by Misty Evans
“Hello, Cindy. Are you enjoying yourself?”
“Lovely crowd tonight. It’s just about time for me to leave though.”
He glanced around the room. “The event appears to be coming to an end. Shall I walk you out?”
Syd opened her purse and checked her phone. No text from Jennifer. “Not yet. I’m waiting for Jennifer.” Who is fucking your father’s brains out. “She’ll text me when she’s ready.”
“She’s moving again.” Fed Boy said in her ear. “Hang on. She’s going out the back.”
What the hell?
Syd checked her phone and watched the screen light up. “Here she is now. She’s meeting me out front.”
But she’s going out the back. Odd.
“I’ll walk you to the door,” Nabil said.
Outside, Syd found Jennifer standing in the shadows of a huge oak tree while the valets dealt with exiting partygoers. She must have walked around the house and through the alley separating the townhouses.
“The limo is right around the corner. Should be any time now.”
“That’s fine,” Syd said.
But something about Jennifer was off. Maybe it was the hiding in the shadows thing. Jennifer usually spent every minute cuddling up to someone at these events. Never had Syd seen her shying away.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Here’s the car.”
Syd slid into the far seat in the limo and watched as Jennifer settled her dress. The interior light shone on her blonde hair and glowing skin. A truly beautiful woman.
Then Syd saw the nasty, raw red marks looping the front and side of Jennifer’s neck and her temples began to hammer. “What’s that?”
Jennifer turned to her. “What?”
“Your neck? What happened?”
She placed her hand over the marred area. “Downside of the trade. Ahmed got a little rough tonight. Unusual for him. That’s why I went out the back. Didn’t need anyone seeing me like this.”
It’s my fault. Syd shook off the vile thought. Still, it rooted inside her that the man was crazy enough to harm another woman as retaliation.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. His guilt got me an extra thousand.”
Jesus.
“Jesus,” Fed Boy said in her ear. How did he always know what she was thinking?
The insanity of this lifestyle baffled her. Sure the money was good, but was it worth being degraded? Syd turned forward. No sense trying to convince Jennifer of the dangers. Been there, done that and she had no interest.
At least until she wound up dead.
Chapter Twenty-two
Grey watched Syd’s limo drive away and felt his shoulders relax a fraction. She was safe and he was one step closer to finding those trophies.
Commotion erupted at the back of the house. Someone screamed. Grey ran, going into security mode.
Most of the partygoers had left, but a small crowd gathered outside on the back lawn. Grey made his way around the edge of the crowd, came out near the tree line of the woods. Every muscle in his body tensed.
Lying on the ground, facedown, was a girl—woman. One of the escorts. Her blue dress torn, her arms and legs splayed at unnatural angles.
“Call 911,” Grey said into his security mic.
His boss responded, the memory of the last call for 911 fresh in both their minds, asking for a sit rep. “Escort down,” he answered, moving beside the girl. Red marks striped her neck.
Grey’s stomach bottomed out. Doing a quick visual, he pressed his fingers against her neck, checking for a pulse.
“Is she dead?” someone called from the crowd. His boss was asking the same thing in Grey’s ear.
Grey shifted his fingers, willing them to find even the slightest hint of a pulse. Nothing.
He hung his head and let out a disgusted breath. Then, feeling eyes on him, he looked up and scanned the faces staring at him. Swaying leaves rattled in the wind over the murmur of voices. Still, the paralyzing quiet made his head pound. He moved his gaze over the crowd a second time.
He’s here.
The killer was there, watching…waiting.
Catch me if you can.
Grey’s attention rose above the crowd, climbing upward to a window in the second story of the house.
There, backlit by the room’s bright interior stood The Lion.
Three hours later, the voice in Grey’s head was going full throttle. Another dead girl. How could you let that happen?
He’d been at the party, kept an eye on Syd. Even when she was out of his sight, he’d known exactly where she’d been and who she was with.
Which meant, he hadn’t kept an eye on all the other girls.
Jennifer had been easy to track, but three more escorts arrived an hour after Syd and Jennifer. One of them was now at the county morgue and Donaldson was livid.
What’s new? the voice asked. You punch every hot button the man has.
Morgan Cashore. Dead. One of the other escorts had been looking for her so they could leave and discovered the body. Preliminary cause of death, strangulation.
Grey turned onto Syd’s street. When he hadn’t shown up at her place after the event, she’d texted him. He’d been knee-deep in shit at that point. The escort service was all over his ass, Donaldson wanted to speak to him alone, and since he was the security agent in charge of the girls, the local cops called in to handle the situation discreetly wanted to question him. Placating them and The Smoking Gun’s director was a piece of cake. Placating Donaldson and the voice inside Grey’s head? Impossible.
Traffic was nonexistent at two a.m. His only luck tonight. He’d managed a brief text back to Syd to tell her he’d be late, but balls to buckets, she’d be climbing the walls by now. Or maybe she’d fallen asleep. He hoped the latter since he was about to keep her up for the rest of the night, and not with angry sex.
Outside her duplex, he rang the bell. She came to the door immediately, looked out the side window—definitely not sleeping—and the door popped open.
