by Jen Talty
Bailey cocked her head. “Well, I don’t like to talk about it, but he and I had a short thing a while ago. I had to end it because of what an arrogant dirtbag he is, but you know that.”
“Actually, I don’t because he and I didn’t break up for any other reason than my sister was murdered and I was in pain and I needed someone to blame. I chose him, but it wasn’t his fault.” Now use that in your local piece, bitch. “And this isn’t why I came here. So, Bailey, tell me. What’s the angle with this piece? What are you going to focus on?”
Bailey narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. She leaned back and smoothed out her hair, letting out a long breath. “Unfortunately, your return has stirred up a lot of raw emotions for a lot of people, including family members of other victims.”
“That’s bullshit. I’ve spoken to almost all of them over the last year. They’ve been amazing with my research for the book. I’ve become very close to some, and I doubt I’m causing an uproar with them.”
“What about Kara? She split pretty quickly. Why’s that?” Bailey dug into her salad. Ruthless was the only way to describe her. “Was it just too much for her to be back in Seattle?”
Callie’s stomach churned. “I won’t speak for Kara.”
“Fair enough.” Bailey waved her fork in the air. “Why did you come back to Seattle?”
If Bailey was going to do a piece on her regardless, Callie might as well direct it as much as possible.
“I came back mostly to finish the book.”
“What’s missing?”
Callie chuckled. “Nothing, really. The publisher just wanted some fine-tuning, especially about my sister, and I thought it would be best if I came back to where it all started.”
“It’s got to be hard for you to have to constantly relive it. I’m not sure I could,” Bailey said.
“I don’t have a choice.” Callie took another gulp of her wine. Drinking on a partially empty stomach wasn’t a good idea. She waved at the waitress and pointed to her glass. “My sister was murdered, and that’s a fact I can’t change. Her killer has never been caught, nor has he killed again, that we know of. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about all the victims and their families.”
“And how do you think your book is going to help them?”
“It keeps the memory of their loved ones alive. They don’t become another statistic in a cold case sitting in some basement somewhere totally forgotten. It keeps this case relevant.”
“I suppose it does, since everyone now wants an interview with you and Chief Bowie.”
“This isn’t about me or Jag. It’s about the victims and their families. That’s your story.”
“That brings me to a question that is burning on everyone’s lips,” Bailey said.
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“Are you going to ask for your old job back?”
Callie bit down on her tongue to stop from laughing. All this chick cared about was herself and her job. “I have no desire to be a reporter anymore.”
“Good to know.” She glanced at her watch. “Crap. I’ve got to go.” She glanced over her shoulder.
“I’ll take care of the bill,” Callie said.
“Thanks. I really appreciate it. I hope when you see the piece we’re doing that you’ll change your mind and do a sit-down with me at the station. Take care.” Bailey took off so fast you’d think the building was on fire.
The waitress showed up with her second glass of wine. “Can I have a piece of chocolate cake?”
“You sure can,” the waitress said.
“Thank you.” She pulled out her phone and smiled.
Kara: Hey, Callie girl, just wanted you to know we stopped in Medford, Oregon and are going to stay for a few days. I hate to say it, but just being back in Seattle did me in.
Callie: Enjoy your travels. You and Ivy deserve it.
Kara: Thanks! And remember, when you’re done there, you’ve always got a place to lay your head with us.
Callie: Love you.
Kara: Right back at you.
As much as Callie missed Kara, she was happy Kara had been able to let go of her own obsession with the Trinket Killer and was able to find love again.
Too bad that would never happen for Callie. She touched her lips. Kissing him again was like having a little taste of what heaven might be like. She’d never be able to love anyone the way she loved him. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to get over him. Being back in Seattle proved that.
Her phone buzzed.
Jag: Where are you?
Callie: On my second glass of wine at Georgio’s and about to dig into their chocolate cake.
Jag: Day drinking and cake? That must have been a shitty meeting.
Callie: You have no idea.
Jag: I get off work in an hour. Do you want me to come get you? Or will you be okay to walk home?
She chuckled. Getting good and drunk right about now sounded like a really good idea.
Callie: I’m going to get two pieces of cake to go and get a bottle from the store. I’ll see you at home.
Jag: Home? That’s very Freudian. haha.
She rolled her eyes.
As much as she enjoyed being around him again, for the sake of her heart, she needed to get out of his house, even if it meant she went back to the mainland.
Chapter 5
One of the nice things about being the chief of police was that for the most part, he got to keep bankers’ hours.
Well, that’s the lie he told himself.
If he wasn’t in the office or on the streets, he was doing the one thing he promised his parents, two sisters, and one brother that he wouldn’t do and that was obsess over the Trinket Killer.
He tried to stop investigating, but it proved to be impossible. The cold case detectives gave him monthly updates, which consisted of: sorry man, we’ve got nothing. Jag spent every morning before he went to the office staring at twelve dead girls and every night before he went to bed doing the same thing. He constantly looked over his shoulder, waiting for the Trinket Killer to show his ugly face.
