Latent Danger

by Lori Ryan

  “I’m Geoff Edwards,” the man offered as he sat across from Zach and Ronan on the couch. He looked toward the doorway Mr. and Mrs. Edwards had gone through and shook his head. “They’re going to blame themselves for this. They don’t usually stay out late, but they went to an anniversary party for some old friends of ours last night. Didn’t come home until after midnight.”

  “They called in the report on Adrienne last night?” Zach knew the answer to the question. He simply wanted to direct the witness to the start of Adrienne’s disappearance and get him talking.

  A nod came with the response. “That’s right. Adrienne’s mom has been blaming herself all night because she didn’t check on Adrienne before they left for the party. The girl’s door was shut and they’ve been trying to give her more privacy lately. When they came home last night, Adrienne wasn’t in her bed.”

  “We’ll need to talk to them later, but can you tell us when was the last time anyone saw Adrienne?” Ronan asked.

  “As far as I know, it was at school. We’ve contacted all of her friends, we’ve been to the school to check the grounds.” His voice trailed off and he seemed lost for a minute, before looking back to them. “How did she die?”

  “The preliminary cause of death is strangulation.” Straight forward, Zach reminded himself. “We don’t have an exact time of death, but it’s possible discovering she was missing earlier wouldn’t have changed things.” He hoped so. Maybe it would bring some small measure of peace to the Edwards.

  “Do you know who did this? Is it connected to Carrie’s disappearance?”

  Zach and Ronan both sat forward. “Did Adrienne and Carrie know each other?”

  “Yes.” Geoff Edwards rubbed his forehead. “They were good friends. They went to school together.”

  “To Elmhurst Academy?” Zach asked.

  Geoff nodded.

  “Do you have kids there, too?” Ronan asked.

  Adrienne’s uncle frowned and shook his head. “No. My wife and I never had any kids.” There was something in his eyes when he said it, but Adrienne’s mother and father chose that moment to walk in. Camden and Isabelle Edwards looked drained of life.

  It took moments to fill them in on what they’d already covered with the uncle. Isabelle held herself together this time, only barely.

  “Did you find Carrie?” Isabelle almost asked the question as if she couldn’t bear to hear the answer. “Is she—?”

  Zach shook his head. “We haven’t located her. We’re not sure yet if the two cases are related.”

  “Everyone’s been saying Carrie ran away since there wasn’t any ransom demand,” Camden Edwards said.

  “It’s possible.” Zach wished they had answers for the family.

  They went through the usual questions after that. Anyone who might want to hurt the family or Adrienne? Anything suspicious in recent weeks or days? Any information they had on their daughter’s whereabouts beginning at breakfast and going through the day yesterday?

  “She was supposed to come home after school. We’d been fighting lately,” Mrs. Edwards said, and her voice held the heaviness of a parent who would do anything to undo the last fight they’d had with a child. “I told her she had to come home and work on her homework instead of hanging out with her friends. Her grades had been slipping.”

  “What would ‘hanging out’ have been for her?” Ronan asked.

  “Oh, they might go to one of the other girls’ houses or to get ice cream. They weren’t troublemakers. They hung out at the library a lot.” Mrs. Edwards offered.

  Zach knew “hanging out at the library” could mean ditching your books there and leaving, only to come back just before your parents were due to pick you up. “Did she have her own car?”

  “Yes, but she only drove it on the weekends. We didn’t want her having too much freedom during the week. We drove her to school and our housekeeper would pick her up on days she didn’t go to a friend’s house or out with friends.”

  “Did the housekeeper pick her up yesterday?” Zach asked.

  “No. We called her last night when we realized Adrienne wasn’t here.” This was delivered with a sob and Adrienne’s father took over.

  “She said Adrienne had texted her that she would get a ride home with a friend later. Eva left at four o’clock, so she assumed Adrienne would be home shortly after that.” Edwards rubbed his wife’s back as he spoke.

