Drop Dead Perfect Read online

  And, perhaps, the cure was to make sure it never happened again, at least not on your watch. She was pretty sure that’s what Big Harv was thinking even now.

  Best laid plans . . .

  The faces of the two victims rolled across her mind for about the millionth time, and her frustration and anger were suddenly replaced with a rush of sadness. In that instant, she knew that, if given the opportunity, she’d take the killer out of this world and send him into the next. But cops weren’t supposed to go there, right? She was supposed to check her emotions at the door and do her job, and then trust the rest of the people in the justice system to do theirs.

  She slammed her cup to the ground and kicked it with all of her strength, wishing the killer’s face were on the other end of her foot instead of a Styrofoam proxy. She stared at the cup, then walked over and stomped on it.

  “Justice . . . Whatever that means,” she muttered.

  “You okay, Ellie?”

  She jumped.

  She hadn’t noticed that Oscar had walked up. Her partner and friend appeared haggard. She supposed he was infected with the same affliction. What they had witnessed today could do that to most.

  “Whoa. Bruce Lee would’ve been proud of those moves, you know.”

  “Thanks. And hell no. I’m not okay,” she said softly. “Should I be?”

  Pulling his hair back from his face, he glanced at her and then at the crushed cup.

  “No, you shouldn’t be. You’d be dead inside if these two crime scenes didn’t piss you off or make you cry. Hell, I did both. And of course, there’s kicking the shit out of a coffee cup. That was next on my list.”

  “The crying will come later. I got the other two down,” she answered, sighing. “But I don’t suppose either reaction will put this animal behind bars. So we need to get back to work. Except I’m too beat to be much good in the lab tonight. We’ll drop off these evidence bags and get the midnight shift rolling on the soil and particle testing. I want to check out a couple other things for myself.”

  “Like what?”

  “The phones, for one.”

  “Makes sense. I found a couple of items I want to check out, too.”

  “Good stuff?”

  Oscar shrugged. “It’s probably nothing, but I found a section of a pencil, a piece of leather that might belong to a camera strap or something, and an old key in the grass over by . . . by the bench.”

  “Hey, you never know. We’ll hit it hard bright and early tomorrow . . . And I have this, too.”

  She held up Holly’s cell phone. It had been buried in the dirt, just like Clara’s. This time it had been closer, just some six feet from Holly’s left hand.

  Oscar stared at the phone, and she saw him shiver. “You’re not letting anyone else touch that phone, are you?”

  “No, I’m not. The phones are mine. I got to Clara’s some, before the call to come here. I didn’t get much yet, but I’ve got more to check out. If this is the kind of creepy killer we’re both hoping he or she isn’t, then this has to be processed to perfection. So I’ll keep them, and like I said, the night shift can do the busywork.”

  “Sounds like a plan. I’ll go pack up the floodlights, and then we can get the hell out of here. I need a shower, and not only because I’m covered in dirt.”

  She knew exactly what he meant. She also knew some filth never washed away, no matter how many showers you took.

  Oscar disappeared around the front of the truck, and she moved to the driver’s side, turning on the headlights so he could see what he was doing as he finished packing. It was a clear night, but only a sliver of a Chicago moon hung over Lake Michigan, offering no real illumination. That was in line with how she felt. All of this evidence and no real idea what, or who, they were truly looking at . . . yet. Methodical patience was an essential quality in the forensic world, and she knew that from experience. However, she didn’t feel especially patient at the moment. A good night’s sleep would surely help, providing the nightmares stayed at bay.

  The only bright side of the last twenty-four hours or so had been getting to see Brice, twice. The thought was strangely foreign to her—looking forward to seeing someone like this—and she wasn’t truly sure where it had come from. She’d noticed men a time or two since Joel had dumped her—she wasn’t completely dead. Jaded, sure. Hurt. Pissy. But not dead. Yet this “thing” with Brice was more than that.

  Over the last six weeks, she’d even entered her profile on a couple of dating sites, then turned chicken and hadn’t submitted them. That not-so-trite act of moving on from Joel had been mostly at the urging of Kate. But Ellen hadn’t been ready.

  Brice was a different reality altogether, however. She was a trained observer of evidence, which included people’s behavior in various situations. So maybe it was something Brice had done that had triggered her reaction. Whatever it was, she liked it, that feeling of attraction. And it didn’t seem to be one-sided. She’d caught him looking at her twice tonight. And one time it had been more than a passing glance.

  Could someone like Superman be interested in a woman as broken as she was?

  Without so much as a hint of warning, it came roaring back. The humiliation she had endured unleashed itself, telling her she was being ridiculous. She needed to return to the real world. Knights in shining armor saving damsels in distress, particularly distress like hers, was an impossible fantasy. She needed to get real. She was a science rat with a pissy attitude. What the hell was attractive about that?

  Her insecurity began its maddening ascent from deep inside and, for a moment, she wanted to hurt someone, anyone. Joel, again, would have been her first choice. God forgive her, but at that moment, she would have taken great pleasure in destroying the asshole completely. Not just giving him a knee to the groin.