He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his back. His home office he kept under lock and key. If anyone in his family saw it, they’d have him committed.
If Callie saw his victim wall, she’d be pulling him knee-deep into her book, and he just wasn’t ready to do that. Neither one of them had been able to uncover anything new. It was as if the killer was sitting back, watching them and laughing at their inability to solve this one.
He stood and planted his hands on his hips, rolling his right hand over his weapon. He let out a long breath and inched closer to the wall. Besides their obvious similarities in appearance, there was nothing else to connect them to each other. Not one victim knew the other.
Four were lesbians. One considered herself bi-sexual.
And then there was Stephanie, born Steven.
She’d gone through her transition years ago but didn’t have the surgery until a year before her murder, and according to Callie, she hadn’t been happier. She even had a girlfriend, though a secret one.
One that she’d never introduced to Callie, or even given her name.
That shouldn’t come as such a shock to him considering how long he and Callie managed to keep their relationship out of the public eye. That said, their families knew months before Stephanie’s death.
But both Callie and he agreed, even in a drunken stupor, that Stephanie’s girlfriend had something to do with her death.
He turned and tapped at the keyboard in front of his computer, pulling up the FBI profile report. His captain had asked him to call in the Feds for support after the eighth murder. He did so willingly and absolutely believed their assessment.
The unsub is most likely a white male, approximately between thirty and forty years of age. He’s organized and highly educated. It is not sexually motivated. There is no rape or any mutilation of the body. The unsub is targeting a specific type of woman. B
ecause he leaves the same trinket behind, we believe these women remind him of someone. That he is killing the same woman over and over again.
Pretty standard stuff.
But because they didn’t notice the change from gold to silver with the trinket, and perhaps they missed other things, this profile wasn’t viable anymore.
The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs caught his attention. Quickly, he locked the door and headed toward the kitchen. Callie would be nosy, she always was, and she’d want to know what was in that room.
Either he was going to have to get her drunk every night, because he never took advantage of a woman who had too much to drink, or he was going to have to let her either go back to the inn or to the motel once the weekend people went back to the mainland.
She groaned as she sat down at the island.
“Not feeling so well this morning?” he asked.
“Why did you let me drink so much?” She took the mug of coffee he offered.
“I tried to stop you, but you told me you’d toss the bottle at me like you did the ring.”
“Umph.” She smacked her hand against her forehead. “You must hate me for losing that ring. It must have set you back a pretty penny.”
“You’d vomit a little in your mouth if I told you what I paid for it.”
“It was a gorgeous ring, and I’m sorry I lost it so you couldn’t return it. I should find a way to pay you back.”
“You know what.” He leaned against the counter, holding his mug and staring into her dark-chocolate eyes. “Us being able to apologize to each other and spend time together without killing each other is payback enough.”
“You’re a good man, Jag.”
“Can I have that in writing?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely not.”
He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I’m going to get the paper. I just have to go into the office for a few hours today. I thought maybe we could break out the Harley and take a ride.”
“I think I’d like that,” she said with a smile. “You’re a dangerous man, Jag.”
“Why? It’s not me that will be between your legs. It’s my bike.”
“You are a pig.” She slapped his shoulder.
He shrugged as he made his way to the front porch. He pulled open the door and bent over for the paper. When he lifted it from the ground, two envelopes spilled out onto the wood deck. One had his name on it. The other had Callie’s.
Fuck.
He did a quick scan of the area before he pulled out his cell and found Jenna’s contact information. She was probably still in the office. “Hey, Callie. Bring me a pair of gloves. They’re under the sink.”
“Okay,” she called.
“What’s up, Chief?” Jenna asked.
“I think I might have a situation at my place. I need you to head over with a couple of evidence bags.”
“Please tell me we’re not going to have to call the CSI team again.”
“I can’t make that promise,” he said. “See you soon.” He tucked his cell in his back pocket.
“What’s going on?” Callie pressed a hand on his back. “Oh. What are those?”
He took the gloves. “We’re about to find out.” He glanced around one more time, making sure nothing looked out of the ordinary. And nothing did. Of course, his security system recorded all entrances and kept those recordings for forty-eight hours, so he should be able to see who dropped off this little gift.
“I don’t like that people know I’m staying here,” she said. “I mean, Bailey has a big fucking mouth. I can only imagine what she’s telling people. I should have never met with her.”
“No. I think you did the right thing. People are talking and speculating. I’m actually thinking you might want to call Jackie now and set something up. Do it live. Beat Bailey at her own game. We could do it together.” Did all that just come out of his mouth? His mother was going to have his hide, and if he were a teenager, his father would take the car keys and ground his stupid ass.
But he was a grown man, and for the last year, he’d been hiding out on this island, isolating himself, living with ghosts, yearning for the living and wishing he could find a way to make up for the past.
