Avenging Angel

by Justine Dare

  She was staring at him so blankly that a less se­cure man might have taken it personally. But he was confident enough to realize what her reaction really meant. He leaned forward, resting his hands on the edge of her desk.

  "How long has it been since you were on a date, Regan?" he asked.

  She snapped out of her haze. "Too long," she said with a rueful smile, "if I can't even recognize someone asking me."

  "Now that you have, shall I ask again?"

  "No."

  Alex felt such a fierce letdown it shocked him. "Oh. Well," was all he could manage to say.

  "I just meant you don't have to ask again," Regan said with an almost shy smile. "I'd love to."

  "Oh! Okay!' Alex said inanely, wondering why a simple smile seemed to have wiped his mind clean.

  "But first," she said reluctantly, "I have to deal with that." She gestured to the folded paper on her desk with an expression of distaste.

  "What do you want to do about it?" he asked, al­most glad she'd changed the subject.

  She gave him a sideways sort of look. "You found it."

  "But on your property."

  "You mean Court Corporation property. They hold the deed."

  Which made it in essence his property, Alex thought. Now there was an entanglement.

  "Any idea whose it might be?" he asked.

  She rubbed her hands up and down her face again, as if the pain were worsening. "There's only one current resident with a drug history, but that only means she got caught. It's not unusual for a woman in an abusive relationship to resort to drugs to cope."

  "What would happen to her if you found out?"

  "She'd be gone," Regan said grimly. "It's one of the most nonnegotiable rules, no drugs or alcohol."

  "So, do you want to find out?"

  "Honestly? I don't know. I know my answer should be 'Of course but..."

  "How about 'not right now' for an answer?" he suggested softly.

  For a moment she just looked at him, but then she smiled. "That works."

  "Good. Forget about it, for now."

  "But what do I do with it? I can't just leave it here, and I'm certainly not going to carry it around."

  "Lock it up somewhere."

  She nodded. "All right." She got up, picked up the bindle as if it were contaminated, walked to the file cabinet, and pulled open the top drawer. "There's lots of room, since the police have most of my files. I just hope they don't come back with a court order for the whole cabinet while this is in there."

  "I'm sure your lawyer can head them off if they try."

  She brightened at that. "He does seem rather proficient."

  "I imagine CourtCorp wouldn't stand for any­thing else." "CourtCorp?"

  Oops. Not a term that really fit his current per­sona.

  "Yeah," he managed to say with a grin. "I read somewhere that's what they call it."

  To his relief she just smiled back at him as she dropped the folded paper into the drawer and shut it, then pushed the locking button at the top. And the effect that smile had on him made him wonder just how stupid he was being, getting more deeply involved with Regan Keller.

  Lynne was already sure, but she kept her mouth shut. Nick wouldn't be much help, since he'd not been to the previous murder scenes, but Ben would see the clue, she was certain. For all his bad temper, he was a good cop with a lot of experience.

  The scene was just as bloody as the previous ones. Even though Vista Shores rarely had mur­ders, she'd seen enough blood in her nine years on the job, and it never ceased to amaze her how it seemed to expand. The smallest spill looked huge and ominous. A pool like this looked horrifying, even seeping into the dirt as it did here. And it had clearly horrified the young couple in jogging gear who had found the body. They were looking shell-shocked as they stood to one side, giving informa­tion to Nick.

  The victim was a big man, soft around the midriff, in an expensive-looking suit. He lay on his back, his arms flung outward haphazardly, his legs bent awkwardly, as if he'd been simply dumped here already unconscious or dead. The gaping wound at his throat looked even more grotesque above the neatly knotted tie. Bits of white she knew were cartilage showed amid the sliced flesh. The metallic smell of blood still lingered, although the edges of the puddle were drying out.

  Lynne blinked as the flash on the crime-scene in­vestigator's camera went off once more. His part­ner, who normally worked another shift but who had been called in to help with this, was working on the sketch of the crime scene, while another offi­cer tied off more crime-scene tape. Then would come the painstaking work of gathering anything at the scene that could possibly be evidence.

