Dark and Twisted Reads: All the Pretty GirlsA Perfect EvilBone Cold (A Taylor Jackson Novel)

by J. T. Ellison

  Morrelli was leaning against the table, his weight jerking the stainless steel and sending out a high-pitched screech of metal against tile. Maggie looked up at him. His face was white. Before she realized it, he slumped against her. She caught him by the waist, but he was too heavy, and she slipped to the floor with him, her knees crumpling under her. The weight of him crushed against her chest.

  “Morrelli, hey, are you okay?”

  She squeezed out from under him and propped him against a table leg. He was conscious, but his eyes were glazed over. She climbed to her feet and looked for a towel to wet. Despite the well-equipped lab, there were no linens—no gowns or towels to be found. She remembered seeing a pop machine next to the elevators. Fumbling for the correct change, she was there and back before Morrelli moved.

  His legs were twisted underneath him. His head rested against the table. Now, at least, his eyes were more focused when she knelt next to him with the Pepsi can.

  “Here,” she said, handing it to him.

  “Thanks, but I’m not thirsty.”

  “No, for your neck. Here…” She reached over and put a hand at the back of his neck, gently pushing his head forward and down. Then she laid the cold Pepsi can against the back of his neck. He leaned into her. A few more inches, and his head would rest between her breasts. But now, dealing with his own vulnerability, he seemed completely unaware. Perhaps the macho ego did come with a sensitive side. She started to pull her hand away just as Morrelli reached up and caught it, gently encircling it with his large, strong fingers. He looked into her eyes, the crystal blue finally focused.

  “Thanks.” He sounded embarrassed, but his steady gaze held hers. A bit shook up and yet, if she wasn’t mistaken, he was still flirting with her.

  In response, she jerked her hand away, too quickly and much more abruptly than necessary. Just as abruptly, she handed him the Pepsi, then sat back on her knees, putting more distance between them.

  “I can’t believe I did that,” he said. “I’m a little embarrassed.”

  “Don’t be. I spent a lot of time on the floor before I got used to this stuff.”

  “How do you get used to it?” He looked back into her eyes, as if searching for the answer.

  “I’m not sure. You just sort of disconnect, try not to think about it.” She looked away and quickly got to her feet. She hated how his eyes seemed to look deep inside her. She realized it as a simple device, a cunning tool of his charm. Still, she was afraid he might actually see some weakness she had carefully hidden. Months ago there wouldn’t have been anything to hide. Albert Stucky had supplied her with her own vulnerability, and she hated that it stayed so close to the surface where others might see it.

  Before she could offer him a hand, Morrelli slowly stretched his long legs from the twisted knot and got to his feet without staggering or assistance. Other than his almost fainting, Maggie noticed that Sheriff Morrelli moved very smoothly, very confidently.

  He smiled at her and rubbed the cold condensation of the can against his forehead, leaving a wet streak. Several strands of hair slipped across his forehead and stuck to the wetness. “Do you mind meeting me up in the cafeteria when you’re finished?”

  “No, of course not. I won’t be much longer.”

  “I think I’ll take a Pepsi break.” He lifted the can to her as if in a toast. He started to leave, glanced back at the boy’s body, then walked out.

  Maggie’s stomach churned, and she regretted not eating the breakfast offered during her roller-coaster flight. The room was cool, but her shuffle with Morrelli had left her hot and perspiring. She pulled off a glove and wiped her hand across her forehead, not surprised to find it damp. As she did so, she glanced at the boy’s forehead. From this angle she could see something smeared on his brow.

  She bent over the table, looking closely at the transparent smudge in the middle of his forehead. She wiped a finger across the area and rubbed her fingers together under her nose. If the body had been washed clean, that meant the oily liquid had been applied after. Instinctively, Maggie checked the boy’s blue lips and found a smear of the oil. Before she even looked, she knew she’d find more of the oil on the boy’s chest, just above his heart. Perhaps all those years of catechism had finally paid off. Otherwise, she may have never recognized that someone, perhaps the killer, had given this boy last rites.

