Deep Dark

by Laura Griffin

  They swung into the parking lot, which was fuller than he would have expected for a Sunday evening. Reed noticed the battered white Focus in the front row.

  So Laney had spent her whole day working, just as he had. Evidently, they were both workaholics, and she’d been right last night when she guessed the reason for his divorce. Reed’s job was a marriage wrecker.

  At least that’s what Erika thought—that his job had killed their marriage. Reed wasn’t completely sold on that view of it. Yeah, his long hours had definitely been a factor, but so was infidelity.

  Way back when everything had been going downhill, she’d accused him of wanting her to have an affair, of practically pushing her into it with all his late nights and weekends, just so he’d have an excuse to get out.

  Right. Like he’d wanted the humiliation of finding out his wife was cheating on him. Like he’d wanted those visions stuck in his head for months and months, which was how long it had taken him to face up to the fact that things were damaged beyond repair and go through with the divorce. He’d been ashamed on so many levels—for giving up on his marriage, for failing to keep his wife happy, for failing to see that she was screwing around when the evidence was right under his nose. All in all, he’d been burned. And the experience had made him even more cynical than he already was.

  But the crazy thing was, he still cared about her. Even after all the crap and the lies and the accusations, he still wanted her to be happy.

  Reed glanced at Laney’s car again as he hiked up the steps to the entrance. She’d been dodging his calls all afternoon, and he wanted to know why. He also wanted to know why she’d left APD in such a hurry.

  He and Jay checked in with the weekend security guard and were met in the lobby by Dr. Kelsey Quinn. She wore a lab coat and jeans, and her auburn hair was piled up on her head and secured with a pencil. She’d sounded distracted over the phone this morning, but she didn’t really seem annoyed to have her Sunday interrupted. Maybe she was used to it.

  “Right this way,” she said, leading them down a sloping hallway. “You ever been to our Bones Unit?”

  “No, ma’am,” Jay said.

  “Once,” Reed told her, looking at his partner. Jay broke out the “ma’am” when he felt nervous, and Reed wondered what the deal was. It wasn’t like they were going to an autopsy.

  “I have to warn you, it’s cold,” the doctor said, using her badge to swipe her way through a door. “Helps with the smells. So I took a look at the remains to freshen my memory.”

  “You mean X-rays, right?” Jay asked. “I thought they had a burial after the body was found.”

  “They did.” Another swipe of her badge, and she led them into an office with several workstations crammed into it. She crossed to a desk and picked up a folder. “Before the remains were released to the family, I decided to make a plaster cast of the skull.”

  She skimmed her file as Reed tried to imagine just what that entailed. The scent of formaldehyde wafted into the room. Reed glanced at Jay, who was looking a little green around the gills as he gazed through the door into the adjoining laboratory.

  The doctor looked at Jay. “You okay, detective?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Her attention shifted to Reed. “Given the unusual nature of the case, I thought it would be prudent to keep something readily available, in addition to X-rays, in case this case came under scrutiny at a later date. We like to avoid exhumation whenever possible. It’s very hard on the family.”

  No doubt it was. Reed imagined that having your child murdered was about the only thing worse than having to exhume your child’s remains to bring the killer to justice. Reed didn’t know this doctor very well, but he liked that she seemed to think long-term, like an investigator.

  “What do you mean, ‘unusual’?” he asked.

  “You’ll see.” She stepped around Jay and into the laboratory. She led them past a row of stainless-steel tables, all empty, to a tall slate counter. On it was a flat cardboard box containing a human skull.

  Or at least a damn good replica.

  The doctor reached up and switched on an adjustable overhead lamp.

  “Here we have the cranium,” she stated, picking it up. “Which means the skull, minus the mandible. As you can see here”—she rotated it under the light—“the victim sustained two blows to the left parietal bone near the coronal suture. Both resulted in a depressed fracture. It is this fracture here”—she pointed at the shallower fracture—“where we’re able to discern the most detail. Microscopic examination reveals a unique shape to this wound, corresponding to the murder weapon.”

  “Your report said it was a hammer with a one-point-five-inch face. You’re saying that’s unusual?”

  “That’s right. A regular garden-variety hammer has a smaller face but a heavy head, which makes it a much clumsier instrument. In an attack like this—a violent struggle—we would expect to see a regular hammer leave a deeper wound. This wound is wide and shallow, and the edges are refined, almost delicate.”

  “How can you be sure there was a violent struggle?” Reed asked.

  “It’s an inference from some of her other injuries. She sustained a spiral fracture to her humerus, which can result when someone grabs a person from behind and wrenches their arm around.”

  Reed was all too familiar with the injury, common in child-abuse cases.

  “She also sustained a broken wrist, likely from fighting with her attacker.”

  “So . . . we’re looking for a delicate hammer?” Jay sounded skeptical.

  “A specialty hammer,” she said. “I had our tool-marks examiner take a look at this back when we first got the case. Actually, he looked at the skull itself, not this replica. He’s of the opinion that this wound was inflicted by a body hammer.”

