The Seventh Victim (10 page)

Lara smiled even as butterflies chewed at her stomach. “Do I need to close my eyes? Kinda dramatic, don’t you think?”

“This show is dramatic,” she said, her tone growing serious. “This show is going to put you on the map in the art world.”

“How far on the map? I kinda like being the unknown.”

“Right smack dab in the middle of the map. Now close your eyes!”

Lara grinned but did as she was told. Cassidy took Lara by the hand.

“By the way,” Cassidy said, “get a manicure before Friday. Those photo chemicals you use, which create such magic on film, make your hands look as if they belong to a sharecropper. Don’t want customers distracted by the nails.”

“I’m an artist,” Lara said, opening one eye. “People expect me to be quirky.”

“Quirky with nice nails, if you please.”

Lara glanced at her nails, darkened by photo chemicals, and then slid her hands in her pockets. “I’ve not had a manicure in so long I don’t even know where to go.” Closing her eyes, she moved slowly down the hallway, worried she’d trip.

Cassidy laid her hands on Lara’s shoulders and turned her toward the right. “I’ll set up an appointment for you with my girl.”

A protest danced on the tip of Lara’s lips, but Cassidy cut her off. “Open your eyes.”

Lara drew in a breath and then opened her eyes. Every bit of wall space in the large, whitewashed room sported a Lara Church original. The black-and-whites, all taken with her bellows camera, were of murder scenes she’d seen over the last five years.

Drawing in a breath, she moved into the room, studying each picture with care. There was the double homicide in the Atlanta back alley. In that case the killer had used Molotov cocktails to incinerate three rival gang members. There was the stabbing on the Memphis playground. The shooting on Main Street in the small Utah town. All the places had seen death and in her view were changed by the violence. The Atlanta back alley still bore the scorch marks of the flames. A local women’s group had totally refurbished the playground save for one old swing as a memorial to the dead. And the business on Main Street in the small Utah town had added bars to its windows.

She’d photographed the sites at the times of the victims’ deaths. At night. Dusk. Noon before a rainstorm. The images had been powerful when she’d seen them developed in the darkroom, but seeing them collected and presented together took her breath away.

Lara’s throat tightened. “You’ve done a great job, Cassidy.”

Cassidy smiled. “No, you’ve done a great job. I just hung the pictures on the walls.”

“It’s more than that. You had a vision to put all this together. I’m not sure I’d have been brave enough to do it.”

“Sure you would, honey. I could tell when I first drove out to Grandma’s house that there was a hunger in your eyes. And as I remember, it didn’t take too much arm twisting to get you to say yes.”

She rescanned the images a second time. “I love the way you arranged them. I would have expected chronological.”

“I tried it that way, but it didn’t feel right. I opted to arrange by mood. From light to dark back to the light.”

Indeed the last print in the collection had been taken at sunset as the sun had cut through clouds and shone down on a tiny cross left at the site of a New York murder.

“I sent out press releases again today and followed up with calls. There’s a good bit of buzz, and I think we’re going to get some decent coverage.”

Yesterday those words would have given her pause, but today they sent a cold shiver down her spine. There was a strangler in the area. Was it the man who’d attacked her? And did he know that she was in town? Beck had said coincidences were bull.

“Why are you frowning?” Cassidy said.

She shook her head and smiled. “I guess I’m a little nervous about being in the spotlight.”

Even on the worst days after the attack in Seattle the cops had mercifully kept her name from the public. Not even Cassidy knew what had happened to her in Seattle. So, it would be impossible for a reporter to connect this show to that past. Right?

Cassidy laughed and hugged her. “Cuz, you better get used to the spotlight because it’s gonna be on you for years to come.”