  CHAPTER 13

  Christine Hamilton tried to edit the article she had scribbled in her notebook while pretending to know the score of the soccer game being played on the field down below her. The wooden bleachers were terribly uncomfortable no matter how she shifted her weight. She wanted a cigarette, but chewed the cap of her pen instead.

  A sudden burst of applause, hoots and whistles made her look up just in time to see the team of red-clad, ten-year-old boys high-fiving each other. She had missed another point, but when the small, red-haired boy looked up from the huddle, she gave him a smile and thumbs-up as if she had seen the whole thing.

  He was so much smaller than his teammates, yet to her he seemed to be growing too quickly. It didn’t help matters that he was looking more and more like his father every day.

  She pushed her sunglasses on top of her windblown hair. The sun was disappearing behind the line of trees that bordered the park. Thankfully, most of the clouds had passed over without dumping more rain. It was bad enough they were playing a make-up game on a Sunday evening.

  She had isolated herself on the top bleacher away from the other soccer moms and dads. She didn’t care to know these obsessive parents who wore team jerseys and screamed profanities at the coach. Later, they would slap the coach on the back and congratulate him on yet another win.

  She flipped a page and was about to return to her editing when she noticed three of the other divorced soccer moms whispering to each other. Instead of watching the game, they were pointing to the sidelines. Christine turned to follow their gaze and immediately saw what had distracted them. The man striding up the sidelines typified the cliché—“tall, dark and handsome.” He wore tight jeans and a sweatshirt with Nebraska Cornhuskers emblazoned across the chest. He looked like an older version of the college quarterback he used to be. He watched the game as he walked—no, glided—up the sidelines. But Christine knew he was well aware of the attention he was drawing from the bleachers. When he finally looked over, she waved to him, enjoying the look of envy on the women’s faces when he smiled at her and made his way up the bleachers to join her.

  “What’s the score?” Nick asked, sliding in beside her.

  “I think it’s five to three. You realize, don’t you, that you just made me the envy of every drooling, divorced soccer mom here?”

  “See, the things I do for you, and you repay me with such abuse.”

  “Abuse? I never hit you a day of your life,” she told her younger brother. “Well, not hard.”

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” He wasn’t joking.

  She sat up straight, preparing to defend herself despite the guilt gnawing at her stomach. Yes, she should have called him before she turned in the story. But what if he had asked her not to run it? That story had put her on the other side of the door. Rather than being stuck writing helpful household hints, she had two front-page articles in two days with her byline. And tomorrow she’d be sitting at her own desk in the city room.

  “How about I make it up to you? Dinner tomorrow night? I’ll fix spaghetti and meatballs with Mom’s secret sauce.”

  He looked over at her, glanced at the notebook. “You just don’t get it, do you?”

  “Oh, come on, Nicky. You know how long I’ve been waiting to get out of the “Living Today” section? If I hadn’t filed that story, someone else would have.”

  “Really? And would they have quoted an officer who told them something off the record?”

  “He never once said it was off the record. If Gillick told you otherwise, he’s lying.”

  “Actually, I didn’t know it was Eddie. Ge
e, Christine, you just gave away an anonymous source.”

  Her face grew hot, and she knew the red was quickly replacing her fair complexion. “Damn you, Nicky. You know how hard I’m trying. I’m a little rusty, but I can be a damn good reporter.”

  “Really? So far I think your reporting has been irresponsible.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud, Nicky. Just because you didn’t like what I wrote doesn’t make it irresponsible journalism.”

  “What about the headlines?” Nick spoke through gritted teeth. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this upset with her. He avoided looking at her and watched the boys running up the field. “Where do you get off comparing this murder to Jeffreys’?”

  “There are basic similarities.”