  Reed’s gaze narrowed. “Like from an auto shop?”

  “Precisely. The tools they use to hammer out dings on cars are very specialized in shape, texture, and weight. Our expert believes that’s what we’re looking at here.”

  “I’m surprised this wasn’t in your report.”

  “Well, it wasn’t my finding, so I couldn’t sign off on it,” she said. “But the Clarke County investigator knew about my colleague’s opinion. Why he chose not to include it in the file, I couldn’t say.”

  Reed studied Kelsey’s face, and he knew that she could say. If the detective documented in the files that the victim’s wounds were made by a body hammer, then he’d have a problem on his hands if they found a suspect with some other kind of hammer sitting around his garage.

  Reed looked at Jay and saw that he’d also picked up on the doc’s unspoken implication.

  “Like I mentioned on the phone,” Reed said, “we’re investigating a second case with similar circumstances, and the ME’s telling us the murder weapon was some sort of specialty hammer. You think your tool-marks guy would be able to make a match?”

  Kelsey tipped her head to the side. “We don’t use the word match very often. Defense attorneys jump all over it. He could tell you if the instrument used on your victim was consistent with the one used on Olivia Hollis.”

  Reed’s pulse picked up. It was a solid lead, and it was based on physical evidence—his favorite kind. Eyewitness accounts carried less and less weight these days, and the CSI effect was very real. Juries, especially in homicide cases, expected to see forensic evidence and often had a hard time convicting without it.

  “I can tell you something else.” Kelsey folded her arms over her chest. “If you want my two cents, that is.”

  “I want it.”

  “My team and I spent three full days in Clarke County excavating this crime scene.” She nodded at the skull. “We used alternative light sources, cadaver dogs, metal detectors, everything we could get our hands on to recover every last shred of physical evidence from that ravine. Besides the v
ictim herself, we found nothing, not even a scrap of clothing. I think that’s no accident.”

  “You think he dumped her there naked so nature would cover his tracks?” Reed asked.

  “That’s exactly what I think. As for why he needed them covered? I’ll leave that question to you. Maybe he bled on her during the struggle, or maybe he raped her and the condom broke or something else happened that wasn’t part of his plan, and he needed to get rid of the biological evidence. But whatever happened, he was very thorough, very deliberate, and very skillful in concealing the evidence. Which leads me to conclude what you two have probably already figured out.”

  Reed waited for her to say it.

  “Olivia Hollis wasn’t his first victim,” she said. “And I very much doubt she was his last.”

  • • •

  Laney knew who it was when she heard the knock on her door. She padded across the house in her bare feet and peered through the peephole. In those brief seconds of privacy, she took the opportunity to look at him, the way she’d wanted to since they’d first met. She liked his tall, athletic build. She liked the confident way he carried himself. She even liked the bulge in his jacket, because it reminded her that he was armed and dangerous.

  He gazed directly at the peephole, and she felt a jolt of heat. She unlocked the door.

  “Hi,” she said, silencing her beeping alarm as he stepped into the house. He watched her actions without comment. If he had a burglar alarm, she doubted he set it at nine P.M.

  She led him into the kitchen, where she’d been busy contemplating her empty fridge.

  “Drink?”

  “No.” He leaned back against the counter, planting a hand on either side of his lean hips. “You keep disappearing.”

  “Yeah, well. I had some stuff to check out.”

  “And?”

  “And I have some info for you.” She settled back against the sink and watched him. She liked having him in her kitchen. She’d never admit it to him, but his presence had a way of making her feel safe.

  Safer. She hadn’t felt truly safe in years. Maybe she never would again.

  “I confirmed the link,” she said.

  “You mean Mix?”

  “Olivia definitely had a profile there. It was taken down after her disappearance. Three weeks after, to be exact. It was removed by the site admin.”

  His brow furrowed. “If it was removed, how—”

  “I was on the red team, remember? I know their setup. It was a soft delete. The public-facing profile was removed, but there’s still evidence of it in their system, provided you know where to look.”

  He watched her silently. Something was wrong. Maybe he’d been expecting her to call throughout the day with updates, but that wasn’t how she worked.

  “That’s not all I found,” she said. “April’s laptop contains some important evidence.”

  “Paul told me it seemed like you discovered something, but you wouldn’t share.”

  “April’s webcam has been compromised.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Compromised?”

  “Hijacked might be a better term. It was accessed remotely and turned on without her knowledge. Someone’s been watching her.”

  “Since when?”

  “I can’t say for sure when the monitoring started, but what I do know is that the malware found its way onto her computer back in October. The week after she first signed on to Mix.”

  He stared at her. “You’re saying the killer’s been spying on her—”

  “For months, yes. And he got to her via the dating site. I’m willing to bet he was spying on Olivia, too, but I’ll need her hardware to check it out. Her laptop, her tablet, her phone, whatever you can get me.”

  She watched him closely. He looked calm but tense. And she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. She stepped closer, watching his reaction, but he didn’t move. She looked at the shadow of stubble along his jaw and reminded herself that he’d had a long day, even longer than hers, because he’d been up early this morning while she’d been sleeping off her drinking binge with Ben.