Chapter 7

Tuesday, May 21, 2:46
PM

Beck sat at his desk staring at the notes he’d made on Lara Church. As soon as he’d gotten back to his office he’d run any check he could on her. From the Seattle files he had her Social Security number and date of birth, so he’d plugged both into the database. He’d discovered she’d had driver’s licenses in three states in the last seven years: Maine, Florida, and, most recently, Texas. There were no outstanding warrants against her, and she owned her black ten-year-old truck outright. He’d even visited a website set up for students to rate their professors. She’d received comments like “Tough but fair,” “Likes pop quizzes,” and “Hot!”

Looking locally, he searched the name Bower and found that she’d inherited her house from her grandmother, Edna Bower, eight months ago. Edna Bower had lived in Austin all her life and had had two daughters, Barbara and Leslie. Barbara had been Lara’s mother and according to records, she had died eleven years ago of a drug overdose. Her sister, Leslie, was also deceased. Leslie had shot herself in the head in a local motel sixteen years ago.

Seattle wasn’t the first time Lara had seen trouble.

He tapped his finger on the side of the notes he’d written on a pad by his blotter. His phone buzzed and he snapped it up. “Beck.”

“Sergeant,” the receptionist said. “I’ve got Gretchen Hart’s uncle on the phone. Line two.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose and nodded. “Thanks, Susie.” After a moment’s hesitation, he punched line two. “Mr. Hart, this is Sergeant James Beck.”

A grim silence. “Sergeant, you called me this morning about my niece, Gretchen.” His voice was tight, tense.

“Yes, sir,” he said, softening his voice. “I’m sorry this has to be done over the phone, but I’ve got some bad news.” He remembered when he’d faced Misty Gray’s mother and told the woman her daughter was dead. For the next three nights, the woman’s cries had echoed continuously in his head. “Gretchen was murdered.”

An anguished sob cut through the lines. “Jesus. What happened?”

“We are still putting the pieces together, but she was strangled to death.”

The man started to sob. “Are you sure it was Gretchen?”

“Yes, sir. We are sure.”

The next ten minutes was a painful loop of Beck repeating the news and Mr. Hart searching for some kind of way that the news could be wrong.

When Beck finally hung up the line, tight bands of muscles gripped his lower back. He rose and stretched, hoping he could ease the muscles and the heaviness weighting his shoulders.

He glanced down at his blotter and zeroed in on Lara Church’s name. “If you think I’m letting you off the hook, you are a damn fool.”

Raines had been in Texas less than twelve hours, and he could safely say he hated it. The heat was brutal, the air dry, and the coffee sucked. He glanced down into the dark mud that the River Diner called coffee and wished he still had the power to arrest.

But he wasn’t here for the coffee. He was here to find out what he could about the second victim, Gretchen Hart, whose identity had been released this afternoon. It wasn’t lost on him that the two Texas victims had been students, like Lara had been.

Setting the cup down on the café table he leaned back in the metal chair and surveyed the busy diner located blocks from the university campus. College students huddled at tables, chattering to each other, talking on their cell phones, or listening to music. There was a lot of activity and noise, but he wondered how much they were truly getting done.

Shit, half of them looked like they couldn’t be more than twelve. And he wondered if he had ever been that young or if there’d been a time when he wasn’t worried. He’d known from a young age that he’d wanted to be a cop and had been focused on getting a spot on the force. Initially, there’d been the entrance exam and then the academy. He’d had to work his ass off for both, but the struggle had been worth it when the chief had pinned his first badge on his chest. He’d been settled in a patrol car less than two months when he’d realized a college degree would take him further on the force. So he’d set his sights on college and the homicide division. It had taken another twelve years of hard work, but he’d managed both.

He checked his watch. According to the online class schedule, Lara Church was slated to hold her class from seven to nine today. Monday and Wednesday were lab days, and Thursday was another classroom day.

God, how many times had he dragged himself into a night class after a twelve-hour shift? He’d drunk gallons of coffee and eaten candy bars to juice up his system for the ninety-minute classes. He’d made straight A’s in college, and he was damn glad he had done the work. However, life had given him new goals and another advanced degree no longer made the list.

