Sweet Little Lies (10 page)

Gavin bristled a tiny bit, then relaxed.
Morte was right to chide him, after all, he had made a mistake.
He’d quickly learned that following Morte’s every instruction was
important. Very, very important.

He uploaded the shots, breath quickening in
remembrance. So beautiful. Within moments, Morte responded.

Gavin blushed. Receiving compliments
gracefully wasn’t one of his strongest attributes. He glanced over
his shoulder, knew he needed to wrap this up.

A picture flooded his screen—Morte had sent
him a gift. Gavin studied the photo; his ears burned. Oh, Morte was
amazingly good with a camera. So much better than he was.

Morte’s doll had no animation, no movement.
Her eyes were shut. Gavin turned his chair around so he could stare
at his own dollhouse, his own doll, lying in the darkness. Alone.
He’d need to find her another friend soon. If only Morte’s girl was
a sister. He didn’t have a taste for white meat.

Another chime—this time it was Necro
responding. He asked how Gavin was doing, if there’d been any news
in the community. Gavin replied with a negative—he’d heard nothing.
Of course, his ear wasn’t to the floor like Morte—Morte was the
architect of their online world anyway. Gavin had found his friends
deep in a sleepy sex message board, and was so thrilled to have
them. They made his life bearable.

He chatted for a few minutes with Necro, read
a rambling account of a perfect specimen on some white sand
Caribbean beach that Necro had sighted, then logged out. He stared
at the photo he’d downloaded from Morte. He was overwhelmingly
turned on, and no longer able to contain himself. With a last
glance at his doll, he went up the stairs, unlocked the door,
locked the basement behind him and returned to his life. It was
time for another shower, then bed. He had a very busy day ahead of
him. A very busy few days. The plan was in motion.

He was proud of himself. He only checked the
doll’s breathing three times during the night.

THE IMMORTALS

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All
rights reserved.

Nashville, Tennessee

October 31

3:30 P.M.

Taylor Jackson stood at attention, arms
behind her back, her dress blues itching her wrists. She was
feeling more than a bit embarrassed. She’d asked for this to be
done without ceremony, just a simple here you go, you’re back in
our good graces, but the chief was having nothing of it. He’d
insisted she not only receive her lieutenant’s badge again, but be
decorated as well, in a very public ceremony. Her union rep was
thrilled, and at her direction, had dropped the lawsuit she’d been
forced to file against the department when they demoted her without
cause. Taylor was pleased, as well. She’d been fighting to get
reinstated, and she had to admit it was nice to put all of this
behind her. But the pomp and circumstance was a bit much.

It had been a long afternoon. Taylor felt
like a show pony, was flushed with the overly exuberant praise of
her career, her involvement in catching the Conductor, a serial
killer who’d killed two women back-to-back, kidnapped a third and
fled Nashville with Taylor hot on his heels. She’d arrested him in
Italy, and the story had immediately caught international
headlines, because at the same time, she’d been party to the
capture of one of Italy’s most notorious serial killers, Il
Macellaio. In the world of sound bites and news at your fingertips,
taking two serial killers into custody had garnered so much
attention that the chief had been forced into action.

Not only was she being reinstated; Taylor had
command of the murder squad again, and her team was being
reassembled. Detectives Lincoln Ross and Marcus Wade were shipped
back up from the South Sector, and after a long discussion with the
chief, she’d even talked him into allowing Renn McKenzie to become
part of the permanent team. She had her boys back.

Most of them.

Pete Fitzgerald had fallen off the face of
the earth. Taylor had last talked to him when he was in Barbados,
anchored and waiting for a new part for his boat’s engine. He’d
called to let her know he thought he’d seen their old nemesis, and
she hadn’t heard from him since. She was sick with worry, convinced
that Fitz had been taken by the Pretender, a killer so obscene, so
cruel that he invaded her dreams and consumed her waking moments. A
killer Taylor hadn’t caught; the one who’d quite literally gotten
away.

Her concerns had been compounded just last
week, when the Coast Guard had picked up a distress signal off the
coast of North Carolina. The GPS beacon matched the registered
number for Fitz’s boat. Despite countless days of searching,
nothing had been found. The Coast Guard had been forced to call off
the search, and the police in North Carolina couldn’t get involved
because there was no crime to be investigated. She had a call in to
the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations, in the hope they
would see things differently, but she hadn’t heard anything
yet.

Taylor tried to shake off the thought of
Fitz, of his body broken and battered, of what the Pretender was
doing to him, or had done. The guilt spilled through her blood,
making it chilly. She’d issued a challenge to the Pretender, told
him to come and get her. Instead, she was positive he’d taken her
friend, the man closest to her, aside from Baldwin. Her father
figure. She had probably gotten Fitz killed, and she found that
knowledge desperately hard to stomach.

