“It’s a tough break,” Aidan said.
“Stop reading my mind.” Sean’s voice held no heat. He and Aidan often depended on their uncanny ability to know what the other was thinking.
“Doesn’t take a psychic, buddy. You’ve given these two cold cases a lot more than your others. You thought we had a big break and now it’s gone—it shows, that’s all.”
“Yeah, I want to solve the cases. No one deserves to be gutted and left to die on the street, no matter what she does for a living. But am I losing my perspective here, imagining the connection?”
Aidan’s response was immediate. “No. My instincts say the links are there. We just need to find a way to prove it and catch this guy.”
“It would be hard to get a warrant citing ‘instinct’ for probable cause. We need something to break this open.” Sean tapped an irritated beat on the steering wheel. “A week ago if we thought we’d have an eyewitness to a connected murder, we’d have been doing fucking back flips. Now we’re just doing laps.”
“Let’s see what comes back from the forensics team before we decide whether we’re wasting time or not.” Aidan spoke carefully, sensing that Sean’s legendary self-control was wearing thin.
“We should have a sketch out to the public—maybe one of the kids hanging around the crime scene during the investigation might have seen something,” Sean said forcefully. “Or some old lady with insomnia who looked out her window at the right time. One corroborating witness, and we’re onto this bastard!”
Aidan knew that Claire was at the heart of his partner’s frustration. “She’s trying her best,” Aidan said.
“I know that. You think I blame her?”
“No. And I don’t blame her either.”
Sean sighed slowly. “Sorry. Guess I need some sleep.” He sighed again and tried to remember the last time he’d seen his bed. “Hell, I know you’re frustrated, too.”
“Yeah, though probably not about the same thing you are.”
“Huh?”
“I think we both know the real reason you’re so tense has big dark eyes and is lying in a hospital bed down the street,” Aidan said.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what you think it means. Even half-dazed in a hospital gown, that’s a good-looking woman. And it’s damn sure she’s smarter than that houseplant you brought to last year’s Christmas party.”
“Claire is a witness on a case,” Sean said. “Nothing more, and certainly nothing less.”
“Oh, come off it. If you’d touched her hands or arms one more time I was going to start getting hot and bothered.”
Sean was irritated. True, Aidan had an unnerving ability to understand what made most people tick, and he’d been practicing on his family for years. But Sean had worked very hard to suppress the attraction he felt for Claire. To have his nose rubbed in it pissed him off.
“She was scared and in pain, that’s all,” he said neutrally. “You know as well as I do that physical contact can be a powerful tool in the interview process, especially when the victim is feeling fragile.”
Aidan snorted. “Fragile, my ass. Claire could probably go one on one with my boot camp drill sergeant and win.”
“Look, I needed information and she needed some warmth and human contact. That’s all there was to it.”
That was all he would let it be. Claire was a witness on his case, and she was feeling vulnerable after having her life turned upside down. The last thing he needed was for her to pick up on the attraction he was feeling. He winced at the picture that formed in his mind—the lead investigator, sucked in by the false intimacy of an overnight vigil, hitting on a witness as she lay in her hospital bed. Christ, if he was reduced to trolling the ER for fresh prospects, it really had been too long since he’d been with a woman.
Sean ignored the voice in his head that said Claire would appeal to him even if he’d just come from a week-long stay in another woman’s bed.
Aidan looked at his quiet partner. “Okay, so what’s your plan?” he asked, settling back in the seat. Knowing Sean, he’d already figured a way to attack the case from a new angle.
“Assuming the captain lets us take a hot case,” Sean began.
“He will. He’s desperate for detectives after that double homicide in Adams Morgan.”
“Anyway,” Sean said, “if we get the case we’ll go full-court on Mendes’s life. If nothing comes of that, we’ll interview Claire again. Maybe by then she’ll remember something useful.”
Sean didn’t add that backing off Claire would also give him a welcome break from her presence, allowing him to be more objective about her.
“Hmmm,” was all Aidan said.
“What?”
“I’m not sure how well Claire and the words ‘back off’ go together. Sure, she’s quiet now, but she doesn’t strike me as the type to quietly wait around until you’re ready to play with her again. Hell, she’ll probably be calling you for daily updates once she’s feeling better.” Aidan chuckled.
“She won’t even get out of the hospital for a couple of days. She’ll have plenty to keep her occupied, and so will we after the forensics team is done. Meantime we’ll divide up and interview Mendes’s fellow workers and boyfriends, ex-husbands, handymen, butchers, bakers, the whole lot, and see if anything pops.”
Aidan asked without real hope, “You want Mendes’s private or professional life?”
“Professional. It’s your turn to soothe angry, grieving parents.”
Aidan sighed but didn’t argue. “In between all that we should get a list of men Claire might have seen coming or going from the Camelot office building last night.”
Sean shrugged. “If there’s time, or if everything else comes up empty, I’ll contact the dating service Claire visited and see if we can get more details about her appointment. Maybe she saw someone who reminded her of the killer. Hell, it’s remotely possible that she saw the real one.”
