Lieutenant Taylor Jackson Collection, Volume 1

by J. T. Ellison

  A tingle had started then. Just at the base of her spine. The databases were programmed to spit out patterns, and that was what Charlotte was seeing before her. She’d designed this section of the database herself, and now here it was. Her anomaly. Despite all her best efforts, her hand would be forced now.

  Mind buzzing, she forced herself to close CODIS. She opened a buried file within her system, typed in a new pass code. A private personnel file Charlotte had misappropriated a few months back opened on the screen.

  There she was. Taylor Jackson. Charlotte stared at the picture, the JPEG file sharp and clear. Tawny-blond hair past her shoulders, gray eyes, a full mouth, a slightly crooked yet elegant nose—stunning, but Charlotte knew she could compete.

  She gave a mental review of her own attributes. Her hair had often been described as the color of a young pinot noir. Porcelain skin, amber eyes, striking cheekbones, and if she wasn’t mistaken, her bottom lip was just a touch fuller than Jackson’s. She had to admit, the girl was attractive. Good to know Baldwin continued to have excellent taste.

  The flashing green eyes of her former boss flooded her memory. She forced all thoughts of him away reluctantly. She could get bogged down for hours in the memories of their brief time together. And they would only lead back to this little bitch, the woman who’d stolen him right out of Charlotte’s hands.

  She lingered for a moment longer, touching a forefinger to the screen, tracing the outline of Jackson’s heart-shaped face. She touched the finger to her lips, then forced herself to close the window and brought up the previous screen.

  Jackson was forgotten. The new DNA profiles were enough to make her lick her lips in anticipation. She loved a challenge. What to do? What to do? The match in CODIS was highly unexpected, and unfortunately, couldn’t be held back. She’d have to share this information, others would see it soon enough.

  She opened the latest crime-scene photos submitted by the Nashville Police Department overnight. The fresh kill. The photo named the victim as Giselle St. Claire. What a delicate name, she thought. Poor girl. Giselle was naked, blue from the cold. She showed signs of exsanguination; the gaping wound in her neck gave that away easily. A second smile. The blood was pooled below her head, framing the scene in a macabre ruby border.

  Charlotte clicked on another file. Naked bodies tumbled across her computer screen.

  The media had christened the killer well. Every time she saw these photos, the first thing that popped into Charlotte’s mind was Snow White. Delicate beauty, alabaster skin, red lips, jet-black hair. All that was missing was a red cape and a grouping of dwarves.

  If she were rushing, at first glance all the photos could have been of the same dead girl. Only a detailed examination showed the subtle differences: height, weight, hair length. The similarities between the victims were downright eerie. She opened two more windows and speculated for a moment. The physical victimology was so similar from girl to girl—it took time and effort to pick out women who looked so alike. She’d had a case a few years back where the killer had bought identical wigs to place on his victims prior to their death. But in these cases, the hair was real, ebony as a raven’s wing, long and thick. Definitely not a wig.

  With a sigh, she went back to the CODIS cold hits, printed out the cover sheet from each murder, started a new file, marked it Snow White DNA/CODIS, then walked the long hallway to her boss’s office. She was the lead profiler on the murders; she needed to present her findings. This case was hers. Her future. Her success.

  Stuart Evanson had taken over the BSU when Baldwin left. He reported to Garrett Woods, the top dog in the Critical Incidence Response Group. Evanson had power and clout, but not as much as he’d like. Woods was the real star, mentor to the great profiler John Baldwin. Woods was reputed to be a smart, seasoned agent who might be running the whole Bureau if he wasn’t careful. Charlotte disliked him immensely; he’d passed her over in favor of Evanson after Baldwin split. Made it about the relationship she and Baldwin had engaged in, though Charlotte knew Baldwin had made it clear to Woods that she shouldn’t be running the show. She didn’t know which burned her worse, their breakup, or the fact that he’d shanghaied her career in the process.