  When Zach confirmed that Eva was the housekeeper, he continued. “And no one saw her in the afternoon?” Zach asked.

  The look on the man’s face was pained as he shook his head. “We came home to get ready quickly that afternoon. Her door was shut, and we just...” Shoulders slumped and his head hung, as though he couldn’t help but blame himself for his daughter’s death.

  Zach suspected that would always be the case, even if Adrienne did turn out to have been dead long before the parents came home that afternoon. He would guess they would spend the rest of their lives in the company of too many what-ifs and if-only-scenarios.

  Edwards spread his hands, palms up, helpless to change what had happened. “She always listened to her music with her headphones on in her room. You hear about kids blasting their music, but that isn’t the way they are nowadays. In truth, they put those earbuds in and shut themselves into their own world.”

  Zach and Ronan stood. They’d need to talk to a lot more people to try to piece together where Adrienne had gone when she was killed. Right now, they needed to get to the school and retrace this girl’s steps. Because right now, it was looking for all the world like Adrienne Edwards might have walked right into the hands of her killer.

  Chapter Three

  The ride to the state criminal justice building in Rocky Hill wasn’t a long one, but it was long enough to give Zach plenty of time to think. His mind should have been on the case. Specifically, on the fact their case had just taken a shocking turn when Dr. Kane matched the lipstick and rope on their victim to that used in several thirty-year-old murders.

  Not similar to that used. She’d matched the items to the actual items in the old case. They were no longer in a “there are similarities” mode. They had a match.

  But that wasn’t what monopolized Zach’s thoughts. No, Zach was caught up in the memory of a cold case investigator he hadn’t seen in years. Shauna O’Rourke.

  It had been three or four years since he and Shauna had run into each other, and six years since they’d been together. Since before he’d joined the academy, in fact.

  It had been right when he’d left the military and before he’d signed up for the police academy. He’d been freaked out about leaving the military, not at all sure what he was going to do with the rest of his life, and more than a little unsure about his role in Naomi’s and Luke’s lives. He’d been a total dick back then. He was at least man enough to admit that, now. Not that he’d realized it then.

  Of course, Shauna had seen it. The sex had been incredible. They burned hot and fast and hard. But when she scratched the surface and realized there wasn’t anything underneath the physical, she’d walked. Her words when she left him echoed in his mind. “Just because you make sure a woman always comes, doesn’t mean you aren’t using her.” He winced at the memory.

  The truth was, he’d been thinking about her lately. It wasn’t only the drive out to her stomping grounds that had her red curls and full lips bouncing around his head.

  “Still can’t fucking believe this.” Ronan pulled the car into the lot at the Rocky Hill facility. “You think they’ll take the lead?”

  “They might.” Zach didn’t much care if the state cold case division took over the lead on the case. He opened his door and got out, finding Ronan leaning on the car, staring at him like he’d lost his mind.

  “Fuck that,” Ronan bit out.

  Zach shrugged. “No biggie. Let them take it. We’ll work the local leads and use their resources. Their lab has a lot of shit we don’t.” Zach liked the glory of getting to claim you solved
a case as much as the next guy, but with a case like this, he wanted to stop this killer and bring Carrie home safely a lot more than he wanted bragging rights.

  Ronan muttered about the state taking credit as they walked to the door. Zach got it. They’d taken hit after hit in the press a couple of months back when they’d had a vigilante sniper and several unsolved cases plaguing the city. They were all feeling a little on edge since then.

  In the end, they’d caught the sniper and solved the other crimes and gotten the press off their backs. Until now. He’d seen that asshole journalist Ray Lansing at the scene and outside the station that morning. Lansing had gone from writing for a pissant online blog to writing for one of the city’s biggest papers, and most of the department felt it had been at their expense.

  Of course, he was also dating Cal Rylan’s sister now, so he thought he had an in with all of them.

