“He caught her by surprise, didn’t he? She was listening to music, working on a paper, and he crept up behind her.” For one unguarded moment, anguish ravaged Erin’s features. She thought she’d misjudged the situation, and now she had two dead girls on her conscience. “She never stood a chance.”
Darsh forced himself to ignore her. “I’d like copies of Mandy’s schedule and all her social media accounts and email. You have her cell phone?”
“Cell was on the desk. Harry Compton, the other detective in Forbes Pines”—wow, two whole detectives—“took it when he went to find contact information to inform both sets of parents.”
Darsh didn’t envy Harry that task on any level. Working with dead people had its merits.
Erin’s lips pressed together as if keeping her emotions tightly under control.
Did she ever smile anymore? The way she’d smiled at him in that bar? The memory of it blazed through his brain until he shut it down. The fact that she was attractive and good in bed was not in question here. The question was, was she a good cop? He’d ask Brennan to do a little digging into her background and performance evaluations. See if she had a history of making mistakes.
“I’ll make sure you’re sent copies of everything we find,” she told him as if he was going anywhere soon.
He ignored the supposition. Frankly he had no idea how long he was going to be stuck here, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t praying for an emergency situation that needed his immediate attention anywhere other than Upstate New York. “Tell me about the other victim.”
“Cassie was a junior majoring in sports psychology. Head of the cheerleading squad. Twenty years old.” She grimaced. “She thought I was Satan’s bitch.”
“But you still think it’s appropriate to work her murder?” he asked quietly.
The straightness of her spine was matched only by the sternness of her expression. “Unless I’ve become a suspect, Agent Singh, I’m the best hope she has of finding justice.” Her gaze met his in a direct challenge. “She annoyed me because she wasted police time, and we’re all busy enough without that bullshit. But I understood her position. I never felt any animosity towards her.”
“The chance of this being a random murder is pretty slim, which means someone targeted Cassandra Bressinger because of the Hawke connection. There’s no way this isn’t a conflict of interest,” he argued.
“Not true,” she said vehemently.
“You don’t think you’re too close?” he suggested.
“Too close?” If he hadn’t been watching her lips so intently he wouldn’t have noticed the subtle way they tightened. “We’re talking about facts and witness statements. The Hawke case was never personal to me. I know it better than anyone.”
“You must have gotten pretty friendly with the victims.”
Pain flickered in her gaze. She rested her hands on her hips, revealing her nipped-in waist and a Glock-22 strapped to her side, and he stopped looking at her eyes. Lord have mercy. He was a sucker for a woman with a sidearm.
Had she done it on purpose? Distracted him away from a moment of vulnerability.
“There was never any doubt the women were raped, Agent Singh, so naturally I felt sympathy for them. It was the identity of the attacker that was in question. We found hair that linked back to Hawke, and the women reported it was Drew Hawke who raped them. They each took polygraphs when challenged by the defense and passed with flying colors. Excuse me if that doesn’t sound like a slam-dunk.”
They stared at one another for a few seconds. He couldn’t afford to be distracted by Donovan’s passion for her cause—he knew exactly how that passion translated into other areas of her life, and that wasn’t good for his objectivity. He turned his gaze back to the bed and then stretched out his stiff neck. Maybe he shouldn’t be thinking about Donovan’s capacity to do her job. He should just concentrate on doing his own.
They headed across the hall to another bedroom with blue-painted walls and flowery drapes closed against prying eyes. The whole house was quiet now, not even the murmur of ghosts.
The victim was stretched out in a way that exposed her genitalia. Had the UNSUB imagined the cops seeing her like this? Had he thought about shocking Detective Donovan when she walked in the door and saw the degradation? Darsh ignored the part of his brain that wanted to hurt for the victim and concentrated on what he was here for. Getting into the mind of a killer.
Mandy Wochikowski’s death had been clean and sanitary, whereas this one was violent, demeaning, and graphic. She’d been beaten. There was a definite sexual component to this assault. The lack of clothes, the overt sexual display. The mattress was bare. He peered closer at her blue jeans on top of the pile of bedding in the middle of the floor. The denim was ragged where they’d been cut with what looked like scissors. The fact her clothes had been cut off her body suggested the killer needed to subdue and restrain her before stripping her—hence the beating to the face? Would Mandy have heard the struggle in here if the doors were closed, and she was listening to loud music?
Probably not.
He looked around. “Did you find any scissors?”
Donovan shook her head; her silence speaking volumes.
Mandy’s murder had seemed almost like an apology. This one…the UNSUB had clearly been punishing Cassandra Bressinger, and had fun doing it. Darsh eyed the knots and blue climbing rope that tied her limbs to each corner of the double bed. It had been a long time since he was a boy scout, but some of the knots looked familiar. “Is the rope from the house, do you know?”