Maybe this was it.
Carefully, he picked up both envelopes and brought them into the kitchen. “Does the handwriting look familiar?” He studied it for a moment. The letters were block style and bold. It reminded him of his own handwriting when he was trying to be as neat as possible.
“Yeah. Yours.”
He chuckled. Taking a butter knife, he sliced open each of the casings. Three round pendants fell from both.
“Those look like they go to charm bracelets or something,” he said.
There were two matching gold ones.
Two matching silver ones.
And two matching rose gold ones.
“Are those ravens etched into the charms?” Callie asked.
“Looks like it. Do they mean anything to you?” Using the knife, he pushed all six charms around on the table, lining them up in two rows, equal distant apart. “Other than the obvious creepiness of ravens to begin with, they could be considered trinkets, not charms.”
A tap at the front door made them both jump.
She grabbed his biceps and gasped.
“It’s just Jenna,” he said, letting out a puff of air. “Do you mind putting on a pot of coffee?”
“I’ll try not to blow anything up,” she mumbled, still squeezing his forearms. “This isn’t happening. He’s not back. This is some asshole fucking with you. Or me. Or both of us. But it’s not the Trinket Killer.”
“I hope for both our sanity that you’re right.”
But something told him that his worst nightmare was about to come true.
Callie sprawled out her research across Jag’s kitchen table. Twisting her hair, she pooled it in a messy bun on top of her head and shoved her glasses up on her nose.
The Trinket Killer changed from gold to silver at the sixth victim.
Stephanie was number twelve.
If he were following a pattern, he should have changed the color of the trinket. But her sister’s death seemed less organized than all the rest. It just always felt different to her.
Maybe Stephanie wasn’t supposed to be number twelve.
Callie attached the images of the raven pendants and sent them in an email to Kara. They might mean something to her.
The other issue had been the cooling off period. The Trinket Killer had been a patient killer and his twelve murders spanned over five years.
But Stephanie happened two weeks after the last one and that didn’t make sense.
Her editor’s number flashed across her cell screen.
“Hi, Jennifer,” she said. Jennifer Ruley was a hard-ass editor, but Callie loved her, even when she didn’t agree with her suggestions.
“I’ve good news. The publisher likes the new title, and they want to go with that.”
Callie let out a sigh of a relief. Jagar wouldn’t be thrilled the book was still being published, but this might ease his frustration with her a little. “Thank you for pushing that for me.”
“My pleasure, but they really want a chapter about Detective Bowie whether it’s authorized or not,” Jennifer said.
Callie took off her glasses and tossed them on a stack of papers. Her and Jag had been getting along so well. This would completely destroy what little trust and understanding they’d regained with each other.
Maybe he would change his mind and give her an official statement. If not, at least she wouldn’t have to tell him until after the book was turned in and she hightailed it out of Seattle. She never had any intention of staying here more than a month anyway.
“I’m working on it,” Callie said. She clicked on the folder that had her notes for Jag’s chapter. “I’ll be able to shoot this all back to you in two weeks.”
“Why can’t all my authors be like you and turn things in on time or early,” Jenni
fer said. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“Will do.”
As soon as she ended the call, another one came through.
Kara.
“Hey there,” she said. “How’s Oregon?”
“It was great until I opened your email a second ago,” Kara said. “What the hell? I leave you alone for five minutes, and you’ve got a stalker already?”
Callie let out a nervous laugh. “Jag has me going through all the weirdos that send me stuff at the station while he’s going through all the people that hate him, but it comes down to the one thing that ties us together.”
“His dick?”
“Don’t be gross,” Callie said. “I’ve never understood why you didn’t like him.”
“I like him. He’s a good guy. He’s just not for you.”
Kara was probably right about that, only her heart told her otherwise.
“But seriously,” Kara said. “If you’re thinking the Trinket Killer sent you those charms, I’d say you’re wrong. First, they aren’t the kind of trinkets he used in the past. Second, there is no dead body. And finally, why three? He’s never done anything like that before. Aren’t you always the one telling me that when a killer breaks a pattern, there’s a reason. So, what’s the reason?”
“That’s what I need to find out.”
“You know, Ivy’s got a thing for ravens.”
“I didn’t know that,” Callie said. When Callie had first met Kara, she’d been a grieving widow who wanted answers regarding her wife’s murder. Their friendship had started off slow, and at first, Callie would get annoyed by Kara’s constant inquiries. But as time went on, Kara became a source of great information. She had an eye for detail and was an excellent research assistant both when Callie had been a reporter and when she’d chosen to become a crime writer.
It had taken Kara a long time to get over her wife’s death, so when she started dating Ivy a few months ago, Callie encouraged it, only she wished she’d gotten to know Ivy better.
But instead, she spent all her time, according to Kara, living in the past and being hung up on three things.
The Trinket Killer.
