Pretty Dead (6 page)

“I’m grabbing another beer.” John Casper pushed himself from his chair and headed for the house. “Anybody else?”

Avery raised a hand.

The get-togethers might have started as cookouts, but they’d somehow evolved into weekends spent laying down brick to create the patio on which they now sat. Then came the card games—often poker for pennies Elise kept in a gallon jug in the kitchen. And now here they were. Over a period of a few months, her house had become their unofficial hangout, the place where they congregated.

Their visits were so familiar that everybody pitched in—cooking, preparing food, grabbing plates—until, like now, the tribe was finally settled at the wooden table, candles burning, food passed, wine opened.

A perfect evening. Humid, but cool enough for long sleeves, the air heavy with the intoxicating scent of gardenias and confederate jasmine, their floral perfume mingling with ancient wood and sandy soil. Live oak leaves drifted to the ground, whispering softly as they fell, creating a carpet underfoot. Put all of it together and the night was everything Elise loved about her hometown.

Once the food had been passed and served, Avery paused with a bite of grilled chicken on his fork, the sleeves of his plaid shirt rolled up to reveal freckled forearms. “So, anybody have any theories?”

By some unspoken agreement, they rarely talked about work at these dinners, so Avery’s question took Elise by surprise. But they might as well discuss the case since it was on everybody’s mind.

Mara, her smooth dark hair reflecting the candlelight, pointed to the ketchup, and David passed it. “Were both girls prostitutes?” she asked.

“Most likely.” Without lifting his elbow from the table, Avery took a long drink of beer, then set the bottle aside. “And they both had a record, both did drugs, and they hung out in the seedier areas of town.”

Elise refilled her wineglass. “At this point it looks as if he might have simply been targeting women who were easy prey.”

“What about the writing?” Casper asked. “Any theories there?”

They all looked at David, who hadn’t yet offered anything. Not now, and not to Elise in private.

“I’m still working on it,” he said.

“Well, we’re brainstorming.” Avery’s comment was an invitation for David to contribute.

“I don’t know,” David finally said. “Things don’t make sense.”

Elise was surprised by his obvious reluctance to toss around ideas.

“Does killing ever make sense?” Mara asked.

“Yeah.” David reached for his beer. “It does. Repeat killers follow patterns, so you could call it ‘making sense’ in more of a formulaic way.”

“Displaying them—that’s a pattern,” Elise said. “Writing—a pattern. Where are you seeing something that doesn’t fall into a ritual? Seems pretty straightforward to me.”

“Right now we’re basically dealing with a list of what we don’t have,” David said. “And that very lack of clues was apparent at two crime scenes. No fingerprints, no matching DNA, no lead on the ink used, other than knowing it was most likely the same ink on both victims.”

They were all aware that ink had a very specific formula, and each company and even every factory had its own secret sauce. The ink on the two victims had been identified as a formula from a washable marker mass-produced in Texas and sold in discount stores across the country. Not helpful.

“Why didn’t he use something permanent?” Mara asked. “You’d think if he went to so much trouble to cover her whole body, he’d do it in something permanent.”

The table went quiet. Forks paused in front of mouths.

“What?” Mara asked before realization dawned. “Oh, I’m sorry, Elise. I’m so sorry.”

“That’s okay.”

Everybody was thinking of Elise’s skin—and the ink that was permanent.

“But it’s odd that he’s using ink, too,” John Casper said, backing up his girlfriend. “Surely somebody thought of that.”

Avery pushed himself to his feet and headed for the house. In a hurry. Obvious alcohol run.

David made a frustrated sound, annoyed by what they were all implying. Elise had seen that annoyance before; she recognized it as his frustration at having been unable to provide her with the body of Atticus Tremain. On a practical level, she knew Tremain was gone. On an emotional one? Not so much.

“It’s not him. It’s not Tremain,” David said quietly, smoothly, with a tone that meant,
Shut the hell up about it.

“I’m not saying it is.” Casper put down his fork. “But is this guy emulating him?”

“Coincidence,” David said. “Two totally unrelated cases.”

