Crawling out of his car, Jax made sure it was locked tight and then touched the gun that was holstered beneath his coat. He didn’t intend to use it, but he wanted to be prepared.
After the medical examiner’s office had called with an ID on the murdered woman, Jax had done his research. He’d discovered that Rachel Burke lived with her father and brothers in the cramped apartment. There hadn’t been much more on her. She’d never been arrested, she didn’t have a driver’s license, and her work record was spotty at best.
Her father, Allen Burke, on the other hand, had been arrested on half a dozen occasions. Mostly public intoxication or fighting at the local bar. There’d also been one petty theft charge that had landed him in the Cook County jail for a week. The brothers were following in their father’s footsteps, although they were young enough that their crimes were in the hands of the juvenile system.
Jax climbed the stairs to the front door of the apartment building, not surprised to discover it was unlocked. He couldn’t imagine the owner particularly cared about the safety of his tenants. He crossed the dark lobby and climbed the stairs to the third floor. He wasn’t going to take the elevator. His luck hadn’t been that great lately.
He pulled out his phone to double-check the apartment number before halting in front of the door at the end of a dark, narrow hallway. Then, unzipping his coat so he had ready access to his gun, he pounded on the door.
Nothing. He pounded again. And again. Five minutes later, the door cracked open to reveal Allen Burke. Jax pressed his lips together, hiding his wry smile.
The tall, thin man looked just like his mug shot. At one time he might have been handsome, but now his dark hair was sticking up like it hadn’t seen a comb in years. His face was jaundiced, with dark circles beneath his bloodshot eyes. And there were spidery veins on his prominent nose from years of hard drinking. Jax’s gaze lowered to take in the clothes that were wrinkled and stained. They hung off his gaunt body as if he’d found them in a dumpster.
“Shit,” Allen rasped, peering at Jax as if he was having trouble focusing his eyes. “What time is it?”
“Almost eight,” Jax said.
Allen muttered a curse. “What sort of jackoff goes around banging on doors at eight in the morning?”
Jax pulled aside his coat to reveal the official ID card he had clipped to his belt.
“The sort that carries a badge,” he told the man. “I’m Detective Marcel.”
Allen’s face pinched into a sour expression. “If you’re here to tell me my daughter’s dead, I already know. I had to spend an hour at the morgue last night.”
Jax frowned. The man sounded put out, like the death of his daughter had been a huge inconvenience. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he forced himself to say.
“Yeah. Don’t know what the hell we’re going to do without her.” Allen glanced over his shoulder. “The place is a mess.”
Jax grimaced, even as he tried to remind himself that everyone grieved in their own way. He’d seen parents who were stunned, some who were angry, some disbelieving, and others pretended it was all some huge mistake. “Can we go inside?” he asked instead.
Allen scowled with a sudden suspicion. “Why?”
“I have a few questions.”
“About what?”
Jax narrowed his gaze as he heard a door open down the hall. He didn’t like having his back exposed. Especially not in this neighborhood.
“Inside,” he commanded.
“Christ, I hate cops,” Allen muttered as he stepped back.
Jax quickly stepped through the opening and closed the door behind him. Then, he made a quick survey of his surroundings to ensure there was no one lurking in a dark corner.
They were standing in a small living room that had a sofa nearly hidden beneath blankets and dirty clothes. It looked like that was where Allen had been sleeping before Jax woke him up. There were also a couple of recliners that were equally covered by dirty clothes. Empty pizza boxes were tossed around the room.
Jax shuddered. Not so much at the obvious filth that coated the apartment. It was more the stench that clung to the air that was making his skin crawl. As if there was something toxic hidden beneath the layers of dirt.
On the plus side, it appeared they were alone, although he assumed the two Burke brothers were asleep somewhere in the apartment.
Reaching the middle of the room, Allen turned to glare at Jax. “What do you want?”
