“But, Sloan, I need your help,” he shouted through the door.
“Go lie to and ogle someone else for a while. Then see if they’re in the mood to help you.”
“But this is important. I need to talk to you about the personal ad we placed last night.”
“I don’t care. I can’t deal with this now. I need to get to work.” Actually, I did care. Kind of. But I cared more about having privacy while I took care of the essentials. First things first, I put on my clothes—just in case Elmer decided to sneak back in.
“Someone responded,” he said.
“That’s wonderful. Go write her.” I combed my hair, slicking it back into a tidy ponytail. A ponytail wasn’t exactly professional FBI style. But it was quick. And easy. And practical. Especially if I had to go to any crime scenes today.
“I can’t write her,” Elmer the Whiner said.
“Why?”
“I don’t have a computer.”
“Use mine. It’s in the living room. All charged up.” I smoothed on some moisturizer.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Figure it out for yourself. You’re the charmer. Charm her.”
Ten minutes later, I rushed out to the kitchen, in search of caffeine.
The pot was empty.
Empty!
Elmer, looking mighty comfortable on my couch, slurped.
I gave him an extra-harsh dose of mean eyes. “What are you
drinking
?”
“I was getting a little drowsy, sitting here by myself.”
“But you told me you couldn’t eat or drink.... You lied about that too?”
Elmer shrugged. The little lying weasel. “I can drink. But food is out. That’s still bad. You try living on a liquid diet.”
“What else have you lied about?”
Elmer shrugged again.
I glanced at the clock. There was no time to get into this with him. “No more lies, or our agreement is null and void. Got it?” He nodded. I pointed at the window. “What time do you vanish?”
“Sunrise.” He burped. “Excuse me. That was some strong coffee. I’m feeling really alive right now. Oh, damn. Here comes the sun.” And just like that,
poof,
he was gone.
“I think I hate you,” I grumbled to the empty couch. “Okay, that’s just caffeine withdrawal talking.” Then I threw my laptop in the case and trudged to my car.
I shoved the key into the ignition.
Click. Clickclickclick.
Click. Click. Click.
Now what? Dead battery?
“Oh, hell.” I rummaged in my laptop case for my cell phone and dialed JT’s number.
“Hey, Sloan, where are you?” he said when the lines connected.
“At home. My car’s dead.”
“I’ll pick you up in ten.”
“Thanks.”
Ten minutes was enough time to make some coffee. I burned the little energy I had dashing back inside. Dumped some grounds into a fresh filter, poured the water in, and paced the floor waiting for the first drips of liquid energy to pour out the bottom.
Katie came dragging out of her room as I was catching the black gold in a cup. “Why are you still here?”
“Dead battery. JT’s coming to pick me up. Why are you up?”
“I heard voices.”
“That was just Elmer. He popped in for an impromptu visit just before sunrise.”
“Lucky you.”
JT knocked.
Katie grinned. “Speaking of lucky.”
“It isn’t like that. We only kissed.”
“And went on a date. Don’t forget that part.”
“I lost a bet. I don’t think that counts as an official date. It was more of a ... debt repayment.”
“But you ended up being the winner.”
“Dating a coworker is against bureau policy.”
Katie shrugged. Clearly, she had no respect for the bureau’s rules. JT didn’t either. That was one thing they had in common. Me, I wanted to be a little more cautious. For both of our sakes. He was an agent. I was an intern. If we were to start ... you know ... and people found out, it would look bad for both of us.
The problem was getting that through JT’s thick skull.
I opened the door.
“Hello, beautiful.” He beamed at me as he strolled inside.
Like I said.
I grimaced. “We only went on one date, JT. That hardly qualifies you to graduate to endearment status.”
“Hmm.” He looked down into my mug. Or was he checking out my boobs? I couldn’t be sure. “That coffee smells good.”
“You don’t drink coffee, remember? Besides, we should be going.” I shoved him toward the door.
“Speaking of which, I’m going to jump in the shower,” Katie said, beating a hasty retreat. She zoomed past the bathroom door.
“The shower’s that way,” I called.
“Good morning.” JT grinned at me. His smile was lopsided, his eyes sparkly, and he was standing close. Way too close. He smelled scrumptious. “We have a few minutes, and I’m thirsty. It’s already eighty out there. It’s going to be close to a hundred today. Do you have some vitaminwater?” He brushed past me, letting a hand trail over my hip as he went by. I tried to ignore the little quivers shooting through my body that were sparked by the innocent touch. “You don’t mind if I help myself.” In the kitchen, he opened the refrigerator and dug through its contents. Finding a bottle, he twisted the cap off and leaned his hip against the counter.
