by Jen Talty
And Jag always thought that the killer was trying to impress her or something.
She tiptoed around the corner. Damn door was closed.
Fuck it.
Grabbing the doorknob, she twisted it as quietly as she could, pushing the door into the room.
Jag rested his ass against a gray desk with his legs stretched out about a foot and his arms folded over his chest. He stared at a wall filled with images of dead girls.
The Trinket Killer crime scenes.
“What the fuck is this?” She shoved open the door. It hit the other wall with a thud and slammed back into her shoulder. She just shrugged it off as she moved to the other side of the desk.
“Callie.” He stepped in front of her, grabbing her forearms. “You can’t be in here.”
“Like hell I can’t.” She wiggled her arms free. “This isn’t a police precinct, so if those are official files, you shouldn’t have them.”
“You know how this works. I’m a cop who worked most of these cases from the beginning. I can have access how I want.”
She ignored his words and focused on the images of her sister. She’d been there that night, and Jag had brought her to her sister’s body. He’d held her while she cried. He stood there while she blamed him and then drove her home and held her some more.
Two days later, she humiliated him in front of the entire world because while he’d done all that.
He’d still lied to her as he’d always done.
Story of their entire relationship.
An image of her sister’s body was pinned next to an image of another woman, but Callie couldn’t make out who it was.
“Is that Renee?” she asked.
“Yes,” Jag said, clearing his throat. “Other than the beating her face took, the scene is identical to your sister’s.”
She raised her hand and waved it over all the images of all the other girls, noting the trinket in each hand. “Six gold dolphins and six silver dolphins. And there were an even amount of both purchased,” she said mostly to herself.
“Even amount of raven trinkets purchased as well, but this time we’ve added rose gold.”
“Obsessive-compulsive disorder.”
“We established the unsub suffered from that.”
She nodded. “This one has a thing for numbers. I’m thinking six is important. So is three, which goes into six, twice.”
“It also could be twelve, because he stopped killing at twelve.”
“Exactly,” she said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the two raven trinkets. “These were on my bed.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Jag said.
“I wish I were. I can’t find the other one, and frankly, I don’t think he, or she, left that one behind. What do you think that means?”
“That our Trinket Killer has already started another cycle of killing,” Jag said. “We just don’t have a body yet.”
Chapter 8
The only time Jag went to the mainland these days was for mandatory work meetings or when his family made him. He stood on the bow of the ferry and stared at the Seattle skyline. He used to love living in the city. All the people and the fast pace of city life.
He didn’t miss it one single bit.
The closer the ferry dock came into sight, the faster his heart beat.
If his theory was correct, the Trinket Killer hadn’t started with Renee.
But who?
And where?
And how they hell did they miss it?
He made his way down from the observation deck to where he’d parked his Harley. Flipping up the kickstand, he revved the engine, following the line of cars off the ferry and onto the main road. He headed toward downtown and his old precinct. He hadn’t set foot in that building in almost a year. When he’d walked out, he didn’t think he had a career left. Forced into a two-month leave, he had a lot of time to think about his life and what he really wanted to do, and being a cop was all he’d ever known.
Thank God for Levi.
Pulling into the parking lot of the 87th Precinct of the Seattle Police Department, he reminded himself that when he took the job, he’d made a promise to Stephanie while visiting her grave that he’d follow every lead.
Only, he hadn’t had a lead in months.
And now he had more than he knew what to do with, and none of them made any sense.
He pushed open the door, and his ears were assaulted with confrontational communication at its best. Nothing like his nice little quiet station sitting next to the library in city hall. He nodded to the desk sergeant who buzzed him past the front desk.
“Montgomery’s waiting for you in the conference room,” the sergeant said. “Do you remember where it is? Or should I get you an escort?”
“I’m sure I can find it.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. He noticed a lot of familiar faces and a few new ones as well. A lot could change in a year.
And a lot stayed the same.
He tapped his knuckles on the glass door.
Matt waved him in. “How’s it going?”
“I’ve been worse.”
“You’ve looked better,” Matt said, giving him his best bro cop hug. “Thanks for coming to me.”
“I just appreciate you hearing me out,” Jag said. “I was hoping Jack Marlo would be here by now.”
“He just went to the head,” Matt said. “There’s fresh coffee if you want it.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Jag poured himself some swill and made himself comfortable at the far end of the table. He flipped through some active homicide files that Matt had pulled for him, but nothing was remotely like the Trinket Killer.
The sound of boots scuffing down the hallway caught his attention. Jack Marlo entered the conference room. “Hey, Jag. Good to see you.”
“You as well.” Jag rose and shook Marlo’s hand. “Were you able to find anything?”
“Not a single cold case in Seattle that fits the Trinket Killer’s patterns,” Marlo said. “I widened the search and went to other offices in the state with similar parameters and got a few hits. I don’t think they match. At least not with what we know about our killer.”
Matt leaned against the table. “Yeah, but we’ve been banking on our killer being a man. The profile changes when we make it a woman.”
