Three (Count to Ten Book 3)

by Jane Blythe

  “She’s fine,” Ryan quickly assured Paige. His partner had grown close to Sofia the last five months.

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “She freaked out about walking; she was scared she couldn’t do it.”

  “Makes sense,” Paige considered, “given what she’s been through.”

  “There was more to it than that, though. She’s upset about something else; I’ll push her on it later.” He then focused his mind on the reason for their presence here. “So, victim was sixty-three-year-old Roman Hitacheel. He drowned.” Ryan strode toward the hotel elevators.

  “Technically.” Paige followed him into the lift.

  He arched a questioning brow.

  “He drowned in his own blood,” Paige elaborated.

  “Stab wound?”

  “No.” Paige raised a hand to smooth her already perfectly smooth brown hair; she always wore her curly hair pulled back out of her face.

  The lift chimed as it reached their floor, the doors sliding open. “So how did he die?” Ryan asked his partner.

  “Someone poured blood down his throat until he couldn’t swallow it fast enough, and it went down his windpipe and filled up his lungs.” Paige couldn’t quite suppress a repulsed shiver.

  “Oh.” Ryan didn’t quite know what else to say to that. It was certainly a unique way to kill someone. He wasn’t sure he’d come across a similar case in the ten years since he became a police officer. “Sounds like Roman Hitacheel made someone mad.”

  “I agree.” Paige snapped on a pair of gloves and rapped on the closed hotel room door they’d stopped in front of. “It seems personal. If you just want to kill someone, then there are tons of easier ways to go about it.”

  Ryan slipped his hands into gloves. “We need to interview his family ASAP, see who he hasn’t been playing nicely with…” Ryan trailed off as the door opened to reveal Stephanie Cantini, his favorite crime scene tech. “Hi, Steph,” he warmly greeted her. Ryan considered Stephanie a friend, not just someone he worked with from time to time. In fact, just a few weeks ago, they’d had a huge party to celebrate Stephanie’s fortieth and Paige’s thirtieth birthdays. Stephanie had become a good friend of Sofia’s, as well, helping to support her through this difficult time. Ryan loved how smoothly Sofia had fit into his life and how well she had gelled with his friends and family.

  “Hey, Ryan, Paige,” Stephanie smiled back at them. Then her hazel eyes clouded over. “I don’t like the feel of this one. Something feels…” She trailed off, seemingly thinking of a fitting way to express what she was feeling. At last she shook her head, a brown curl springing free of her messy ponytail. “I don’t know. I just have a bad feeling about this case.”

  “Sounds like it could have been personal,” Ryan offered, attempting to ease Stephanie’s obviously jangled nerves.

  “That doesn’t make me feel any better,” Stephanie shot back, then softened with, “How’s Sofia? She got her cast off today, right?”

  “Yes, and she’s okay,” he answered vaguely, shifting his gaze from the crime scene tech to the hotel room behind her.

  “Okay like she’s really okay or okay like you don’t want to talk about it?”

  He grinned at Stephanie’s straightforwardness. “The second one.”

  “I’ll call her as soon as I finish up here,” Stephanie assured him.

  “Thanks, I really appreciate it, and so will Sofia. So, you have anything for us?”

  Opening the door wider, he and Paige followed her into the suite. “This place is a hotbed for fingerprints and fibers,” Stephanie complained. “We have tons of samples, but most of the prints are partials. We have some good ones, though. We took exclusionary prints from the maids who cleaned the room, and chances are, we’ll find some from our dead guy. Hopefully, we get lucky and our killer left some behind, too.”

  “Where’s the body?” Paige asked.

  “In the bedroom,” Stephanie replied. “Doesn’t look like anything much happened in here, nothing is disturbed. All the action seems to have taken place through here.” She led them across the suite’s lounge room toward the bedroom. “I'm going to see where we’re at with the hotel’s security footage. Frankie’s in there with the body; she can probably give you more than I can at this point.”