“No, of course, I don’t mind,” I said rather belatedly as I sipped. If the damn stuff hadn’t been so hot, I would have gulped it. “Do you have any idea what we’re in for today?”
His grin upped to full wattage. It was one of his wicked smiles. My mood dimmed.
“What?” I said.
“We’re heading to another crime scene this morning. Might want to stick with a liquid breakfast, just in case... .”
My face flamed so freaking hot, I think it was steaming. “Shut up. I was doing just fine until you told me that lady was pregnant. I mean ... a baby?”
“I know. But about that. The ME called me last night, confirming my suspicion. The victim was pregnant. But she wasn’t when she died. Since she hadn’t delivered the placenta yet, he estimated she’d died within thirty minutes of delivering.”
“Really? Okay. So ... where did she deliver? Where’s the baby?”
“I don’t know.”
A shiver crept up my spine as the image of a child, lying helpless in a garbage can, flashed in my mind. “Did the police search everywhere? The garbage? The yard?”
“The lead, Riggleman, has a crew on it now.”
“There wasn’t any blood. No amniotic fluid. If she’d given birth in the house, we would have found something.” I folded my arms across my body. “This case is getting worse by the second.”
His expression sobering, JT set down the bottle and grabbed my hips, pulling me toward him. “It’s terrible and tragic, but we’ll figure it out. Come here.”
I resisted. Or rather, I tried to resist. But JT is strong. And he smells good. And he looks good. And I was creeped out and could use some strong arms at the moment. And ... okay, damn it, I’m weak. I did, however, manage to send him a warning glare, even though I was standing boob-to-chest with him.
Completely ignoring my unspoken warning, he slid his hands up, up, up, and back, until I was enfolded in his arms. Then the little creep kissed the top of my head.
Did he have any idea how sweet that was?
I swallowed a sigh of contentment and shoved out of his embrace an hour earlier than I would have liked to. “We need to go.”
“When are we going on our second date?” An extremely persistent JT asked while watching me hurry toward the door.
“Never.”
JT drained the bottle; then he set it on the counter. “We’ll see about that.”
“No, we won’t.” At the door, I turned to face him, thinking I’d squint my eyes at him and show him I meant business. Big mistake.
He was close enough to kiss. His lips curled up a little, into a ghost of a smile. I almost melted. “Were you going to say something?”
“No,” I snapped, jerking back around to open the door. “Let’s go.” I grabbed my phone and dialed the auto club to schedule a tow. The sooner my car was fixed, the better.
He slapped his hand on the door, holding it shut. Bending over my back, he whispered, “Thank you for the water.”
“You’re welcome. Now, can we go? We’ll be late.”
He let his hand drop. I opened the door, grateful for the fresh air, and staggered outside.
Together, we roared off into the early morning.
I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.
2
Once again, we were in a pretty subdivision, in a pretty Colonial, in a pretty bedroom, dissecting another crime scene. Walking into the room, I got a creepy-bad case of déjà vu. Today’s victim, Katherine Jewett, was lying in bed, blankets tucked up to her chin, eyes open, staring at the ceiling.
JT made a beeline for the victim. I started at the door, checking out the clues. I right away noticed the money and jewelry sitting on the nightstand. Not that I’d ever thought these killings were robberies gone bad, but if the unsub could kill a victim without being detected, why wouldn’t he take the money or jewelry? It was right there for the taking.
All around us, crime scene technicians from the Baltimore PD were still hard at work, shining lights and scouring the scene for minute fibers, footprints, and fingerprints.
One of them shook his head. “We live by the assumption that every suspect takes something with him and leaves something behind,” he said. “But damn if we can find what that something is.”
“You haven’t found anything?” I asked.
“Not a fingerprint. Not a footprint—and this carpet is white. It rained last night. What the hell did he do? Take off his shoes at the door?”
I scrutinized the carpet. “You wouldn’t think so. Maybe it’s that special stain-resistant carpet?”
The technician stooped. “Stain-resistant or not, dirt should show. At least a little.”
“Interesting. The body appears to be drained of blood,” JT told me. To the medical examiner, who was still doing his preliminary examination, he said, “Any ideas about the time of death? Or COD?”
“Based on the level or rigor, I’d say it’s been about five hours,” the ME told him. “We’ll be running a full autopsy, but looks like cause of death is exsanguination.”
In plain speak, she bled to death.
Feeling brave, I headed over to the body.
