by Blake Pierce
Caroline watched in helpless horror as he pulled a pair of long shears out of his scrub pants pocket. Again she tried to scream, but it only came out as a muffled moan. She tried to wriggle free, but with his size advantage and her immobility, it was impossible.
As he gripped the handle of the shears, she had another idea. Her hand darted out and she tried to push the emergency call button. But he grabbed her wrist before she could push down. He bent it back until she felt it snap.
Caroline gasped in pain but barely had time to process it before she watched him slowly puncture the side of her waist with the shears. He pushed them in slowly, patiently. She closed her eyes, trying to push away the screaming anguish she felt as the metal went deeper and deeper. Then there was new pain as he pulled them back out again.
“You shouldn’t have committed your sins, Caroline,” he whispered, his lips brushing against her ear. “Now it’s time for your reckoning.”
She felt the shears again, this time quicker and harder than before. At some point she lost track of how often they entered. At some point she lost track of everything.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Jessie awaited the storm.
In the car on the way back to the station, she’d signed off on the carefully phrased statement the LAPD Media Relations rep had sent her. But the rep had also warned her that even with the statement, things were about to get ugly. She should expect protests outside the station, calls for her dismissal, and vitriol directed at her throughout the broadcast and online world.
She was sitting at her desk, still absorbing that news, when the call came in from Harbor Station CSU. Ryan put it on speaker.
“Bryce Laterno’s GPS data shows that he was home all night,” the technician on the line said.
“Could have left his phone at his apartment while he went out?” Ryan asked hopefully.
“Afraid not,” the tech said, sounding disappointed himself. “Bryce Laterno doesn’t have a car. He’s used rideshares exclusively to get around since being released from prison. There’s no indication that he used one last night.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean he didn’t use some other kind of transportation,” Jessie pointed out.
“No,” the tech acknowledged. “But his data also showed that he ordered a pizza with his phone last night. The delivery guy confirmed seeing him at ten thirty-five. There was simply no way he could have gotten to Morgan Remar’s West Adams home in that amount of time.”
“Maybe you should have led with that,” Jessie said, annoyed.
After Ryan hung up, he looked over at Jessie. She must have had a hangdog expression because he flashed her one of his “we’ll get through this” smiles.
“Well, we had pretty much ruled him out anyway,” he said, trying to put the best spin on things.
Decker walked over. Jessie could tell from his expression that he wasn’t the bearer of good news.
“I heard your guy in San Pedro was a bust,” he said.
“Yes sir,” Ryan confirmed. “Though it looks like he had ill intent toward the woman he was stalking before. He’s probably going back behind bars for another spell.”
“That’s one good thing at least,” he said before turning to Jessie. “How did it go with Media Relations?”
“As well as could be expected,” she said. “I tweaked some of the language in the statement to personalize it a bit. But it was pretty solid. I was told not to expect it to help much.”
“We’ll just try to ride it out,” he said. “In the meantime, Detectives Trembley and Reid have been reviewing the files for everyone we discussed who might have a vendetta against you. They should have some updates by later this afternoon.”
“That’s good news,” Jessie said, though it didn’t really feel that way.
“Mostly,” he agreed. “They did hit a few brick walls though. You may have to pursue them directly. Your ex-husband’s file is sealed, apparently by the FBI.”
“I know what that’s about,” she said. “You know I’m friendly with Agent Jack Dolan. He told me that Kyle’s been getting cozy with a drug cartel gang in the prison. I think the Bureau is hoping they can use him to get at those guys. I’ll talk to Jack. What are the other brick walls?”
“Just one. Andrea Robinson is in the psych ward but they wouldn’t give up any details. Maybe your therapist friend, Dr. Lemmon, could wrangle some info. I know she’s got connections.”
“I’ll reach out to her.”
“Great,” Decker said. “Maybe we can get a handle on this thing before the end of the day.”
“It would be nice to have something go our way,” Jessie agreed.
Decker nodded and was turning to leave when Ryan’s phone rang. Jessie could tell something was wrong when he looked at the screen.
“What?” she said.
“It’s the hospital,” he answered, picking up. “This Detective Hernandez.”
He listened, his face turning more ashen with each passing second. When he looked up, he seemed stunned.
“Caroline Gidley has been murdered.”
*
Jessie stared at the body in silent fury.
Caroline Gidley looked so helpless lying in her small bed, wearing only a bloody hospital gown. The massive cast on her right leg seemed to make her sink even further into the thin mattress. Her eyes were closed and Jessie could tell that they’d been squeezed tight in pain when the attack happened.
This was preventable. As Jessie looked at this woman, who had escaped one horror only to be undone by another, she felt the urge to yell. She’d already done it at the station, though it was in the relative privacy of Captain Decker’s office.
It had taken Ryan gently putting his hand on her forearm to remind her that she couldn’t ream out her boss interminably without consequence. To his credit, Decker had quietly taken it as she called out the entire department for the inaction that left the woman in front of them dead.
Decker had responded by quietly instructing them to go to the hospital and investigate the case. He assured Jessie that by the time they arrived at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the other two abductees would have protective details assigned to them.
