by Liliana Hart
She kicked up the heat another notch. She dressed in leggings, an oversized flannel shirt in blues and greens, and a pair of thick socks. When she opened her bedroom door, she was shocked by the change in the temperature. It was freezing, and she could hear the whistle of wind from somewhere in the house.
A cold frisson of fear swept through her. She checked the alarm, and it was off. Agatha grabbed her Glock from her nightstand and crept down the hallway, wincing as a floorboard creaked beneath her feet.
When she approached the guest bathroom, she could hear the whooshing sound coming from there. She considered calling Hank or Coil, but she knew how to handle a gun and wasn’t going to cower in her own home. She was done with that. Fear would never rule her life again.
The Glock felt comfortable in her hands, and she took a deep breath before she pushed open the door, ready to face down whatever was on the other side. Her heart raced and her palms were damp. The bathroom was empty.
The small bathroom window was open. A cold wind rustled against the plastic shower curtain and rattled the metal curtain ring holders against the rod. Taped to the antique, oval vanity mirror was a piece of mistletoe. XOXO was scribbled across the glass mirror in blue lipstick.
Agatha stumbled out of the bathroom and fumbled for her cell phone, looking for Hank’s number on her speed dial.
“Hank,” she said breathlessly into the phone.
“Let me guess,” he said. “She’s been there too.”
Agatha slid down against the wall until she was sitting on the floor and dropped her head between her knees. A killer had declared open season on her sanctuary, and she could feel the target on her back.
A crashed sounded near the front of the house, and she leveled the Glock down the hall, waiting for whatever was coming. She was surprised to see her hands were steady.
“Agatha,” Hank called out. “Where are you?”
She breathed out a sigh of relief. “Back here. In the hallway.”
Hank and Coil came around the corner, and she saw the weapons drawn and ready. They ignored her once they saw she was okay and swept through each room to make sure no one remained hidden. They were careful not to touch more than they had to.
“You okay, Agatha?” breathless, Coil asked.
“Yeah, just mad. I want to know how she got past my security. It cost a fortune.”
“What about you?” she asked Hank. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I called Coil as soon as I realized she’d been inside my house. Like you, I’m just mad. We’re going to take her down.”
Agatha got up from the floor and followed them to the front of the house. Her front door was hanging by a hinge, and Coil moved to shove the door back into the frame.
“I’ll have Karl come over to replace this,” he said. “He does some carpentry work on the side, so he knows what he’s doing.”
“It’s time to call in the big guns on this,” Hank said.
“You think?” Agatha said, sarcastically. “Sorry, I’m just upset.”
“Understandable. Will Ellis is on his way.”
Will Ellis was a Texas Ranger they’d worked with on a previous case.
“I’ve also called Nick Dewey,” Hank said. “He’s going to let us stay at one of his places outside of Fort Worth for the time being. It’s completely secured. We’ll be safe there.”
“Hank, there’s no way I’m leaving my house because some psycho taped a piece of mistletoe to my mirror. I’m not running away again. I’d rather stay and fight on my own turf.”
“Normally, I’d agree with you, but this place is about to be crawling with Rangers and crime scene techs. Do you really want to be in the middle of all that?” Hank waved his hand around at the mess, “Besides, It’s safer for us to stay together in one location. We can watch each other’s backs, and it’ll put us closer to where the crimes are occurring.”
Coil put in his two cents. “Pack a bag, and I promise I’ll make sure the crime scene techs keep the fingerprint powder to a minimum.”
“Come on, Aggie,” Hank said. “I’ve got my bag in the car. We’ve got to make a stop in Rio Chino anyway now that there’s a fourth victim. Nick’s place isn’t far from there.”
She nodded and went to pack her things. Before she knew it they were in the car, and she was leaving her home in the care of a bunch of strangers.
“Are you going to be okay seeing Anna?” she asked. “I can take this if you want.”
“I’m fine,” he said. “It is what it is. Like I told you before. It was just friendly. There were no hearts involved. Its just business. Besides, I want to deliver this gift to Beth.”
“Beth?”
“The girl at the front desk. The one that’s always cold.”
“Oh, right. Why?”
“She may or may not have led me to find that open evidence warehouse. You know, the one with the handcuffs you took?”
Agatha felt the heat in her cheeks at the reminder. “Did she know she was helping you?”
“Most definitely not, but I owe her one.” Hank lifted a small, gift-wrapped package. “Speaking of Christmas, I thought you were going to put up your Christmas tree.” He looked across the console.
“After yesterday’s events, I wasn’t exactly motivated when I got home. It was a passing phase. I don’t normally decorate. It’s usually best it just passes like any other day.”
“I’m sure there’s a story there, but I won’t ask unless you’re okay with sharing with me.” He said.
“Not now, but thanks for being concerned. It’s really not a big deal. I have to confess this whole serial killer in my house thing has me weirded out.”
“Me too. They do like to play cat and mouse games just to show how superior they are to the police. It’s a chess game with them.”
“What do you think is going on? Why us? It’s almost like she started this whole thing to get our attention.” Agatha brushed her hands over her arms in a shiver.