  Inhaling, she focused on her dad’s well-meaning and insightful words:

  “You’re better than this, Ellie. Don’t let the past rule your future.”

  He was right. She knew that. But it was so damn difficult to accept that the love of your life wasn’t, after all.

  She gathered the mental strength to shove aside thoughts of her personal life and focused on getting the rest of the evidence bags loaded.

  She finished carefully placing the last of the evidence containers in the netting on the inside of the SUV just as Oscar packed the last of the lighting equipment into the rear seat.

  “Okay. I’m ready. Let’s get the hell out of here. I want to kiss my wife good night and check in on my kids, then win the lottery so I don’t have to see this shit ever again,” said Oscar.

  “What would you do then?”

  “I’d buy a big old farm in Northern Michigan and learn to play golf or bowl. Get fat, travel a lot, and bitch about the government.”

  “You bitch about the government now. You and Kate have that in common, remember?”

  “Yeah, but I’d have more time to do it.”

  “Okay. I see you’ve thought this out. But dream on and get in the vehicle. We’re outta here,” said Ellen.

  “Wait. Not yet.”

  Ellen turned at the sound of the commanding voice. Detective Brice Rogers walked around the back of the SUV. He was waving at them . . . or maybe he was just gesturing toward her. She liked how that sounded in her mind.

  Brice walked up to them. The brightness from the headlights cast enough of a glow to allow a fairly good look at his face. She liked that, too.

  “I thought you had already left. What’s up?” she asked.

  Brice pointed to the unmarked cruiser to the right of where the body was found.

  “I was sitting in the car, thinking of what to do next. I like to be alone, like most detectives I guess, when I’m putting the facts together. Sanchez left with one of the blues a little while ago. She was pretty beat, and I know the feeling. But before I head home and get
a few hours of sleep, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions. We’ve ordered all the routine procedures to be completed, but there might be a few nonroutine roads you could help me with. The initial investigative meeting is bright and early tomorrow morning, and I want to make sure I’ve got my bases covered. There’s talk of a task force already, driven by Big Harv. You know that means someone pushed the panic button about these two murders. I happen to agree with that line of thinking, by the way.”

  “You want my input even though we haven’t processed one bag of evidence yet?”

  Brice cocked his head, and she felt the intensity of his stare. The man was living up to his reputation for tenacity.

  “Listen. You were a cop at least three years before you became the best CSI on the force. That’s not just about science, in my experience. It means you might have a sense of what these killings are about. I need to find out if my instincts are right, okay? I can use all the help I can get.”

  Ellen felt herself flush. It was nice—very nice—to have someone want her opinion on these cases, and she definitely had an opinion or two. It was even better that it was Brice who was asking.

  “I . . . I . . .”

  “I know it’s late. Let Malloy take the SUV back to the forensics lab, and I’ll give you a ride home. We can talk on the way.”

  Oscar stepped in. “I think that’s a good idea, Ellie. I’ll get this evidence inside the lab, tell them to work it up pronto, and see you tomorrow. Anything more than that, well, I’m fried and won’t be much help,” he said, a smart-ass smirk on his face.

  Before she could object, Oscar shut the door and was driving down the service road.

  Little bastard. I’m going to kill him tomorrow.

  “Well, I guess you’ll have to go with me. I’ll have you home in twenty minutes. And don’t worry. No matter what you’ve heard, I don’t bite.”

  Brice’s weary smile caused her to return one of her own. She was comfortable with this detective as a man and not just a cop. That hadn’t been the case for some time. She reflected again on how often she’d seen him before this and never had the remotest of thoughts—well, maybe one or two, when she looked at his thick chest or carved arms—about enjoying his company as a man.

  Were the walls really tumbling down?

  “Fair enough. I couldn’t stop you tonight if I wanted to.”

  Two minutes later, after she’d tossed her black bag into the backseat of his cruiser, they were following the road that Oscar had just taken, except her partner had been driving like a bat out of Hell. Brice, however, was taking his sweet time. She thought it odd, but then again everything about this day had been odd.

  Brice looked over at her. “Ready for a few questions?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  His voice was soothing. Soothing was good.

  “Tell me what you think the phones with the pictures mean?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. At first I thought it was a mistake. A detail the killer forgot to handle. Leaving it at the scene must have seemed like the best option for him or her. But after we finished digging, it was obvious that wasn’t true. The killer wanted us to see that picture on that phone. The second one confirms the act has meaning and was very intentional. Also, the GPS chip was probably removed from both. You could see where the back of the phone had been pried open. That adds more intentionality to the killer’s actions.”

  “I suspected that. So we have a smart psychopath. Go on,” Brice encouraged.

  “I think you have to look at the complete picture. How the perp dressed the women. How he left them. It almost looks as if he wanted them to leave this life with a sense of dignity. My basic profiling training says that means the killer has a remote, or twisted, sense of remorse.”

  “That fits, and I think your guesses are right. Keep talking.”

  They reached Lake Shore, and Brice swung north.

  “Detective, I like empirical evidence. I don’t like to speculate. That’s why I went the CSI route and didn’t try to get into vice or homicide. I don’t want to guess; I want to know.”