Jax reached into the inner pocket of his coat and pulled out an old-fashioned notebook and pencil. He hadn’t mastered the ability to jot down his thoughts on an electronic pad.
“When was the last time you saw your daughter?” he asked.
Allen shrugged. “A few weeks ago.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Not really.” Allen rubbed his jaw, which was dark from his unshaved whiskers. “The days all run together.”
Jax studied the man. His words weren’t slurred, but Jax could catch the scent of alcohol on his breath. Just how much drinking had he done last night?
“But she lived here?” he pressed.
Allen shrugged. “Yeah. She lived here.”
“Tell me about her.”
Allen looked confused. “Whadda ya want to know?”
“Her job, her hobbies, her friends.” Jax shrugged. “Any boyfriends.”
The man glanced around the apartment, as if searching for inspiration. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“Nothing?”
“Rachel went and dropped out of school her sophomore year and then started taking odd jobs she hated. None of them lasted more than a couple of weeks.” He shook his head in disgust. “That’s why she was still living here. I let her stay as long as she helped take care of the boys.”
Jax grimaced. He sensed that Rachel was the only one who was expected to earn her keep in the apartment. Beneath the piles of clothes and pizza boxes, the carpet was worn, but it had a few rugs spread over the worst spots, and there were curtains and pretty, framed pictures on the wall. That wasn’t the work of Allen or his boys.
“Generous,” he said in dry tones.
Allen stuck out his lower lip, like a petulant child. “She had a place to live and food on the table.”
Jax shook his head. He wasn’t going to argue with the idiot. “Did she have a job when she disappeared?”
“She told me that she was doing some modeling, but you know what that means.”
“No. I don’t.”
Allen hunched his shoulders. “Probably taking her clothes off for men,” he muttered. “Girls always have a way to get easy money.”
Jax clenched the pencil tightly in his hand. Allen Burke made his skin crawl, but right now, he couldn’t risk punching the bastard in the face. He needed answers about Rachel and how she might have come in contact with the Butcher.
“Do you have the address of the modeling agency?” he asked between clenched teeth.
“It wasn’t off icial or nothing. She would get an email or a message on that page thingy of hers.”
Page thingy? Jax frowned before he realized what the man meant. “Facebook?”
“Whatever.” Allen waved a hand toward the door. “Next thing, she would be plastering her face with makeup and taking off.”
Jax flipped back through his notebook, studying what Ash had discovered about Angel Conway when he’d traveled to her hometown. He felt a flare of satisfaction. Yes. Angel had been a wannabe actress and model. Ash had also suspected she was discovered by the killer through her Facebook page.
“Rachel had a computer?” he asked. Was it possible they could find an email for the Butcher?
The possibility sent a sizzle of anticipation through Jax. They’d been chasing shadows for so many years, it seemed hard to accept they might have an electronic trail to lead them to the killer.
Allen licked his lips, an odd expression on his sallow face. “Yeah, she bought a laptop a couple of years ago.”
&nbs
p; Jax stepped forward. “Where is it?”
“I . . . uh . . .”
Jax scowled. What was wrong with the man? Then, Jax was hit by a sudden realization. Was the man using the computer for some illegal activity? Porn? Dealing drugs? Downloading pirated movies?
Right now, he didn’t give a shit.
“Allen, all I’m looking for is Rachel’s communication with anyone offering her a job,” he said in stern tones. “I’m not interested in anything you might have been doing on there.”
He’d expected the man to be reassured. After all, he’d given him a free pass.
Instead, Allen cleared his throat, as if he was being choked. “The thing is . . .”
Jax rammed the paper and pencil back into his pocket. He was tired of being jerked around by this loser. The Butcher was no doubt stalking his next victim even as Jax was wasting his time in this apartment. Every second the bastard remained out there put another woman at risk.
“I can get a warrant for it,” he warned.
Allen folded his arms over his chest, his expression defensive. “It’s not here.”