  It was a daunting task, in this public area of brush and dirt. The only advantage they had was that it appeared from the blood that the murder had taken place on the spot. Many times in brushy outdoor areas like this they were dealing with a body that had been dumped, which made crime-scene investigation exhausting, time-consuming, and all too often pointless. And the dirt might pro­vide them with a footprint, somewhere.

  Durwin had pulled on his gloves and proceeded methodically through his search grid, moving care­fully, with plastic boots on his feet to avoid contam­inating the scene, doing a visual search only first. He called out things he wanted checked as he went, and Lynne made careful notes to be turned over to CSI when they took over after finishing their pho­tos.

  Lynne had deferred to Durwin as the senior in­vestigator on the scene, and when he handed her the man's wallet, which appeared untouched, she retreated to handle the second task he'd tacitly as­signed her, that of inventorying and booking the victim's property.

  The photograph on the driver's license appeared to match the dead man, and the address was in an upscale area in the hills above where they were standing. Lynne pulled out her cell phone and began the routine records and ID check, asking records to call her back with the local record when they had it, before they began the wider search. The name wasn't familiar to her from the Rachel's House records.

  She then inventoried the contents of the wallet. Six hundred dollars in cash; robbery obviously wasn't involved. Several platinum credit cards, a bank ATM card, a dry-cleaning receipt that appeared to be for the very suit he was wearing. She wrote down the name, address, and number of the dry cleaners. Three business cards from different executives with advertising agencies were the last items, and she made the same notes from those be­fore she added them to the evidence bag.

  Nothing personal, she noticed. No photos of family, no photos at all. No mementos, no notes, nothing more personal than that dry-cleaners re­ceipt.

  By the time she was done her phone rang, just as Durwin straightened up and came toward her. He waited until she was through jotting down the in­formation the records clerk was rattling off, then handed her a very expensive-looking watch and two heavy gold rings, one with a large, solitaire-cut diamond.

  "Watch on left wrist, diamond ring on the left pinky, the other on right ring finger."

  Lynne filled out the property slip, then dropped the times in a fresh bag.

  "Bucks up, this guy," Durwin said.

  "So it seems. The address on the license is in Vista Heights. And records says he's clean, except for a couple of speeding tickets and one incident of road rage."

  "He the suspect or the victim?"

  "According to the record, it was mutual."

  "You got them checking the address history for call outs?"

  She nodded. "They're running it."

  "Name ring any bells?"

  "No. It's not anywhere in the records for Rachel's House."

  "Could be the wife or girlfriend's using a differ­ent name," he said, his voice oddly neutral.

  "Still, his real name should be in the files."

  "You got an opinion on this, Garrison?"

  She looked at the man, for once ignoring the grumpy exterior and instead focusing on the wealth of knowledge and experience he'd gained in his twenty-two years as a cop. She
was less than a year into detectives, stuck in what she knew they called the ghetto of sex crimes and domestic vio­lence, assigned to this case only because of the bat­terer connection between the victims. If she was smart, she'd keep her mouth shut. If she was right, Durwin should see it, too.

  But she hadn't got to where she was by playing dumb. It was already tough enough for a woman in this job. She wasn't going to back off from some­thing that was crystal clear to her, just because she was afraid to be wrong. She wasn't wrong. She'd have to be stupid to miss what was so obvious, and she was not stupid.

  "Yes," she said, "I do."

  Durwin gave an exasperated grunt. "And what is that opinion, Detective Garrison?" She met his "I dare you" gaze steadily. And said it.

  "It's not the same killer."

  CHAPTER 7

  Regan laughed again, and ruefully acknowledged it had been a very long time since she'd really re­laxed. Dinner had been delicious, and she couldn't deny she found looking across a table at Alex Ed­wards as appealing as the decadent chocolate dessert they were sharing.