Jessie tried not to linger on her anger as she looked around the hospital room. Instead, she focused on the state of the room. Nothing seemed strewn about. The person who did this came in and managed to complete his task without much fuss.
Other than the look of anguish on Caroline’s face, there was no real indication of a struggle. Nothing had been knocked over. The bed sheet didn’t even seem disturbed. Had he slipped in while she was asleep? If so, how had he managed to enter and leave without drawing any attention from the multiple medical staffers on the floor?
She got her answer to that question quickly. The two Beverly Hills PD detectives assigned to the case, Van Nielsen and Ken Oxford, were deferring to the HSS unit since this case seemed to be part of a pattern. But in the brief time that they’d been involved, they’d done good work.
“We’ve looked through the hospital surveillance footage from around the time of the crime,” Detective Nielsen said. “We had it sent to your CSU folks already but I can show you on my phone now. The guy was dressed as a nurse.”
Jessie looked at the footage. It showed a man dressed in nurse scrubs enter Caroline’s room. He was clearly wearing a wig to go with his gold wire-rimmed glasses and kept his head facing downward the entire time so no camera ever got a clear look at his face. She did notice a bandage on his right forearm and wondered if perhaps Morgan Remar had gotten him with the scrupulously wiped down butcher knife that they’d found in her kitchen.
“If he didn’t work there, how come no one challenged him?” Ryan asked.
Here’s why,” Detective Oxford said, pulling up footage from about five minutes earlier.
They watched the screen as what was clearly the same man exited the elevator onto the ward. He was wearing a long trench coat that covered up his outfit below. Different shots showe
d him walking by multiple rooms and looking in before walking into one on the other side of the ward.
“He’s in there for about three minutes,” Oxford narrated as he fast-forwarded the footage. “When he comes out, he’s in the scrubs. He’d stuffed the coat in the medical waste bin in the room.”
The man walked out at that moment and confidently moved across the hall. Moments later, multiple medical personnel ran to the room he’d just left. There was no audio so it was unclear what was going on.
“What happened?” Jessie asked.
“He cut a hole in oxygen tube of the man whose room he left,” Oxford said. “Alarms started going off. Staff rushed to help. No one noticed him going the other way and entering Ms. Gidley’s room.”
“The hole he cut in the tube was well-hidden,” Nielsen added. “By the time personnel figured out the problem and how to solve it, he was already leaving Gidley’s room. He was in the elevator again before the oxygen emergency was resolved.”
“Find any prints yet?” Ryan asked without much optimism.
Nielsen shook his head.
“He wore gloves every second he was on the floor,” he said. “We’re having exterior cameras checked now. But if his caution at avoiding detection inside the hospital is any indication, we shouldn’t hold out much hope of getting a break outside either.”
Jessie looked more closely at Caroline Gidley’s wounds. They didn’t look like they came from a knife.
“Do we know what he used to stab her?” she asked.
“CSU thinks it was medical shears,” Nielsen said. “It makes sense. In that uniform, no one would be too suspicious if he was found with them on his person.”
“One more thing,” Oxford added. “Before we knew about the connection to your other case, we started checking into her romantic life. We were looking hard at her ex; name is Gregg Dozier.”
“Why is that?” Ryan asked.
“Apparently the relationship ended badly,” Oxford said. “She was cheating on him and it all blew up about a week before the wedding. That was about a year ago. She subsequently got engaged to the guy she was having the affair with. Apparently her former fiancé didn’t take it very well.”
“What does that mean?” Jessie asked.
“Threats against the new guy, threats against her, and her car was keyed. She got a restraining order and it seemed to stop after that. But until we got the call that you guys were coming over because it fit your pattern, we were going to look into it.”
Jessie glanced over at Ryan and could tell they were thinking the same thing.
“It’d be a real help if you’d still pursue it,” she told them. “We’re slammed trying to find connections between the victims. If there’s any way to definitively rule Dozier in or out, it would help us out a lot.”
“Not a problem,” Oxford said.
“Thanks, guys,” Ryan added. “And if you do find anything that ties him to the other abductees, please let us know right away.”
“Will do,” Nielsen promised.
Jessie and Ryan left the hospital room and headed back to the elevator. As they walked down the hall, Ryan mused aloud.
“You think there’s any chance that Gregg Dozier planned all of these abductions and Morgan Remar’s murder as a cover so that he could get revenge on his cheating fiancée without drawing suspicion?”
“We’ve seen crazier,” Jessie acknowledged as the elevator headed down. “But Oxford and Nielsen seem pretty on the ball. If Dozier has any kind of suspicious history, I’m confident they’ll suss it out. But even if he did all that himself, he’d still need to be sure the place each woman was kept at wouldn’t be discovered while they were kept there. That feels like the key to solving this to me.”
Ryan nodded in agreement. The elevator doors opened and they stepped out into the lobby where they were greeted by Kat Gentry. She looked like she wanted to take a swing at Jessie.
“We need to talk,” she snarled.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Ryan waited in the car.
