by Jane Blythe
* * * * *
5:18 P.M.
“We can’t wait any longer, we’ll have to start without him.”
“No need, I’m here.” Ryan jogged into the conference room and slid into the vacant seat beside Paige. “Sorry I’m late,” he included the whole gathering in his apology. Things with Sofia had distracted him and he’d lost track of time, not realizing how close it was to their scheduled meeting until he’d gotten her into bed. He’d intended to leave immediately, but Sofia had looked close to tears when she’d begged him to stay with her until she fell asleep. Still feeling guilty for accidentally blurting out what the killer had done to Brooke Mariano, he had agreed. If he was honest, the fact that he was savoring every second he spent with her, because he knew he would never have another opportunity, had also had him readily agreeing. It had taken Sofia almost twenty minutes to finally fall into a fretful sleep, still tightly clutching his hand. If he concentrated carefully, he could still feel her small soft hand enclosed in his . . .
“Hey, Romeo,” Stephanie Cantini threw a scrunched up ball of paper at him. “Snap out of it.”
“What did you call me?” Sure he must have been mistaken, he’d never once mentioned that he had a slight crush on Sofia Everette to anyone.
“Ryan, we all know that you like her,” Frankie Marks shot him a sympathetic grimace.
Recalling the look in Paige’s eyes earlier today, he shot his partner a glare, “What have you been telling them?”
“Hey, don’t look at me,” Paige threw her hands up in surrender. “It’s written all over your face.”
“Yes, and the fact that you volunteer to attend every one of Sofia’s charity events then spend the whole time staring wistfully at her is a tad bit of a giveaway,” Stephanie grinned, her hazel eyes dancing merrily, clearly enjoying this.
“I don’t like . . . I don’t think . . . I never said . . .” he stuttered, shocked and horrified that he had apparently let his feelings show so openly, especially since he had always prided himself on keeping such emotions to himself.
“Awww,” Stephanie reached over to pat his hand. “You thought you were hiding how you felt? That is so cute and exactly what my thirteen-year-old does.”
Stephanie had started fostering Cindy when she was just two, eventually making the adoption formal when the girl was nine. Ryan had met Cindy several times and thought she was a nice smart kid, but he certainly did not appreciate being compared to her in such matters as crushes. A horrifying thought occurred to him; perhaps he had let these feelings show while he was with Sofia. She must have been so uncomfortable, probably wondering if she should remind him she was involved. Yet she hadn’t mentioned anything of the sort and had instead reached out to him for comfort. He wondered what that meant.
“Ryan, is this going to be a problem?” Lieutenant Belinda Jersey studied him closely.
“No,” he replied firmly. He hoped his boss believed him. He did not want to be taken off this case, and he felt he owed it to Brooke Mariano to find her child. Thankfully, Belinda was smart, probably the smartest person Ryan had ever met. Single and never married, Belinda’s job was her life, and yet she still managed to make sure she took time to get involved in other activities so she didn’t get worn out. She was an avid reader, a horse rider, and a fantastic baker. “Besides, Sofia is already involved with someone, so there is zero, I repeat, zero,” he shot his colleagues a pointed look, “chance of anything happening between us.”
Belinda’s black eyes continued to study him, and Ryan squirmed uncomfortably. Belinda was black, with shoulder length black hair, and a penchant for wearing black suits with a black shirt. The only break in all the black were the whites of her eyes.
Eventually, his boss gave a brief nod. “All right, let’s get started then. We’ll begin with the victim. What do we know about Brooke Mariano?”
“She was thirty-one years of age, no driver’s license, no social security number, no bank accounts, and no hits on her prints in AFIS. If we didn’t get an ID on her from people who knew her, we’d probably still have no idea who this woman was. She was a fifteen-year-old runaway and it seems like she managed to keep herself completely off the books. Since the gardener was able to ID her, and she still used her real name, I was able to notify the family,” Paige summarized.