The screen door slammed as Avery returned from the kitchen with several bottles of beer. “So basically we got nothin’.” He placed the beers around the table. Elise noted that there were five empties near Avery’s plate. Unusual for him. He rarely drank more than two, and openly admitted to having had a drinking problem at one time. Nothing serious, but enough for it to play a part in his divorce.

“There’s something weird about this that I can’t put my finger on,” David said. There was that odd reluctance again. “It’s like I almost have it, almost see it, then I lose it.” He waved a hand in the air. “Never mind. I’m talking nonsense.”

Elise leaned back in her chair. “I have an idea.” She paused, knowing it would be a tough sell. “We need information, and nobody on the street is talking to us.” Even the younger officers had been unable to come back from canvasses with any leads.
I don’t talk to cops
seemed to be the sentiment out there.
I ain’t seen nothin’
.
I ain’t heard nothin’
.

Drug addicts and prostitutes had their own code, and unless you had something to use as leverage, it was hard to get anybody to open up. There was nothing in it for them. Leverage was what they needed, and the information for leverage needed to come from somebody living the life. “I think someone should go undercover.”

“What are you suggesting?” David said, without taking his eyes off Elise. “Savannah PD doesn’t have undercover cops.”

He knows
, she thought.
He already knows what I have in mind
. She took a swallow of wine. “I want to do it.”

The lines between David’s brows deepened. He was practically scowling. “As a drug addict?” he asked.

“As a prostitute.”

Ding! Now they were all staring at her with a mix of intrigue and horror.

“What?” she asked. “You don’t think I can pull it off?”

“Well . . .” Casper looked doubtful.

“I can play a hooker,” Elise insisted. “I can be a hooker. I’m a little older than our two victims, but not that much.”

“Bad idea,” David said.

“Good idea,” she volleyed back.

“It hasn’t been that long since . . .” His words trailed off. They all knew what he was going to say. No need to spell it out.
Since you were held captive and almost killed
.

“I’m the best there is at getting people to talk. You know that. Yes, we could send somebody else out to do it, but would they come back with any information?”

The discussion continued for ten more minutes before someone changed the subject. Thirty minutes later, plates were carried to the kitchen and food was put in the refrigerator. Mara and John left—autopsy in the morning. Elise walked them to the door and said good-bye. Moments later, she discovered Avery waiting for her in the dim hallway. Odd.

“I have to tell you something,” Avery said with obvious agitation.

His words and body language made her uneasy; she tensed.

Arms at his sides, Avery listed forward like someone leaning into the wind. Drunk.

She rolled her shoulders and smiled, not in response to his drunkenness, but because she finally had a handle on the situation. She understood why Avery was lurking in the hallway. He was drunk, and people who were drunk did things that made no sense.

“Diana couldn’t handle being married to a cop,” he said, nodding his head slowly. “Well, you know what I think?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “I think it’s better for a cop to be in a relationship with another cop.”

Her smile wavered and her stomach sank. This couldn’t be going where she thought it was going.
You wouldn’t do this to me, would you? Don’t do this to me.

She was pathetically oblivious to these things. Subtle and even unsubtle hints of attraction. Had there been any signs?

He’d sent her flowers after her abduction
.
But she’d almost died
.
Why
wouldn’t
he send flowers? Flowers weren’t a sign. Were they?

What else? He’d come to see her in the hospital, had joked as he’d hovered near the foot of the bed.

Not so strange.

Avery was the one who . . . She guessed a person might call it a rescue. He’d ridden a boat through dangerous water to get to the island where she was being held captive. He’d carried her, cold and half-naked, half-dead, to the boat, and he’d held her to his chest as the craft struggled through the waves to finally make it to shore. High drama and high emotions and danger and life-and-death situations could create a strong, but unnatural, bond. It happened. All the time. She mentioned this to him. Softly, patiently.

Don’t do this to me.

“That’s not it,” Avery argued. “I’ve cared about you for a long time. Back when I was still married. Back before the divorce.”