  “Jeffreys is dead,” he whispered, looking around to make sure no one was listening. He clasped his hands together over a knee and tapped his foot on the empty bench in front of them, a nervous habit Christine recognized from childhood.

  “Grow up, Nicky. Anyone with half a brain is going to compare this murder to Jeffreys’. I just wrote what everyone else is thinking. Are you saying I’m off target?”

  “I’m saying we don’t need another panic in a community that just started to feel like maybe their kids were safe again.” He crossed his arms, looking unsure of what to do with his clenched fists. “You made me look like a goddamn idiot, Christine.”

  “Oh, I see. That’s what this is really about. You don’t care about a panic in the community. You’re just worried about how you look. Why am I not surprised?”

  He glared at her. For a moment, he looked as though he would defend himself, but instead he looked back out at the field. She hated when he absorbed her cheap shots without fighting back. Even as a kid, he never knew how to combat the insults—her secret weapons. She must be getting old, because suddenly she regretted hurting his feelings.

  At the same time, though, she grew impatient with the way her brother approached things. He constantly took the easy way out, but then, why not? Everything seemed to be handed to Nick, from job opportunities to women. And he floated from one to the next without much effort, remorse or thought. When their father retired and insisted that Nick run for sheriff, Nick had left his professorship at the university without any hesitation. At least, none Christine had witnessed, though she knew he loved being on campus, being a walking legend and having coeds drool over him. Without a hitch—and quite predictably, in fact—he had been elected to the post of county sheriff. Though Nick would be the first to admit it was only because of their father’s name and reputation. But he didn’t seem to mind. He just took things as they came.

  Christine, on the other hand, had to scrape and claw for everything she wanted, especially since Bruce’s departure. Well, this time she deserved the break she was getting. She refused to apologize for capitalizing on her sudden streak of good fortune.

  “If it is a copycat, don’t you think people deserve a warning?” She kept her voice sincere, though she didn’t want or need to justify herself. This was news. She knew what she was doing. The public had a right to know all the grisly details.

  Nick didn’t answer. Instead, he brought his feet up on the bench in front so he could lean forward, elbows on his knees, chin resting on clenched fists. They sat silently in the middle of whoops and howls. There was something different, something unfamiliar about him, and the change was disconcerting.

  After what seemed like a long time, Nick said quietly, calmly, “Danny Alverez was just a year older than Timmy.” His eyes were focused straight ahead.

  Christine looked out at Timmy bouncing down the field, weaving in between the boys that towered over him. He was fast and agile, using his smallness to his advantage. And, yes, she had noticed the resemblance. Timmy looked very much like the school photo they had used in the newspaper of Danny. They both had reddish-blond hair, blue eyes and a sprinkle of freckles. Like Timmy, Danny also was small for his age.

  “I just spent the afternoon at the morgue.” His voice startled her back to reality.

  “Why?” she asked, pretending not to be interested. She stared at the game, but watched Nick out of the corner of her eye. She had never seen him so serious before.

  “Bob Weston called in an expert to help us come up with a profile—Special Agent Maggie O’Dell from Quantico. She got in this morning and was raring to get to work.” He glanced over at Christine, then did a double take when he noticed her scratching down something in her notebook. “Jesus, Christine!” he spat out so suddenly it made her jump. “Isn’t anything off the record with you?”

  “If you wanted it off the record, you should have said so.” She watched him rub his hand across his jaw as if she had sucker punched him. “Besides, by tomorrow everyone will know about Agent O’Dell when she starts asking questions. What are you worried about, Nicky? Calling in an expert is a good thing.”

  “Is it? Or will it just make me look like I don’t know what the hell I’m doing?” He shot her another look. “Don’t you dare print that.”

  “Relax. I’m not the enemy, Nicky.” She noticed the boys doing their victory dance between the required handshakes. The game was over, and it was beginning to get dark. The park lights slowly turned on one by one. “You know, Dad wasn’t afraid to work with the news media.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not Dad.” Now she had made him angry. She knew to stay away from the comparison, but she hated him treating her like an ambulance chaser. Besides, if he didn’t like the comparisons, perhaps he shouldn’t have followed in their father’s footsteps. As usual, she simply sidestepped the subject.