Hank stared into the rearview mirror. She wanted to look back at whatever it was that he kept checking.
“Maybe we drew attention to ourselves with the solved cases, or maybe she knew me before retirement. It could be anything. We’ll need to look at all the possible connections.”
“How many more do you think she’s going to target just to get her point across?”
Hank sighed and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “If I had to guess, I would imagine eight more.”
“Eight?” Agatha said, gasping.
“Serial killers generally like pattern. We’ve got four bodies. All I can come up with is The Twelve Days of Christmas. They are obsessive. It’s what usually leads to their capture. They start a pattern and become slaves to it.”
“I really hope you’re wrong about that number,” Agatha said. “Maybe we can put a warning out to all the store Santas and bell ringers. Or at least tell them not to kiss anyone.”
“Well, son of a gun,” Hank said, narrowing his eyes.
“What?”
“That same motorc…”
Hank’s words were cut short by the deafening roar of the giant V-twin engine. Agatha watched the purple painted Harley Davidson with pink flames zoom past them again. There was no dog in the sidecar this time, but the bikini-clad female elf was behind the beefy, tattooed biker.
Agatha didn’t say anything because she knew Hank thought it too. The woman on the back of that bike was the same woman from the technology store, the one in the mall’s surveillance video, and Betty’s camera shots. Her hair was different this time, but it was her. It was the killer.
Hank accelerated in pursuit of the motorcycle and she pressed back against the seat. “Umm… you know you’re going a hundred and twenty miles an hour, right?”
She squeezed her eyes closed and said a little prayer.
“No, Aggie. We’re going a hundred and twenty miles an hour.”
Chapter Thirteen
It was almost noon when they arrived in Rio Chino. Aga
tha knew Hank was angry, because they’d lost the motorcycle. The bike had to have been running on a nitro fuel mix. It was the only explanation for why they’d been so far ahead of them.
“We’ll get her,” Agatha told him. “Let’s focus on the body. It’s going to get us one step closer to catching her.”
“I know you’re right. It’s just aggravating. And I hate that the body count is piling up. The longer it goes on, the more it feels like my fault for not catching her sooner.”
She didn’t say anything as they parked and got out of the car at the coroner’s building. She was still worried how Hank was going to deal with seeing Anna again. Maybe part of her worried that Hank still had feelings for another woman, and that wasn’t something she wanted to analyze too closely. She had no reason to be jealous.
Anna emerged through the back door and held it open so they could enter.
“Come on in,” Anna said, looking at Hank nervously.
Hank didn’t look back at her. He was staring at his phone.
“It’s Sweet,” he said, looking at Agatha. “I need to take it.” Hank waved her on ahead of him to go with Anna.
Agatha nodded, but had a feeling Sweet had something more recent in Fort Worth than what Anna had cooling on her slab.
“How’s it going?” Anna asked her.
“It’s been an interesting week. I’ve had better.”
“I think the victim would agree with you,” Anna said, leading her into her office.
Agatha was no stranger to autopsy rooms. She’d had to do plenty of research for her books and had made friends with several local medical examiners that were happy to give her access.
“Looks like you were right,” she said. “He has the throat rash and the blue around his mouth, but cause of death was cardiac arrest. I’ve run every panel and tox screen with no signs of anything. There was signs of an arrhythmia, but he had no prior history of irregular heartbeat, so I’m a bit stumped as to what triggered it.”
Anna handed her the case file.
“Do you mind if I have a look at him?” Agatha asked.
“Why?” Anna asked defensively. “You have my full record.”
“Because I’ve seen the other victims and wanted to compare. Sometimes a fresh set of eyes is a good thing.”
“My eyes are plenty fresh,” Anna said. Agatha wasn’t sure where the hostility was coming from, but she’d had about enough of it. “What is it you do for a living again? Oh, right. You write fiction and have no training whatsoever.”
Agatha’s blood boiled. “Right, because heaven forbid your ego keep us from finding a killer. You’re a real stand up gal. I’ll make sure to explain that to the next victim’s family.”
“Listen here…”
“No, we’re done,” Agatha said. “Thanks for the file. We’ll use other resources from now on.”
She left Anna standing with her mouth open and barely refrained from slamming the door behind her. Hank was just walking back into the building when Agatha stormed past him.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I’ve got the file,” she said, holding it up. “Apparently, that’s all we’re going to get. All I can say is you dodged a bullet with that one.”
“You don’t think there’s more information to get?”
“If I go back in there, I can’t promise I’m not going to throw a punch.” She said.
Hank’s lips twitched and he said, “Then we should probably go.”
Anna stood at the back door and watched them go, but Hank didn’t acknowledge her. The show of loyalty made her feel immediately better.
“What did Sweet have to say?” she asked once there were on the road.
“He’s got number five. He’s starting the autopsy now in case there are time-triggered toxins. He’ll catch us up to speed once we get there.”
Agatha skimmed through the file Anna had given them. There were no toxins or injuries to the seventy-eight year old part-time Santa. Like Anna had told her, there was only the red rash on his wrinkled neck and the distinctive blue stain around his lip.
