14 BOOK 2 (18 page)

She caught his eye, raised an eyebrow. He held up a finger in a wait-a-minute gesture, then finished the call. When he shut the phone, he ran a hand over his face, and Taylor saw how tired he was. Fitz wasn’t a spring chicken anymore; the stress of the week was showing on his haggard features. He came to her then, shaking his head.

“We’ve got a murder scene,” he said when he reached her. “Need to head over there. Want to join me?”

“Goddamn. How much more can we take today?”

Taylor swept a hand at the chaos. “Is it Jane Macias?”

“Doesn’t look that way. It’s one of the massage parlors off Nolensville Road.”

Relief flowed through her chest. She just couldn’t stand the idea of failing one more girl.

“Massage parlor mania today. I thought we had all of them shut down?” They started walking to his car. 

“Hey, wait up.” Baldwin came after them, jogging.

“Where you headed?”

“Just got a call in for a murder at one of the supposedly closed massage parlors. This might tie back to Saraya. We need to head over there. This guy got away, there’s no question about that. Marcus is handling the search. He doesn’t need us.”

“Yeah, he’s got it under control. You’re right, this is all a bit useless. I can come with, if you want?”

“Why not? More the merrier,” Fitz grumbled. They got into Fitz’s department-issued Cavalier and left the afternoon’s failure behind.

“Anything new on Snow White’s copycat?” Fitz asked as he negotiated the phalanx of blue strobe lights. “I figured that chick from Quantico would be all over us today. You know where she is?”

“I haven’t seen her today, thankfully. I’ve been avoiding my office like the plague,” Baldwin answered.

“Pity, that.” Taylor’s sarcasm wasn’t met with denial. Charlotte Douglas was going to be a problem, she could feel it in her bones. “We haven’t heard anything new on the Snow White case today. Been a little busy. Though Remy gave me some ideas on how to track Giselle’s movements. I’d like to talk to her grandparents, see if they can point us in the direction of any friends she might have who they don’t like. Remy insinuated that Giselle might have snuck out.”

Fitz had maneuvered them over the bridge, onto South, and off the first ramp so they could travel the back roads to the massage parlor. He was never a fan of the freeway, and it drove Taylor crazy sometimes. But he was a demon on the side streets, and they pulled up in front of a small, well-kept house within minutes.

“This is a massage parlor?”

“Apparently so. They can’t get away with a business front anymore, so they’ve moved into the private homes down here.”

The area was largely dominated by Spanish-speaking residents, with a few Kurds and indigent blacks thrown in for good measure. There were plenty of crack houses in the nearby streets, and a couple of Section 8 government housing projects a few blocks away. Homicide was busy enough in this area, and had to employ trained civilian translators to help solve the crimes. Many of the residents were illegals, and didn’t trust the police to do anything that could be construed as positive for the neighborhood. They unloaded from the vehicle, checked in at the command post, signed the call sheet and got their party clothes—booties, gloves, all the protective accoutrements for a get-together with death.

An officer met them on the front lawn. Bob Parks was one of Taylor’s favorites, a happy yet serious man who doubled for the SWAT team. He had a luxuriant black mustache that looked like it had been oiled and groomed recently.

“Welcome, welcome,” Parks bellowed. “Nice of you to come and join us this afternoon. We have a lovely time planned for you—blood, gore and a few other unmentionables you’ll be thrilled to see.”

“Hey, Bob.” Taylor greeted him with a thump on the back. “How’s the kids?”

“Like Dilbert says, ’bout as happy as a bunch of barefoot squirrels in a tire store.”

Taylor snorted back a laugh.

“I’m telling you, LT, having teenagers will be the death of me. Hi, Dr. Baldwin.”

“Hey, Parks. Sorry to see you under these circumstances.”

Fitz bellied up to the younger man. “What am I, chopped liver?”

“Naw, Fitz, you’re just a pain in my ass. How come you haven’t retired yet? You’re too old to be messing with this shit.”

“Parks, you’re not that far behind me. Shut the hell up already. What do you have here?”

Parks turned back to the little house, shaking his head.

“It’s not a pretty scene, I’ll warn you. Double homicide, two girls. Both look Spanish, which is fitting for this part of town, but they’re facedown, the M.E. hasn’t gotten here yet. We were waiting for her to declare before we moved them. Took the pics, and video is rolling.”