“Makes me wonder,” Aidan said.
“What?”
“If ‘serial murder’is listed as a profession or a hobby in a dating catalogue.”
“I’m betting on profession,” Sean said. “And we’re dealing with a guy who loves his job.”
Chapter 11
Washington, D.C.
Saturday evening
“A brutal murder has sent shock waves through a quiet D.C. neighborhood today. Good evening, I’m Mitzi Michele. On this hot July night, the grounds of Rock Creek Middle School should be empty, but instead they are teeming with D.C. police officers. Homicide investigators have set up a command post and cordoned off part of the schoolyard where a young Hispanic teacher was killed late Friday night.”
The man watched the Barbie doll reading from the teleprompter on the weekend edition of the 11 o’clock news. He’d been going over the online news all day, looking for details on the lead story in the nation’s capital. But the Web stories, while titillating, lacked the punch of melodramatic presentation and video footage. He turned the volume up as the anchor switched to the reporter in the field.
“Thanks, Mitzi. Second-year teacher Renata Mendes was stabbed to death late last night or early this morning, and police are still searching desperately for clues here at the scene.”
He snorted. The police were fucking idiots. He was too smart and planned too carefully—he never left any clues behind.
“Mendes, pictured here in her graduation ceremony from Glenview Teacher’s College, had apparently stayed late to plan a weekend retreat for a student government group she led. That retreat, sadly, has been canceled today.”
The man tuned out the reporter’s babble and studied the photo of the pretty young teacher with dark hair and eyes. She was perfect, really. The whole experience would have been perfect too, but for the stupid bitch who’d literally stumbled over them.
He bunched his hands into fists. Yes, he’d deliberately selected an area where there was a risk of discovery—that just added to the rus
h. But he was supposed to have controlled the situation and taken care of anyone who’d come along. How could he have known he’d be discovered by a woman who ran like an Olympic sprinter?
Anger boiled to the surface again as he remembered how the woman had slipped through his fingers. He’d never lost control of a moment like that before. He hadn’t been able to think about anything else in the last twenty-four hours.
“We spoke to some of the victim’s students, as well as her family, and as you can imagine they are absolutely devastated.”
Good—his favorite part. The lamentations and tearful remembrances of the victim’s family and friends. He waited for the familiar curl of arousal through his body, but it didn’t come. He concentrated harder on the television report.
“We spoke with the victim’s mother this afternoon in a Channel 6 exclusive. Here’s what she had to say about her daughter’s violent murder.”
The camera view switched to a matronly woman in an old housedress. Her double chin trembled, and black tears ran down her heavily made-up face.
“My poor Renata. She was a good girl, she straighten her life around. She grew up in Southeast D.C. Maybe she had some trouble with boys and drugs in high school, but she get herself out of the neighborhood and go to college on a scholarship. The first person in the whole family to graduate from high school, but she never forget about where she come from. We were so proud of her.” The woman stopped speaking and began to sob.
No, the teacher certainly hadn’t forgotten about where she’d come from. That’s how he’d found her in the first place. She’d been leaving the house of the woman now blubbering on the TV. He’d followed Mendes as she’d walked alone through an area where crack deals and five-minute “dates” were arranged on the corner of every street. Then he’d watched her home-to-school routine for days while he’d planned his next move.
In the end, she’d died just like any other whore from the streets where she grew up.
He waited again for the arousal that usually came when he remembered one of his knife games, but he felt nothing. All he could think about was the woman who had ruined everything. He opened his robe and began to masturbate, but his body refused to respond.
With an angry sound he threw the remote control onto the coffee table and paced around his apartment. The television droned on, more tear-jerking stories about how wonderful Renata Mendes was in life, how tragic her death.
Even the shocked faces of her sweet young students failed to arouse him. He turned to do another circuit of his large living room. It wasn’t fair. This was the only pleasure he had in his controlled life, and it had been ruined. What good was slicing these women if he couldn’t get off later thinking about it? If he couldn’t get off remembering and fantasizing about every aching, hoarded detail of the acts?
He stopped next to an elegant cherry wood chest along the wall of the dining room. His hands trembled faintly as he opened the lid to examine the items inside. He took a pair of disposable gloves from the hospital supply box nestled in the chest, then pulled the top item out.
Turning it over in his hands, he studied the smooth grain of the black leather clutch purse. It was top quality, really fine stuff—unlike the teacher’s cheap straw bag. This was the kind of purse a lady would carry. Of course, a lady wouldn’t have blasted him in the face with pepper spray like he was a common thief.
She’d pay for that, just like she’d pay for ruining his game.
He caressed the smooth leather with a gloved hand. He reached inside, plucked out a matching black wallet, and set the purse aside. Opening the wallet, he studied the driver’s license. His lips moved as he read what had already been committed to memory.
“Marie Claire Lambert. Five feet five inches and one hundred and twenty-five pounds. Black hair, brown eyes. No corrective lenses, organ donor.”