Kat did Jessie the courtesy of waiting until the two of them were out of earshot of anyone before tearing into her.
“You feel good about yourself?” Kat spat when they finally found a stretch of unoccupied sidewalk outside the hospital.
“What do you mean?” Jessie asked, trying not to sound defensive in the face of her friend’s vitriol.
“You froze me out of the case. Your department wouldn’t give these women protection and now two of them are dead.”
Jessie forced herself to remember that, while Kat might be pissed at her, much of this was undirected anger about what happened. She tried not to take it personally.
“I understand how upset you are,” she replied calmly. “I am too. I begged Decker to make sure each woman had protection. He tried but was overruled. I read him the riot act earlier and he promised me he’d make sure Jayne Castillo and Brenda Ferguson got it right away. I was actually about to check in with him to make sure it was done.”
Kat shook her head vigorously, clearly unsatisfied.
“But it should have happened earlier, Jessie. There’s a dead woman up there who shouldn’t be. You could have prevented it.”
“How?” Jessie demanded, feeling her blood pressure rise. “How am I supposed to authorize uniformed officers to stand guard? Do you think I have that kind of authority?”
“You could have asked me to do it,” Kat countered. “You ask me for work-related favors all the time. You think I would have said no to this? Or would it have been a violation of department policy?”
It was impossible to miss the sarcasm in her tone.
“To be honest it didn’t occur to me,” Jessie said. “And even if it had, I wouldn’t have figured you to be in much of a favor-giving mode.”
“I would have set aside how I feel to help these women. I can’t believe you would even think of doubting that.”
“I don’t,” Jessie conceded. “Look, I just didn’t think of it. I haven’t slept in about thirty hours. I’ve been burning the candle at both ends. Someone is apparently secretly trying to destroy my career and reputation. It didn’t occur to me.”
Kat stared at her for several seconds before responding.
“And because of that, Caroline Gidley is dead,” she replied quietly. “You’ve got blood on your hands.”
Jessie felt like she’d been punched in the gut. Kat didn’t wait for her to respond, instead turning and walking away without another word.
As Jessie watched her go, she fought the urge to defend herself. As bad as she felt about Caroline’s death, she knew it wasn’t her fault. She had fought for protection for her. She’d been grinding away at this case non-stop since she got it.
Even if she’d thought to ask Kat to stand guard at the hospital, there was no guarantee it would have worked. The guy was clever and methodical. If he’d found someone in Caroline’s room, he might have killed them too.
If she was honest with herself, she wasn’t confident the protection the other women were now supposed to be getting would be enough either. This killer had clearly planned the murders well in advance, just as he had done with the kidnappings. She had a strong suspicion that he’d already anticipated that the remaining victims would get protection and planned for that contingency. She suspected he’d view getting to them anyway as some kind of sick challenge.
She was walking back to the car to meet Ryan, imagining how he might do that, when her phone rang. It was Hannah. She picked up immediately. Before she could say anything, her sister spoke.
“You need to come home right now.”
*
The Social Services investigator was waiting in the living room with Hannah when Jessie arrived.
Hannah got up quickly to greet her, giving her a hug. As she leaned in, she whispered.
“She’s got it in for you,” she muttered. “Don’t take the bait.”
Behind her, the woman stood up and smoothed out the creases in her l
ong, gray dress with a muted floral pattern. The woman looked to be in her mid- to late forties with graying hair tied up in a bun. She wore no makeup and had thin, wire-framed glasses.
“Hello, Ms. Hunt,” she said, nodding but not extending her hand as she spoke in a clipped, overly polite manner. “I’m Delia Armbruster. I work with Los Angeles County’s Department of Public Social Services. The reason I’m here is because DPSS received an anonymous call in regard to you and your half-sister. I’ve already spoken to Hannah about the allegation but I wanted to get your input.”
“You spoke to a minor outside the presence of her guardian?” Jessie asked, already on guard.
“Under certain circumstances, that is permitted,” Armbruster said, offering a thin, unconvincing smile. “These circumstances fit the exception. Would you like to chat privately?”
Jessie could sense that despite the woman’s prim bearing, there was something predatory lurking just beneath the surface.
“No, that’s not necessary,” she said carefully. “Anything you want to ask me, you can do in Hannah’s presence. I don’t have anything to hide.”
“Very well,” Armbruster said. “Shall we sit down?”
She did so without waiting for a reply, taking one half of the love seat. Jessie sat in the easy chair. Hannah, in an apparent show of solidarity, took a chair from the breakfast table and sat down beside Jessie.
“As I mentioned,” Armbruster continued as she pulled a thin file out of her bag, “we received an anonymous call. It came in last night. According to the transcript, the caller claimed that on multiple occasions, they’ve heard abusive language directed at Hannah, coming from you in this apartment. They also heard what sounded like physical abuse and crying.”
Even as the woman spoke, Jessie started putting the pieces together. This had to be another attempt by the person trying to ruin her life to undermine her reputation. Reminding herself that, as Hannah had warned, Armbruster wanted to bait her into getting upset and making the allegation seem more credible, she stayed cool.