The ME pulled the covers off the victim. Immediately one thing became clear. She was—or had been—pregnant. “I see no sign the victim has been moved after death. And she shows no defensive injuries. Her husband was asleep when she died.”
“He was in the bed with her?” I asked, fighting a serious case of light-headedness.
“Yes, that’s what I’ve been told.” The ME pointed at the victim’s legs, which were parted slightly. “I found only one small puncture wound in her groin. No blood on the sheets, on her clothing, or even on her skin. That makes no sense. Assuming this is the site of the blood loss, when that artery was punctured, there should have been arterial spray.”
“Unless her heart was stopped before the puncture was made,” I reasoned. “Without a heartbeat, there can be no spray.”
JT nodded.
“No sign of trauma,” the ME said.
“Drugs?” I offered.
“I’ll look. May be tough to get enough blood to test for everything. She looks pretty dry. I can use tissue samples for some.”
“Maybe the killer is removing the blood to cover evidence?” I suggested.
“It’s possible.” JT borrowed my camera to take a close-up of the puncture wound. It was small, roughly the size of pencil lead. “The wound is a puncture. No signs of tearing.”
“Take all your photographs now,” the ME said. “We’ll be removing the body soon.”
“Thank you.” JT set about taking shots of the victim from every imaginable angle while I went back to searching the surrounding area for clues. Focusing the camera on her swollen stomach, JT asked, “The baby?”
The ME shook his head. “I’m not getting a heartbeat. We’ll know more when I get her into autopsy.”
My insides twisted. I scurried away and concentrated on breathing deep and slow. “Find anything yet?” I asked the crime scene technician I’d spoken to earlier.
“Not a goddamn thing.” Standing next to a window now, dusting the sill and frame for fingerprints, he sighed, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand. “We’ve checked every inch of this room. The only prints I’m finding belong to the victim and her husband. No sign of forced entry. No footprints. No foreign fibers. And at this point, we’re not finding anything on the body either.”
“Where is Mr. Jewett?”
“Down at the station, being questioned.”
I set my hand on the sill. It was damp. “Was this window open?”
“Yeah, it was open about an inch. But we’re fifteen feet aboveground. And I checked for prints. Found nothing inside or outside.”
“May I?” I motioned to the window.
“Sure.”
I pushed up the double-hung window, lifted the screen, and hung my head outside. There were no trees or other means for an intruder to enter. “I’ll be right back,” I told JT, and headed outside. The grass below the window was wet. There were no indentations or marks. No sign that a ladder had been set there or anywhere else, for that matter. As it turned out, several windows had been left open a crack. No foreign prints were found on any of them.
Deciding all the evidence was pointing at the husband, I went back inside the house.
As I wandered through each room, one word kept playing through my head. Exsanguination. Exsanguination. Exsanguination.
How was this possible without any signs of blood spray?
Even if the unsub had somehow started the process of draining the blood while the victim still had a heartbeat—and somehow contained or blocked any blood spray—he wouldn’t have been able to drain it all without some sort of mechanical aid. Not if that puncture wound, situated on the front of the body, was the site of the bleeding. It was a simple fact, that only so much blood would escape a wound before the heart stopped.
I knew a mortician used a pump to draw blood from a body after death. Assuming the killer had removed what he could before the heart stopped, and somehow drained the remaining blood from the victim after death, he would have needed to use some kind of pump. Once the heart stopped, blood was moved by gravity, from the higher points of the body to the lower. In this case, the lower was the victim’s back—away from the puncture wound.
Following the path of my logic, I had to conclude the pump would have collected the blood into some kind of container. And that container would have had to be emptied somewhere.
I checked the en suite bathroom upstairs.
It was pristine. And it smelled like bleach.
I stumbled upon a second technician out in the hallway. “Did you check the bathroom with luminol?”
“Found only trace signs on the sink and a little in the shower. Nothing out of the ordinary. Everyone nicks themselves once in a while when shaving.”
“What about the toilet?”
“It was clean.”
Clean. Damn.
“Basement?” I asked. I’d yet to be in a basement that didn’t have a utility sink.
The technician shook his head. “Nothing.”
“What about other bathrooms?”
“We’ve checked everywhere. There’s nothing more than trace signs of blood in this house. And all of them were in that bathroom.” He indicated the master en suite.
“Okay. Thanks.”
JT joined us. “I’m done here for now. Ready to head back to the unit?”
“Sure.” In the car, I asked him, “What do you think? Was it the husband?”
“All the evidence seems to point to him.” JT snapped his seat belt on.
I sensed he was holding something back. “But ... ?”
