Strong, Sleek and Sinful

by Lorie O'Clare

  “What was rolled up in her hand?” Perry asked. “And which hand?”

  “Why does it matter which hand?”

  He didn’t take the question as sarcastic, even if that was how she meant it. “I don’t know if it matters or not. Was her other hand always here?” he asked, sticking his index finger into her curled fingers resting at her side.

  “Yes, and her right hand was above her head, her forearm resting over her face. I’m sure it was just the position she was in when she finally gave up on life.”

  “Or how she stopped moving after being tossed out of a car.”

  “Tossed out of a car?” Gracie asked, standing when the medics walked over to them with a gurney.

  “Why would she die up alongside a building like this?” Perry stood as well, facing Gracie and watching her chew her lower lip and study his face. It was as if he could see her brain churning, struggling to come up with a believable answer that might impress him.

  “Well, maybe she couldn’t walk very well from her injuries and started walking alongside the building, using it to hold her up.”

  “Good.” Perry nodded. Maybe Gracie wasn’t as self-centered and cold to the line of work she was in as she first appeared. “If your theory is right, though, with the amount of blood covering her body, if she walked along the building there would be blood on the bricks. Have you checked?”

  “No. Do you think I should?”

  “Yup. If your theory is right, it would tell us which direction she came from. If there aren’t any blood trails on the wall, then my theory might be right.” He decided Gracie had a pretty smile, although he missed the glow that Kylie would get in her eyes when challenged.

  “I’ll check,” Gracie said, as if she’d just decided she would do so. “If I’m right, though, you have to take me out for a drink,” she added, winking at him. She didn’t take his comments as instruction but almost as a game.

  “We’ll see,” he said, watching when she again walked to her case and pulled out what she needed to search for blood samples on the brick wall. “What was this picture you mentioned?”

  Gracie stood over Lanie’s body, facing the wall. She looked over her shoulder, grinning at him, her gaze traveling down his body shamelessly, and the sparkle he had missed in her eyes when he challenged her was there now as blatant interest brought out color in her cheeks.

  She licked her lips and arched her back slightly, reminding him of a hungry feline, or possibly a feline in heat. “I’ve already tagged it as evidence,” she said, and turned from the wall and walked up until she stood close enough that she needed to tilt her head to look at his face. “It was a picture of another girl. It looked like it was taken with a camera phone possibly and blown up and printed. But I think I’ve seen the girl in the picture before down at the station. You might know her.”

  Taking his arm, Gracie wrapped hers around his and escorted him to Goddard’s patrol car. Perry freed himself, frustrated with her unprofessional behavior, and the curious look Goddard gave him when he and Gracie rounded the car to the trunk.

  “Where is that picture?” Gracie asked Goddard. “The one the girl had in her hand?”

  “You didn’t see it already?” Goddard frowned at Perry but then sifted through the evidence bags and pulled out a piece of typing paper in a bag with a picture printed on it. Then grabbing his flashlight, he turned on the beam and handed the picture to Perry.

  If the thing were alive it would have bitten off his hand. Perry gawked at the picture, his stomach churning so furiously while bile moved to his throat. He stared, his hand shaking, at the picture of Dani, taken in the dark, with her staring slightly above the camera, as if possibly she didn’t know the shot had been taken. Over the picture, written in block letters with a red marker, it said: Guess who is next?

  “Fucking son of a bitch,” Perry roared, needing to hit something worse than he’d ever needed to before.

  “What’s wrong?” Gracie asked, once again touching his arm.

  He didn’t try to prevent her from touching him this time. If she wanted to mess with his boiling outrage, that was her own stupidity at work.

  “It’s a goddamn picture of my niece,” he roared, turning from both of them and staring at the dark parking lot. It took him a minute to register what he saw, but he did a double take on the car turning in the parking lot and heading toward the exit.

  It was Kylie’s hybrid.

  Chapter 25

  “Okay, I think we’re ready.” Paul walked around the conference desk and looked at the recorder in the middle of the oblong table. “Next time you want to record something, though, let me know. I can hook you up with much better equipment than this.”

  “It was a consensual recording. I wasn’t worried about trying to determine back-down noise, or anything like that.” Kylie rubbed her left temple, where a dull throbbing headache had been nagging her since she woke up this morning. It hadn’t surprised her that Peter was a no-show the night before. She hadn’t talked to him or seen him on-line since he’d suggested they meet Thursday night. The media had spooked him, putting her back to square one. At least she had Dani’s testimony to offer.

  “Let’s hear what it says,” John said, sitting across from her. “As long as it picked up what the two of you said to each other, we’re fine.”

  He scowled at the handheld recorder Kylie had owned for a couple years now. She used it any time she wanted to record an interview and never had problems with it. But with her headache, not enough sleep, and feeling grouchier no matter how much coffee she downed, she didn’t feel like arguing with them.

  Reaching for the recorder, she pushed “play,” turned up the volume, and reclined in her chair. Static popped for a moment but then stopped. Kylie relaxed her elbows against the armrests and held her cup with both hands, watching the steam twist and evaporate above her fresh cup.

  The recording began, Kylie’s voice sounding tinny but audible.