  Ryan surveyed the room as he pulled open the bedroom door. Again, this room looked largely undisturbed, except for a pile of Roman’s clothes on the floor halfway between the door and the bed. The majority of the activity focused around the bed.

  “He came here willingly,” Ryan observed.

  “He knew whomever he was meeting; he wasn’t threatened by them,” Paige added. “Clothes don’t look damaged, so they weren’t cut or ripped off him. It appears he took them off himself. Girlfriend, maybe?” she suggested.

  “A pretty angry girlfriend,” Francesca Marks noted grimly.

  “What have you got for us, Frankie?” Ryan focused on the medical examiner. Her usually jovial face was grim, her brown eyes serious, straight dark brown hair just brushing her shoulders. Frankie had grown up in Japan, moving during her college years. Now in her mid-forties, she and her husband had finally added miracle baby, Tania, to their family eighteen months ago after years of trying to get pregnant.

  “Well,” Frankie took a deep breath, “as I'm sure Stephanie already told you, and you’ve probably already noted for yourselves, looks like he came here willingly. I found a small puncture wound on his back, so my theory would be that he came here for sex, only his partner had other plans. I’ll do tests as soon as I get him back to the morgue, but I'd guess he was sedated so the killer could get him under control.”

  “You think the killer’s a woman?” Ryan asked. If Roman Hitacheel was having an affair, then that could be motive for either his wife or his mistress to want him dead.

  She shrugged. “I guess he could be gay. Or there was more than one killer—the woman to distract him and a partner to do the actual killing.”

  “Sedating him and then tying him up could point to a woman,” Paige suggested. “Roman’s a big guy, difficult for a woman to maneuver. She’d need something to give her an advantage. Pretending she was here for sex would get him on the bed and distracted enough for her to inject him without him noticing. Then once he’s out, she uses the duct tape to keep him under control while she kills him.”

  “She moved him at some point.” Frankie motioned them closer, then pointed to a red line on Roman’s chest. “At first he was taped sitting up against the headboard.”

  “How do you figure that?” Ryan asked.

  “Tape on the headboard.” Frankie grinned at him.

  He smiled back. “So did she—assuming the killer is a woman—have him taped sitting up first for a reason?”

  “Easier to drain his blood.” Frankie held up Roman’s right arm and pointed to the needle marks at his elbow.

  Ryan frowned. “She used his own blood to drown him?”

  “I'm guessing so; we’ll test it. It would certainly be easier than bringing some with her. Although, I guess she may have needed more than she was able to take from him assuming she wanted him awake when she poured it down his throat.”

  “That could be helpful in IDing her if she took blood from someone else. Maybe she works at a blood bank or a hospital.” Paige jotted down some notes.

  “He’s lying down now. Again, he’s a big guy, so how did she move him without him putting up a fight?” Ryan asked Frankie.

  “He would have been faint from blood loss, and I think this helped.” Frankie gestured at Roman Hitacheel’s groin.

  “Ohh.” Ryan couldn’t help but wince at the sight of the swollen and bruised genitals.

  “He was probably in enough pain not to put up a fight long enough for her to lay him down and tape him up again.”

  “Are we sure he was alive when she poured the blood down his throat?” Paige asked. “Maybe he was already dead from blood loss.”


  “No, cause of death is drowning, not exsanguination,” Frankie assured them. “See the blood splatters on the pillows around his face?” She gestured at them. “He coughed up blood as she was pouring it down his throat.”

  “Icky.” Paige shivered.

  Frankie chuckled. “Yeah icky,” she agreed.

  “So if he was conscious through all of this, he must have screamed, yelled out for help. No one reported hearing anything?” Ryan thought that seemed odd in a hotel this large.

  “No other guests on this floor,” Paige told him. “All the rooms were booked, but the guests never showed up.”

  “Well, that’s suspicious.” He was slowly starting to form a picture of this killer in his mind. “Speaks of premeditation.”

  “Hey, guys.” Stephanie came barreling through the bedroom door. “We got video footage of the killer,” she grinned.

  “How are we sure it’s the killer?” Paige asked the crime scene tech.