  "Well, how was I to know that's what the gesture meant there?" Alex said with a grin.

  "You've traveled a lot," she said.

  "I've been here and there. You?"

  She shook her head. "I've lived in Vista Shores my whole life. I've never really been anywhere, ex­cept for trips to the Midwest to visit family when I was a kid." She gave a halfhearted laugh. "Sounds pretty pitiful, doesn't it?"

  "Only if you want to travel and aren't doing it."

  "I'd like to. There are so many places I'd love to see, but I can't be gone that long."

  "Nobody seemed upset about you going out to dinner tonight."

  Regan almost blushed remembering the teasing she'd taken from Mindy, Laura, and the others. They had not been upset but delighted that she had a date. That the date was with Alex the roofer only added spice. So much spice that Regan blurted out the first thing in her mind.

  "So how did a nice guy like you escape getting married?"

  She nearly groaned aloud when the words came out, but he answered easily.

  "I think she was the one who escaped," he said with a crooked smile. "It was close, but after a three-year engagement she decided I wasn't seri­ous enough."

  Regan swirled the last of her wine in her glass. "Was she right?"

  "Probably," he admitted. "What about you?"

  She shrugged. "Never any time."

  "By accident or intentionally?"

  She drew back slightly. "What?"

  He took the last swallow of his wine before he answered. "I just wondered if maybe working and living at Rachel's House made you as wary of men as the residents are. Couldn't blame you if it did."

  She thought about that. "I suppose I am more wary than most. I don't think about it all the time, like they must, but I do catch myself being sur­prised when a man really cares about what's hap­pening to these women, or sometimes even when a man is simply nice."

  He set down his empty glass, and looked at her so intently she felt pinned by his gaze. "In that case, I hope I've surprised you twice."

  "You have," she said, giving him his due. More than twice, she added to herself. A lot more.

  Feeling flustered, she asked the question that had been bothering her since this afternoon.

  "How did you know that was cocaine?"

  He shrugged. "I've come across it here and there. Had to fire a guy who was using once."

  "Oh."

  That simply, her suspiciousness faded. And she wondered if it were true that she was becoming more and more like the women of Rachel's House every day, always wary, distrustful, and seeing every man as a threat of some kind.

  "I had an idea about that, though," Alex said. "If you decide you want to know whose it is, we could put it back, and install a video camera."

  "To spy?" she said, not liking the sound of that.

  He shrugged. "I suppose, if you want to call it that. But it would be a good idea to have a camera anyway, just in case the wrong person shows up on your doorstep. In fact, I'm surprised you don't al­ready have one."

  "Mrs. Court

  wanted them, but we've been trying to keep the lowest possible profile in the neighbor­hood, and having cameras all over the outside didn't seem the best idea to me, until now." She thought again of the cocaine tucked away in her file drawer. "Cameras for security are one thing, but... I just don't like the idea of spying on my people. So many of them had to live with that, with their abusers."

  He looked troubled. "It's up to you. But if it's going to happen anyway, it wouldn't take much to set up the cameras now." "I'll think about it."

  "It also might make your people feel a little safer. Might make somebody who's trying to get to them think twice, too, knowing they're being video­taped."

  She smiled at him. "You after my job?"

  He blinked and drew back. "Sorry. Guess I got a little carried away."

  "Don't apologize. I—" The ring of her cell phone cut her off. "Excuse me," she said. "I can't really turn it off in case—"

  "I know. Go ahead and answer."

  She'd expected it to be Marita or one of the oth­ers. The voice of Detective Garrison made her breath catch in her throat.

  "I'm sorry to bother you, Regan, but I need to ask you a couple of things."

  "All right."

  "Does the name William Wheeler mean anything to you?"

  "No, it doesn't sound familiar."

  "Do you know if any Rachel's House resident has ever had a connection to anyone in Vista Heights?"

  "I don't recall any, but I'd have to look to be sure."

  "I've already checked the files, I just wondered if you'd maybe heard something that wasn't in there."