A twinge of guilt surged through him as he realized that Paige had been informing Brooke’s parents of her murder while he had been savoring his time with Sofia. He would definitely have to make this up to his partner.
“Parents give you anything helpful?” Belinda asked.
“No, not really,” Paige shook her head. “Pretty much said the same things the gardener had already told us. That Brooke was a lonely kid, never really felt like she had a place in the family, that she didn’t like life on a small farm, that she always wanted something more.” Paige’s usually serene brown eyes grew sad. “They hadn’t heard a word from her since she left home. They looked and looked for her but never had a single lead, neither did the police. They weren’t surprised to hear that Brooke was dead, just that she had lasted so long out on her own with no way to make a living.”
“All right, let’s try to find some more people who may know Brooke, and see if we can find out who she spent her time with. Maybe they can give us something to go on.” Belinda turned her attention to Stephanie, “What do you have for us?”
Stephanie Cantini was Ryan’s all-time favorite crime scene tech. When he’d seen her driving away from the Everette estate this morning as he and Paige had been arriving, he had at once been relieved that Brooke and her baby had the best people working their case. If there was something there to find, Stephanie would find it.
“Not a lot, I’m afraid,” Stephanie folded and refolded her hands on the table, clearly frustrated she didn’t have more to offer. “There were no defensive wounds on the victim, so no chance there at getting the killer’s DNA. The canvass of the crime scene turned up no hairs, fibers, footprints, nothing. Plus, the killer took whatever tools he used with him, so no chance at getting fingerprints either. I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.” Belinda moved her gaze to the ME, “Frankie?”
“I have a few things,” Frankie announced. “First off, cause of death was strangulation, manual strangulation.”
“Quite an up close and personal method of murder,” Ryan mused. “It takes a lot of effort and determination to wrap your hands around another human being’s throat and squeeze until they stop breathing. Anyone who would do that has to be filled with a lot of anger and hate.”
“Second,” Frankie continued, “the wounds to the abdomen where the killer removed the baby looked like someone who had technical knowledge, but no hands-on experience at caesareans. I would guess the killer did some research, made sure he knew where the incisions should be made so as not to injure the fetus, but had never actually done it before, so I would say we can count out anyone with a medical background.”
“Do you know what was used to make the incisions?” Belinda asked.
“My guess would be surgical instruments, but they are not hard to come by, so I don’t think that will be of any assistance to you. As Stephanie pointed out earlier, there were no defensive wounds on the victim, but I did find faint marks on her back. It’s possible the killer delivered a blow to stun her while he restrained her with the handcuffs. There’s something else I found odd,” Frankie paused. “There was breast milk.”
“Breast milk?” Paige echoed.
“Yes,” Frankie confirmed. “A trail of it dribbled down her stomach. A pregnant woman can start producing milk around the sixth month. Brooke was eight-and-a-half-months along. Since the killer took care to learn how to safely remove the baby and to apparently procure sustenance, I’m going to assume that child is still alive.”
For a moment, Ryan let the thought sustain him. Immediately, he was filled with a desire to phone Sofia and give her hope that they could save Brooke’s baby. He desperately wanted to mak
e up for blurting out about what the killer had done to Brooke.
“I’ve sent a sample of the amniotic fluid to DNA,” Frankie was saying. “Hopefully we will be able to determine the baby’s paternity.”
“Who are the potential fathers?” Belinda queried.
“So far we have the gardener, Mr. Hannigan, who denied having sex with Brooke in over a year, but since he voluntarily submitted a DNA sample we should be able to exclude him after we get the results from the amniotic fluid test. He’s also suspect number one. He’d been having an affair with Brooke. The youngest Everette girl walked in on them and told her father, who went running to tattle to Mrs. Hannigan. Apparently, the wife made a huge scene when she found out, making lots of threats, so if Mr. Hannigan had continued the affair and Brooke wound up pregnant and was going to inform his wife, that could have led him to kill her, but also want to keep his child safe.”
