Cutting Edge f-3

by Allison Brennan

  “I don’t have any personal connection with the people she’s suspected of killing.”

  “Maybe they’re not connected to one another, but connected to the killer,” Duke mused.

  She looked at him. “I was thinking that earlier, but Jonah Payne is the odd man out. The only possible angle is to Leif Cole because of their public disagreements over biotechnology, but that’s really stretching it, don’t you think?”

  “Let’s put Anya Ballard and her friends aside for a minute. And Russ-” Duke swallowed uneasily.

  She said, “He had information that the killer needed.

  But why not leave Dr. Payne’s body in Lake Tahoe? Why transport it to his lab?”

  “I don’t know. The theatrics?”

  Nora considered. “But it draws attention to BLF.”

  “And they’re dead.”

  “Maybe the killer worried about them saying something.”

  “This Maggie O’Dell, we don’t know where she is. Maybe Dr. Vigo’s wrong about there being only four cell members,” Duke said. “Maybe Maggie and her partner are the two we need to be looking for. Maybe it’s Maggie and her sister.”

  “She says she doesn’t talk to her,” Nora pointed out.

  “Maybe a boyfriend? A mentor?”

  Nora considered. “Scott Edwards was her boyfriend, according to Professor Cole. He probably knew more about her than anyone. If Scott Edwards’s truck was really in Tahoe, then that confirms there had to be two people-one to drive the truck with Payne’s body and one to drive Dr. Payne’s Jeep back to Butcher-Payne.”

  “Why would they bring the Jeep back?”

  “I don’t know. Theatrics, as you said. I don’t see how they could possibly think that we wouldn’t have been able to figure out that his death wasn’t an accident.”

  “Our overcrowded prisons are a testament to the fact that criminals aren’t always smart.”

  “This one killed five people that we know of,” Nora pointed out. She didn’t know what to think. Her head spun as she processed all the information she’d received in a short period of time. She called upon her classes in criminal psychology. “Females rarely use knives to kill.”

  “But I haven’t heard of any other cases where the killer lets their victims bleed to death. Maybe you have. I remember a girlfriend of Sean’s in high school who used to cut herself. She had scars all up and down her arms. She never left the house wearing anything but long sleeves.”

  Maybe … maybe Duke was on to something. Nora was well-versed in the psychology of “cutting” behavior. “O’Dell left around Christmas and there were no more BLF attacks. What was she doing during the nine months before she allegedly came back?”

  “Good question. When we find out exactly who she is, maybe we’ll know.”

  “So O’Dell leaves, everything is back to normal. She returns … why?”

  “To finish her revenge.”

  “Why leave at all? Just because her roommate was having an affair with her professor?”

  “Maybe there was another reason we don’t know yet.”

  “She was angry with Anya. Very angry. But it would be easy to manipulate her old anarchist cell into arson, especially when there were animals in jeopardy. So she’s mad, throws a tantrum, leaves, returns, everyone is friends again as they plan to ‘rescue’ the ducks. But Maggie has murder in mind, and gets her boyfriend Scott to help her.”

  “And genetic testing is Professor Cole’s big voodoo doll,” Duke said. “It makes the entire situation high-profile.”

  “But it still doesn’t explain why she felt the need for the big show, other than for the platform.”

  “Maybe we won’t know until we find her. Or maybe it was to get you on the case.”

  Duke stared at her, worry wrinkling his forehead. She understood why he and Dr. Vigo thought that Maggie O’Dell had some personal issue with her, but Nora wasn’t quite ready to buy into that idea. It could be, but the woman was on the edge. She could have fixated on Nora simply because she’d put domestic terrorists in prison.

  “I want to follow up with Leif Cole, show him this letter, and see if he has any idea of who Maggie O’Dell is or where she lives. Maybe something came to him overnight.” She turned, but Duke didn’t follow. “I thought you were my personal bodyguard.” She didn’t mean for it to sound so snide. She tried to smile, but it wasn’t natural.