  "No, I haven't. Is ... has something happened?" There was a pause, and then, "You'll hear about it in the morning anyway. We've had another mur­der."

  "Oh, God," Regan whispered.

  "But this time there doesn't seem to be a connec­tion to Rachel's House. Not that we can find, any­way. There was a history of disturbance calls to the police by neighbors, but no arrests, no complaints by the wife."

  Regan felt a little bewildered. "No connection?"

  "Not that we know of. But don't read too much into this, Regan. There's more to it than I can tell you right now. Please keep on as you have been."

  "All right."

  "Now I've got to go."

  For a moment after the detective had discon­nected she just sat there, staring at the phone.

  "Regan? Are you all right?"

  Alex's voice was soft, concerned. She looked up at him. "There's been another killing."

  "I gathered."

  He reached out and took the phone she was still holding—white-knuckle tight, she realized—from her hand and set it on the table. Then he took her hands in his. Within moments his warmth seemed to chase the chill that had overtaken her. She met his gaze.

  "It’ll be in the news tomorrow. But she said this time he's not connected to us."

  "Is that what that was about?"

  She nodded. "I've never heard of this man." Hope speared through her. "Maybe it's not all con­nected to us after all. Maybe the first three were just coincidence."

  "Did the detective say that?"

  "No." She reined in her wishful thinking. "She said there was more to it, but she couldn't tell me yet."

  "Better keep on as you were, then." "That's what she said to do." "I didn't mean to stomp on your optimism," he said.

  "No, you're right. I was just hoping." She picked up her phone and dropped it back in her purse. "But I'd better get back. I'll have to tell them there's been another. But at least it's not one of theirs this time."

  "Unless there's a connection you don't know about."

  "I don't think so. I know about the husbands, and if any of them had had a boyfriend from Vista Heights, I think I would have heard about it."

  Alex went still. "Vista Heights?"


  She nodded. "That's what she said. Or at least, she wanted to know if anyone at Rachel's House had a connection to anyone from there."

  "What was the name she gave you?"

  Regan hesitated, then thought that if it was going to be all over TV and the newspapers in the morn­ing, there was no reason not to answer.

  "William Wheeler," she said. He went stiller yet. "Alex?"

  "Whew," he said, shaking his head sharply. Her eyes widened at his reaction. "My God, you know him?"

  "Yeah. Yeah, I do. Did."

  "I'm sorry," she said automatically. "Did you do work for him?" Vista Heights was the richest com­munity in Vista Shores, and possibly in the entire county, and it didn't seem probable Alex would have met him any other way.

  He shook his head again. "I did some work near his house. But why would the killer pick him?"

  "Detective Garrison said there had been several calls to the house for disturbances."

  "Maybe," Alex said doubtfully. "But battering? A guy like Will? I mean, he's a big executive with a development company, they're really well off, and—"

  Regan's voice turned to ice. "You think abuse is a blue-collar crime? That it doesn't happen in wealthy families, or behind closed doors of man­sions as well as shacks?"

  Alex sat back, an expression of disbelief on his face. He seemed to be having a very hard time with this, and Regan reined in her instinctive anger.

  "I knew a woman once who lived in the same kind of neighborhood. Wealthy, powerful husband, great house, great life, the whole scenario. People used to talk about her style, how she always dressed with such flair. Her trademark was colorful scarves around her neck, to go with every outfit. No one ever realized she wore them to cover the bruises. She stayed, because she was too embar­rassed to leave. She stayed," Regan said flatly, "until he killed her."

  Alex shook his head again, but the disbelief was gone. He looked as if he were battling to come to grips with the idea that even a gilded cage could hold such ugliness.

  "A man like that may appear successful," she said, calmer now, "but inside he feels inadequate. And women aren't quite people to him. In those cases sometimes they're merely ornaments, the crowning element in the image of success he wants to present. And when that ornament dares to have a mind of her own, it ruins his self-image."