  “And everyone knows you’re amazing at that. But you must have some thoughts. Even after you examine the results of the science, you have to make it all come together. You know, that whole hypothesis thing.”

  Smart man. That part was true. Cases were like giant puzzles, and the forensic evidence could eliminate a million peripheral possibilities and zero in on the ones that made the most sense.

  “I hate this, but just for the sake of argument, what if the phones represented something significant, or lasting, to the killer?”

  “You mean like, well, like a burial or some kind of memorial?”

  “Yeah, like that,” she answered. “You sound like you’re already there.”

  He nodded. “Maybe.”

  “So if it’s a burial, what’s the killer burying? It’s not just the phone—it has to be symbolic, right?”

  “It does. And I can’t get my mind around what that means, other than—”

  The radio crackled to life.

  “Unit 480. Detective Rogers. This is dispatch. Please respond.”

  Brice swiped the handset from the dash.

  “Rogers here.”

  “We’ve got FT unit 1534 sitting at a stoplight at Lake Shore and Oakland. Shots have been fired.”

  Ellen caught her breath.

  “That’s Oscar’s unit,” she whispered.

  CHAPTER 12

  Her body jerked into consciousness. She waited another minute for the fog to clear, then Joannie Carmen raised her head and began to open her eyes. Except she couldn’t.

  What the hell?

  She tried again, then again. She gave each attempt the same determined effort she’d given everything in her life, to no avail. They couldn’t be opened. And that wasn’t all.

  She couldn’t move her arms or legs. She was vaguely aware of sitting, but her body didn’t work.

  She attempted to scream for help, but discovered her mouth was taped shut.

  The first fragments of panic raced through her thoughts, but she fought them. Thanks to her training as an ER nurse, she knew that panic accomplished nothing and only made things worse.

  Maybe she was ensnared in one of those bad dreams where she couldn’t move her body or open her eyes. Maybe it wasn’t really tape on her mouth or a blindfold over her eyes. She remembered similar dreams she’d had as a child. They’d scared the hell out of her. Slowing her breathing, she concentrated on the things around her.

  She sensed she was in a padded chair—bound to it by her lower arms, her shins, and her waist.

  The temperature in the room was moderate, but the smell was musty, like the chilling cellar at her grandmother’s ancient Victorian home back in Michigan. This had to be a dream.

  After experiencing several of those paralyzing dreams, she’d discovered a way to awaken from them. She hated doing what came next, but it had worked when she was a kid.

  Curling her lip under her upper teeth, she bit hard. The pain was intense, and she felt the copper taste of blood immediately. Mission accomplished. Yet, she was still unable to move, and her senses hadn’t been renewed as they’d been when she’d awoken from those dreams.

  Her heart dropped.

  That should have done it. She should have sat up in bed, clutching her bleeding lip. The nightmare should have been over. Except this wasn’t one of those hellish nightmares at all.

  It was all real. Not like the roles she’d played in those theater productions.

  Joannie was a prisoner. Captured.

  The realization was unfathomable. She suddenly found herself unable to do what she’d been able to do her entire life—come and go as she pleased. How could this have happened? One minute she’d been having coffee, then heading to dinner with the hottest man in Chicago
. The next, she’d awakened blind, bound, and despite her best efforts . . . afraid. Very much afraid.

  And where was Kyle? She’d felt safe with him. Was this some kind of sick joke? No, she knew it wasn’t. They had been kidnapped.

  Kidnapped.

  Anxiety wrapped its arms around her and whispered that she was right.

  Why? She had no enemies, and no one had an axe to grind with her. Who would do this? It didn’t add up.

  Her thoughts switched to a news story she’d seen about a young woman who had been missing for two days after last being seen at a coffee shop off Michigan Avenue.

  A powerful feeling of dread abruptly threatened to overwhelm her. It didn’t take a genius to put things together. Joannie Carmen was missing.

  The thought brought her to a fully alert state. When she felt the rope’s pressure against her skin, full-blown panic took over.

  In a fit of pure alarm and terror, she violently worked against her bonds, trying to rock the chair as she did so. She had to get loose before this horrible claustrophobia drove her insane. More than that, she feared the reasons she’d been tied to a chair like this. She’d read more than a few true-crime books and watched many a true-crime show. This never ended well.

  That thought renewed her determination, but she might as well have been trying to deadlift an elephant. Three minutes later, she stopped struggling, exhausted, and felt perspiration trickle down both sides of her face.

  Whoever had done this knew exactly how to do it right, including somehow securing the chair to the floor. It hadn’t wiggled a bit during her onslaught.

  Doing her best to calm herself down, she decided to concentrate on what she could hear. She listened, but could only hear her own heartbeat running crazy in her head. It was so hard to focus on anything else, but she had to know if there was someone nearby. She was praying she wasn’t alone. The word itself brought on another wave of alarm.

  Don’t go there, Joannie. Don’t go there.

  It took ten more arduous minutes for her to shift her focus away from the terrible possibilities, but she did. Maybe she wasn’t alone. Maybe Kyle was sitting right beside her. She had to find out.