“And we think she knew at least two of the victims intimately,” Jag added. “Both of those victims had secret relationships. Callie is digging into the other victims’ past love lives.”
“But they weren’t all gay,” Marlo said.
“It’s an angle, and with these new trinkets showing up at my doorstep, I need to check everything no matter how absurd.” Jag tossed three coins he managed to pick up at the store so the rest could be logged into evidence. “So, my theory is we’re about to hit round three of the Trinket Killer’s cycle. What I need to find is round one.”
“I pulled up every cold case that I could find,” Marlo said.
“Yeah, but maybe we think we solved it.” Matt held up his index finger. “I pulled this file this morning. I made the arrest. It was rock solid, but I’ve always wondered if maybe we made a mistake.” Matt tossed another file on the table. “Hendrix was also found guilty of murdering his neighbor. The DNA on that nailed his ass. He even copped to it, but to this day, he swears didn’t kill the other girls.”
“When was this?” Jag asked.
“My first year as a beat cop. I chased him in a stolen vehicle. After the arrest, we found a couple of mood rings, and that’s what this killer would leave at the scene,” Matt said.
“How many kills?”
“Three in one year. All white girls between eighteen and twenty, and they all went to the same college and lived in the same dorm.” Matt stood behind Jag and tapped one of the reports in the folder. “The man I arrested was the janitor at the school. It was believed the girls, all cheerleaders, teased him or emasculated him, and he got his revenge.”
Jag remembered tha
t case. It had an entire college community on edge for a year. “Were the girls stabbed?”
“The first one was hit in the head a few times,” Matt said. “The other two were stabbed. There should be pictures in there. First victim was found on the school grounds. The other two were in parks.”
“Like all of mine.” Jag flipped through another page and tapped a pen against his temple. He pulled out all the images of the dead bodies. Each one had a mood ring placed on their left ring finger.
The marriage finger.
Interesting.
Especially when the man sitting in prison for the crimes was an older man.
“Why did he kill his neighbor?” Marlo asked.
“She rejected him. And she does look a lot like those girls, which is why we were able to make the stretch,” Matt said. “But to this day, he swears he was wrongfully incarcerated for three murders.”
“Do you believe him?” Jag asked.
“I didn’t at the time,” Matt said. “Because at the third crime scene, which was the neighbor’s, the victim was clutching a mood ring. And let’s remember, I wasn’t detective back then, so not my case. But when you asked to see all this, I started examining all the evidence again, and it turns out Armstrong logged in the mood ring for that crime scene.”
“Fuck,” Jag mumbled. “Armstrong mishandled a lot of my evidence and DNA.”
“And then killed herself,” Marlo added, shaking his head. “She handled a lot of evidence. I wonder how many she tampered with and why.”
“We might never know the answer to the latter question,” Matt said. “But this house is pulling all the cases with Armstrong’s name on it. Now what’s really interesting about what I’ve dug up so far, is that procedure was followed to the letter on every case, except the Trinket Killer and the ones we just mentioned.”
Jag peered over the file. “Are you saying you think Armstrong is connected to the Trinket Killer?”
Matt nodded. “I’m pulling the autopsy report on Armstrong as well. I’ll have everything sent to your office.”
“Send it to me too,” Marlo said.
Jag slammed the file shut. “Why do I get the feeling this fucking killer has been playing me for a long time?”
Callie stood at the end of the dock and watched a sailboat tilt over as the winds grabbed ahold of the jib. She covered her forehead with her hand, shielding the sunrays peeking through the fog floating above the sound.
The floorboard rattled.
She glanced over her shoulder.
“Ziggy,” she said with a smile before practically taking off in a full sprint. She hugged Ziggy tight for a good three minutes.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” Ziggy said.
“Me neither.” Callie smacked her lips against Ziggy’s cheek. “You are a sight for sore eyes.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be saying that about my brother?” Ziggy tilted her head and batted her thick eyelashes. “He’s been a miserable prick since you left.”
“He doesn’t seem like it to me.” Callie looped her hand through Ziggy’s arm and led her down to the beach.
It was only about sixty degrees, but the sun warmed Callie’s face, and the salty breeze filled her heart with a sense of calmness she hadn’t felt in a long time. She knew the second she got off this beach and met with Jackie for this stupid interview about her book, which her publisher blindsided her with by putting the pre-order up, her mood would surely sour.
While she was happy they agreed on the new title, and the cover was tasteful, she wasn’t prepared for how real having it up for sale would make it.
She worried how Jag would take the news, especially when he saw his name right there in the product description.
Yeah, that was going to piss him right the fuck off.
“We all miss Jag on the mainland,” Ziggy said. “But being out here, on this island, has done him a world of good.”
“I noticed.”
A few toddlers raced by chasing a puppy, their mother only a few steps behind. Callie used to daydream about the day she and Jag might get married and have a little brood of their own. They’d even started talking about that prospect, someday in the future.