“Spanish. Let’s go take a look.” Taylor led them across the lawn to the front steps.

On the small porch the four geared up, covering their shoes with the booties, gloving their hands. Taylor wound her ponytail into a bun to make sure there weren’t any loose strands that could fall off and compromise the scene. Fully geared, they made their way into the house, following the thinly taped guide route one of the officers had laid on the floor.

The inside of the house was dressed in a nearly sterile white. To the left of the entry foyer, white leather furniture with glass tables and lamps dominated a small living room, with white walls and white drapes. To the right, a kitchen with white marble floors and a white countertop completed the monochromatic decor. White Berber carpet led down a short hallway to three doors—Taylor could see a pristine bathroom at the end of the hall and assumed the two other doors led to bedrooms. She was right. 

“Door number one,” Parks said, gesturing to the right.

“And door number two.” He pointed left. “Take your pick, they’re nearly identical.”

Taylor chose the right side first. She stood in the doorway and looked into the room, running her Maglite over the dimness. She didn’t need the overhead to see the blood. Copious amounts of red, startling against the contiguous white theme, was very defining. From her vantage point at the doorway, she could see blood everywhere, cast off on the unmade bed and headboard, washed across the wall, soaking the carpet. In the middle of the bed, a darkhaired woman lay on her stomach, facedown on the sheets, which were nearly black. Exsanguination, her mind told her. The woman’s legs were akimbo, the left twisted under the right as if she’d fallen at an angle onto the mattress. Taylor couldn’t see her arms.

She switched places with Baldwin and Fitz, looking into the left-side room. The scene was virtually identical. A knot formed in her stomach. A double homicide, with both scenes indistinguishable at first glance. Fuck. She heard talking, turned to see Sam striding toward her.

“Heard you had a bad day,” she said when she reached Taylor.

“Couldn’t be any worse than yours. You had Remy St. Claire fogging up your office. I’m just on my third and fourth bodies today and Baldwin’s former lover is in town with some kind of agenda.”

“A stellar day for us both. What do we have here?” Sam was dressed for the scene and obviously champing at the bit to get to work.

“Two dead, lots of blood, and a mess. I was hoping you could shed some light. They haven’t been turned, I want to see that. This feels a little too familiar, if you know what I mean.”

“Okay. Let me work. By the way, you know we’re supposed to go to dinner tonight. I might be running a little late.”

Taylor groaned. Yes, they were supposed to have dinner tonight, a joint bachelor/bachelorette evening. She’d forgotten.

“Yeah, well, I won’t die if we can’t do it.”

“Oh, come on, T. The boys are all excited. We’ll do dinner, then let them go to the VIBE. There’s a nice little bar next door, we’ll sit in there and drink. Unless you want to go to the strip club.”

“Baldwin’s excited to go to a strip club?” She looked over her shoulder; he was back out in the foyer of the house, talking on his cell phone. His brow was crinkled and she wondered who he was talking to.

“No, I think it’s more Simon is excited. He hasn’t gotten a chance to have a lot of male bonding since the babies came. We’ll let him and Baldwin, Fitz, Marcus and Lincoln watch the girlies dance and you and I will have a relaxing hour before they come back. I plan on getting ravished after that. So don’t spoil my fun, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. We’ll probably have to skip the dinner portion of our evening. What’s the name of the bar? I’ll just plan to meet you there later on. Between the shootings at Baptist and this double, I’m going to be up to my ears signing off on a shitload of paperwork tonight.”

Sam thought hard. “I think it’s called something like…Control, that’s it. Control.”

“Sounds like a gay bar, one of the ones up on Church Street.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t name it. And it’s not. Let’s get to it.” She went into the first room and did a thorough setup, taking her time. It was a good twenty minutes before she declared she was ready to flip the girl. With a little help from one of the crime-scene techs, the woman was rolled onto the sheet that would help them transfer the body into a body bag.

Taylor was chatting with Parks when she heard Sam’s sharp intake of breath.

“What, what is it? What’s the matter?” she asked.

“You better come look at this,” Sam answered. Taylor came into the room. It only took a glance at the woman before Taylor realized what was happening. The breath left her body in a whoosh.