She couldn’t deal with this. Not now. Not ever. And she had to
work with him.

Avery was a good cop. Getting better all the time, especially after his old partner transferred to New Orleans. Since then, Avery had blossomed.

Her mind jumped. Why did this seem so much worse than what was going on between her and David?

Because you care about David.

How did that make it any different?

God, relationships! She knew nothing about relationships, other than being pretty damn sure she was terrible at them and that it would be better for her to take an oath of celibacy than it would be for her to get involved with anybody in a serious way. Maybe she should tell Avery about the celibacy. Maybe she should tell him how, after what Atticus Tremain had done, the thought of having sex repulsed her.

Wait. Should she tell her shrink that? It hadn’t been a real issue at first. In fact, the lack of issue was something she now put down to shock. That area of her mind had just shut off. She’d closed the door on what had happened. But now, months later, she still found herself jerking away when someone touched her. And that thing with Jay Thomas Paul had been a sign of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Avery reached for her, grabbed her by her arms, holding her firmly before she could flinch. Not Tremain’s hands, but still not hands she wanted on her.

Avery bent a bit so they were face-to-face, his eyes locked intently with hers. And then he said it. The asshole said it. “I love you, Elise.”

Her brain faltered. She struggled for words.
She
wanted to reassure
him
. How idiotic was that?

Now what? Make a joke of it? Probably the best approach. Shrug it off, then later treat it as if Avery had simply been unable to hold his liquor. And that could be the case. Maybe tomorrow he wouldn’t even remember—a possibility to cling to.

She was about to say something like
Yeah, I love everybody when I’ve had a few beers
, when someone cleared his throat, and David’s voice came out of the darkness. “Am I interrupting something?”

Avery released Elise while continuing to stare at her. His mouth opened, then closed. “Oh man,” he said under his breath. “Sorry. I’m really sorry. I don’t know why I did that.”

One end of the hallway led to the kitchen and the lights that silhouetted David; the other led to the living room, darkness, and the front door. Avery spun on his heel and dove for darkness and escape.

Elise ran after him, catching the door as he strode down the walk. “You shouldn’t drive!” she shouted. Without turning, unable to look at her, he raised one hand high in the air to indicate he’d heard.
Not to worry.
“I’ll call a cab.” He took a left and vanished behind the shrubbery, his footsteps fading to nothing.

“Sorry to break that up,” David said from behind her.

“He was drunk.” Elise turned slightly, and David stepped back. Did he know she needed more personal space today than she had months ago?

“He’s going to be embarrassed as hell tomorrow,” David said.

“More embarrassed since you heard him. And let him know you heard him,” she pointed out.

“I thought you might welcome the interruption.”

She felt old and haggard. Midthirties wasn’t old, but in cop years she was a hundred. Bottom line? She felt unattractive. So why were David and Avery both making advances?

“Strata Luna,” Elise finally said. Rather than finding herself annoyed, she relaxed—because she had an explanation. Strata Luna had done something. Spread a mojo in her doorway, some kind of attraction spell, and now here Elise was, getting the false attention of every single man who came in close proximity to her.

“It’s not Strata Luna,” David said, amusement in his voice. “I would list all the reasons Avery might have for being in love with you, but you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try.”

Why had she said that? “Wait. Don’t try. It’s this job. That’s what it is.” Earlier she’d been thinking about how nice it was to hang out with her tribe. Damn David. Damn Avery. “We’re like a bunch of inbreds.”

He let out a snort.

“So much for these dinners and our team bonding. It seems to have worked a little too well.”

“Elise, if you invite a man to dinner, he’s going to hope. That’s all I’m saying.”

“
You
don’t hope.”

“That’s because I know better. I used to hope.”

“But not anymore?”

He looked up at the ceiling, then back at her, a crooked smile on his face. “There’s a little bit of hope left, but not much.”

“I’m not a tease, am I? Am I sending mixed signals I’m unaware of?”

“You’re just being Elise. Don’t worry about it. Just keep being Elise. Everything else is our problem. Mine. Avery’s. Probably a million other guys’.”