by Paula Graves
“Cissy speaks well of you.”
“She’s a good student,” she answered automatically, then softened her voice. “Good person, actually.”
The shadows of his face split to reveal a flash of white teeth that even the gloom couldn’t conceal. “We’re kind of fond of her our own selves.”
“Cissy shares Apartment D with a couple of other Mill Valley underclassmen.” Alicia waved at the apartment on the far left. There were no lights burning inside on either floor of the two-story apartment. They were nearing the end of the spring semester, so any of the girls might still be at the library studying for end of term exams.
“Looks like no one’s home,” Gabe murmured.
“You can wait for her at my place.”
He looked surprised. “You don’t even know me.”
She was a little surprised herself, remembering the holstered gun she’d spotted. But she was convinced he really was Cissy’s uncle and he’d said he was a volunteer deputy sheriff. If Cissy had asked him to visit, he must be a pretty good guy, packing heat or not.
Besides, she had a million questions for him. Cissy had been seven when her mother died, and from what she had told Alicia, she’d been sheltered from a lot of details of the murder. What little she did know, she’d gleaned mostly from snippets of her father’s conversations she’d overheard over the years and from a series of newspaper articles she’d looked up at the local library when she was in high school.
But Gabe Cooper was old enough to know everything that happened. He could answer some of the questions she had about Brenda Cooper’s murder. And maybe, if she asked the right questions, he could help her catch a couple of killers.
THE OUTSIDE OF THE apartment may have been all shabby Southern charm, but inside, a riot of color greeted Gabe Cooper, nearly scorching his retinas. Pale yellow walls were the extent of subtlety inside Alicia Solano’s apartment, providing a neutral backdrop for a variety of bright furnishings, from Caribbean dancers writhing in frenetic joy across a wide canvas hanging over a bright orange sofa to the lime green area rug covering the hardwood floor underfoot. It reminded Gabe of an outdoor market he’d visited in South America the last time he’d gone fishing down there, all vivid colors and kinetic energy.
“I don’t drink coffee,” Alicia said over her shoulder, moving out of the living room into the smaller, open kitchen area, “but I have iced tea. Or I could make some lemonade—”
He could tell by her accent that she wasn’t from anywhere near the sleepy college town of Millbridge, Alabama, but she’d apparently picked up the local customs of hospitality somewhere along the way.
“Or maybe you’re hungry?” she added. “Had dinner yet?”
He laughed softly. Yes, she’d learned the Southern way very well. “I’ll wait and have something with Cissy when she gets home,” he answered.
She paused in the middle of the kitchen, turning to look at him. “Oh, okay. Sure you don’t want something to drink?”
“Ice water would be great,” he answered, mostly so he wouldn’t disappoint her.
She turned toward the cabinets, standing on tiptoe to reach the glasses on the top shelf. She seemed relieved to have something to do with all the bottled up energy radiating from her compact body.
He’d scared her earlier, despite her protestations to the contrary. He should have identified himself first, put her at ease. He sometimes forgot, having grown up in a little town where everyone knew everyone else, that the world could be a very different place for other people.
Brenda’s murder should have etched that life lesson into his soul a long time ago.
She came into the living room bearing a glass of water and ice, a paper napkin under the bottom as a makeshift coaster. She waved for him to sit on the sofa and dropped onto a bright green ottoman nearby.
“I’m not keeping you from anything, I hope.” He eyed the neon blue briefcase she’d set on the coffee table when they entered.
She followed his gaze. “Just brought some notes home to work on my thesis.”
He took a sip of the water. She didn’t put a lot of ice in, which meant wherever that accent had come from, it probably wasn’t somewhere particularly hot. “Where are you from? Originally, I mean.”
“San Francisco.”
“Pretty area.”
“Yes.”