  So, yeah, Zach understood where Ronan was coming from. He just didn’t feel threatened by working with the state cold case investigators. Of course, the fact Zach was hoping he might run into Shauna might explain the difference in their attitudes.

  They were greeted by an older woman who identified herself as Supervisory Assistant State’s Attorney, Vivian Cullis, head of the state’s Cold Case Unit. She led them into a large bullpen area and jumped right into getting them up to speed.

  “This is our main bullpen where our investigators sit. Every investigator is up-to-speed on every cold case we handle, but I do have a liaison appointed to work directly with you. We’ll have our team here doing leg work and tracking down anything you guys can send our way on the case. If there are any witnesses or people tied to the old cases still around, we’re going to get with them and redo each and every interview, no matter how many times we’ve interviewed them in the past.”

  She continued, ignoring the group of detectives standing around one desk in the far corner of the room. It didn’t take any effort for Zach to see Shauna wasn’t among them. He’d have spotted her right away if she was. It had always been that way with her.

  When he walked into a bar six years back, intent on getting drunk, he’d found her instead. She was sexy as sin and tough enough to take him on. She hadn’t backed down one bit when he walked her way and stepped a little too close to her with a smile that said exactly what he’d wanted to do to her. Looking back, he couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t shut him down right away. Shauna didn’t take that kind of shit from anyone. Whatever her reasons had been, he was glad she hadn’t.

  Cullis waved a hand. “There’s a third room for interrogations, and our prosecutors are all down the hall. I’ll introduce you to John Grigsby. He’s the prosecutor that will handle the case when we close it.”

  Zach caught Ronan’s look, but ignored his partner. Cullis turned to the detectives and walked that way. “Detectives Reynolds and Cafferty, meet the team.”

  Zach didn’t catch any of the names she scrolled through. He shook hands blindly and knew he’d have to learn the names later. His eyes were on Shauna O’Rourke as she entered the room and came toward the group, lean hips rolling with the kind of confidence only a woman who looked like her could possess. Strawberry blonde hair that could turn fiery in the right light and blue eyes that blazed equally strong, especially when she was angry.

  She didn’t spare him a glance.

  “Detectives,” Cullis said, with a nod to Shauna. “This is Detective Shauna O’Rourke. She’ll be your main point of contact.”

  Jackpot. So, the thought was more appropriate for a teenager than a seasoned detective, but whatever. He was embracing the pig in him for a little while today.

  Shauna’s handshake with each of them was perfunctory as Ronan introduced himself. Zach couldn’t help it. He opened with, “Good to see you again, Detective.”

  She ignored his comment and he ignored the raised brow from Ronan. His partner didn’t know his history with Shauna, but he hadn’t been about to pretend he didn’t know her.

  She was apparently fine with doing just that. “Is your medical examiner absolutely positive it’s the same lipstick and rope?”

  He was reminded of the passion she had for her cases, for justice. He was also reminded he wasn’t the asshole he used to be. Time to shut down the meathead side of him and get back to work on the case. They had a teenaged girl to bring home.

  Zach nodded, back in the game, and stepped up beside Shauna as she began pulling files from a box and setting them out on a table. “As far as the rope goes, yes. Not only the same type, but she believes the rope was cut from the exact same length of rope that was used on the last victim thirty years before.”

  Shauna froze for a split second at that news and he understood. He’d felt the same way when he heard. It was a hell of a thing to have the exact same rope show up at crime scenes with a thirty-year gap between them. A hell of a thing.

  He continued his report. “Dr. Kane noticed that the polymers used in the fibers of the rope aren’t currently used in today’s market, so she compared them to the case file. She has copies of the old case file with the images of the length of rope found on the last victim.”

  “Michelle Hanley?” Shauna asked. Michelle Hanley was the last and final known victim of the Marsh Killer.

  “Yes,” Zach answered before continuing, all business now. “The cuts to the rope were jagged and uneven. She said it looked like someone had taken a dull knife and sawed back and forth on the rope rather than making a clean cut. The rope from the Edwards crime scene shared the same features.”