  Evanson had replaced Baldwin only a few months before. She remembered that storied morning vividly. Baldwin had announced he was quitting the BSU, the FBI and all that he knew to play house in Nashville with a homicide detective he’d met on a case. Charlotte had been shocked to hear that. Of course, Baldwin hadn’t been in the game for a while before that had happened; he’d been on extended leave after a shooting incident with a suspect that got three agents killed.

  She’d been with him then. But he hadn’t turned to her for solace. He’d hightailed it out of town, gone home to Nashville and tried to drink himself to death. Then he’d met Taylor Jackson, pulled out of his funk, solved a huge case and returned to the BSU triumphant, the golden boy yet again. Charlotte had been forgotten in the mix.

  Baldwin’s plans to retire had been usurped. The Bureau wasn’t willing to let a talent like him leave for good. He was given a special dispensation—his own shop, free from the prying eyes of Quantico. But still a division of the FBI. Doing the work of the BSU without the constraints shoveled upon them by the government. He worked out of the Tennessee field office now.

  Stuart Evanson had been placed in charge, and instead of gracefully appointing Charlotte second in command, he’d moved her to Training, making her conduct the symposiums that the BSU often gave to law enforcement. Like he didn’t care that she had a Ph.D. from Georgetown and had worked tirelessly in the BSU for five years, moving up every review period. He wanted her to be the “spokeswoman” for their unit. Fuck that. She wanted to work cases, not train wannabe profilers from Sheboygan.

  Evanson was a power-hungry prick, and like most pricks she’d known, was desperate for a piece of Charlotte pie. Charlotte made it very clear what she’d be willing to do if he gave her the deputy posting, her rightful spot. Trying to engender good will from her, he’d “promoted” her within weeks, making her the number two in the BSU. Deputy chief. Head profiler, that’s what she was. She should have been the chief, but she would take this for now. Dangling the slightest whiff of opportunity in Evanson’s face from time to time was an easy price to pay.

  Hearing her boss’s voice raised in anger and frustration on the other side of the door didn’t bother her in the least. She had a knack, a touch, for defusing even the most egregiously charged situation. Glancing at her watch, she gave him thirty more seconds to scream, touched a hand to her deep auburn hair and knocked once, hard. She opened the door and stepped into the director’s personal space.

  “I don’t give a damn what the President says. This is the way it’s going to be.” He hung up the phone with a bang and took in Charlotte, standing calmly in his doorway. He’d fire any other agent for simply daring to knock on his door while he was talking to the White House. He was a blustery soul, prone to fits of pique. But Charlotte was a different story, and she knew it.

  Stepping into the room, she handed him the file folder, coded with a red sticker that read Priority—High.

  “We have an anomaly.”

  “Charlotte, could you say hello first? Maybe ask me how my day is going?”

  Stuart Evanson leaned back in his chair, crumpling the corners of his pinstriped suit. Why he never took the jacket off was a mystery to her. Perhaps he thought it made him look more professional being fully dressed at all times, but she suspected that he was hiding sweat stains, and was thankful that he chose to. Nothing disgusted her more.

  “Sir, from what I can tell, your day isn’t going very well.”

  “Impertinence will get you nowhere, my dear.”

  “Thank you, sir. I’m not trying to get anywhere right now. I’m just bringing a significant anomaly to your attention.”

  “Which is?”

  “If you’d look at the file, sir, I believe it will make itself quite apparent.”
r />   Evanson gave her an unfathomable look and flipped open the file. Charlotte watched as his bushy eyebrows grew crampons and hiked into his hairline. Told you, she thought.

  “Is this certain?” Evanson asked.

  “Yes. The Nashville police don’t have this information.”

  Evanson was obviously in a seriously bad mood. He dismissed Charlotte without pretense, already had his hand on the phone. “Get on it, then. Report back to me as soon as you have more. Fill in the field teams immediately.”

  “Yes, sir. Will Dr….?” She stopped, certain of the answer. It wouldn’t do to look too anxious. Word had already come down that John Baldwin was helping the Nashville police work the Snow White killings, his field office running behind the scenes. In a peripheral way, he’d always had this case. She’d be required to work with him directly, exactly as she wanted.