His number-one goal now was to see Lara Church. He understood speaking to her wouldn’t help matters, but it wouldn’t hurt to get a visual.

“You gonna drink that coffee, or you just gonna swirl it around and stare at the kids?”

The crisp feminine voice had him raising his gaze to a petite young woman who wore a red R
IVER
D
INER
S
TAFF
-shirt, jeans and a name tag that read: D
ANNI
. She had ice-blond hair, gold hoop earrings, and black nail polish. Her attire was strictly punk rocker, but the tough choice of clothes did not jibe with the young face and clear green eyes. She couldn’t be more than sixteen or seventeen.

He glanced down at his cup. “I was thinking I’d swirl it around a couple hundred more times. I like the way the sludge moves.”

A half smile tweaked the edge of her lips. “It does have its own ballet, doesn’t it? I just brewed a fresh pot. Care to give it a try?”

He pushed the cup away from him. “I’m not sure how much more Texas coffee I can stomach.”

“I made this latest batch. It will be good.”

“Good coffee in Texas? I don’t think so.”

She cocked a brow. “Be right back.”

Before he could answer, Danni vanished behind the counter. She grabbed a new cup and carefully poured coffee into a mug. She moved toward him with quick, purposeful steps and then set the mug in front of him. “That’s good coffee.”

“Really?”

“I can’t write legibly, and I can’t cook a lick, but I can make coffee.”

He took a sip and found he was pleasantly surprised. “Good.”

“Puhleez. It’s the best.”

“I’m from Seattle. We are ground zero for coffee.”

“As long as I’m on duty the coffee will be good.” She took the half-full cup and set it on her tray. “Enjoy.”

“Thanks, Danni.” As she turned he said, “Hey, didn’t that girl that was killed work here?”

Danni’s eyes grew suspicious. “Yeah. You a reporter?”

Raines shook his head. “God, no.”

“Cop.”

“Do I look like a cop?”

Danni arched a brow. “Yeah.”

“Nice to see I haven’t lost that.” At her confusion he added, “I used to be a cop. Long time ago. I guess the case caught my eye. Hard not to ask questions. Sorry.”

His honesty appeared to disarm her. “No harm. And for the record, I didn’t like what they said about her in the news today.”

“Straightforward enough.”

“I guess I just didn’t like the way they boiled her life down to bare facts. She was so much more than that.” Anger hardened her face, but there was no hint of tears. “Her uncle is flying in tomorrow to claim her.”

“I feel for them. I wouldn’t wish losing a child on my worst enemy.”

“Yeah, well.”

“What can you tell me about her, so I’ll remember more than the basic newscast?”

Danni’s voice grew softer. “She was kind of corny. Liked pink and singing Lady Gaga in the kitchen. She was moving to New York. I was kinda jealous of her.”

“You’ve got nothing to be jealous of, Danni. You strike me as a sharp kid.”

She snorted a laugh.

“Was there anybody who might have wanted to hurt her?”

“Mack and I were talking about it, and none of us can think of anyone. Like we told the Rangers, we’re all thinking it was some random guy.” A customer at another table caught her attention. “I’ve got to go.”

He watched as she moved toward another table and began to gather up plates. Danni was a tough nut and no wilting flower. Just like his daughter.

He could almost hear his wife now. “That girl of ours is going to be a general one day.”

He sipped his coffee, thought of his wife, Susan, and how much he missed her, their daughter, and home. Pushing aside a pang of guilt, he redirected his gaze to the patrons.

Within seconds he spotted a slight, blond woman enter the café. She wore jeans, a T-shirt, and sandals and had a backpack slung over her shoulder. She was as slight as a teenager, but she moved with a confidence that only came with maturity.

Lara Church.

Beck had been right. She wasn’t the meek girl who’d fled Seattle seven years ago. As a man approached her, Raines noted slight stiffening in her back as she extended her hand. Her handshake was firm and her gaze direct.