”
“I have my ways of cooling a car.” I motored down the driveway and stopped at the street, waiting for a break in traffic. “What do you know about this latest victim? Anything?”
“I know she’s a female. And she attends Fitzgerald. That’s all I have right now. The chief is tied up in meetings until noon. Fischer’s handling the press, and, of course, you know about Hough. McBride has been called in, but he hasn’t answered. That leaves the two of us to handle this. And Wagner. He’s on his way up too. We’re closer, so we’ll probably beat him there.”
Something clicked in my head, just then, as JT talked about Gabe. What had Elmer said last night? Then it came to me: “Have you noticed anyone sort of popping into your life in the last twenty-four hours? Someone you haven’t seen in years?”
“Damn it!” I grumbled. “How could I forget?”
“Forget what?” JT asked.
“It’s nothing. Absolutely nothing.” I felt my jaw clenching. My teeth were aching. “What exactly did he take?”
“Who?”
“Nobody.”
“Skye, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I maneuvered onto I-95 and hit the gas. As soon as the sun set tonight, I was going to track down that memory-stealing creep and make him give back what he’d taken. I couldn’t work with Gabe like this. Not when I didn’t remember what had been happening with him for so long. What if we’d been . . . intimate? What if he expected to be intimate again? From his rather friendly behavior, this was a very real possibility.
Sunset couldn’t come soon enough for me.
“It’s the girl from last night,” I whispered, staring at the photograph hanging on the wall. Yet again, we were standing in a nice, middle-class, suburban home in Hunting Ridge. “At least I think it is. . . .”
“You saw this girl?” JT asked.
But this time, we were standing next to a grieving woman and a man. They’d learned only a short time ago that their daughter, Hailey Roberts, was dead. My heart ached for them. Damn it, this guy needed to be stopped. Today. Now. Right now.
“What time did your daughter return home last night?” I asked them.
“She never left home,” the mother stated.
“Are you sure it’s her?” JT whispered.
I scrutinized the photo. “Almost certain. It was somewhat dark, but that hair is difficult to forget.” I pointed at the picture. The girl had silver-platinum hair. It wasn’t every day I saw a kid with hair that color.
“Our daughter was home last night,” Mr. Roberts stated, pretty much telling me with his voice that I was full of baloney.
“Okay.” JT was listening and writing in his little notebook. “Did you have any visitors to your home last night?”
The father shook his head. “No.”
“Did you see or hear anything unusual?” JT continued.
The parents glanced at each other.
Mr. Roberts said, “No.”
“Do you know anyone who would have a reason to harm your daughter?”
“No,” the father said.
“Actually . . .” Mrs. Roberts took a step away from her husband. I found that to be a telling gesture. “Recently there’d been a little blowup on the Internet between Hailey and another girl.”
“What kind of blowup?” the father snapped. “How could there be a blowup recently? We took Hailey’s computer away.”
“Well”—the mother took a second step away from her husband—“I let her use it a few times.”
“What? After—”
“She told me she needed it for homework.”
Mr. Roberts’s eyes narrowed to slits. And his neck started glowing red. “If she was doing homework with it, how could there be a blowup?”
Mrs. Roberts pressed her fingers to her mouth. They were trembling. So were her lips. “She . . . Okay, I felt bad about cutting her completely off. So I told her she could use it for just a half hour a night.”
The veins running down Mr. Roberts’s neck started protruding. I was beginning to worry about Mrs. Roberts’s safety. “You did what?”
Mrs. Roberts clenched her jaw. Her eyes widened. “You were being unreasonable. Completely blew that first situation out of proportion. Isolating our daughter wasn’t going to help her learn to handle these things. It was going to make things worse.”
“You think? Take a look, Teresa!” He motioned at the crime scene technicians carrying cameras and evidence bags. “Do you still think giving her computer back helped our daughter learn to solve her problems?”
The mother’s mouth gaped open. The color drained from her face. “Oh, my God. What have I done?” She crumpled to the floor like a deflated weather balloon.