She pressed her hand across her stomach. If he’d known she was pregnant when she left Seattle, he’d hate her, but it didn’t matter. She miscarried less than a month after she’d left.
But the burning question had always been: would she have told him had she been able to carry the child to term?
Today, she’d like to think she would have told him long before the baby was born. But part of her wonders if she would have used it to stay away from Seattle altogether. The reality was the only reason she came back had been for the interview. The publisher all but demanded it. And she knew it was best for the book. The more she thought about it, the more it simmered in her brain, the more she wanted to spend time in Seattle.
And time with Jag.
Something Kara warned her would be a bad idea. Something about history repeating itself.
“You being back in his life would be even better.” Ziggy squeezed her hand. “He’s really missed you.”
Their families hadn’t known about their relationship for very long, but Ziggy had been one of the first, and since she worked with her at the station, they became fast friends.
Best friends.
“I’ve missed him too, and while we’ve been able to heal old wounds, I don’t think we would ever be able to be together again long term.”
“Oh, so does that mean something kinky happened since you’ve been back? I know you’re staying with him, and I heard through the family grapevine he went camping last night at Fort Casey.”
Callie shook her head and let out a short laugh. “Nothing is sacred or private in your family.”
“Hey, it was only a guess, but thanks confirming it for me.”
“You tricked me.” Callie hip-checked Ziggy.
“You would have told me anyway.”
“True.” If Callie told Kara, she’d get a lecture. Now all Callie had to do was brace herself for Ziggy and the rest of his siblings to push back hard for them to get back together.
It wouldn’t happen.
It couldn’t.
They were oil and water.
Ziggy paused and turned toward the sound. “Jag told me you plan on leaving in a couple of weeks.”
“As soon as his chapter is done. He gave me an interview. Now all I have to do is write it and get him to approve it.”
“Don’t leave again.” Ziggy turned. “He loves you, and I know you love him.”
“Sometimes love isn’t enough.”
“It’s always enough,” Ziggy said.
Callie took her hands. “Your brother and I spent a year using and lying to each other all while falling madly in love. That has Greek tragedy written all over it. We’re lucky one of us isn’t dead.”
“That’s a cop-out. Do you want to know what I think?”
“Does it matter? Because I think you’re going to tell me anyway.” Callie turned and headed back toward the dock and the best fried clam roll on the West Coast.
“The two of you got together during a high-profile case where he couldn’t give you, the press, the information you wanted, and you had to sneak around to get it. That made you adversaries.”
“Why don’t you tell me something I don’t know,” Callie said. There were times it took Ziggy way too long to get to a point. Normally, it was an endearing quality but not this afternoon.
“The two of you always supported each other. You bent over backwards not to step on each other’s toes. And damn it, Callie, you love my stupid brother, and don’t tell me you don’t.”
“Okay, I won’t. But that’s not the point. Our ship has sailed.” The wind kicked up as she hiked the steps. She’d put in their order for the clam rolls when she’d gotten there, and they should be ready by now.
Along with hot cider.
Life didn’t get any better tha
n that.
Unless she was eating half naked in bed with Jag.
“I disagree. I just think your sails are all tangled up and just need some straightening out. I wish you would stay a few months and give him a shot. He’s a changed man. He’s lost that chip on his shoulder, and he’s mellowed a lot. He’s certainly not half as cocky as he used to be. I really think losing you fundamentally changed him and on some levels for the best. But he’s a broken man without you.”
“I think he’s a better man since I left.” Callie approached the take-out window. “I have an order for Dixon.”
The girl in the seaside restaurant handed Callie a big bag along with a credit card slip to sign. Callie tucked a five-dollar bill into the tip jar. She found a picnic table and pulled out what smelled like a little piece of salty heaven.
“That’s bullshit. And I know it because I’ve been here for the last year. You haven’t.” Ziggy lifted her roll into the air and took a huge bite before her eyes rolled to the back of her head. “Damn. These are the fucking best.”
“Better than even in Boston,” Callie said.
“I’ll take your word for it.” Ziggy lifted a clam strip that had fallen from her sandwich and plopped it into her mouth. “But in all seriousness. I know he was really glad to see you.”
“Yeah. Did he say that? Because when he first saw me, he couldn’t get away from me fast enough.”
“Because his heart is still raw.”
“Not raw enough. He freaking took out Bailey on a date.”
Ziggy burst out laughing. “He was trying to replace you, only that chick is a bitch. He hasn’t dated anyone since.”
“I’m sure he’s had a booty call or two.”
Ziggy arched a brow as she wiped her fingers with a napkin. “He’ll never get over you, and I can see it in your eyes. You’re never getting over him, so just give up, cave to your desires, and get back together with my brother.” She pointed toward the parking lot. “Looks like Jackie and her cameraman are here. I’ll see you back at Jag’s place.”
“What?”
“He didn’t tell you? I’m spending the night on the island. He said I could have the guest room since you’re staying with him.”