  “Never mind, sir. I’ll get back to you on this.” Evanson grunted, he had already tuned her out. Charlotte turned and left the inner sanctum. Damn it all to hell, what was she thinking? It was that kind of carelessness that would get her hurt. Again.

  Back at her desk, she brought up the Nashville file.

  As Charlotte started to work, she had a deep, satisfying knowledge that she was about to be a very happy woman. Call it instinct, premonition, whatever. She hadn’t planned for things to go this way, but maybe it was for the best. This was big enough for her to capture the undivided attention of Dr. John Baldwin, all right. Pull him away from that little lioness he’d attached himself to.

  If she played her cards right, he would come back to her. She debated with herself for a few moments. Decided she would have to get there sooner or later. She dialed the 615 area code, tapped out the rest of the numbers and chewed lightly on her pen. Her moment had arrived.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Nashville, Tennessee

  Tuesday, December 16

  8:00 p.m.

  Taylor nestled Martin Kimball’s boxes in back of the 4Runner and closed the door with a slam. She’d gone through the files briefly after she and Fitz returned to the office, but quickly realized that a physical search through the evidence still in storage was necessary. The paperwork and the murder books had been moved into their conference room, but the actual material evidence had to be kept in the warehouse—checking out the individual pieces was too much of a hassle. Fitz had volunteered to go, and she’d accepted his offer. He promised to call and she decided to head home.

  She turned the heat on and tried to ignore the strains of Christmas carols spilling out of her speakers. As soon as her hands warmed up, she turned off the radio, but “Silent Night” had wormed its way into her mind, and she repeated the words absently in a nonreligious mantra as she drove out of downtown.

  “Silent night. Holy night. All is calm, all is bright.” Yeah, she wished.

  The fact that they might be missing information gnawed at her. That information could be nothing or everything.

  Knowing Baldwin would be hungry, she stopped at City Limits, a great New York-style deli close to home, and bought chicken Caesar salads and warm, freshly baked baguettes.

  Once she got home, she opened a nice sangiovese, a simple inexpensive bottle they drank all the time, wondered briefly where Baldwin was, stashed the salads in the fridge and took the files and her wine to the living room. She opened the first box, set the lid on the floor and breathed in the scent she’d been nostalgic about earlier. Pipe smoke and dust. Why the aroma made her smile, she wasn’t quite sure.

  She riffed through each file. Nothing new there. It was filled with the typical cold-case material—the murder book, which was really multiple binders, ten of them, one for each murder; folders of photos; copies of the evidence sheets. She went through those with care, searching for a mention of the signet ring. She found it, on murder number ten, Ellie Walpole. It was just as Kimball had said. In his neat handwriting, a detailed description of a gold signet ring.

  She cross-referenced it with her file. The page was not there. It didn’t mean anything—something like that could go missing easily. One piece of paper among five thousand. It had happened before.

  After an exceptionally close reading of the autopsy reports, she found references to the bald patches on the back of the women’s heads. It hadn’t been deemed very important.

  Taylor knew it was probably Snow White’s souvenir. Many killers take a token with them—a license, panties, something symbolic to treasure, to remind them of their kills. To help them relive the actual crime.

  There hadn’t been anything reported missing from Snow White’s victims. But a lock of hair from each kill would make a grand prize indeed.

  Taylor stood, impatient, circling the couch with the wineglass in her hand, pacing, thinking. She glanced at her watch, wondering when Fitz would call. The evidence warehouse could be a time/space vortex if one wasn’t careful. Looking for something as small as a signet ring might be completely unfeasible. If the ring was actually gone, not simply misplaced, then they had a problem.

  She looked out the front window, took a lap around the downstairs, poured another glass of wine, then sat back on the couch. She continued going through the files, matching hers to the originals. There were a few other pieces missing, but for the most part, it was all there. The one thing that was in Kimball’s files that wasn’t in the main files was his notes. Sheet after sheet filled with his neat hand, speculation, ideas, drawings and doodles. Every ounce of paper that he’d generated over the course of eight years was included. Taylor read through them. She admired his thoroughness but found nothing else of note. All the rest was consistent with the files she had.