Disappointment poured through him like acid. “Did she take it with her?”
Allen’s eyes darted around. He was about to lie. Jax knew all the signs. Then, as if realizing that trying to deceive a cop wasn’t the best idea, the man heaved a rasping sigh.
“One of the boys sold it,” he admitted in clipped tones.
Jax paused, allowing the words to sink into his brain. “You sold your daughter’s computer?”
Allen shifted from foot to foot, his face flushing. “She wasn’t here.”
Was he lying? Maybe he was still afraid there might be something on the computer that might get him in trouble? Or had he really been sleazy enough to sell his missing daughter’s computer?
“Who did you sell it to?” he demanded.
“It wasn’t me,” Allen insisted, no doubt sensing Jax’s gut-deep disgust. “It was my boy.”
“Then who did your boy sell it to?” he demanded through clenched teeth.
Allen shrugged. “Someone on the street.”
Without warning, Jax reached out to grab Allen’s dirty sweatshirt, twisting it until the neckline tightened around the man’s throat.
“Do you think I won’t arrest you?” he snapped.
The bloodshot eyes widened in a sudden burst of fear. “For what?”
“Interfering in a murder investigation.”
“How am I interfering?”
“You’re withholding information,” Jax accused.
“Bullshit.”
Jax gave the man a shake. He didn’t believe in police brutality, even when he was dealing with a scumbag. But the fear that the Butcher was slipping through his fingers was making him a little crazy. “Then where is the computer?”
“I woke up and the boys were partying,” Allen stammered. “I asked them where they got the—”
Jax made a sound of impatience as the man cut off his words. “Drugs?”
Allen gave a small nod, as if unwilling to say the word out loud. Did he think Jax was wired? Idiot.
“They told me they’d given Rachel’s computer to their dealer,” he continued in a whiny voice. “It was too late for me to do anything about it.”
Jax tried to imagine his father’s response if one of them had been missing and a brother had stolen their personal computer and sold it for drugs. It would have been epic.
And not in a good way.
“What’s the dealer’s name?” he demanded.
“I don’t know his name.” Allen squawked as Jax twisted his hand so the material of the sweatshirt bit into the man’s throat. “All I know is that he hangs out on the corner a block south of here.”
Jax shoved the man back, releasing his grip on the shirt. He was afraid he might accidentally break the fool’s neck.
“Where are your sons?”
Allen glanced around, as if wondering if they might be hidden beneath the piles of clothes.
“Probably crashing at a friend’s house,” he finally muttered. “I haven’t seen them since last night.”
Jax wasn’t surprised the man didn’t have any idea where his sons might be, despite the fact that they were both underage. He was, however, baffled by his complete lack of concern that his only daughter had been lured from her home and brutally attacked.
“Don’t you care at all that your daughter was murdered?” he ground out.
Allen jerked, his flush turning an ugly shade of red. “Of course I care.”
“Really?” Jax scoffed. “She goes missing, but instead of calling the cops, you pawn her computer for a few drugs?”
“I told you, it wasn’t me . . .” Allen started to protest, only to snap his lips together as he met Jax’s fierce glare. “All right, I’m a shitty father,” he admitted in grudging tones. “What do you want from me?”
“I want to know if Rachel was contacted by her killer, and why she didn’t fight back when she was being attacked.” He held the older man’s gaze. “Did she say anything before she left?”
Allen started to shake his head, but he stopped, his brow furrowed, as if he was struck by a sudden thought.
“Not to me,” he said. “But I heard her talking to herself in the bathroom.”
“What was she saying?”
Allen snorted. “She was pretending she was accepting an Academy Award. She was always doing stuff like that.”
“She wanted to be an actress,” Jax murmured. Just like Angel. And perhaps all the other victims.
As Ash had pointed out, it would be easy to use the promise of a modeling or movie contract to lure a young, vulnerable woman into a trap.