“And all the Everettes agreed that Mrs. Hannigan totally flipped out,” Paige added. “If she wanted to kill her husband’s mistress, it’s feasible she couldn’t kill the baby even if it was the product of Mr. Hannigan’s affair. We definitely need to talk with both of them.”
“According to Mr. Hannigan, Brooke was having an affair with both Logan Everette, Senior and Logan Everette, Junior. She seemed to think that one of them was the father, and she didn’t care which. All she wanted was to use the kid to get herself a nice, cushy life. I think she had plans on blackmailing the family. They’d either cater to her every whim and gave her everything her heart desired, or she would go public as the mistress with the baby as proof. Killing her certainly neutralized that threat, and hiding away the baby would mean that the proof suddenly went poof. With all the money they have they could definitely arrange to have the child spirited out of the country and cared for by nannies until things calmed down. I’m not sure Logan Everette, Junior is smart enough to pull all of this off. I got the impression that the rest of the family didn’t really think much of him. But the judge could definitely have done all of this,” Ryan summarized. “Paige and I will bring both of the Logans in tomorrow morning to interview them.”
“I guess we shouldn’t totally discount this being a random attack,” Paige conceded. “As unlikely as it seems, given the great care that went into protecting the child, but until we know more we should at least keep an open mind.”
“I think it was Logan Senior,” Ryan remembered what Sofia had told him. “According to Sofia, her father has always been obsessed with procuring offspring. Apparently, Gloria was not able to provide heirs so the judge went out and found women willing to bear his child and then hand it over to him. Sofia also told me that her sixteen-year-old sister, Isabella, was Brooke’s daughter. Perhaps that was what Brooke was planning on using to blackmail the family. If it came out that former Judge Everette had been involved with underage girls, then he could lose everything. I think he would kill to keep that quiet.”
* * * * *
10:47 P.M.
It wasn’t fair, Lewis Everette thought as he lay in bed, glancing down at his wife Samantha. He didn’t love her, never had; in fact, he barely tolerated her. But his father had insisted on him marrying her. Samantha came from a wealthy Asian family. She spoke little English and she was completely compliant and obedient—exactly what his father thought a woman should be. And ever on a quest to be the perfect son, Lewis always did what his father told him to.
Unlike Logan.
His older brother made no secret of the fact that he despised his wife or of the fact that he would cheat on her with anyone in a skirt. Logan was woefully unintelligent, but it made no difference to the women who swooned at his feet. He was handsome, charming, and rich, and that was all most women cared about.
Lewis, on the other hand may have been the intelligent one in the family, but he was not handsome, nor was he charming. All the Everette children had inherited their father’s looks, no surprise there since Gloria was not their mother, but not all of them had inherited an equal portion. Logan was the most like the judge. His red hair was not so bright, he didn’t have as many freckles, and he was trim and muscled. Lincoln was taller than the rest of them, and gangly, but what he lacked in the looks department he certainly made up for in charm. He was funny and personable, and women seemed to love his geeky qualities.
Unfortunately, Lewis had unnaturally bright red hair, and he was chubby. It seemed no matter how many hours he spent working out he could never manage to lose even a pound. Lewis felt distinctly short changed.
With another disappointed look at his wife, Lewis rose from the bed and stomped to the bathroom. He should have followed in his father and brother’s footsteps and tried out Brooke Mariano; the woman seemed to sleep with anyone so long as they had money. But as much as he was unsatisfied with his wife, he had never once been unfaithful. Instead, he just spent as little time as possible with the woman.
Sometimes Lewis wished he was like his big brother. Logan did what he pleased, caring about no one but himself, with no regard for who he hurt so long as he was making himself happy. With a sigh, Lewis knew that wasn’t true. He could never be like Logan nor, if he was completely honest, did he really want to be. Logan could be cruel and malicious, his true nature always hovering just beneath his charm.
