Killer Moves (2 page)

Kara—always Kara. He was no closer to getting her out of his head than he was to forgetting the reasons that brought them together in the first place.

“He’s on his way,” she said, replacing the receiver before spotting the evidence of another sleepless night. “You know, I could cure you of her in a second. It would only take one night and you wouldn’t even remember her name.”

He tried to remain in his bad mood, but Jessica knew how to bring him out of those black moments. Although, most of the time he wished she’d leave him there to suffer.

Of course, he’d have to be crazy to consider taking her up on her offer, but still Jessica refused to give up hope. He considered her a kid sister. She considered him a challenge.

As a good friend of her parents, he’d practically watched her grow up.

“Thanks, but I’ll keep my memories. And I don’t want to have to fight your father when he learns I’ve corrupted his little girl.”

Before Jessica could answer, Ryan Anderson, his second-in-command, appeared in the doorway.

“Thanks, Jessica. Can you give us a minute?” Ryan announced without so much as a “good morning”.

She glanced at Davis, waiting for him to give the okay before budging.

“Go ahead. If we need anything, I’ll buzz you,” he told her with a smile.

“What’s up?” he asked once he got a good look at Ryan’s worried expression. This was going to be bad.

“Three days ago, DC police found the body of a woman in an empty warehouse off Arlington Boulevard,” Ryan told him before taking his usual seat across from Davis.

Dear God. Three days ago had been the anniversary of the first death.

“Dammit.” Davis breathed the word out.

“Yeah, I know.”

“What happened?” Ryan didn’t answer right away, which only served to increase Davis’s apprehension. “What’s so special about this one to make DC homicide want us involved in it? A politician?” Wishful thinking. He knew the truth. This was only the beginning of the horror.

Ryan shook his head. “No such luck. I received a call from homicide this morning. The detective I spoke with who caught the case wanted to talk to you.”

“Okay.” He wondered why Ryan didn’t just get on with it. Speak the nightmare to life.

“His case has some similarities to another case. That’s what caught the detective’s interest in the first place. Then there’s the scarf, which is downright odd.”

“The scarf?” He forced the words out, forgetting all about his bad mood.

The sympathy in Ryan’s expression assured Davis he’d read his fears. “Yeah. They found a white silk scarf tied around the victim’s eyes. A Hermès scarf. He’d bound her hands until after he killed her. Davis, she’s been mutilated and there’s evidence of rape, although there’s no DNA on the body. This perp knew what he was doing.”

“Was it…” He never intentionally let himself think about the Death Angel case even though it was never far from him emotionally. The case had left its mark on him and everyone who worked it, including Ryan and certainly Kara. It cost him dearly in losing the woman he loved.

“Not only similar to the scarf used in the original Angel case, Davis, it’s the same scarf.”

“What are you talking about? That’s impossible—”

“He used the same scarf as in the original Sinclair murder. The detective put a rush on the lab work. The initial report indicates there is more than one source of blood on the scarf, and since the perp didn’t leave any DNA at the crime scene, we’re almost certain it isn’t his. I had the lab compare the blood to Amy’s blood type and it’s a match.”

“How is that possible?”

“That’s what I wanted to know, so I checked on the evidence file from those first cases and, Davis—the scarves have all gone missing from the Death Angel case.”

“What did you say?” His thoughts went instinctively back to the last time he’d seen those scarves. They’d remained at VCIRD for three years following the official closing of the Angel case even though they’d never recovered Frankie Shepard’s body from the Potomac. Later, they’d gone into storage at the Bureau’s evidence storage facility.

“How is that possible, Ryan?”

“That’s a good question. And one we’d better figure out soon. Before the press gets wind of this.”

“Have you talked to the evidence clerk?”

“Yes, I called her as soon as I discovered the missing evidence. But nothing unusual happened to her knowledge and she’s squeaky clean. She’s a dead end.”

“Does Ed know about this yet?”

“Are you kidding? I wanted to give you the heads-up before I mentioned anything to him.”

“Good. Keep it that way for now. He’s going to go ballistic when he hears someone waltzed into our evidence facility and took evidence from one of the most notorious serial killer cases in centuries.”

“Hey, you aren’t telling me anything I don’t know, buddy. I’m meeting the two homicide detectives working the case in a few minutes. I’ve asked them to turn over all the information they have so far to us. You want to sit in? I can have them meet us here.”

“Yes. But let’s try to keep a lid on this for now. This could all just be some screw-up at the lab. No need getting anyone worked up unnecessarily. Did you find anything else missing from the evidence files?”

“Nothing, and I drove out there this morning myself to check on it personally. Just the scarves.”

As he waited for Ryan to bring the two detectives round, he glanced at the calendar on his desk. Six years ago to the day. The anniversary of the discovery of the first victim in the Death Angel murders. The first of many to follow. He still remembered everything he’d felt about that day because he’d felt the same way today. God, he hoped this wasn’t going to prove to be another bad omen.

Three days later…

“Mommie, do I have to go to school today?” Her daughter’s heavy footsteps trudged into the kitchen where Kara sat downing her fifth cup of coffee of the morning. She’d spent another restless night. The frequency of the dreams was a foreshadowing of things to come.

Ava hated school and looked for any excuse to get out of going. Another something she’d inherited from her mother. Kara knew every trick in the book because she’d used them all with her grandmother.

“I don’t feel good!”

When Kara spotted the emergence of her daughter’s pout, somehow she resisted the urge to smile.

So far this year, Ava had faked five tummy aches and three sore throats. It wasn’t as if Ava didn’t love her teacher, Miss Clopay, because she did. And Ava did well in school. So well that she’d been moved up to the first grade even though she was only five.

But Ava struggled to fit into the structured confines of school life, even a school as small as the one on the reservation in which Ava and she lived.