  “Only two people came to this floor last night,” Stephanie explained. “A tall, brunette female arrived at approximately two in the morning; victim arrived at three thirty. Then we see the killer leave around five.”

  Ryan was thrilled. Maybe they’d have this case wrapped up in a couple of hours, and he’d be able to grill Sofia on what was bothering her before they had dinner with his family.

  Stephanie noticed his smile. “Don’t get too excited,” she cautioned. “We don’t get a look at her face. She kept it covered the whole time. Still, at least you’ll have something, and it seems to confirm the killer was a woman.”

  He was disappointed, but as Stephanie had said, it was better than nothing. “You find his phone, Steph?” Ryan asked.

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Fancy hotel, this was the place where he met up with his mistress, assuming he had one. Which I am, since I don’t know who else he’d come running to meet in the middle of the night and take his clothes off for. So, let’s say for the moment that’s who he came to see. I want to know who it is, and chances are, it’s the last person who called him before he died.”

  Stephanie went and retrieved the phone, handing it over. “Here you go.”

  Ryan took the phone and brought up the recent call history. “Last call came in at around two yesterday afternoon,” he told the others. “Call came from a Mango LeSeur.” He couldn’t quite hide a grimace at the name. What kind of parent names their kid Mango?

  “Mango?” Paige rolled her eyes, and Stephanie and Frankie snorted chuckles.

  Scrolling through the call history for the past few weeks, there were dozens of calls from Mango’s number—at least one every couple of days. Most calls lasted only a minute or two, probably just enough time to organize where and when they would meet up. “We should make a note of all the days Mango called Roman, so when we talk to the family we can confirm that he was out those nights,” he said to Paige. “I'm going to call Mango, see if we can confirm she was his mistress.” He dialed from Roman’s phone in case Mango LeSeur was one of those people who only answered calls from known numbers.

  “Hi, Roman,” a low, sexy voice drawled in his ear.

  “Mango LeSeur?”

  “Oh, you're not Roman,” Mango’s surprised voice rose an octave higher than her seductive voice. “Who is this? Where’s Roman?”

  Mango’s surprise that someone else was using Roman’s phone seemed genuine; still, Ryan remained cautious. “When was the last time you spoke with Roman?”

  “Three days ago,” she answered after a brief pause.

  “His call history shows you called him yesterday afternoon,” he confronted her.

  “I never called him yesterday,” Mango protested. “Wait, yesterday afternoon?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “I never called Roman yesterday, but I lost my phone for a couple of hours.”

  “What time did you lose it and where?” If Mango LeSeur was telling the truth, then perhaps someone was trying to set her up.

  “I met some friends for coffee at our favorite café; my phone must have fallen out of my bag, when I went to look for it later it wasn’t there. I retraced my steps and found it at the café. Someone had found it and turned it in. But why would whoever found my phone call Roman? Maybe they just looked to see who I called the most and called that number looking for me? And you never told me who you are, and why you're asking me these questions. Is Roman okay? Did something happen to him?”

  He ignored her questions for the time being. “What time was your phone out of your possession yesterday?”

  Frustration edged into Mango’s voice. “Maybe from around one till four or five. Now tell me what’s going on or I'm hanging up.”

  “How do you know Roman Hitacheel?” Ryan asked instead.

  “I'm hanging up now,” Mango announced.

  “Mr. Hitacheel is dead,” Ryan told her before she disconnected.

  “What?” Mango’s voice became a shriek. “Dead? How?”

  “I'm Detective Ryan Xander, we’re investigating his death.”

  “Roman was murdered? And you think I did it?” Mango was bordering on hysterical.

  “Yes, Roman was murdered, and no, you're not a suspect at the moment. We just need to speak with you, especially since the last phone call he received was from your phone, and he came to a hotel in the middle of the night to meet someone.”

  “I never called Roman yesterday. I swear.” Mango began to cry.

  “What’s your relationship to Mr. Hitacheel?” He wanted confirmation of an affair; that gave them a possible motive.

  “I was his mistress,” she sobbed. “For almost two years now.”

