Deception (Southern Comfort) (32 page)

Sam’s back went up, she couldn’t help it.  It just went against her hard-won independence to roll over and relinquish control.  It was the main reason it was taking her so long to earn her degree – she’d worked two jobs and taken classes part time so that she could pay for her schooling herself. 
It was only recently that she’d agreed to let Donnie help her with her last couple semesters.

She thought of Collin and financial dependence.  Of the way he’d made her feel like a second class citizen at best, a mere possession when he was at his worst. She never wanted to go back to that.

Josh must have sensed it, because he came over.  “I know what your brother means to you, Sam.  And I know you want to do this your own way.”  His voice was so soft it was like cashmere, a warm blanket falling over her skin.  “But this isn’t about charity or control or me thinking I know more than you.  This is about me loving you and wanting to help you.  About the fact that I owe your brother, too.  If he hadn’t been the example that he was of how a good man should be, you might have been put off men before I ever got a chance.  I want to help, Sam.  If you’ll let me.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said, turning to face him.  She owed him that much at least.

He nodded, and kissed her gently. 

Then got dressed and headed into work.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THERE
were lots of dots, Josh thought as he listened to Michelle Casey from the sex crimes unit run down what they knew about the series of rapes.   But he was still having trouble connecting them.  When he’d gotten the call from Michelle two days ago that they’d found Karen Davis in the back of that white van, all the pieces had seemed to fit.  Until he’d spoken to Karen, gotten the details of her ordeal, and started taking a closer look at the puzzle.

It bothered him that Tony Salinas hadn’t had a tattoo.  At least, none that had been visible to his co-workers.  He guessed the man could have worn some kind of heavy make-up to disguise the one the other rape victims had described, but there was also the question of MO.  The other three women who’d come forward were abducted off the street, late at night, as they walked home from work or in one case, snuck out to attend a party.  No weapon was used during the assault, which took place in the assailant’s van.  The women were verbally abused, raped, forced to clean themselves and released, never physically injured in any way other than the actual rape.  Their attacker wore a stocking to disguise his facial features.

However, Karen was abducted from the hospital parking lot at knifepoint in broad daylight, Salinas having broken into her vehicle to wait.  He forced her to drive out of the city, knocked her unconscious after instructing her to pull off the road, took her to an undisclosed location where he proceeded to threaten her with the knife, terrorize her with the intention of rape, and abuse her physically when it became apparent that she’d become ill.  Salinas also made no attempt to disguise himself, which indicated to Josh that he had no intention of letting Karen live.

So there was almost no overlap in technique.  Karen never saw a white van, had no idea how she came to be in one, and had no recollection of seeing Salinas after that first day.  And why the man would retrieve her from the place he abandoned her, drive her to his residence, and leave her unconscious in the back of the van while he went in to have a smoke seemed to simply defy logic.  If he was going to rape her or kill her, why not just do either or both at the location he’d managed to hide her in for three days rather than risk driving around on the highway and taking her to his home?  There was no VIN number on the vehicle and none of his neighbors had ever noticed a white van in connection to Salinas, so why take all the unnecessary risks now?

Dots, Josh thought again.  But they weren’t forming any kind of recognizable picture.

As Michelle resumed her seat at the conference table, where he, Kathleen, Mac, Lieutenant Cunningham and a couple of others from Michelle’s unit were seated, Kathleen stood to talk, running through the facts they had gathered so far with regards to the mayor’s daughter.  But Josh couldn’t stop moving the dots around in his head. 

One could allow for the fact that there seemed to be some personal animosity between Salinas and Karen as a way of explaining some of the differences between the crimes, but something just seemed a little… off. 

And how did Allie Beaumont fit into this picture?

Had Salinas taken her off the street as she walked through the city one night, only to find out that he’d just abducted the mayor’s daughter?  He would have to have known that would bring a shitload of heat down on his head.  So he realizes he has to kill her, beats her face in, then stuffs her dead body down a drainpipe on a construction site that just happens to be under fire from her father. A pipe which is conveniently covered in concrete sometime soon after.