She watched him with a narrowed gaze, her mind working visibly behind a pair of dark, observant eyes. She didn’t have any makeup on, though with her thick black eyelashes and honey-toned skin, she didn’t need much. It had been hard to tell at first glance what sort of body lay beneath the loose-cut gray blouse and plain black skirt she wore. But watching her move, as he’d done when she went to the kitchen for his water, he’d quickly seen the graceful curves of her hips and spine, the straining of her round breasts against the front of the blouse when she’d risen to reach the glasses.
Surrounded by the riot of color in her apartment, she seemed almost unnaturally still in contrast, a little sparrow sitting quiet and watchful in the midst of chaos.
A shrill sound emanated from inside the blue briefcase, making her jump. “That might be a student—I have to get that.” She snapped open the case and retrieved a small silver phone. She flipped it open. “Hello?”
As she moved toward the kitchen, Gabe glanced at the contents of the open briefcase. A stack of files and papers lay within, nondescript at first glance. But the edge of a photo peeked out of one folder. The only thing he could make out were a patch of tall grass and a woman’s single shoe.
But it was enough to make his blood run cold.
He glanced up at Alicia. She’d moved all the way into the kitchen, her back to him as she spoke in low tones on the phone.
Gabe reached into the case and pulled out the file containing the photo. He took the photo out and stared at it, his pulse hammering in his head.
Brenda.
She lay as he’d found her, wedged between the tree and the bush, her skirt demurely in place, her legs slightly bent. Her brown pumps were still on her feet, though the police had informed the family that there had been scrapes on the heels of her feet and shredding of her stockings consistent with being dragged through the rough parking lot outside the trucking company.
When Victor Logan raped and killed her, he’d made sure she was left in a dignified position in death. Apparently he’d fancied himself a gentleman. Gabe’s lip curled with disgust.
“I should have closed the briefcase.”
Gabe looked up at Alicia’s words. He hadn’t heard her approach. “What are you doing with this?”
The look on her face was equal parts guilt and determination. “Well, I’d hoped that Cissy would get here before the subject came up, but I’m pretty sure that’s why she called you to come here.”
Connections started forming in his mind, though they made no sense. Brenda’s murder had been solved finally, after twelve years, when his twin brother Jake and Jake’s wife Mariah had put the pieces together that implicated an itinerant mechanic named Victor Logan in Brenda’s murder as well as several other murders in a three-state area. Logan had died in a gas explosion at his home in Buckley, Mississippi, not a month earlier.
Cissy knew Victor Logan had been living in Chickasaw County at the time of her mother’s murder and that he’d kept a scrapbook on the series of murders that had included articles about Brenda’s death as well. She knew why the police believed Logan was her mother’s killer, so why would she have called him all the way here just to dredge up a closed case?
“Brenda’s murder investigation is over,” he said aloud, dropping the file onto the coffee table dismissively. “The killer is dead.”
A knock on the door sent a jolt through his nervous system.
Alicia gave a small start, too. She crossed to the front door and glanced through the peephole. Her tense posture eased and she opened the door to reveal Gabe’s niece Cissy.
Cissy’s green eyes met Gabe’s, first with delight t
hen with a growing sense of dismay as she sensed the tension in the room. “Has something happened?” she asked Alicia.
“He saw the file,” Alicia answered quietly, closing the door behind her.
Cissy pressed her lips into a narrow line. “I wanted to set it up better, but I guess you know why you’re here now.”
Gabe shook his head. “Not really. How about you start telling me why you really dragged me down here?”
Cissy took his hand for a moment, then wrapped her slender arms around him and gave him a tight, fierce hug. “I know you wanted this to all be over. I did, too.” She stepped back, pinning him with the full force of her green-eyed gaze. “But it’s not. Victor Logan didn’t kill my mom.”
Chapter Two
Alicia watched Gabe Cooper’s expression go from puzzled to furious in the span of a second. His gaze whipped up to snare her own, snapping with anger so intense her stomach knotted.
“Did you put this idea in her head?” he asked.
Cissy tugged at his arm. “Alicia can’t make me believe something if I don’t think it’s true. I’m the one who raised the subject with her, not the other way around.”