  “And the lipstick?” Shauna asked.

  “Pigment and type is an exact match, whatever that means. And it’s got some ingredients that were banned from use in cosmetics fifteen years ago.”

  “Do you have pictures of the crime scene?” Shauna asked. She was practically bouncing on her toes and he understood. He knew she wasn’t happy to have another dead body, but having a lead on a thirty-year-old case had to get the blood pumping.

  Zach held out a folder. Shauna took it and tossed it to one of the other investigators—a young man with hair and eyes so dark they were almost black. Another man, older and balding, pushed a dry-erase board in front of the group and Shauna lifted files from the table. As Zach and Ronan watched, the detectives silently and efficiently filled the board with names, dates, and photos.

  Zach leaned closer when it was over and heard Ronan whistle beside him. “Holy—” Zach swallowed the curse. In his precinct cursing wasn’t allowed and fines from his Captain over the years had drilled the rule into him.

  The crime scenes were different from their scene, but there was an eerie similarity there, as well. It almost looked as though their killer had transformed from a killer showing evidence of remorse and care for his victims to one of anger. One who wanted to shame the victims now. Could it really be the same person? Had something happened to their killer over the years to transform his MO?

  Shauna didn’t mess around. She took a marker from the ledge on the murder board and began a column on the left side of the board. “All right, guys, let’s look for differences.”

  One of the other state investigators looked at the photos of the victims’ necks. “This is different.” He pointed to a spot where the ligature marks from the ropes stopped on Adrienne’s neck. In its place was a unique twisting bruise.

  “The ME thinks something was slipped into the rope to give our killer leverage in twisting it. Something like a stick or bar,” Ronan offered.

  “That wasn’t on any of our victims.” Shauna wrote stick/bar leverage on the board.

  “There was no evidence of sexual assault with our vics thirty years ago,” one of the cold case guys offered.

  “Our ME took swabs of Adrienne’s mouth and vaginal cavity. She saw evidence of recent sexual activity but no evidence it was forced.” Ronan offered this quietly and the rest of the group was silent as Shauna wrote sexual activity.

  “Lack of posing with this recent victim.” Zach pointed to the vi
ctims from the cold case files. Each was posed lying on her back, hands clasped over her heart. “And the lipstick is clownlike on ours, as if the killer wanted to make the victim appear ugly or foolish in death. There’s a lack of care, lack of remorse. In fact, I’d say there’s almost glee evident in the death whereas, before, there was guilt or even regret.”

  Shauna nodded and wrote no posing and clown mouth in two separate entries on the board. If it wasn’t so serious, the way she worded it would have made him laugh. It was exactly what he’d have written. She then added remorse as another entry.

  Shauna looked at the list and tilted her head. “Weaker.”

  “What?” Ronan asked.

  “Yeah,” Zach said, “she’s right. The need for something to provide leverage for the strangling makes me thing this perp’s weaker somehow now. If they were in their thirties or forties, or even older, thirty years ago, they could be facing weakening from either old age or a disease that’s causing muscle loss.”

  Ronan and some of the others nodded.

  “But why the change in the lipstick and posing?” the balding guy put in.

  The dark-haired detective nodded. “Hutch is right.” Ah, the balding guy is Hutch, no wait, the captain had said Hutchison, so Hutch must be a nickname. Zach made a mental note. He should have paid attention during the intros. The dark-haired guy kept talking. “Something’s distinctly different and age doesn’t really account for that. The look of the girl is wrong, too. Our guy liked blondes.”

  “The lipstick,” Shauna said almost under her breath, as though going through each difference. “Maybe he’s got a tremor in his hands. It’s possible he can’t apply the lipstick the same way.” Shauna kept her eyes on the board. Zach couldn’t help but wonder if Shauna was the least bit thrown by his presence.