  The phone rang, and she jumped up to answer it.

  Fitz grumbled in her ear. “I’m covered in dust. There’s no ring.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely positive. There’s no ring in any of these boxes. Trust me, I went through one hundred and forty-three of them.”

  “That’s what I was worried about. The page that would show it isn’t in the official files, either. Damn it, Fitz, why?”

  “Little girl, it may be something as simple as one of the evidence jockeys took a shine to it, and figured after all these years, why let such a pretty thing go to waste. It’s happened before, you know that.”

  “Why do I get the feeling that isn’t the case? This ring has something that can lead us back to the killer, I can just feel it.”

  She heard the garage door go up. “Hey, Baldwin’s home. Let’s talk about this in the morning, okay? Fitz, thank you for doing that. I appreciate you spending your evening in dust.”

  “Yeah, you owe me a beer. Tell the fed I said hi.”

  “See you.” She hung up the phone, went to meet Baldwin in the kitchen. He was shrugging out of his shoulder holster, balancing a Starbucks cup and his briefcase in one hand and a bundle of roses in the other. He jumped when she entered the room.

  “Hey, turn your back. I’ve got something you aren’t supposed to see yet.”

  “I already saw them. You got me flowers? Aren’t you the sweetest man alive?”

  “Oh, trust me, I’m sweeter.” He handed her the roses, white and red, intertwined with brick-colored gerbera daisies. She took them with her left, used her right to help him unhook from the leather harness.

  “Special occasion?”

  “Do I need a special occasion to bring flowers to my almost wife?”

  “No, of course not.” She dropped the holster on the counter and buried her nose in the flowers. “Mmm, they smell great. I better get them in some water. Where’d you find gerberas this time of year?”

  “A man must protect his secrets.”

  She rolled her eyes at him, eliciting a laugh. It was all so comfortable, it didn’t feel right. She got the flowers into water, set them thoughtfully on the kitchen table. Baldwin watched her; she felt his eyes on the back of her neck. Jesus, what was wrong with her?

  “How was your day?”

  “Other th
an the fact that we’re missing a piece of evidence from the Snow White case? The old cases, I should say.”

  “What kind of evidence?” He opened the refrigerator. “Oh, good, you got dinner.”

  “Like I’d let you starve.”

  They bustled around the kitchen, getting their salads on plates, buttering bread, pouring wine, and Taylor told Baldwin about her afternoon. He listened with sympathy until she asked about his day. They sat on the floor in the living room, their plates on the coffee table, their backs propped with pillows, and talked while they ate.

  When they were settled and Taylor was a few bites into her salad, Baldwin answered her question.

  “Well, it was interesting, I’ll say that. Tomorrow might be a little crazy.”

  She just raised an eyebrow. As if anything could be crazier in this case, in their lives.

  “Charlotte Douglas is coming to town.”

  “And she would be…?”

  “FBI Special Agent Charlotte Douglas. She’s a profiler. Deputy chief of the unit.”

  “Well, that’s not unexpected. Are you going to be able to run interference?”

  “She’s coming to see you, actually. And bringing one of her forensics team. They have the DNA results.”

  Taylor let her fork rest in the romaine, shaking her head at that statement.

  “Why the hell haven’t they called and given us the information? Or faxed the report over, at the very least. What’s the big deal? It’s either Snow White or it’s someone else.”

  “Yeah. Well, that’s the problem with Charlotte. She’s a bit of a…how do I put this nicely? She’s a drama queen. She wants to swoop in and break the case. She wouldn’t give me the information, either. I told her how unprofessional she was being, but she told me to go to hell.”

  “Why am I getting the feeling that there’s more to this?”

  “Because you’re a very astute, brilliant, beautiful woman who’s made the incredibly intelligent choice to marry me on Saturday.”

  “Did you sleep with her?”