“I didn’t see it anywhere, but I haven’t talked to the other roommates yet.”
He had a feeling the killer had carefully planned this murder, so he’d probably brought the rope and scissors with him. The rope might be the best physical link they had to this guy. Had Cassandra been the original target and Mandy collateral damage? Or had he planned to tie up both girls, maybe even all four of them, but had been interrupted by the cops before he could do his sadistic shit to Mandy?
Had he lost his nerve? His arousal? Maybe killing someone hadn’t felt how he’d expected it to feel. Too messy. Too ugly? Maybe he hadn’t meant to kill the woman at all. Maybe the UNSUB had pushed the strangulation factor too far and cracked the hyoid bone. Cassie’s attack had been intentional, but maybe her death had been an accident.
“Who made the call about the intruder?” he asked.
“I haven’t listened to it yet. It’s first on my to-do list as soon as I get back to the station.” Donovan showed clear signs of exhaustion, but there was no way she’d leave until he did.
“Make sure those knots are preserved when the ropes are removed.” Knots could be very specific to offenders. “You have photographs of everything?”
She nodded.
“I want the rope and knots sent to Quantico for analysis.”
Cassandra’s wrists were bloody and raw where she’d fought her bindings. She’d been alive long enough to struggle. Then again, why tie her up at all if he didn’t want her alive for the main event? Darsh peered closely at the victim’s unpainted nails. Then he leaned closer, drawn by a hint of a scent that didn’t fit.
“Smell her hands,” he told Donovan.
The detective leaned closer and sniffed. Her brow crumpled. “Bleach?” She swore.
Bleach destroyed DNA. Cassandra had probably scratched the guy.
“I’ll go tell the techs to check the Clorox bottle for prints.”
When she came back, he asked, “How similar is this to the method that Drew Hawke was convicted of using?”
Donovan cleared her throat. “No bleach was recorded as being used to clean the bodies. He used a yellow nylon rope to tie up his victims, but we never saw the knots because the victims were either untied or managed to free themselves after he left.”
It was a difference possibly tied to the escalation, but still the crimes were remarkably similar. “The victims reported they were tied to the legs of the bed,
correct?”
“Spread-eagled. Yes,” Donovan said quietly. “He crept into their bedrooms in the middle of the night. Injected them with ketamine, gagged them and then tied them to the four corners of the bed where he raped them repeatedly. I haven’t seen any injection sites on these victims, but we’re waiting on the medical examiner.”
“Ketamine and rope restraints?”
She nodded.
“Isn’t that a little excessive for a large male athlete who probably outweighed them by a hundred pounds?”
Her lips pinched. “I’m just telling you the facts. I didn’t get inside his head.”
No, that was his job, as she’d meant to remind him. He checked his watch. It was nearly five AM. “Does it usually take this long for the ME to arrive?”
“The chief wanted the State Medical Examiner involved in this investigation from the start, and they’re based in Massena about an hour away. There was a snowmobile accident last night and three people died—two children and their father. ME’s been tied up with that case, otherwise you’d have missed your chance to see the bodies in place.”
“As least the temperature here is the same as the morgue.” If not colder. “Any other similarities between the other cases?”
If she knew he was testing her, she didn’t show it.
“The pattern of bruising around the throat on Cassie is similar, although the other girls obviously survived. The fact it looks like she was violently raped? Yup, that’s the same.” Her gaze was sharp and penetrating. “And the bottom sheet is missing.”
He looked at the pile of bedclothes tossed on the floor. “You’re sure?”
She nodded. “That information came out at Drew Hawke’s trial. No one knows what happened to the sheets, but it seemed likely Hawke took the bed linen to try to reduce physical evidence tying him to the crime.”
Rather than as a trophy. The fact this killer had done the same thing…
“So this UNSUB arrived with a murder kit and took even more stuff when he left.” Prepared. Experienced. Disciplined.
“So why not take the rope, especially if the girls were dead?” Donovan voiced one of the things he thought was inconsistent.
“You have people searching nearby dumpsters for physical evidence?”
“Yeah.” She didn’t sound optimistic. “Every dumpster in town. I called the garbage company and had them halt collections until we’re done. But I don’t think he’ll dump the sheet anywhere obvious. He’s probably already burned it.” She stuffed her hands in her coat pockets and huddled into its warm depths. Darsh wished he’d thrown on something more substantial than a T-shirt and windbreaker before he’d started out. There was no snow on the ground in Boston.
“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.
Chapter Four
Erin 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.
Cold Hearted (Cold Justice Book 6) Page 4