  “This is a recorded interview conducted by Kylie Dover,” she said through the small speaker, using her undercover name and the front that she was recording this in an effort to show the reaction of a teenager to a traumatic, terrifying, event.

  Dani stated her full name and age; then Kylie announced the date and time. After the usual formality of asking Dani if she would willingly participate in the interview and consent to it being recorded, the questions began.

  Kylie had listened to the tape several times already but knew her presence was advantageous while playing it back for John. Paul was present for two reasons. One, he was very good at deductive reasoning and two, because Kylie knew if she was left alone for too long with John, she’d kick his ass. The man just rubbed her wrong every time she was around him.

  And this morning wasn’t a good time to be around anyone. After showing up at the crime scene last night, keeping her distance, and observing, she immediately wished she’d stayed home and in bed. More than once she had stopped herself from marching across the parking lot and throwing that little runt of a cop as far away from Perry as she could.

  It had been impossible to fall asleep after that. She’d even gotten dressed and gone over to his house, hell-bent and determined to give him more than a piece of her mind. Driving across town to his house didn’t calm her down, but she did manage to stop herself from barging into his home when it was mere hours before dawn. It would be better to take him on after a good night’s sleep. Except she didn’t get one.

  It was bad enough that she tossed and turned once she finally crawled back into her bed, but she woke up with a headache. And it appeared to have no intention of going away.

  “After walking out of your house, you text-messaged Petrie, your online boyfriend whom you hadn’t met yet, and told him you’d fought with your mother and left home?”

  “You make it sound really bad,” Dani said, but then cleared her voice. She mumbled something inaudible. Kylie ignored John’s and Paul’s inquiring looks. Dani had mumbled under her breath, be
gging Kylie not to make her out to look like a fool. Kylie remembered Dani later admitting she felt like an ass for committing the most stupid stunt of her life, and hugging Kylie and thanking her for saving her life. That wasn’t information John, or Paul, needed to know, though. Dani continued, “But yes, I texted Petrie. He told me it wasn’t safe walking around alone at night and that he would pick me up. He offered to take me to get a pizza.”

  “Where did he tell you he would meet you?”

  “At the bowling alley.”

  “Do you know why he suggested the bowling alley?”

  There was silence for a moment. “Probably because he knows I hang out there with my friends a lot. He wanted a place where I would be comfortable.” Dani’s voice cracked and she coughed, trying to cover up emotions over a boy who had turned out to not be who she thought he was. “Or at least that is what I thought.”

  “Okay, so you go to the bowling alley. Did he tell you what car he would be in, or how to find him?”

  “He said he would meet me there. I figured he meant inside.”

  “What happened when you got to the bowling alley?”

  “I never made it inside. I was walking across the parking lot when this big black car showed up. He pulled up so quickly behind me I thought he would hit me, but then his driver’s-side door opened and he tried grabbing me.”

  There were shuffling sounds and murmurs that Kylie remembered being Dani crying. Kylie slouched in her chair, stroking her coffee cup with her finger, while the tape continued playing. Dani had endured so much, and Kylie worried for her life, especially now that she had successfully escaped the grip of a killer. After the murder last night, it possibly being the fifth life Peter had taken, his craving for blood, for death, would grow. It was stereotypical of a serial killer. Kylie’s thoughts went also to the other girl whose father had followed her and prevented her from meeting the boy online. Sally Wright’s father had reported there was no boy at the meeting site but a man. Would Peter go after Sally and Dani again?

  “Did he ever talk to you?”

  “He said, ‘Dani, get in the car.’ But it wasn’t Petrie. It was a man. He wore a baseball cap, but I would know him again in a second if I saw him. He had really blue eyes and dark hair and he was white.”

  “Arrange a lineup for her,” John suggested. “I’m skeptical that her memory is as strong as she suggests, but we can do a lineup of the police officers downtown.”

  “Do you really think that would work?” Kylie raised her gaze to him lazily. She needed to get out of here, although if she did, the first thing she would do was track down Perry, and that wouldn’t be pretty. “Dani knows most of the officers who work with her uncle.”

  “How do you know that?” John challenged. “Has she told you that? Or has Flynn informed you his niece is well acquainted with everyone he works with?”

  “No to both,” Kylie snapped, the throbbing in her temple intensifying. She slid her chair back, deciding maybe a search for aspirin would help. “Her uncle has been on the force for seven years. It goes without saying, since he is so involved in her life, that she would know at least a handful of police officers in this town. Not to mention she is a sixteen-year-old who was born and raised here. That alone would make many of the faces familiar to her.”

  “I have to agree with Kylie on that one,” Paul interjected. “I also think this kid needs some serious protection, possibly more than her uncle can provide, just being a cop.”

  Kylie leaned forward and paused the tape. “We know Peter drives a black Suburban, late model.”

  “With forged tags that can’t be traced,” John interrupted. “Honestly, Kylie, you don’t have shit to nail this guy.”

  She stared at him, her head pulsing all over. If it didn’t hurt so badly, she would give John a piece of her mind. Bringing up Perry, arguing that the two of them could nail this guy if just given a little more time, would start a full-fledged fight that any other time she would welcome. In spite of no sleep, she still felt like she had energy to burn.