  He tensed. Maybe this was better, she thought. After last night … she didn’t know what to think. This situation was foreign to her. When she did have a relationship, it was always on her terms, at her pace, and someone not connected to law enforcement. Someone not connected to her. She didn’t like the intermingling of her personal and professional life.

  Maybe that’s why it had never worked out with anyone. Nora only had a professional life.

  “I know what you’re doing, Nora.”

  He stepped toward her. The way he looked at her, with such intensity, made her nervous and jittery. Butterflies fluttered and she remembered how amazing she felt making love to Duke. She didn’t want these feelings. She didn’t want to care about anyone this much.

  Her voice cracked as she said, “I’m not doing anything, Duke. I’m tired, I have a lot of work to do, and I don’t like being watched.”

  “Get used to it.”

  She bristled. He sounded so confident, as if he had a right to her. Maybe after last night she’d given him that impression. Maybe last night she’d wanted him to have that impression. But today, she didn’t know anymore. She was confused, upset about Dr. Vigo’s analysis, worried about her job, her team, and now a pending relationship. Something had to give.

  “Duke, about last night-”

  “Don’t. I’m not going to believe you.”

  “You don’t know what I’m going to say.”

  “I do. You’re trying to backpedal. You’re trying to ignore your feelings so that you can do your job and not think about yourself. I’m here, I’m staying, and you are going to have to address your feelings and think about yourself for a change.”

  That Duke understood her so well unnerved her, so she steeled herself and snapped, “I can’t believe how arrogant you are!”

  He smiled, as if he found her anger amusing. “It runs in the Rogan blood.”

  It was really hard to stay mad at Duke when he revealed that solitary dimple.

  “I need space,” she pleaded.

  “I don’t give space.”

  “But I need it.” She was panicking. She’d never been the sole and complete focus of anyone in her life, but the way Duke Rogan’s blue eyes pinned her, she seemed to be the only thing in his sight.

  “I’m sorry,” he said without sounding one bit sorry. He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. She wanted to turn away, this was inappropriate, especially here. But she couldn’t. He was a powerful magnet, and she was helplessly drawn to him.

  He kissed her lightly, then stepped back. “You do all the thinking you need to do, but in the end, I’m not walking away, no matter how hard you push. Not only are Rogans arrogant, but we’re stubborn.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Nora had never seen so much blood at a single-victim crime scene.

  Blood coated Leif Cole as if he’d bathed in it. The beige carpet under the chair where he was strapped down was soaked, as blood from multiple shallow wounds from his wrists to his shoulders had dribbled down his arms and onto the floor. The chair was slick with it, where he sat soaked, the brown denim material nearly black where the blood had seeped for more than eight hours, according to the coroner.

  Cole was naked. Evidence showed he might have been getting out of the shower when confronted by his attacker. What small areas of skin weren’t coated in blood were extremely pale. His wrists had been crudely but efficiently duct-taped to the chair. His feet were unrestrained. How anyone could have incapacitated him without a struggle, Nora didn’t know-unless he’d been drugged.

  “Any sign of him being drugged?” s
he asked.

  “He had whiskey last night-there’s an empty glass in the bathroom that smells of it,” Sanger said. “It’s bagged into evidence. He told me he wouldn’t drink.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Sanger turned his red-rimmed eyes from Cole to her. “I should have stayed.”

  “You couldn’t have known he was a target. Leif Cole doesn’t fit-” Then she realized she had no idea why or how the killer was selecting his-or her-victims.

  All the evidence pointed to the mysterious Maggie O’Dell. No driver’s license, no records, no photo.

  Nora and Duke had found Cole’s body after Nora couldn’t reach him on any phone-house, cell, or the college. She called Sheriff Sanger and confirmed that Cole had gone home the night before, leaving his car at Rose College. At first she wasn’t concerned-he could be sleeping late, a common sign of grief. But when he didn’t respond to knocking or the doorbell, she’d searched the property and discovered the garage door unlocked.