  “I’m just saying that Dad knew how to use the media to help.”

  “To help?” Nick asked incredulously, his voice rising above the cheering in front of them. He quickly looked around, realizing he was too loud. He lowered his voice again and leaned toward her. “Dad used the news media because he loved being in the limelight. There were so many leaks, it’s amazing they ever caught Jeffreys.”

  “What leaks? What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind,” he said, glancing at her notebook.

  Christine rolled her eyes at him, wondering if he was just baiting her now.

  “But they did catch Jeffreys, and Dad solved the case,” she reminded him.

  “Yeah, they did catch Jeffreys, and good ole Dad took all the credit.”

  “Nicky, no one’s asking you to fill Dad’s shoes. You always take that on yourself.” Okay, there it was. A slip, an innocent slip. She watched his face, waiting.

  Instead, he simply shook his head. A frustrated smile caught at the corner of his mouth as if he thought she couldn’t possibly understand.

  “Haven’t you ever wondered…” He hesitated, looking out at the field, his thoughts far away. “Didn’t you ever think it happened all too quickly…too neat and convenient?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  This wasn’t the response she expected. The night air was chilly, and Christine felt a shiver down her back. She rubbed her arms and tried to look into her brother’s eyes. He was starting to scare her with his anger and his hushed manner. Normally, he joked around and never took anything too seriously, even their sibling banter. Had the mention of their father brought all this on? No, it was something else. What did he know? What was it that had her arrogant, confident little brother so spooked?

  “Nicky, what do you mean?” she tried again.

  “Forget it,” he said, standing up and stretching, closing the subject.

  “Uncle Nick, Uncle Nick! Did you see me score?” Timmy yelled as he ran up the bleachers, carefully watching his small feet the whole way up.

  “You bet I did,” Nick lied.

  She watched as Nick’s entire face changed, relaxing into a smile as he snatched her small son up into his long arms, wrestling him in close for a hug.

  Christine knew her brother was hiding something, and she was going to find out what it was.

  CHAPTE
R 14

  He drove around the park again, this time slowly. The game was finally over. He pulled into a parking space far from the other cars, alone in the corner of the lot. He turned off the headlights and sat watching, listening to the music and waiting for the jerky strings of Vivaldi to smooth out and silence the throbbing in his temples.

  It was happening again and so soon. He couldn’t stop it, couldn’t control it. And worse, he didn’t want to. He was so tired. He tried to remember when he had last slept through an entire night, instead of pacing or wandering the streets. He rubbed his eyes, wiping at the exhaustion, then stopped suddenly. His fingers were trembling beyond his control.

  “Dear God, make it stop,” he whispered as he tore at the hair at his temples. Why wouldn’t it stop? The throbbing, the pounding made his head ache.

  He watched the group of boys in grass-stained uniforms. They looked so happy, fresh from their victory, arms crossing around one another, hands patting each other on the back. They touched so carelessly, so casually. Their singsong voices grew loud as they approached, drowning out Vivaldi with lyrics of gibberish.

  The memory came flooding back to him, paralyzing him and pinning him to the stiff leather of the car seat. He was eleven years old and his stepfather had made him join the Little League team, bargaining with the coach to get him out of the house on Saturday mornings. He knew it was only because his stepfather wanted to fuck his mother all morning.

  He had accidentally walked in on them the Saturday before, only because they were out of milk. The memory washed over him—powerful despite the years. So clear, so vivid he grabbed the steering wheel to brace himself.

  He stood in the doorway of his mother’s bedroom, paralyzed by the sight of his mother’s skin, white and naked with the silver cross swinging between her big breasts. Her breasts wagged back and forth. She held herself up on her hands and knees while his stepfather rode her like a dog in heat.