  “Were you in love with him, Ms. LeSeur?” Ryan softened his tone.

  “No,” her tears intensified. “I didn’t even like him. He was gross, but he paid me so well. I have a nice place to live, expensive clothes, trips to fancy hotels, and all I had to do was make sure I kept my looks and body perfect and be available for sex whenever he wanted it. I can't believe someone killed him. Who would do that? Who would kill Roman?”

  “Can you think of anyone who’d want him dead?”

  She seemed to consider this for a moment. “Maybe his wife, if she found out about us.”

  “When you meet up with Roman, where do you usually go?”

  “Sometimes my place, but usually a hotel.” Mango’s voice had dropped to a whisper.

  “Okay, Ms. LeSeur, we’re going to make a time later today to come and talk to you,” Ryan told her gently. Even though she said she wasn’t in love with Roman, she was clearly shaken up by his death. “Is there someone you can call who can come and stay with you?”

  “I’ll call my sister,” she assured him.

  “I’ll be in touch to let you know when we’ll be by to talk with you,” Ryan reminded her before hanging up. “I don’t think she’s the killer,” he told the others. “She seemed genuinely shocked and distraught at the news of Roman’s death. She said she lost her phone yesterday afternoon.”

  “Convenient,” Paige inserted.

  “Or it was deliberately taken from her bag so someone could use it to set up a meeting with Roman and set up Mango at the same time.” Ryan felt in his gut that Mango LeSeur was not the killer.

  “Well, we were thinking mistress or wife,” Paige said. “If it’s not Mango, then maybe it was the wife. What better way to get revenge on your husband for being unfaithful, than to kill him and set up his mistress?”

  “Let’s go talk to her and find out.” Ryan wanted this case wrapped up ASAP. The longer it took to find the killer, the greater the chances she'd kill again. And the last thing he wanted to deal with right now was another serial killer case.

  * * * * *

  2:46 P.M.

  “Hey, how was your day?”

  Annabelle Englewood forced a smile to her lips as her boyfriend dropped the mail on their kitchen table, then wrapped an arm around her waist, pulled her against his chest, and kissed her.

  “Fine,�
� she replied, then quickly shifted the focus off herself. “How was court?” From the little she knew about the case, it was a particularly brutal one. Annabelle didn’t like to know the details of what her boyfriend did for a living. What had happened to her and her family was still too fresh for her to hear about what other victims had suffered.

  “It went well,” Detective Xavier Montague replied. “I think my testimony was helpful in—hopefully—getting a guilty verdict.”

  “That’s good.” Annabelle attempted to keep her voice light as she tried to pull out of Xavier’s embrace.

  He maintained his hold of her. “What did you do today?”

  “Nothing much.” She shrugged.

  “You baked?”

  Of course, she had; it was what she did every day. Pretty much all she did. “Brownies and cupcakes.”

  “Did you go out?”

  They had this same conversation every day when Xavier got home from work. And it always went the same way. Annabelle was tired of it, but it seemed Xavier was not. In fact, she couldn’t figure out why Xavier wasn’t completely tired of her already. It had been eight months since her family had been brutally murdered by a psychopath out for revenge. The psychopath had been her friend. At least she had thought Ricky Preston was her friend, before she learned he was just using her as part of his master plan for revenge against those he believed responsible for his mother’s death. It had been eight long months since she and Xavier had met, and her world—however small it had been—had crumbled to pieces, and she wasn’t getting any better.

  “Belle?” Xavier took her chin in his hand and gently tipped it up. He opened his mouth as if to say more, then snapped it shut. His unusual eyes, one hazel and one green, studied her sadly. “I wish I knew how to help you,” he said at last.

  Tears welled up in her eyes. Annabelle wished she knew how to convince Xavier just how much he had and did help her. “You do,” she whispered, resting her forehead against his strong chest, snuggling closer when his arms tightened around her. For a moment, she just let herself rest. She missed rest. Real rest. Her sleep was plagued with nightmares, and all day she was hyperaware of everything happening around her. It was completely draining.