Cold Hearted (Cold Justice Book 6) (6 page)

“Did he know there were only two girls here?” she asked suddenly. “And if so, how? Was he stalking them? Does he know their routine? Is he a friend? Was he watching the house, maybe from a vehicle? Or does he live nearby?”

Darsh liked the way her brain worked. His thoughts had been traveling the same direction.

She continued. “Maybe he didn’t care that the others could have come home at any moment. Maybe he was waiting for them to turn up until he saw me roll up? Did he have a gun or a knife that he used to control them? Is that how he subdued two smart women, then killed them both?” She started to say something else, then closed her mouth.

“What?” He wanted to know how she thought, and how she acted on those thoughts.

“He’s not a novice. He’s done this before.”

Darsh agreed. The million-dollar question was, had he gained his experience on the women Drew Hawke was convicted of raping, or was he using that case to raise the stakes and increase his own notoriety? Or had Hawke had a partner? No one had ever mentioned the possibility, but Special-K was renowned for leaving users confused and disorientated. If the victim was conscious, ketamine could produce hallucinations, but didn’t actually erase short-term memory the way some date rape drugs did.

Darsh glanced at the girl’s walls. No posters. Just a shrine to the Hawke kid.

Cassandra’s lamp was on. Computer off. A mug lay overturned and broken on the rug, a brown coffee stain on the carpet. Crumpled papers were strewn across the mat. He leafed through a few boxes that sat on a shelf—receipts, university administration type stuff. Then studied the contents of the desk. Laptop. Headphones. Printer. Textbooks. Writing paper. Envelopes. And stamps. He opened a drawer. No letters.

“Did she correspond with Hawke?”

Donovan watched him move around the room. She seemed reluctant to let him out of her sight, and he doubted that was because of his irresistible good looks.

“I don’t know. We didn’t find any letters from him to her, but after her declarations of undying love? I’d be shocked if they hadn’t written.”

“We need to find out.” If the killer had taken the letters, it would tell them something about his mindset.

She carefully stepped around the mess in the middle of the floor. “So you’re thinking he takes letters but not computers or cell phones. This isn’t a robbery gone bad.”

“No,” he agreed.

“Is he likely to stop killing if we don’t catch him?” White teeth worried her bottom lip.

Darsh felt them on his skin and shied away from the tactile memory. “The suggestion that serial killers won’t stop unless caught is a myth. Dennis Rader killed ten people between 1974 and 1991. He didn’t kill anyone else before he was arrested in 2005. Sometimes they find a substitution for the buzz they get from killing. Sometimes they get scared and don’t want to get caught. Psychopaths often offend less as they enter their mid-forties—no one knows why. Serial rapists, though?” He stared at the dead girl. “I doubt this guy is done.”

Cassandra Bressinger had fought hard, but it hadn’t mattered in the end. In fact, the more she fought, the more excited the killer had probably become. Rape was a crime of hate and dominance, not uncontrollable lust. This UNSUB had viciously attacked Cassandra Bressinger, using more force than necessary to overpower her and commit the act. It looked like the work of a classic anger rapist who used sex as a weapon. The UNSUB had wanted to humiliate and defile Cassie. Maybe the identity of the victim hadn’t mattered. Maybe the guy hated women in general. But Darsh had a feeling the attacker had chosen Cassie deliberately, and that she was a message—and he needed to figure out what the message was and whom it was directed toward. That smacked more of a power rapist who used sex as a tool to compensate for feelings of inadequacy.

The nature of the sexual assault gave Darsh information on this guy’s twisted psyche, but this attack was sending mixed messages.

“If he’s driven by a desire for notoriety, this might be enough to sate him for now. But if he becomes addicted to the spotlight…”

“He’s about to get the fix of a lifetime.” Donovan nodded. “The media is about to descend on this town and make this guy a worldwide celebrity.” And her a pariah.

“And if he’s trying to make Hawke look innocent, or law enforcement incompetent,” he gave her a pointed look, “he might just be getting started.”

She swore.

“Bottom line is I doubt he’ll stop on his own.” He clenched a fist. “I need to figure out his motive—”

“
We
,” Donovan cut in sharply. “
We
need to figure out motive.”

Her expression dared him to deny her the right to do her job.

“We.” He conceded eventually.

He flicked the curtain to look out at the street. What he was really doing was avoiding the woman he’d never expected to see again. The one who’d lied to him and brought him to his knees. If he discovered she’d screwed up the Hawke investigation and inadvertently gotten these two women killed, she’d be off the case and off the job. Detective Donovan wasn’t going to like that very much. Nope. She wasn’t going to like it at all.

E
rin let the
engine of her truck run for a minute and tried to pretend she wasn’t floored by the fact her past had just collided with her present. Of all the men to walk into a murder scene… She groaned out loud and wished she could slink home and hide out in her bedroom for a week. Long enough for freaking
FBI Agent
Darsh Singh to be on his way.

God
. She wanted to scream with frustration.

It took years to become eligible to even
apply
for the BAU, so he’d definitely been an agent when they’d last met. He’d known she was attending a course at the academy, and that’s probably why he’d gone with the USMC story. Maybe he’d worried she wouldn’t have hooked up with anyone she might bump into during her training course at the FBI. But she’d forgotten, until after it was too late, that adultery was a criminal offense in the military. She’d harbored years of guilt for putting him at risk and had understood why he’d freaked out when he’d discovered she was married. At that point, telling the truth about her situation wouldn’t have made a difference, so she hadn’t even tried to explain.

But he’d lied to her about being in the Marines.

The fact he was still furious about sleeping with a married woman spoke of higher morals than she possessed. He probably thought she was some bored cock hopping slut out for a good time. He was wrong, but she
had
been after sex when she’d walked into that bar, and she had been married, so maybe he wasn’t completely wrong. It might have been a sin in the eyes of the church, and under military law, but the part of her that wanted to feel ashamed was quickly buried under a mountain of resilience and hard-won independence.