  Cole had given them Maggie’s name, but Nora didn’t see how Maggie could have found out. Did she fear he would lead them to her? Did Cole know more about Maggie O’Dell than he said last night?

  She looked back at Cole, and the wall that separated her cop mind from her emotions faded. She’d known Cole. She’d talked to him just last night. Seeing him like this … it was more than a tragedy. Nora wasn’t going to forget.

  Duke put a hand on the small of her back. Subtly and discreetly, but the simple gesture supported her and helped keep her focus on the crime scene.

  There was very little blood spatter on Cole’s body, the chair, or the wall, as far as she could tell. Each cut seemed to have been made slowly, carefully-at least four dozen incisions. There was some cast off from the knife on the carpet and the side table, suggesting the killer was right-handed.

  Keith Coffey was grim. “I think he bled to death. There’s little or no clotting. Someone check his medicine cabinet for warfarin or another anticoagulant. In fact, grab all medicines.”

  “These cuts look the same as Payne’s. Can you run tests on heparin?”

  Keith looked at Nora. “I was thinking the same thing, but Payne’s body was clean.”

  “Clean?”

  “There wasn’t blood like this.”

  “Would the fire have taken care of that?”

  “Not necessarily. And his back would have been stained. There would have been smearing and his unexposed skin-under his arms and back-would have had dried blood. Since he’d been dead for several hours, even brief exposure to water from the fire hose wouldn’t have cleaned him so effectively.”

  “On the surface, it looks too similar to discount a connection to Jonah Payne’s death,” said Nora. “We’re going to assume it is until proven otherwise. I just don’t know why.”

  “A college professor seems an unlikely target for this killer.”

  Nora said, “Not to Maggie O’Dell.”

  Duke raised his eyebrow and Sanger was about to speak, but Nora put her hand up. “Bear with me a minute. I might be making a stretch, but if we believe what Cole said yesterday, Anya was calling it quits with BLF. She was highly distraught when she heard about Dr. Payne, and at the time she thought it was an accident.

  Maggie didn’t want them to quit, but she couldn’t trust that they’d keep quiet.”

  “So she poisons them?”

  “Convenient. Take out all three witnesses. Maybe she thought Cole would expose her.”

  “He did,” Sanger pointed out. “Last night.”

  “He was the only other witness to her involvement in the arsons,” Nora said. “A good attorney could block his statements without the ability to cross-examine.”

  “What if she was angry?” Duke motioned toward the corner of the bedroom where Cole’s computer monitor was shattered, a deep gouge in the wall.

  “Angry at Cole?” Nora said.

  “For talking to us last night?” Sanger asked. “How would she know?”

  “Could she have followed him?”

  “I would have noticed someone following me,” Sanger said defensively.

  One of the deputies walked in with a clear bag of evidence. A wet gob of multicolored hairs. “This came from the shower drain and tested positive for blood. Bloody female clothes were found in the bathroom.”

  “She came prepared,” Nora said.

  “Why didn’t she take the clothes with her?” Sanger asked.

  “I think she’s deranged,” Coffey mumbled.

  He might be right. Nora couldn’t reconcile the methodical, vicious way Maggie O’Dell had killed her friends and a man Nora doubted she even knew, Jonah Payne. “She’s young,” Nora said. “Early twenties. Impulsive.”

  “She’s going to be caught.”

  “Either she doesn’t care or she doesn’t think we’ll find her. She’s an anarchist-we know that from BLF activities. She’s learned to be sly, sneaky, live off the grid. She was probably raised that way.” The similarity to Nora’s upbringing was unsettling.

  “Why these people? Why now?” Sanger asked.

  Nora had been wondering the same thing. “Maggie left for nearly a year, dropped out of college and disappeared, then came back. What was she doing during that time?”

  She glanced at Pete. He said, “I know what you want. I’m on it.”

  “You need her college transcripts. We have to know who she is. Maggie O’Dell isn’t popping up anywhere we’ve looked. If we had an address or financial aid information, anything to point us at least to her parents.”