She narrowed her eyes and led him into her place. “Where have you been? You didn’t do that security thing for Ahmed tonight, did you?”
Grey pecked her on the cheek, laid down the briefcase he carried. Shrugging out of his coat, he let his gaze roam over her pjs and ponytailed hair, soaking her up. Thank God, she’s safe. “Another girl is dead.”
“What?” She sank down on the sofa, cheeks paling. “Who?”
“One of the women at the fundraiser tonight.”
Her mouth slid into a perfect O. “It’s not Jennifer, is it?”
He dumped the folders wrapped with rubber bands out of the briefcase and onto her coffee table. Three files he and Monroe had built on the dead girls and a photo taken tonight of the latest victim. He removed the rubber bands and tapped the picture he placed in front of Syd. “Morgan Cashore, real name Kristin LaMonte. She’s been with The Smoking Gun for three years.”
Syd flinched at the gruesome picture of the strangled woman. “My God.”
She slapped a hand over her eyes and—dammit—he could have handled that better. Maybe he was accustomed to dead bodies, but not Syd. “Sorry. Should have warned you. Do you know her? She was found in the backyard of the house where tonight’s event was.”
“I don’t recognize her from anywhere but the party. But Jennifer went out the back.”
“She wouldn’t have seen the body. It was behind a bush. And if Jennifer was in a hurry, she was nowhere near there. I’ll get someone to talk to her, though.”
Grey’s legs twitched with adrenaline. He stood and paced the small living room. “That makes sense. She didn’t come through Fresh Start.” He came back to the table. “I’ve got Teeg running a full background check on her, but look at the marks on her neck.”
“Who’s Teeg?”
Flipping through the other files, he pulled out more morgue photos and—thwack, thwack, thwack—one by one slapped them on the table. “Do any of these marks match what
you saw on Jennifer tonight?”
She didn’t look at the photos. No, she kept her eyes on him. “Grey, who is Teeg?”
“My techie guy.” He tapped the photos. “Look at these and talk to me about the red marks.”
Syd rubbed her neck and her gaze slowly moved to the photos. After a minute, she looked back at him. “They’re similar.”
“Similar or the same?”
“I don’t know.”
A burst of frustration bashed inside his head. So goddamned close. He pressed his thumb and middle finger against his forehead and squeezed. “Look again until you do know.”
Yes, he was being a son of a bitch, but this was important. Vital. She locked her jaw and gave him a glare that should have melted him.
“I know this sucks,” he said, “but it’s crucial. Look again and tell me if they are the same or only similar.”
She placed her hands on her head and tapped her fingers. After one long breath, she studied the photos, focusing on each one longer than the last. Sydney was learning that dead bodies, at some point, became evidence. Right now, these photos, as sickening as they were, were a tool.
Finally, she pushed the photos away. “They look the same.”
A shock of energy made his fingers twitch. Damned adrenalin.
“I knew it.” He dug into the briefcase, withdrew two evidence bags with the veils Syd had been given. “I thought these were some part of a costume he liked his victims to dress up in, but they’re more than that.”
Syd ran her fingers over the bags, touching the veils through the clear polyethylene. “These are the veils he gave me, aren’t they? They’re murder weapons?”
“I think they’re also the trophies he keeps afterward. There was no veil on or around Morgan’s body. No other weapon.”
Syd rose and shuffled past him, head down as she walked into the kitchen. He followed and watched her grab the coffee pot from the drain. With jerky movements, she slapped the faucet on, poured the water, scooped coffee grinds into the filter, and then smacked the button. She was processing, and even though he was climbing out of his skin, he respected that she needed a minute.
Or five.
He wanted to wrap his arms around her. Just to reassure himself she was all right. He tried to resist, but his restraint lasted all of thirty seconds before he caved and drew her into a bear hug.
She hugged him back, rising on tiptoes and giving him a quick kiss. Then she led him into the living room and tugged him down on the sofa next to her. “We never let Ahmed out of our sight, Grey. Except when he was with Jennifer. How can he be the killer?”
“I’m working on the timeline.” He took a sheet of paper from his briefcase and laid it on the table next to the autopsy and crime scene photos. “The medical examiner won’t release an official time of death until tomorrow, but there were actually several times when Khourey was coming and going when I didn’t have eyes on him and you probably didn’t either. Here,” he pointed at one interval. “And here, when you were hanging out with Nabil and waiting for Jennifer to text you. What if Khourey wasn’t with Jennifer the whole time? He could have slipped out or Morgan could have been in there with both of them. I never saw him come out of that room before or after Jennifer texted you. Did you?”
She rubbed her arms where chill bumps had surfaced. “I can’t believe this happened.”
Shoving off the sofa, he rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. His eyes were gritty from lack of sleep and that damned pressure building inside his head. He didn’t need the coffee to keep him awake and running at full speed. “It’s my fault. I should’ve kept track of all the women, not just you, but I’m absolutely obsessed with keeping you safe. I let the others fall through the cracks and one of them ended up dead.”
“You sure love to play the blame game, don’t you?”
He met her gaze. “There’s no one else to blame. I let The Lion out of my sight and a girl’s dead now.”