“Yeah.” Allen glanced across the room at an open door Jax assumed led to the bathroom. “I told her to get the hell out so I could take a shower. She yelled back that she was going to become a famous actress and she was going to leave me to rot in the gutter.”
Jax tried to visualize the scene. It was probable that Rachel had been playacting. How else could she make her life in this apartment bearable? But then again, she might have been promised the ability to make her dreams come true.
“Anything else?” Jax asked.
Allen scratched under his arm, leaning down to grab a half-empty bottle of vodka from the floor. “There might be something in her room.”
“Do you mind if I search?”
Allen screwed off the lid of the cheap liquor, taking a deep drink. Then he burped as he waved his hand toward the short hallway at the back of the room. “Knock yourself out.”
Jax rolled his eyes. “You’re a real winner.”
“Hey.” Allen pointed a finger at Jax. “Not all of us were given a good job in this world. Some of us have to scrape just to get by.”
Jax gave a humorless laugh. “Do you think they came to my house and handed me a badge?”
Allen shrugged, clearly in no mood to accept he had no one to blame but himself for his crappy life. “There are people who have luck, and those who don’t.”
Jax shook his head, stepping over the pizza boxes as he headed for the hallway. “There are people willing to put down the bottle and work for a better future.”
“I’m going back to bed,” Allen muttered.
Jax ignored him as he entered the first door on the right of the hallway, thankful to discover it was scrupulously clean, with a frilly bedspread and dresser with a large mirror.
This had to be Rachel’s bedroom.
He reached into the back pocket of his slacks to pull out a pair of rubber gloves, snapping them on before he stepped over the threshold.
Crossing the floor, he pulled open the closet door. There were several empty hangers, which he assumed meant she’d packed a bag to take with her. But there were still enough clothes inside to suggest she intended to return to the apartment. He turned to search through the dresser. There was nothing there that might offer a clue where she’d gone.
He shoved his hands under the
mattress and then pulled aside the bedcover to look under the pillows. He was hoping for a diary. Did women still keep them? Or at least a letter from a boyfriend who might know where Rachel was going.
Nothing.
He straightened. Obviously, he’d have to wait until he could get a warrant to get Rachel’s phone and email records. More time wasted while the Butcher continued to hunt the streets of Chicago.
He was walking toward the door when his attention was captured by a scrap of paper next to a small trash can. Jax bent down to grab the note, glancing at the scribbled writing.
There was one word.
Paradiso.
What the hell?
* * *
I watch the waitress as she scurries to keep up with the morning crowd. This is one of those upscale pastry shops, so there’s not much on the menu beyond muffins and croissants and a dozen different types of coffee.
The waitress is only vaguely satisfying. Her body is sleek and slender beneath the sweater and jeans. And her black hair is long enough to be kept pulled into a ponytail. But her skin is too dark, as if she spent time in a tanning booth. And her eyes are the wrong shape. They’re too round and a strange gray color. Plus her nose is way too wide.
Not that it mattered. I’d already tried creating the perfect specimen and what had it accomplished? Nothing. I’d wasted time and energy and money without the cure I so desperately desired. In some ways, the prototypes had only made my sickness worse.
Spiraling out of control . . .
The words whispered through my mind.
I’d spiraled before. Five years ago. Back then, I’d been halted before I could hit bottom. I’d even managed to come back to my senses.
Or at least I’d diverted my hungers. Nothing could truly appease the suffocating urges. It was a disease. One that was refusing to be cured. No matter how much blood flowed.
Blood, blood, blood.
I sip my coffee, my gaze following the waitress. She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. Is she sad? Bored? Ready for her tedious life to be over?
No. I try to remind myself she is young. It’s possible she is still filled with hope that her future will be better. That was doubtful, of course. She had a crappy job. She wasn’t particularly beautiful. She smoked; I could smell it clinging to her clothes. And she didn’t have enough personality to be considered charming.
The Intended Victim Page 25