There was also the fact that they had no employment record for Salinas up to that point.  The man was apparently a fairly recent transplant, yet after he murders the mayor’s daughter he seeks employment at the city’s busiest hospital.  Why not just cut his losses and get out?  Find another city to start over in.  Of course, he couldn’t have known that Beaumont’s body would be discovered, probably thought he’d buried her where she’d never be found, but still, why take the chance?  It wasn’t like he had any ties here.  What was he doing in Charleston anyway?

“Harding?”

His boss’s voice made Josh blink. 

“You want to join us anytime soon?”

“Sorry.”  He turned to the Lieutenant.  “Just… woolgathering.”

“Well, play with your sheep another time.  Right now we’ve got too much to do.  Murphy, I want you talking to Allie Beaumont’s friends and classmates, see if anyone ever remembers Salinas hanging around campus.  Washington, follow up with the van.  He had to have stored it somewhere – kept it out of sight when he wasn’t using it.  I want a way to positively link it to Tony Salinas that involves something better than the bubblegum and string we have right now.  Casey, talk to the women again, flash Salinas’ picture, see if it jogs their memory.  And follow up on the forensics to see if they’ve come up with anything else.

“Harding,” he turned to Josh, “we need to ID our crispy corpse.  Make sure it was indeed Salinas who died in that fire and not some friend, relative, or a damn meter reader.  Unless or until we can dig up some dental records or DNA for comparison, you’re it.”

“I’ll get on it right away, sir.”

The man continued doling out orders, and Josh’s mind drifted back to dots.  There were still some missing.

He was sure of it.

JOSH
was looking over photographs of the dead man’s head when his cell phone rang.  It was strange, he mused as he reached into his pocket, how fire shrank a victim’s skin without destroying it, melting distinguishing features into a sort of generic death mask.  Although he felt little sympathy for Tony Salinas, it was a hell of a way to go.

“Harding,” he answered in a tone that was all business.

“Josh?”

His expression softened, and he turned away from his desk.  Burned up rapists didn’t need to be privy to this conversation.  “Hey, honey,” he murmured, heart turning over because it was Sam.  Sam, the woman of his dreams, who
m he’d somehow convinced to become his wife.  His vision blurred for just a moment and he made a mental note to call some jewelers.  Surely one of them would be open on Sunday so he could stop by and look at rings. 

“Sorry to bother you at work,” she began, as if that were actually a possibility, “but I just wanted to let you know that I’m taking a cab over to Karen’s.  I figured at some point today you’d realize that I didn’t have a car, and since I didn’t want a repeat of the whole
you walked home, what were you thinking
incident, I thought I’d sand bag that particular dam.”

Josh let his head fall back on his shoulders.  “Dammit.”  He cursed himself for an idiot.  “I can’t believe I forgot about your car breaking down.  I should have –”

“No, you shouldn’t.  You were preoccupied this morning – for which I have to say thank you – and then you got called into work unexpectedly.  And besides that, I’ve been thinking now for over twenty-seven years, and I’ve worked up to doing it on my own.  So while I appreciate the fact that you’re a man – I really do appreciate that fact, by the way – and circling the wagons is in your DNA, please don’t worry about my transportation.  It’s easy enough to take cabs until my car’s fixed.”

Josh frowned, but then started to laugh with the ease
at which she’d put him back in his place.  “Okay, but just remember to be careful.  And that wasn’t patronizing, that was concern.”

“If I see someone coming at me with pink roses, I’ll run the other way.”

“Sam, this isn’t a joke.”

“I know it isn’t.  And seriously, I promise to be cautious.”  She paused, and Josh could hear the gentle sigh of her exhale.  “It’s not that I don’t trust you enough to lean on you,” she said softly.  “I think I just need a little time for it all to sink in.  I’m not used to asking for help.”