“You didn’t kill her any more than I did. Enough with the guilt. How do we stop him? The man responsible for these murders.”
Some of the adrenaline left Grey’s legs. He sat next to her and shuffled the autopsy photos, studying each one as he moved them. “I need to talk to the medical examiner and show her the veils. See if she can confirm or rule out that they’re the killer’s weapon of choice.”
“Is that enough to convict Ahmed?”
“No.” He stared at the photos of the dead women and reached into his pocket for the key he’d stolen from the townhouse. “But at nine a.m., I’m going to his house for a security consultation. I’m going to find out where he’s hiding the safe that goes to this key.” He held it up for her to see. “And I’m going to find the veils he’s used to strangle these women. They’ll have his DNA as well as theirs on the material, and that will be enough evidence to convict.”
“And the holes in the timeline?”
“That’s where you come in. Write up your own timeline from what you remember. See if you can fill any of those holes; but if I’m right, there was at least one instance at the end when neither of us saw him.”
Determination lit her eyes. “There was at least half an hour,” she pointed at the timeline, “right here when I didn’t see him. It was right after he spoke to you.”
“Okay. That’s good. It narrows it down for us.”
“What else can I do?”
“Pump Ian for information. This murder won’t be in the papers, but you can say the other girls are talking about it, and you want to know what the hell is going on. See what he says.”
“I can try. He probably won’t tell me anything.”
Grey shrugged. “If you make it seem like the girls are getting mutinous, he might open up.”
“These women are dying and he’s leading them to the slaughter. He knows they’re in danger and he’s doing it anyway. To make money. All this time I thought he was different.”
“Maybe in the beginning he was. Somewhere along the way, things got bent.”
She leaned into him, rested her head on his shoulder. “We’re taking him down, too, right?”
Grey ran his hand down her cheek. She had to be exhausted. “You bet we are.”
Chapter Twenty-three
“Nine o’clock sharp,” The Lion said as he stepped back and welcomed Grey into the brownstone through the front door. “I like a man who is punctual.”
Grey entered, the paranoid side of him wondering if this was a trap. When he’d performed his little B&E of the place twenty-four hours ago, he’d had no idea one of the outcomes would be a legitimate invitation to step into the lion’s den.
Meeting Ahmed’s gaze, he saw no subterfuge. Only the face of a man who was unnerved by the break-in and trying to hide it. “Front Range appreciates your business.”
Khourey closed the door and held up the cup in his hand. “May I offer you coffee?”
“No, thank you.” Although Grey never did in-home security proposals, he knew the standard pitch. As the man led him into the living room, once again the painting of the veiled woman on the wall drew Grey’s attention.
Have to find those veils.
He handed Khourey a brochure Front Range personnel gave all clients. “The security review will take an hour. I’ll need to do a thorough appraisal of the house, top to bottom, so I can evaluate all entry points as well as your current security system. I’ll need access to the perimeter in order to calculate how many layers of security are necessary and the best use of equipment.”
Apparently, Khourey hadn’t had time to fix his leather chair. Avoiding the chair Grey had ripped open with his KABAR, the man sank into the sofa under the painting. “Layers?”
“Front Range takes a multi-layer approach to in-home security. Basic security encompasses an alarm system, which you already have as I understand, and it wasn’t enough to deter the criminal. The next layer would be exterior lighting and a camera system that alerts you to anyone who steps on your property before they get to
the doors or windows. All of this can be set up with cellular access so if you’re away from home or the landlines are down, you’ll still be notified of suspicious activity and can control the system via your cellphone.”
Setting the brochure aside, Khourey sipped his coffee. “The buildings in this block all have cameras and motion detectors on the lights. The intruder avoided both.”
That’s because the intruder was me. “Then it sounds like you’re in need of the third layer, Front Range’s top of the line security.”
“And that would be?”
“Me.”
“A bodyguard?” Khourey chuckled. “Your services did not stop the death of the escort last night.”
Ah, a test. “Morgan Cashore left the party without my knowledge, which goes against The Smoking Gun’s rules and Front Range’s rules. Her murder was preventable.”
“Perhaps you did not realize she had left the party because you were shadowing another escort too closely.”
Not a test, a challenge. “My assignment is to be accessible to any of the escorts who feel threatened. That’s what I did.” He wasn’t going to discuss Sydney with this asshole. “Also, I’m trained to determine the women most at risk for violence and make sure they’re safe. Morgan was not one of those women.”
“Do you know any of the escorts well? The brunette you were shadowing so closely, perhaps?”
The eager tone of his voice suggested he was both jealous of Grey’s apparent interest in Sydney and was also hoping to pick Grey’s brain about her. “I never mix my personal and professional lives.”
The shuffle of footsteps sounded on the stairs. Nabil appeared in pajamas, hair sticking out on all sides. “Baba,” he mumbled, barely giving his father a nod before heading for the kitchen.
The older man narrowed his eyes at the retreating back of his son. “And for my son? Does he need a bodyguard too?”
Not a bad idea, actually. Monroe would be up for playing babysitter if it gave him access to the house. “Possibly.” Grey pointed down the short hall toward the front door. Time to get back to business. “Is this the door the intruder came through?”