Splashing some water over his face to cool himself down, Lewis headed back to bed, instantly aware that something was wrong the second he closed the bathroom door behind him. He paused to survey the room, searching each shadowy corner carefully for any signs of movement. Seeing none, he took a tentative step in the direction of the bed. When nothing launched itself at him, he took another step and another till he reached it. And then it hit him what was wrong; he couldn’t hear his wife snoring. Samantha always snored. Every single night of their seven-year marriage. It drove him crazy, but tonight not hearing it made him even crazier.
“Samantha?” he whispered.
No reply.
“Samantha?” he whispered a little louder this time.
Once again, there was no response.
Lewis was about to lean across the bed to shake his wife when a finger tapped him on the shoulder. Spinning around in wild surprise, before he had a chance to react, something was plunged into his abdomen.
“Sorry, Lewis, I don’t have a choice.”
AUGUST 14th
8:16 A.M.
“She got off a lot easier than her husband,” Paige mused.
“Sure did,” studying the body of Samantha Everette, Ryan agreed. The petite Asian looked peaceful in death, resting on the bed, her eyes closed, the covers tucked in around her. In fact, if it weren’t for the deep gash in her neck and the large red stain on the blankets, Ryan would have sworn she was simply sleeping. “Covers don’t look at all mussed; I don’t think she ever woke up.”
Nodding slowly, “The killer was definitely merciful,” Paige agreed. “Probably approached the bed quietly and slit Samantha’s throat before she had a chance to wake up and do anything about it. But he definitely wanted Lewis to know what was going on.”
“The two murders are like night and day.” He crossed to the other side of the bed and assessed the scene. A puddle of blood lay on the carpet right by the bed. The covers on this side were mangled and looked as though Lewis had dragged them down with him as he’d collapsed. “He wanted Lewis to suffer, but with Samantha, it seems like he just had to get her out of the way to get to her husband.”
“Either Lewis wasn’t in the bed when the killer got Samantha or he’s a very heavy sleeper,” Paige began the scenario.
“He was probably in the bathroom,” Ryan took over. “He was out of the bed when he was stabbed, but there are no signs of a struggle.” He took a few steps toward the closed bathroom door. “He was probably in there. The killer comes in, takes out Samantha, then hides. Lewis comes back in, heads back to bed, and the killer catches him by surprise and takes him out before he has a chance to react.”
“Only he didn’t kill him right away,”
Paige added. “With Samantha, he intended for her to die instantly, but he wanted to watch Lewis suffer.”
“So he stabs him here by the bed.” He crossed back over to where Lewis had received the fatal blow. “Lewis falls but doesn’t die right away; the killer sits down by the window to watch the show.”
“How do you know that?” Paige’s brown eyes widened with surprise.
“The throw on the armchair is the only thing in the room other than the bed that isn’t perfectly tidy,” he gestured at the rest of the room, where every table, chair, armoire, bookcase was meticulously arranged.
Smiling, she replied, “Good catch. He didn’t just sit back and watch, though.” Paige knelt beside the smashed remains of a cell phone. “He wanted to make sure there was no way Lewis could get help before he bled out.”
“And he wanted Lewis to know it,” Ryan walked through the series of events. “He stabs Lewis in the abdomen at the bed, a wound designed to kill but not immediately. Lewis falls,” he gestured to the blood by the bed, “then goes for the phone on the nightstand.” He studied the bloody handprints on the nightstand and phone. “Only the killer had already disabled the phone, so Lewis sees his cell phone on the floor and drags himself to it.” He walked beside the bloody path Lewis Everette’s dying body had made as he crawled across the carpet.
“The cell phone can’t have been destroyed then, otherwise why would Lewis go for it? The killer waited till Lewis was almost to the phone then stomped on it,” Paige answered her own question.
“Lewis then goes for Samantha’s cell,” Ryan followed the bloody trail to the second mangled cell phone. “He was deliberately exacerbating Lewis’ suffering, but . . .” Ryan trailed off, trying to sort things out in his head and coming up empty. “I just don’t get how this fits in with the murder of Brooke Mariano and the abduction of her baby.”