“But the MO is the same as yesterday’s killing. Exsan-guinations aren’t common. At least, not this brand of them. The modus operandi says it’s definitely the same guy. And, nearest we can tell, he came out of nowhere. We need to find the connection between Katherine Jewett and our first victim, Victoria Sprouse—besides the obvious. We also need to see if there are any other possible victims out there. Is this guy a new killer? Or has he just hit our radar?” He cranked the car; it started and angled away from the curb.
“This guy is good. He left nothing behind. He can’t be new.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. And I’m thinking something else too. He’s not done. I know guys like this. He won’t stop until we stop him.”
Imagining lying in bed, helpless, some guy draining the blood from me, I shuddered. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
When we got back to the PBAU offices, JT headed toward Brittany Hough’s techie-geek lair while I made a beeline for my cubicle. If anyone could find a traceable connection between the two victims, Brittany could. She was absolutely genius at mining the Internet for those precious little nuggets of information. Me, I was a genius too. But my strength lay in other areas—like memorizing facts. Statistics. That kind of thing. Not very useful in this job. But you never know.
As I made myself comfortable and dug out my laptop, Gabe paid me a visit, resting his butt on the spot on my desktop where I had intended to put my computer.
I squinted at him.
He grinned back. “Hey, Skye. What’s up?”
“I’m trying to get some work done.” I shoved his hip. It didn’t budge. “Move it, Wagner.”
“I’ll move. In a minute.”
My squint got squintier.
He scooted over a little. “I need to talk to you. About the case.”
I set up my laptop and powered it up. “What about the case?”
“I found out Victoria Sprouse had a little secret.”
“Yeah? What kind?” I asked, waiting impatiently for Windows to boot up.
“The kind that might’ve gotten her killed,” he said, his voice sounding like that guy who does voiceovers for movie trailers. Gabe was a dork. Then again, so was I.
“Sheesh, you and the melodrama. What was it?”
“What can I say? I have a flair for the dramatic.” He cleared his throat. “All right, I’ll get down to business. Sometimes, Skye, you’re so stiff. Mrs. Sprouse was not only having an affair, but that kid she was carrying wasn’t her husband’s. At least, that’s what the neighbor said.”
“Interesting. Did her husband know that?”
“I haven’t found out. Yet. I told the chief what the neighbor said, and she wants me to check it out. I was about to head over to ask him. Want to go with me?”
I glanced at my notebook. Nothing pressing. I powered it down. “Sure.” Standing, I slid my computer in the bag and looped the strap over my shoulder.
Gabe motioned for me to precede him out. Behind me, he said, “We can grab some lunch while we’re out.”
“Now you’re pushing it, Wagner.” I stopped in the hallway, waiting for an elevator.
“You know me.” He stood next to me, looking big and devious and untrustworthy. He leaned close, closer, and whispered, “I’m always pushing it.”
I elbowed him in the gut. It wasn’t a serious elbow. It was sort of playful. Still, it was firm enough to let him know I didn’t appreciate his “pushing.”
The elevator door opened and I stepped inside the full car. I wriggled between a lady, who looked annoyed, and a man, whom I recognized from the BAU—my dream unit. This was the guy who told me I had been fired. On my first day. Before I’d even made it into the office. I smiled at him. “How are things in the BAU?” I asked.
“Going well. Thanks,” he said stiffly. He glanced at Gabe, and I swallowed a chuckle. Gabe had been hired by him. And then Gabe had requested a transfer. Seems he wasn’t quite over it.
The door slid open and out we all rushed. Gabe and I headed to his car. I threw my computer bag in the backseat and then plopped in the passenger-side front. We drove maybe two miles before Gabe finally spoke, “Listen, about Thomas—”
“Wagner, there’s no need to go there,” I interrupted. “There’s nothing going on between us. Promise. Not that you have any right to ask.”
“I know. I’m sorry if I’m stepping over the line. But we’ve been friends for a long time, and I think that gives me the right to be concerned.”
“First,
friends?
Really?” I asked, making sure he heard the sarcasm in my voice.
He shrugged.
“Second, my personal life is none of your concern. It hasn’t been for a long time. And just because you told me our breakup had nothing to do with Lisa Flemming, and you’ve really had feelings for me all this time, doesn’t mean suddenly we’re BFFs and you can poke your nose in my business.”
“Got it.”
“Good.”
Not another word was spoken the rest of the drive. I was oh-so-glad to get out of the car when we finally pulled up in front of Sprouse’s house. I don’t think Gabe had even shifted the vehicle into park yet, and I already had the door open. He caught up to me after I’d knocked on the front door.