Gabe turned to his niece, his brow furrowing. “Why? You heard everything Mariah and Jake told us about Logan. You know about the scrapbook—”
“Nobody’s ever tracked down the other guy,” Cissy pointed out. Alicia knew she was referring to a second man the police were looking for in connection to Victor Logan’s death. Cissy had filled her in on everything the Cooper family knew about Logan and the events of the previous month, when Logan had taken Cissy’s Uncle Jake and his wife Mariah captive.
“Jake’s certain the other guy wouldn’t have been more than a teenager when your mother was murdered,” Gabe said, gently stroking his niece’s arm. “I know it doesn’t feel like closure. We never got to face Victor Logan and make him admit what he did, but grasping at straws—”
“They may not be straws,” Alicia interjected.
Gabe’s head snapped toward her. “What is your deal? You’re so desperate for a thesis topic that you’d mess with a young girl’s mind about her mother’s murder?”
“Damn it!” Cissy pulled away from her uncle. “I’m not a baby and Alicia’s not messing with my head. Do you have any idea how insulting you’re being right now?”
Gabe’s expression fell, and he raked his hand through his dark hair, turning away. “I’m sorry.”
Alicia crossed to Cissy’s side, offering a united front. “Cissy had questions about her mother’s murder before she ever stepped foot in my lab. When she found out I was doing my doctoral thesis on a series of unsolved serial murders in the Gulf states, she asked my opinion about her mother’s case.”
The hard muscles of Gabe’s jaws tensed. “My brother and I have both spent the last twelve years looking into every lead that emerged, most of which fell apart. We know a viable suspect when we see one. Victor Logan had the means to do it and the opportunity. And based on his issues with women, we’re confident we have a good idea what motivated him—”
“Why you?” Alicia interrupted, struck by something he’d said a moment earlier. “I mean, I get why Cissy’s father would have devoted his life to finding an answer, but why you?”
Gabe glanced at his niece before answering. “I’m the one who found her body.”
Alicia glanced at Cissy, whose expression was solemn and tinged with sympathy as she gazed up at her uncle. If she found the answer as incomplete as Alicia did, she gave no sign of it.
“I see,” she said, although she didn’t really. Finding the body might have given Gabe a bigger stake in learning what happened to Cissy’s mother, but not enough to spend twelve years following leads long after the case had grown stone-cold.
“I appreciate that you have a paper to write. And I get that having Cissy here is like a case study practically falling into your lap. But all the authorities who’ve ever looked into Brenda’s murder are convinced that Victor Logan is the guy.”
“He’s one of them,” Alicia agreed.
Gabe’s brow furrowed. “One of them?”
“I’ve managed to get my hands on the bulk of the police reports dealing with Victor Logan’s actions from this past April as well as your sister-in-law’s statements about his actions four years ago, when he killed her son’s father.” She felt a ripple of guilt at the look of dismay in Gabe’s eyes, as if he saw her actions as intrusive and presumptuous.
Maybe he was right. Maybe it wasn’t her place. But if her theory was correct, then the nightmare wasn’t over.
More women were going to die.
“Uncle Gabe, please listen to her.” Cissy put her hand on her uncle’s arm. “I didn’t want to believe it, either. I was hoping Alicia would tell me I was imagining things.”
Gabe’s eyes narrowed as he looked from Cissy to Alicia. “I take it you didn’t?”
“Why don’t we sit?” Alicia motioned toward the sofa.
Gabe frowned but sat. Cissy dropped onto the sofa next to him, leaving Alicia to take the ottoman again. She cleared her throat and leaned forward to pick up the folder Gabe had set down just before Cissy arrived.
“Cissy’s been taking criminology courses since last year,” Alicia began, straightening the contents of the file to give her twitchy hands something to do. “One of her courses was Basic Criminal Profiling.”
“I profiled Mom’s murderer as one of my assignments,” Cissy added quietly. “Got an A.”