“I know that.  And you take all the time you need.  I’m not going anywhere.”

Another pause followed by an indrawn breath.  “You’re the best man I know.” And Josh felt the pleasure of that all the way to his toes.  “I’ll see you later tonight.”

After Josh said his goodbyes and forced images of exactly what seeing Sam tonight would entail out of his brain, he returned his attention to the gruesome photos.  Not quite what he’d envisioned doing with his art when he was a student falling in love with one of his subjects, he mused. 

But then, life was rarely what we envision.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO

JUSTIN
Wellington sat as immobile as possible in the dim stillness of the men’s locker room, attempting to keep his head from simply falling off his neck.  He wasn’t supposed to be working tonight, wasn’t even supposed to be on call, but the damn virus that had been crawling virulently through the hospital had wreaked havoc with everyone’s schedules.

But he would never, never have gone head to head with Kathleen Murphy over a bottle of whiskey if he’d known he’d be working today.  The woman was the devil incarnate.  And she’d had the gall to call him this afternoon sounding cheerful, for God’s sake.  She’d been out haranguing witnesses for a case she was working, but had offered to stop by and bring him a hangover remedy.

He’d lied through his teeth and told her that he was feeling perfectly fine.

He’d never again underestimate the alcohol tolerance of a woman who’d most likely been conceived in a pub.  She’d probably been bottle fed beer instead of formula, cut her eye teeth by chewing on pilsners.  Either that or he’d been too distracted last night at the reception to notice that she was pouring every other drink in the potted palms.

It was the legs, he decided.  Kathleen Murphy had very, very nice legs.  And she’d displayed them shamelessly in his direction to keep him befuddled and off his guard. 

The door behind him eased open with a slight squeak and a louder bang, and Justin winced as he lifted his head.  He prayed it wasn’t someone looking for him, because he needed a few more minutes alone.  A few minutes to let the latest dose of acetaminophen kick in.  He was grateful it had been a slow night so far, because he didn’t believe in operating when he was less than a hundred percent. But that could change in the space of an instant. Thankfully the years of medical school and surgical training had taught him to function even when it didn’t seem humanly possible.

Justin sat quietly, senses alert, listening for any indication that he should stir, but there came no urgent page, no familiar voices raised in chatter. No creak of hinges from lockers opening or the scuffle of tired feet along the floor.   

A door eased open to Justin’s right, the one to the closet which held the extra scrubs.  Another poor sap, Justin thought with compassion, probably called in on his day off.  He looked around, thinking that misery actually didn’t love company, misery preferred to be bitter and grouchy all alone, and saw an older man – average height, solidly constructed, not familiar – creeping into the closet.  Maybe he was one of these loaner physicians that the hospital had been “borrowing” for the occasional shift due to the fact that so many of their own were out sick.  Maybe a retiree they’d pulled in from the golf course.

Opting for peace and quiet over manners, Justin bunched his lab coat into a ball, placing it between his head and the lockers.  Shifting his shoulders to find a somewhat comfortable position, he eased out a breath and closed his eyes.

He was just settling into relative oblivion when he heard the door to his right click shut.  There was a pause, then quiet footsteps heading away.  He waited for the squeak and bang of the outer door, the sign he once more had the place to himself, but there was silence, the only sound that of his own breath.  The air vibrated with the tension of another presence in the room, and he was sure he was not yet alone.  Maybe the other man had decided to take a nap on the opposite side of the locker room.  But something didn’t quite feel right about that, and so he opened one eye in a squint.

Nothing was wrong. The room was still quiet, no fellow malingerers anywhere to be seen.  The smell of old gym socks and disinfectant assailed his nose, but other than that he couldn’t detect another cause for concern.  His senses were probably just still out of whack from the alcoholic Olympics he’d put himself through last night.  Damn Murphys.  They were treacherous, the whole lot.  Particularly when you put one in high heels and sheer black stockings with a bottle of whiskey in her hand.