A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another. If these minds love one another, the home will be as beautiful as a flower garden. But if these minds get out of harmony with one another, it is like a storm that plays havoc with the garden.
—Buddha
12
After Mrs. Roberts’s collapse, JT and I called for some medical help for her; then we went to check out their daughter’s bedroom, the crime scene. A quick look around suggested we were facing the same lack of physical evidence we’d had at the other scenes, but that didn’t stop us from trying to find something. It was a statistical improbability of enormous proportions that our unsub had come into this space, committed a crime, and left without leaving something behind—even if he took the effort to cover his tracks. One of the first things I learned in Forensic Science 101 was Locard’s theory. Every contact leaves a trace. We were missing whatever it was he hadn’t cleaned/covered/removed.
The BPD crime techs were doing their best, combing the carpet, searching the bed, using lights, tweezers, any tool in their arsenal, to find that one thing. It was frustrating work. Tedious too. I gave them a lot of credit.
A half hour later, I asked one of the techs if he’d found anything.
“Nothing.”
Another one called him over. “Hey, take a look at this.”
He raised an index finger. “Hang on.” He followed his coworker, and I followed him.
“Check out this stereo. It’s fried.”
“Yeah. And?”
“Do you remember the Barnett house? The clock was blown. It’s like they both were hit by a huge electrical surge.”
“Do you have any idea of how much electricity it would take to do this kind of damage?” I asked the one who’d noticed it.
“Not a clue. You’d have to ask an electronics engineer,” he replied. “Crime Tech Two” shot some pictures of the stereo.
“I’ll do that. Thanks,” I said, motioning to the stereo. “Will you be taking that in as evidence?”
“Crime Tech One” shrugged. “Not sure. It’s an interesting coincidence, especially when we’re dealing with an electrocution, but I doubt it’ll lead us to the unsub.”
“Can I take it, then?”
“Sure. Just in case, don’t dispose of it.”
“Okay.”
While JT wandered off to talk to the other techs, I disconnected the bookshelf ste
reo from the speakers and wall socket. As I was reaching behind the dresser to unplug it, I noticed something. It was a small piece of paper, folded into a tiny, dense rectangle. On the paper, I found two words:
Your dead.
Was that a threat? If so, it was grammatically incorrect. Should have been “You’re.”
Glad I was wearing gloves, I found the closest tech and handed it to him. “I found this behind the dresser. I doubt it’s a coincidence. Can I snap a picture of it with my phone before you take it?”
“Sure.” He slid it into a clear bag, then handed it back to me so I could snap a photo too.
After returning the bagged note, I went in search of JT, stereo in hand. I found him downstairs, talking to Gabe Wagner.
“I found a note,” I told them.
“What did it say?” JT asked, eyeballing the stereo.
“‘You’re dead,’ but spelled y-o-u-r. That’s it. No name. But the handwriting was unique. I’d recognize it if I saw it again. I took a picture of it with my phone.”
“Good. Now what’s with the radio?”
“It’s a bookshelf stereo.”
Wagner glanced from me to JT. “Well, I guess I’ll get back to the unit, since you two have this scene covered.”
“See you in a bit.” JT stuffed his little notebook back in his pocket.
“Are we leaving too?” I asked him.
“I’m done here. What about you?”
“I’d like to ask the parents if Hailey had a yearbook. It was dark last night, but maybe I’d recognize the boy she was with if I saw a picture of him.”
“It’s worth a try.” JT motioned to the mother, who was now sitting on the couch. She wasn’t looking very good, but at least she was conscious. “Do you want me to ask?”
“No, I can do it.” Handing the stereo off to him, I headed over to her. “Mrs. Roberts, did your daughter have a recent yearbook?”
“Sure. We buy her one every year.”
“Is it possible for me to borrow the most recent one?”
“I . . . suppose.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it, and I understand it’s probably not something you want to part with right now. I promise I’ll return it as soon as possible.”