  “I’m a hell of a lot closer than I was a week ago,” she said, biting her lip to prevent from saying more.

  She would save her energy, and her head from exploding, for a battle she actually wanted to fight. When she found Perry, there would be words. Maybe they hadn’t voiced out loud where their relationship stood, but he’d made it damn clear he wanted something between them. For him to say that and then flirt with another woman, and at a crime scene no less, was beyond unacceptable. Kylie couldn’t wait to kick his ass to kingdom come. Attack first and listen to explanations later. That is if she decided to hang around to hear any lame excuse he might have. She knew what she saw. She might look young, but she wasn’t born yesterday.

  John slapped the table, standing when Kylie did. “There’s only one solution.” He leaned forward and popped the tape out of the cassette player, then fingered it as he walked toward the door. “You’re going to set up another meeting with this Peter guy. But this time, you’re going to go with him. The only way we’re going to nail this guy is to catch him in the act. Even if all we bring him in for is assaulting you, we’ll get the confession out of him for the others.”

  John walked out the door and Kylie slumped back into her chair.

  “Nothing better than finding out you get to be assaulted first thing in the morning.” Paul tried to make light of it, but there was compassion in his eyes when he looked down at her.

  “I’ve endured worse.” She sipped her coffee, willing herself to get back up out of the chair. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. I had a second meeting with Peter. He no-showed and hasn’t been online. If I could have made him meet me last night instead of Elaine Swanson, I would have.” Maybe I’ll go home and crash for a few hours and then see if I can connect with him.”

  “Sounds as if last night was pretty nasty,” Paul said, grabbing the tape recorder and unplugging it from the wall. “That picture they tagged as evidence has got to have your cop friend pretty pissed off.”

  “Picture?” She frowned, realizing she hadn’t taken time to read the reports Paul would have prepared for her. “What picture?”

  Paul finished winding the cord around the recorder and stared at her. “You doing okay?”

  “Yup. Just tired. I haven’t read the report on last night yet. What is this picture you’re talking about?”

  Paul shook his head. “There was a picture in the victim’s hand when she was found. It was printed on typing paper. The picture was of one of Lieutenant Flynn’s nieces that had a message written across it in marker. It said: ‘Guess who is next?’ ”

  Kylie was out of her chair before she realized it. “I’ve got to go,” she said, waving her hand over her shoulder and bolting for the door. She had to find Perry.

  It was worse than she thought. Kylie wasn’t even sure which way she drove. Perry wouldn’t be home. She couldn’t go to the station, although she had half a mind to do so. She wanted to see that picture, and by all rights she could demand to see it. She had the proper credentials. No one would deny her access once she flashed her badge. But agreeing to work undercover meant just that. Kylie couldn’t just go and blow her cover because she was pissed, and because it would be convenient to do so at the moment. Paul would arrange for her to see it, or at least a copy.

  As she turned at the next light it dawned on her that she was headed to Perry’s sister’s house. It wasn’t even lunch-time. There wouldn’t be anyone there, unless they kept Dani home from school again today. If so, someone would be with her. Kylie couldn’t imagine Perry’s Chief allowing him to become her personal bodyguard. Although she could see him telling his Chief where to stick it if Perry felt protecting his niece was of paramount importance. And of course he would think that.

  “God. You need to quit being a chickenshit and just call him.” Kylie had vowed repeatedly over the years if she was anything, she wasn’t a procrastinator. If something needed to be done, she jumped in and dealt with i
t. “Well, something needs to be done about us, mister,” she grumbled, fishing through her purse next to her and pulling out her cell phone.

  The moment she held it in her hand, it buzzed, kicking her heart into overdrive. Taking a gulp of air, she glanced at the number.

  “Well, hell,” she said, recognizing the Dallas area code. It was her supervisor, and she would probably get her ass chewed for not checking in sooner. Although she could just imagine John had touched base with Susie Parker, and what he might have said.

  “Donovan here,” she said, switching lanes and signaling to turn into the nearest parking lot. Her brain was too sore to take this call while driving. And it was high time to check in and run everything she knew past Susie. In the past, oftentimes when the two of them brainstormed, Susie offered good input.

  “It’s about time I reached you. I was getting worried.” Susie’s soft-spoken voice misled many people. A good-looking lady, in her thirties, Susie had used her appearance, as well as her intelligence, to climb the ladder to where she was today, and she had no regrets for doing so. Kylie both admired and despised the woman for her efforts. She wouldn’t take advantage of a man’s weakness for a pretty lady to get what she wanted in life. Although more than once, other than arguing it was scruples, she wondered why she wouldn’t. “Where have you been?” There was concern in Susie’s voice.

  Kylie pulled into a stall outside a Mexican restaurant, where the lot was starting to fill up with the early lunch crowd. Leaving her car in drive, she cranked the AC and reclined in her seat.

  “You’ve been trying to reach me? I haven’t had any missed calls from you.”

  “I tried calling your cell a week or so ago and then tried the field office there in Mission Hills. They told me there you weren’t getting a good signal with your service there in that town. I was promised a new number for you, but no one got back to me.”