She looked into the crowd, the sea of blue
seated in compact rows before her. John Baldwin, her fiancé, sat in
the front, grinning. His hair was too long again, the black waves
falling over his forehead and ears in a tumble. She resisted the
urge to roll her eyes; that was sure to get on the evening news,
and she didn’t want any more attention than she already had. She
touched her engagement ring instead, twisting the channel-set
diamonds around her finger.

Her team sat beside him: Lincoln Ross, hair
grown out just enough to slip in some tiny dreadlocks; Marcus Wade,
brown-eyed and sweetly happy. He was getting serious with his
girlfriend, and Taylor had never seen him so content. The new
member of the team, Renn McKenzie, was at Marcus’s left. Taylor saw
McKenzie’s partner, Hugh Bangor, a few rows back. They’d been very
discreet—only Taylor and Baldwin knew they were an item.

Even her old boss Mitchell Price was there,
smiling benevolently at her. He’d been a casualty of the events
that led to Taylor losing her badge in the first place, but had
moved on. He was running a personal protection service catering to
country music stars, and had made it clear that anytime Taylor
wanted to bail on Nashville Metro, she was welcome to join him.

Fitz was the only one missing. She forced the
lump in her throat away.

The chief was pinning something to her
uniform now. He stood back with a wide smile and started clapping.
The audience followed suit, and Taylor wished she could disappear.
This was not what she wanted, this open, public enthusiasm on her
behalf.

The chief gestured to the microphone. Taylor
took a deep breath and stepped to the podium.

“Thank you all for being here today. I
appreciate it more than you know. But we really should be honoring
the entire team who participated. I couldn’t have done any of this
without the help of Detective Renn McKenzie, Supervisory Special
Agent John Baldwin, Detective James Highsmythe of the London
Metropolitan Police, and all the officers of the Metro Police who
participated, in small ways and in large, on the case. The city of
Nashville owes these men and women a debt of gratitude. Now, enough
of the hoopla. Let’s go back to work.”

Laughter rippled through the crowd, and they
clapped again. Lincoln whistled, two fingers stuck in his mouth,
and this time she did roll her eyes. Baldwin winked at her, his
clear green gaze full of pride. With her back ramrod straight and
her ears burning, she thanked the chief and the other dignitaries,
nodded at her new boss, Commander Joan Huston, and made her way off
the dais. People began milling about; the language of the force
rang in her ears like a mother’s lullaby. She was back, and it felt
damn good.

Baldwin met her, took her hand. “So how’s the
Investigator of the Year?”

She took a deep breath and blew it out
noisily. “Don’t start,” she said. “This is mortifying enough as it
is.”

He laughed and kissed her palm. A promise for
later.

Lincoln and Marcus both hugged her, and
McKenzie shook her hand.

“Congratulations, LT!” Lincoln’s gap-toothed
smile felt like coming home, and she clapped him on the back. Price
joined their group, shaking her hand gravely, his red handlebar
mustache neatly trimmed and waxed for the occasion.

“What’s your first act as a newly restored
lieutenant, Loot?” Marcus asked.

“Buying y’all a beer. It is Halloween, after
all. Let’s get out of here. How about we head down to Mulligan’s
and grab a Guinness?”

“You’re on,” Marcus said.

She gestured to her stiffly starched uniform.
“I just need to change.”

“Us, too. Race you to the locker rooms.”

Ten minutes later, once again in civilian
clothes—jeans, cowboy boots, a black cashmere turtleneck and gray
corduroy blazer, left open—Taylor felt much more comfortable. She
snapped her holster onto her belt, then risked a glance at her
shield. Her phantom limb. Losing it had just about cost her
everything. She lovingly caressed the gold for the briefest of
moments, then attached it to her belt in front of her holster.
Complete. Again. She slammed her locker shut and met the boys in
the hall. She saw Baldwin’s eyes stray to her waist and pretended
she didn’t see his satisfied smile.

As they left the Criminal Justice Center,
Taylor’s spirits lifted. The joshing, joking group of men behind
her, Baldwin in step at her side, all served to remind her how
lucky she was. Now, if she could only find Fitz and do away with
the Pretender, life would be grand indeed.

They’d just passed Hooters when Taylor’s cell
rang. She looked at the screen, saw it was dispatch. She held up a
hand and stopped on the sidewalk to answer.

“Jackson,” she said.

“Lieutenant, we need your response at a
10-64J, possible homicide, 3800 Estes Road. Repeat, 10-64J.”

The J designator made a shiver go up her
spine. /meant the victim was a juvenile. She hated working crimes
with kids involved.

“Roger that, Dispatch. I’m on my way.” She
slapped the phone shut. “Hey, guys, I’m sorry. I’ve got to go to
this scene.” She pulled her wallet out of her jacket’s interior
pocket and handed Lincoln two twenties. He shook his head.