“Text Sweet and ask him to check the blue lip stain for lipstick composites. She left each of us notes in blue lipstick.”
“Good thinking,” Hank said.
Dr. Sweet’s Tarrant County Coroner’s office was full-service and as high tech as Agatha had ever seen. She suited up and headed into the autopsy room, while Hank met with Will Ellis in the conference room.
Since Sweet was already working, she waited outside the room, observing through the big window. He saw her and waved her in.
“Just in time,” he said. “He’s got the rash and blue stain like the others. Nothing came back on the tox screen. I took a scraping on and around the lips, and we’ll see if anything comes up. She could be using an all-natural solution to trigger cardiac arrest. Something that would give her a little time to get out before it starts to take effect, and they keel over. It could be a million different things. We’ll test for everything we can think of.”
“Thanks, Sweet.”
“Well,” he said. “It turns out you were right. It looks like we’re dealing with a serial killer, so we’ll do everything we can to catch her. My overtime budget was shot anyway.”
“Do you have any info on how it happened?” she asked. “What did the responding officers say?”
“He was working a four-hour shift at the mall. Witnesses said he stood up like he was confused about something, then he just dropped to the ground. They said everything leading up to that point was business with usual, except that an elf in a bikini came up and kissed him. No one saw her after that. She disappeared.”
Sweet hunched back over the corpse. “This blue almost looks like a burn, but exothermic. Whatever the toxin being used is, it seems to be causing the contact point to generate high levels of internal heat energy.”
“Can you sample the skin tissue and work backwards to see if there was a pollutant that worked from inside, out?” Agatha asked.
“On it. I’ll have one of the techs run with this. I’m finished with the autopsy. All we can do is wait for test results.” Sweet stretched and took off his surgical mask and gloves. “How about we all grab food and bring everyone up to speed? I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
“I’ll get Hank and Will while you wash up,” Agatha said, and walked out of the exam room.
They all met in the lobby and walked to the café across the street from Sweet’s complex. The sun was out, but it was still cold, so they passed up four open veranda seats. They were seated at the rear of the café where they’d be muted by the loud chatter from the bustling lunchtime crowd.
“So we’ve got five bodies within the span of a week, and no clue what’s killing them. The only thing they have in common is that they’re dressed like Santa, and that a mystery woman has kissed at least a couple of them before they died. She seems to be taunting Hank. He’s seen her twice on the back of a motorcycle wearing next to nothing, and she approached him in the electronics’ store. We need to find a connection there.” Agatha said.
“Believe me, I’ve been thinking about it,” Hank grunted.
The waitress came and took their orders.
“Maybe we’re focusing too much on how it was done instead of who is doing it. We’ve not done a profile, and that motorcycle is very distinctive. We haven’t run a description on that to see if we can find a match.”
“My guys will start on that,” Will said.
“I need the how and the what to develop a profile,” Hank said. “The method says more about who the killer is than most other evidence.”
Will scribbled a few notes and asked Hank, “What have you come up with as far as why she’s targeting you?”
“No clue. The only probable I’ve been able to come up with is that maybe this is a Twelve Days of Christmas type obsession, but with the way she’s included us in her game, it’s more like her targets are a message to us instead.”
“Ready fo
r me to take your orders?” the waitress asked, her pad and pen at the ready.
Will furrowed his brow. “The other waitress already took our orders.”
“What other waitress?” she asked. “I’m the only one on shift right now.”
Everyone looked at their teas, and Agatha felt a moment of pure panic. Had anyone taken a drink?
Sweet paled and asked, “Can we get four Styrofoam cups please? And an ink pen?”
“Don’t touch what we don’t have to,” Will said. “I’ve got some gloves in the car.”
“I’ve got some here,” Sweet said, digging a pair of Latex gloves out of his pocket. “Occupational hazard.”
“I’ve got to tell you,” Will said. “This is a first for me. Y’all didn’t recognize her.”
“She’s looked different in every instance,” Hank said. “Except on the back of that bike. There, she looked the same. I never in a million years would’ve recognized her just now. Even her voice was different.”
“I’ll have the lab run each of these immediately,” Sweet said. “How’s everyone feeling? We only had a sip or two each, right?”
“I texted in our status,” Will said. “There will be an emergency team waiting for us when we get back to your office. Let’s get moving. We don’t need to make a scene in here. I’m sure she’s watching.”
The waitress returned with four cups, a marker, and a napkin that she handed to Hank. She said a customer asked her to hand it to him specifically.
He opened it up and in blue lipstick it said:
The tea is on me
XOXO
Hank slipped the napkin in between two clean napkins and passed it to Sweet.
“I guess we know it’s definitely me she’s targeting,” he said.
Chapter Fourteen
Agatha felt faint as she lay still on the examiner’s table inside the Tarrant County Coroner’s complex. The young female, medical technician drew a second vial of blood from the vein in her left arm. Her stethoscope dangled from neck. It bumped Agatha on the nose.
The tech placed her thumb beneath the hem of Agatha’s shirt and tried to move it aside as she began to press the stethoscope against her left, upper breast.