The simple, one-story house Kara purchased six years earlier sat at the very edge of the Apache reservation. Although she wasn’t a descendant of Apache blood, the desert and the reservation was the only place she felt safe anymore. And the Apache people didn’t ask questions.

“Yes, you do, little girl.”

When Ava’s pout disintegrated into tears, Kara reached for her daughter and sat her on her lap.

“Baby, I know it’s hard, but this is only your first year. You’ll get used to it, and you’ve known most of the kids in your class all your life.”

“But Jakey Asisnih was mean to me. He pulled my hair—twice yesterday during recess.” Ava sobbed uncontrollably, her tiny arms clinging to Kara’s neck for comfort.

Kara smiled against her daughter’s unruly brown curls. Ava smelled like innocence itself. She wanted her to stay that way for as long as possible. She didn’t tell her daughter that this was Jakey’s way of letting her know he liked her. Never mind that. She’d learn that lesson soon enough.

“Did you tell Miss Clopay?”

“Yes. She told me to be nice to Jakey because his mom’s sick.”

In truth, Theresa Asisnih was dying. According to Sarah Clopay, Jakey didn’t talk much about his mother’s illness. He just acted out.

“Well, try not to be too upset with him, baby. Jakey needs a friend right now.”

Ava’s gray eyes searched her mother’s face for a moment, sending an unsettling reminder of the past. Every time she looked into her daughter’s eyes, she saw Davis. Once again, old guilt and familiar doubts consumed her along with old desires. She still loved him after all, but she hated him for choosing the Bureau over her.

“Honey, try to be nice to Jakey and maybe he’ll stop pulling your hair.” She set her daughter on her feet and retrieved Ava’s lunchbox from the fridge. “Come on. We don’t want to be late for the bus.”

“All right.” Ava wasn’t happy but she knew better than to argue a lost cause. She followed Kara out the door and down to the dirt road that ran in front of their house. The bus stopped there each morning at 8:15. And every morning their faithful dog Buster, along with Kara, would make sure Ava got safely on board the bus before going on their morning run.

Kara kissed her daughter’s mutinous face, waved to Roger the bus driver, and waited as they drove slowly away in the one beat-up bus the reservation’s school possessed.

A committee met each month to discuss ways of raising funds for new ones. With any luck, they’d have two new buses in another year’s time.

As the cloud of dust settled around them, Kara could see her daughter’s unhappy expression looking back at her.

Her heart went out to Ava. She’d hated school as well. In the beginning, she couldn’t seem to control the images going round inside her head and ended up in constant trouble because of it.

By the time Kara was just a little older than Ava, she’d grown accustomed to the visions and dreams. Would it be the same for Ava?

Once the bus disappeared out of sight and the uncomfortable quiet settled around them again, she could feel him trying to enter her thoughts. Kara started out across the desert but he grew more persistent. The more pronounced the images became, the harder she ran until she felt nothing but the exhaustion of her body.

Her tiny house came back into view after miles and miles of open desert. She knew every inch of this place by heart as well as its inhabitants, and the black Suburban scattering the peacefulness of the morning wasn’t one of them.

They’d come again.

“Dammit.” Kara stopped some distance from the house, hands on her knees, watching as a vehicle sped down her dirt road. Buster let out a low growl in answer to her anger. She reached down to pat his head, trying to reassure him before retrieving her water bottle.

Through the years, she’d gone from walking to running five miles every morning before going to work at In Bloom, the clothing boutique she’d opened a few years back in El Paso.

If she’d learned anything from her time with the FBI, it had been how to stay in shape and be prepared at all times for anything. She’d never been better at both than at this moment.

Buster growled once more, drawing her attention back to the black SUV. Kara was tempted to send him charging after them. Fiercely protective of her and Ava, Buster lived for the hunt.

“It’s okay, boy. I’ll get rid of them for you.” Slowly Kara covered the remaining distance to the Suburban that had now stopped in front of her house.

A few yards away from the SUV, she settled into walking again. Kara reached the vehicle just as two men dressed in black suits emerged from out of it. Jeez, could they be more obvious?

Both men glanced up at the house. They weren’t aware of her yet.

“Can I help you?” Startled, they turned quickly around at the sound of her voice, weapons drawn. Even though they were wearing sunglasses, probably Bureau issued, she sensed their uneasiness. They looked hot and tired. Kara smiled. The desert heat had that effect on outsiders.

She recognized the taller of the two right away. Ryan Anderson. She’d worked side by side with him on the Angel case. Ryan and Davis Martin had been best friends since their academy days at Quantico.

“Hello, Kara.” Ryan smiled beneath his Bureau-issued sunglasses, which prevented her from seeing his eyes. Not that it mattered. She knew Ryan wouldn’t be happy to see her again, no matter how much he might be smiling.

The other agent, a rookie, appeared shocked by his partner’s recognition. His curious gaze moved from Ryan to Kara.

“You’re wasting your time here, Ryan.” Some of his practiced Bureau tactics slipped a little with her answer, but for the moment Ryan chose to ignore Kara’s rudeness entirely.

“Kara, this is my partner, Agent Sean Griffin. Sean, this is the legendary Kara Bryant.” Ryan’s expression revealed little but she recognized his sarcasm all too well. Apparently, his partner did not.

“Wow, you worked on the Angel case along with Agent Anderson and Agent Martin. This is an honor, ma’am.” Kara cringed over the younger man’s spit-and-polish manners. It seemed like only yesterday she’d been his age. Had she ever truly been so enthusiastic about the Bureau? Ryan didn’t bother hiding his amused reaction to his partner’s enthusiasm.

“Agent Griffin.” Kara reluctantly shook the young man’s hand. How did someone so green rate partnering with Davis’s second-in-command?