  Pete was already on the phone with Rachel as he left the crime scene.

  Another deputy came in. “We have footprints coming to and from the house, leading across the field. We lost them in the grass meadow, but there’s a street only a quarter mile from here. I sent two men to check it out and canvass the neighbors.”

  There was something else they weren’t seeing. Nora glanced at the broken monitor, then at the chair. “She was enraged about something. Look-she stabbed the chair. Not Cole-she has some control-but the chair has three … five, six holes.”

  One of Steve Donovan’s ERT, Agent Chow, stepped in. “The killer got in through the garage door. The kitchen door was unlocked, but the garage door leading to the back has a flimsy lock. Someone jimmied it. A novice might take five minutes, an expert five seconds.”

  “She needed help with Payne because she moved the body, but not with Professor Cole,” Nora said. “If he was drugged he might have passed out. Or maybe he wasn’t drugged, and just drunk.”

  Coffey said, “I’ll rush the tox screens and alcohol test.”

  “You’re on the right path,” Duke said. “Only, there has to be something else in common between Payne and Cole. Another reason they were targeted.”

  “They did something to Maggie.”

  “What?” Sanger said, irritated. “You think they did something to her? Like what?”

  “Something personal. They probably didn’t even know what. She was slighted, and she made them pay in the only way she knew how.”

  “But she’s so young,” Duke said in disbelief.

  “They start younger and younger,” Nora said. “Duke, do you have the background check on the three kids?”

  “It should be done by now,” he said.

  “Let’s go back to headquarters and take a look. There is a common factor between all these victims. We just have to find it.”

  As they walked out, Duke whispered, “I could find out about Maggie O’Dell faster.”

  Nora was very tempted. “Let’s give Rachel one more hour to get the warrant. I don’t want this case thrown out because of a technicality.”

  Duke stood in front of the driver’s door of Nora’s car with a concerned expression. “You want to drive?” she asked.

  “You said something inside-that maybe Maggie O’Dell grew up off the grid.”

  “It explains why we’re having a hard time getting any information on her. No license, no-”


  He interrupted. “You grew up the same way.”

  Nora shifted uneasily on her feet. “Your point?”

  “What if she’s targeting you because she sees you as a traitor?”

  “Our analysts are going through all my cases, looking for a possible connection. Maybe a relative or friend-”

  “She doesn’t seem to need much of a reason to kill,” Duke said hotly. “It could be as simple as you being raised the ‘right’ way in her mind-fighting the ‘Establishment’-and then doing a complete one-eighty and becoming a cop.”

  “That was my mother’s fight, not mine,” Nora snapped. She didn’t want to talk about her upbringing here.

  “Maggie doesn’t know that. She could think that you’d infiltrated the anarchy movement because you had personal knowledge of them and could pass for one, then you had them all arrested. Maybe she’s targeting you because of your job, and she doesn’t even know you from Adam.”

  “I’m a hypocrite,” Nora said.

  “No!” Duke said emphatically. He reached for her, glanced at the cops all over the place, and barely grazed her arm before running his hand over his head. “I didn’t mean that, I don’t think-”

  “Not you, but Maggie. Hypocrite or traitor, they’re one and the same to people like her. But you’re right about one thing. She is deranged, and if she can set her sites on Dr. Payne, Professor Cole, her best friend, and an FBI agent because of perceived slights against her personally, or a political cause, she can justify killing anyone. We have to find her damn quick or anyone who gets on her bad side is at risk.”

  They didn’t have to wait an hour. Thirty minutes later, Duke and Nora were back at FBI headquarters, and Rachel followed five minutes later, breathless.

  “I got Maggie O’Dell’s file!”

  They brought the surprisingly thin college transcript file to the conference room. Nora opened it.

  There was no photograph; there were just admissions records, grades, and a disciplinary report. There was an emergency card.

  Margaret Love O’Dell. Nora had to look twice at her middle name, but it was clearly “Love.” Her birthplace was Paso Robles, a little town near San Luis Obispo on the central coast.