It was none of his damn business.

Hypocrite
.

No one had the right to tell her how to act or what to feel. Especially not a man who’d done his own share of deception in the quest to get her naked. He’d never
asked
if she was married. She hadn’t lied.

As the heater finally began to deliver hot air, she pulled out and drove slowly past the crowd of onlookers who lingered despite the hour and frigid temperature. She tapped her brakes just to make sure they still worked. Not that she was paranoid or anything.

Headlights pulled into the street behind her, and her shoulders slumped. Agent Singh was following her to the police station.

Why had her boss requested FBI assistance? Of course she knew. She was just trying to ignore the elephant in the room until it trampled her into a bloody pulp. The boss was worried Hawke might be innocent, and she’d arrested the wrong guy.

The fact she was a small cog in the criminal justice system wouldn’t matter if they needed a scapegoat. She’d been the face of the investigation. It was her head on the chopping block. While her career wasn’t much compared to the lives of those two women, it was all she had.

Had the high profile trial attracted a serial rapist to their affluent little town? Or
had
she been wrong about Hawke, and the real rapist had been free all this time and had now escalated from rape to murder? But the evidence against Hawke was solid. She hadn’t pulled him out of thin air as a suspect, and the rapes had stopped after he’d been arrested. This didn’t make any sense.

Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel as she thought about what had happened to Cassie and Mandy. She knew monsters were out there, and that her chance of crossing paths with them was higher than the average citizen. She knew they hid amongst the honest and polite, the good looking and earnest. Insidious evil lurking beneath seemingly normal veneers. She knew it all too well.

Her phone rang, and she used her hands-free unit to answer it. “Donovan.”

“Are you all right, love?” her mother asked.

Erin checked the clock. Of course her mother would have heard the news and been worried. “Yeah, Mom, of course I’m fine. You unpacked yet?”

She’d taken her parents with her to Hawaii for their fortieth wedding anniversary. It seemed like a grand gesture, but the family wasn’t fooled. She was still avoiding going home to NYC.

“We’re fine. I just saw the news and wanted to check you were safe.”

A pang of guilt hit her. Brigit Donovan’s nerves were probably shot from worrying about all her offspring, not to mention her husband. Maybe that’s one of the reasons Erin had become a cop. It was easier not to worry from this side of the blue line. “I’ve been up all night, Mom, working the case. I can’t talk right now.”

Erin heard the eye-roll in her mother’s voice. “Of course you can’t. Stay safe, Erin. Get some rest and lock your doors. The idea of you all alone in that farmhouse—”

“Thanks for freaking me out, Mom. I’ll call you when I get time.” Which would be after they solved the case.

“Love you, Erin.” It was how her mom ended every conversation. That and a quick prayer to St. Michael and a kiss of the rosary.

“Love you, too, Mom. Go back to bed.” Another call came through as soon as she hung up.

“Erin.” She recognized the voice. Professor Roman Huxley. “I just heard about the murders. If I can help in any way, please don’t hesitate to call me.”

Huxley was a leading expert on criminology. He was based at the university here and was an invaluable resource. She’d sat in on a few of his classes and even given a guest lecture in one of his courses before the Hawke case last year.

“Thanks—”

“I don’t know if you know this, but one of the victims was in my sophomore class. Mandy Wochikowski. She was a bright kid. Did some work for me over the summer. I feel terrible.”

“Anything you can tell me about her?” Erin asked quickly. She didn’t know much about Mandy. Any information would be useful.

“She was a straight-A student who always attended lectures and handed in her projects on time. Those students are rarer than you think.”

“Boyfriend? Girlfriend?”

“Not that I noticed.”

So probably not. The professor was a bit of a player and had hit on her when they’d first met, and several times since. Erin got hit on a lot—not because she was some raving beauty. But the more she said “no,” the more of a challenge she became. Apparently being unattainable was attractive to a lot of men. It took some guys multiple knock-backs to get the message across that she wasn’t dating anyone. Ever.

Thoughts of the sexy fed tried to intrude. He was an unwelcome reminder of the last time she’d said “yes.”

“She ever mention the Hawke case to you?” she asked.

“You think the two crimes are related?” His surprise seemed genuine.

“Not necessarily,” she said carefully. She didn’t want to be the source of rumors that could jeopardize her career, but it wouldn’t take the press long to start screaming the same questions. “The other victim was Cassandra Bressinger. I can’t ignore the possibility of there being some sort of connection.”

“Christ, I didn’t know the other girl was Cassie. I’d forgotten they lived together.”

Erin heard the change in his tone. “You knew her, too?”

“She sought me out during the trial. Wanted to know the recommended reading on serial rapists and if I could suggest any current research papers concerning their psychology.”

Erin wasn’t surprised. Cassie had been driven to exonerate her boyfriend.

“I’m very sorry to hear she was involved,” the professor said softly. “She seemed genuinely convinced Hawke was innocent despite the compelling evidence to the contrary.” There was a long pause. “As to your other question, Mandy and I discussed the Hawke case on several occasions in class. It was an incredible teaching opportunity as you can imagine.”

She rolled her eyes because it was so much more than that.

“I used it as a demonstration about criminal behavior and how criminals are often viewed as a consequence of their social standing. Needless to say the discussion degenerated into a fight between how the quarterback of the Blackcombe Ravens could have any girl he wanted and didn’t need to rape to get sex
versus
football players are brainless meatheads too stupid and overindulged to understand a one-syllable, two letter word. I actually begin teaching material about serial rape next week. I expect the information will open some students’ eyes to aspects of the crime they assume they understand. If it doesn’t, they’re going to flunk.”