“I’m sure you probably know that profiling is more an art than a science,” Alicia continued, trying not to react to the raw intensity of Gabe’s gaze, part of her wondering what it would feel like to experience that sort of no-holds-barred focus under more intimate circumstances.
“Understatement,” he murmured.
She slanted a look at him. “Legwork solves more cases. I don’t dispute that.”
“The evidence against Logan was damning,” he said simply. “Why keep asking a question that’s already been answered?”
“Because the one person we can prove Victor killed was a man. A man against whom he had a personal grudge. I read the statements your brother and sister-in-law gave last month after their ordeal with Logan. He used a gun to subdue them, and even then, he wasn’t very good at using it. He’s not the person who shot the game warden—that was the other man.”
“Uncle Gabe, nothing fits, don’t you see?” Cissy turned to Gabe, her expression animated. Alicia watched her warily, aware that the younger woman’s personal stakes in the case put her at risk of getting too wrapped up in the outcome of Alicia’s project. She had to be careful with Cissy, not let her get any more involved than she was already.
Gabe pressed his lips together in consternation. He looked across at Alicia. “How did you get all this material?”
Alicia looked down at her hands, a little embarrassed. “I used to date one of the local cops. He still does favors for me now and then. He talked his bosses into letting me look into some cold cases that might be connected to the other murders.”
“And you sweet-talked them into letting you request records from other law enforcement agencies, right?”
Alicia almost laughed aloud. Sweet talk wasn’t one of her strong suits. Bulldozer was a better description. “Something like that. I used Cissy’s profile, tweaked it with my own observations and put out feelers to other departments to see if they had any cases that fit the profile.”
“What did you find?”
Alicia couldn’t tell if he was interested or just humoring his niece. Either way, it might be her only chance to convince him to listen. She dug through the file for the timeline she’d worked out, speaking as she searched. “I found fifteen murders that I think are connected.”
“That many?” He sounded surprised.
“I’m not sure there aren’t more,” she admitted, finally finding the paper she was looking for. She pulled it from the file and laid it on the table in front of her.
Gab
e eyed the paper warily, as if it were about to morph into a cobra or something. Alicia darted a look at Cissy, who returned her gaze with an apologetic shrug.
“I need food,” Gabe said.
Alicia blinked, caught off balance. “I could make something—”
“No, I think I’ll take my niece out to dinner.” Gabe stood, looking down at Cissy.
“Uncle Gabe—”
“I’m not shutting down the conversation,” he said. “Just tabling it until I’ve eaten.”
Cissy stood, lifting her chin. “Alicia, would you like to join us?”
Gabe’s expression was neutral, but Alicia saw the irritation in his blue eyes. She shook her head. “No, not tonight. I’ve got a lot of work to sort through. You two go have fun. We can talk tomorrow.”
Cissy’s lips tightened to a thin line and Alicia could see the family resemblance between her and her uncle. But she didn’t argue, following Gabe to the front door.
“I’ll call you if we don’t get back too late,” Cissy told Alicia firmly. “This isn’t over.”
Alicia closed the door behind them, locking up. She remained by the door a moment, surprised by how empty and large the apartment seemed now that her visitors had left.
Gabe Cooper sure knew how to fill a room with his presence.
She crossed to the sofa and plopped down in the space Gabe had just vacated. The cushion was still warm, and maybe she was just imagining it, but she thought she detected a whiff of testosterone lingering in the air.
She laughed aloud, the sound echoing in the silent apartment. Man, she needed to get out more.
Her laughter faltered a few seconds later, when she heard a furtive scrape coming from the porch outside.
Instantly tense, she grabbed her discarded jacket from the coat tree by the door and pulled the vial of pepper spray from the pocket. It seemed grossly inadequate, but her aluminum bat was in the bedroom, too far away.
There was a window by the front door, which would give her a clear view of the porch, but she couldn’t talk herself into moving the curtains aside and taking a look. She settled for the peephole in the door and its fish-eyed view. She saw no sign of movement outside.