  “So that’s it. That’s what I learned today,” she said. “We have a definite link between both victims and this dating site, which suggests the killer found them online. And we know in at least one case, he used malware to spy on his victim.”

  Reed said nothing, just watched her. She was standing so close now she could feel his body heat. His gaze held hers, and she wondered if he’d learned something about her that she didn’t want him to know.

  She’d avoided telling him about her attack because it hadn’t seemed relevant. Until today.

  You see it from time to time.

  But what did that mean, exactly? Laney didn’t have any statistics on how often criminals scoped out the crime scene ahead of time and tampered with lightbulbs. She’d looked for that info but had come up short.

  She’d looked for other information, too, but April’s and Olivia’s case files were off-limits to her, and investigators had made a concerted effort to keep details out of the news. They wanted to maintain as much confidentiality as possible so they could gauge the truthfulness of anyone who came forward with a tip or even a confession.

  Laney stared at Reed now and felt the urge to tell him. But she didn’t know for certain whether her attack was even related. What she did know for certain was that if he discovered she had a personal connection to this case, he’d yank her off it in a heartbeat. Of that she had no doubt. And being pulled from the case would be a problem, because she was the only person with the skills to pick up this UNSUB’s trail in cyberspace. That wasn’t her ego, it was a hard fact.

  “What’s that look?” She stepped closer and noticed his jaw tighten. “You’re all quiet. What is it?”

  He gazed down at her with those penetrating blue eyes, and her pulse started to thrum.

  “There’s something you’re not telling me, Laney.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Reed watched her reaction, and he knew he was right. She was holding out on him. He didn’t know what or why, just that she wasn’t telling him everything she knew.

  There was something elusive about her, something he couldn’t quite pinpoint, but he felt it every time he tried to get personal. He’d been interviewing suspects and witnesses for years, and he could spot evasiveness a mile away.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “Well, what?”

  Reed tried to tamp down his frustration. He couldn’t make her tell him. He couldn’t make her do a damn thing, including stay out of his thoughts. She was standing so close now he could smell her hair, her skin. He couldn’t stop thinking about her lithe body and her tight breasts. He wanted to kiss her, and he knew she could see it in his face, because her gaze heated.

  She stepped closer, watching him with those dark brown eyes. She slid her hand over his chest and rested it on his sternum, where she could feel his heart thudding.

  He took her wrist. “Laney—”

  “You have a problem with me?”

  He moved her hand away. “With you? No. With your age? Yeah, I do.”

  “What’s the big deal?”

  “I’m fifteen years older than you.”

  “So?”

  She went up on tiptoes and kissed him, and this time it wasn’t a shock at all. This time he’d been expecting it, and still he did nothing to stop her. There was something wrong with him. With this. But he kissed her anyway, sliding his hands around her waist and pulling her to him as he hungrily took her mouth.

  She tasted good again, hot. And he couldn’t stop, even as the cool, logical side of his brain told him this was a distraction. She didn’t want him right now—not really. She just wanted him to stop asking questions, stop trying to pin her down. He shifted her hips, pinning her back against the counter, still kissing her and stil
l frustrated with himself for falling for what he knew was a ploy. Her fingers tangled in his hair, and he kissed her harder, driven by a surge of lust. What the hell was it with her?

  A phone buzzed, and she stopped. She stared up at him, wide-eyed and breathless, and he saw something in her look—something real, not fake. A genuine yearning that mirrored his own. Did she really want this?

  His phone buzzed again. He stepped away and pulled it from his pocket, both grateful and disappointed at the interruption.

  He cleared his throat. “Novak.”

  “Where are you?”

  It was Jay. And by the tone of his voice Reed knew something was very wrong.

  • • •

  The blue-and-red whir of emergency lights signaled their destination well ahead of the outdated navigation system in Reed’s pickup truck. He glanced at Laney in the passenger seat. She stared out the windshield and had a white-knuckled grip on the door handle.

  “Ever been to a homicide scene before?” he asked.

  “No.”

  He passed the row of haphazardly parked emergency vehicles and found a space beside Jay’s black Tahoe. Jay had been at a baseball game in Round Rock when he’d gotten the call, so he must have sped all the way down here.

  “No reason for you to enter the crime scene,” Reed said. “It makes sense for you to wait in the car. That way you don’t have to sign the scene log.”

  She nodded stiffly as an ME’s assistant crossed the crowded parking lot with his evidence case in hand.

  “Don’t be nervous.”

  “I’m worried I know her.” She glanced at him, and something in her eyes made his chest tighten.

  “You ever been here?”

  She shook her head.

  “Given the neighborhood, odds are it’s a drug thing,” he said, but she didn’t look convinced. He reached over and squeezed her hand. “Sit tight.”

  He got out and glanced around, getting the lay of the land. Jordan Lowe stood at the door talking to a uniform, and Reed caught her eye as he walked over.