He closed his eyes and tried to picture her as she’d been that night. But his blood lust had been running high when she’d come across him. He hadn’t noticed any particular details about her appearance.
“You’re right, Mitzi, the police really have very little to go on.”
The man looked toward the television set again. Obviously the reporter was wrapping up his remote shot and was mouthing the rehearsed banter with the anchor back at the station.
“I did ask Captain Michaels about witnesses or investigative leads, but he told me he was not free to comment. Inside sources hint at an eyewitness or forensic evidence, but officially the police have no comment about this murder, the latest in a series of murders within the Hispanic community. Back to you in the studio.”
So, there seemed to be an eyewitness? Then why weren’t there any sketches or descriptions being released to the media? Maybe the bitch had been hurt in her fall down the stairs. Or maybe she just wasn’t talking to the police.
Either way, he’d have to take care of her. Not too soon, because everything had to be perfect this time. He needed to plan carefully, a process that was often arousing in itself.
He felt the first hint of sexual tension in his body and eagerly looked down again at the driver’s license. As he studied the Georgetown address, he knew he would make things right.
But this time he would do it with style.
Chapter 12
Washington, D.C.
Sunday morning
Olivia searched up and down Claire’s street, looking for a place to park her car while she packed a few things from her friend’s house.
“Jackass.”
Olivia had to circle the block twice to find a parking spot because some jerk had illegally blocked the tiny driveway reserved for Claire’s Georgetown home. She finally double-parked—blocking in the jerk’s Lexus—because she would only be a few minutes.
She turned on the emergency flashers and locked the doors of her small sedan. As she straightened, she felt like she was being watched. She looked around casually, certain she would find one of the Police Department’s parking enforcement units preparing to swoop in for the kill. Though it was only the beginning of the month, the police had revenue targets to be reached. She knew this from painful experience. Parking tickets in Georgetown were always a sure way to hit the monthly income targets.
She didn’t see any squad cars, or even one of the golf cart vehicles sometimes deployed in the narrow streets. Deciding it would be safe if she hurried, she ran up the steps and unlocked the front door. After making a quick circuit of the first floor of the house, an instinctive act for a female who lived alone in the city, she watered the lush houseplants scattered in the different rooms.
There were no fish, birds, cats, or dog to take care of. Claire often insisted she didn’t have the time for the antics of either pets or roommates. She made enough in her job that she wasn’t forced to share her living space to make ends meet.
While Olivia moved from room to room, she paid close attention to the locks on the windows and doors. Claire’s elegant furniture and impressive electronics collection seemed intact.
Satisfied that at least one of her friend’s fears could be put to rest, Olivia went upstairs to pack clothes and toiletries. Blessing Claire’s innate neatness, as well as the detailed instructions she had given, Olivia packed everything in under ten minutes. Making a mental note to stop mail service and have Claire ask a neighbor to pick up the flyers that accumulated on the doorknob, Olivia locked the front door and turned to go down the steps to her car.
Pausing to shift the suitcase to her other hand, Olivia again had the feeling that she was being watched. The sensation was unpleasant, and she went down the stairs in a rush.
Given her new awareness of the dangers in the city, Olivia had worked herself into a major case of the willies by the time she got to her car. Glancing uneasily around the tree-shaded street, she opened the trunk and deposited the suitcase in record time. She didn’t breathe easily until she was behind the wheel with the doors locked and the engine running.
Olivia stopped long enough to twist her hair i
nto a careless knot, allowing air from the vents to move across her damp neck and shoulders. She chided herself for her jumpiness—she was just overreacting to Claire’s recent attack. There was no one on the street, no other sounds but the occasional car driving by.
“Get a grip.” She spoke aloud in the air-conditioned safety of the car. It didn’t make her feel better.
Determined to push the uneasiness away, Olivia made plans to stop by the seafood market tomorrow morning before picking Claire up from the hospital. Some shrimp etouffée would do them both a world of good.
Chapter 13
Washington, D. C.
Sunday morning
The man sat behind the wheel of his two-door BMW, ignoring the trickles of sweat that slid down his face and neck. He’d been sitting in the car for over an hour with the tinted windows only partially opened. He would come back later, at night, and walk around the area again. He needed to get a feel for the place—neighbors, kids, dogs, lighting, and the flimsy fence around Marie Claire’s house. But for now it was enough to sit and watch and think of his sweet prey almost within his reach.
Marie Claire.
The intimacy of knowing his victim’s name during the planning stages of the game was a sexual thrill. He kept saying her name in his mind and whispering it in the car.
He’d been parked in several spots along Marie Claire’s street all morning, waiting to catch a glimpse of her in one of the windows, or maybe even outside. There had been no movement at all. Judging by the junk papers and ad mailers that had piled up on the front stoop, she probably hadn’t been home in several days.
The news hadn’t mentioned her at all. Maybe she had a boyfriend. Or maybe she’d been injured badly enough to be in the hospital, but he didn’t think so. It would have been all over the TV. Reporters loved a victim with a pretty face.
When the Storm Breaks Page 6