“Oh my God.”

A fire crackled in the hearth. The cozy scene belied the barely contained vicissitude in the room. Snow White paced, in a fury, leaning heavily on his cane.

“Goddamn you, I told you no. You had no right to move ahead without my permission. That wasn’t a part of our deal, you brainless son of a bitch. These things need to be treated carefully, cautiously. You’ve undone all our work. You’re going to get us both caught.”

“Shut up, old man. I did what needed to be done. You won’t let me kill that stupid bitch we took the other night. I needed to get it out of my system. They’re just whores.”

Snow White turned to the third member of the room.

“Did you sanction this? Did you tell him he could deviate from protocol? I swear to you, if either of you fuck me, I’ll see to it you never forget what it’s like to be on my bad side.”

The woman turned. “I have no more control over him than you do. You knew that when I brought him to you. He’s a sociopath.”

The younger man adopted a mocking tone. “Thank you, darling. Coming from you, that’s a high compliment indeed.”

She frowned at him. “You’re welcome, though I have to say I agree. Going outside the parameters at this stage of the game could derail everything. You want me to be happy, don’t you?”

Snow White felt a scream building in his blood. “Shut up, both of you. We need to find out what’s happening, see if we need to shut all this down. What have you done to the girl?”

“I haven’t done anything to her but look. She’s safe. For now.”

“I didn’t ask that. Where is she? I want to see her.”

His protégé casually stretched and smiled. “She’s safe. I haven’t touched her. But I will, mark my words.”

“Lay a hand on her and you’ll be dead before you can blink. You’ve broken the pattern. Defied my rules. I say when you kill. And now you’ve gone and done this? With these…defiled things. We have standards. First you’re dumb enough to choose the daughter of a celebrity. Minor as the mother may be, she’s drawing too much attention to us. Then you guarantee even more media for yourself by taking a newspaper reporter? We had an agreement! You might as well have spit in my eye. If you deviate from the plan again, I will have your head, mark
my
words. They will be coming for us now, and it’s too soon.”

“You didn’t realize who little Jane was, either, old man. You were right there in the thick of it with me. Don’t think I’ll forget that.”

“You are not to touch her. Am I understood?”

Snow White glared at his apprentice. His threats were empty; he had no strength to take control of the situation physically, and the boy knew it. The impertinent fool had gotten greedy, couldn’t sate his ridiculous hunger for ending life for just a few days. He knew this was a bad idea.

The door to the room opened.

“Father?”

“Oh, look, it’s blind-boy grunt. Come to see what your daddy is up to with the real people? I bet he rues the day you spat forth into this world.”

Snow White sniggered, but the woman stood angrily.

“Hey. That’s my brother you’re talking to. Don’t you dare speak like that to him. Do you understand me?”

“What are you going to do to me, princess?”

She ignored him, went to the deformed creature she called brother. “He didn’t mean it, he doesn’t know any better. He’s a brute, Joshua. Let’s get you something to drink, okay?” She marched from the room, and Snow White sighed.

“She’s loved that boy silly since he came out of that twat she called a mother. I don’t think Charlotte remembers her mother. She died giving birth to Joshua, you know. They laid him on her chest and she just went. Like she couldn’t face what she had created.”

“It’s a disease, old man. Just like the one you have, but it cripples his face, not his soul.”

“Well, aren’t you the philosopher today? You were insulting him a moment ago. Changed your mind?”

“Of course not. I don’t possess compassion, you know that. But I do admire your darling daughter for her loyalty. Enough of this. I’m tired. I’ve had a long day. I’m going to get some rest.”

“Don’t touch the girl.”

He left the room, and Snow White slumped in his chair. He shouldn’t have listened. Shouldn’t have allowed it to move so quickly. Not enough planning, a shortsighted monster who could break his leash at any time. As much as he enjoyed hearing about it, loved to participate, to feel the breath leaving their bodies, see the light dimming in their eyes as their souls fled, he knew it was too much. Too fast, too many. The boy would be their undoing. 

Frank Richardson pulled off his reading glasses and rubbed his eyes. His brain was numb. He’d been combing the files, rereading all of his stories, making copies of relevant sections. In all, he’d written more than four hundred stories on the Snow White Killer over the years he’d been active.