“You okay?” Jac murmured as she pulled on a pair of gloves. “I don’t blame you for being shaken up, knowing this guy’s been to your place and is actually leaving you presents now.”
“It’s not that.” Eve cringed. That was probably ridiculous, wasn’t it? What kind of person was she when her shitty love life upset her more than the thought that her stalker had just raised the stakes in his sick game? “I mean, it is. I’m upset, of course.”
“About Selene, too.” Jac shook the contents of the envelope onto the table, avoiding Eve’s gaze. “You’ve had an awesomely bad past thirty-six hours. You deserve to fall apart a little, I think.”
“I’m not falling apart.” Eve pulled on her gloves. “I refuse to.”
Jac gingerly picked up the photo of their potential victim. Eve watched Jac scan the note at the bottom—I wonder if she’ll be as scared as you, Eve remembered, like she could forget—fascinated by the way Jac’s jaw tensed in visceral anger. Jac glanced up, apparently checking Eve’s reaction.
“I’m not convinced he hasn’t given us anything to work with.” Voice thick with anger, Jac nodded at the photo. “He’s having too much fun with this. He thinks he’s invincible, that he’s just toying with you. He told you he could do whatever he wants and nobody could stop him. Right?”
“That’s what he said.” Eve let her gaze drift to the image of the woman who might very well be facing the same terror she’d endured even as they sat there looking at her photo. “He definitely wants to believe that he’s unstoppable.”
“So would he really resist the urge to give you some kind of puzzle to decipher?” Jac stared at the photo, first the front, then the back.
“He doesn’t want to get caught. And so far he’s been very smart. Why give us something to go on now?”
“Because he’s controlling the scenario,” Jac said, brows furrowing as she studied the back of the photo. “Leaving evidence on a body, well, that’s just sloppy. But giving his adversary some kind of clue or challenge…” Flipping the photo around, Jac said, “What does that look like to you?”
Eve zeroed in on a thick, dark smudge on the lower corner of the paper. “I have no idea. Dirt.”
Jac unzipped a bag that sat on the corner of her desk, taking out a shallow plastic dish and a metal instrument. “We should analyze it just in case.”
“You really think this is a puzzle of some kind?”
“Well, I have to.” Jac scraped a sample of the smudge onto a tiny blade and deposited it in the dish. Then she screwed on a clear plastic lid and set the evidence aside. “Better than the alternative, which is that all this will get us nowhere except feeling guilty when we find this girl dead.”
“I already feel guilty,” Eve said softly.
“Don’t. He’s involved you in his crimes, but you’re not the reason he’s killing. The psycho obviously gets off on the act of murder.” Jac took out her fingerprint kit and diligently began dusting the envelope, though Eve suspected she knew it was a long shot that the guy would leave a usable print. “Whether or not he fixated on you, he’d be hurting people.” Glancing up, she met Eve’s eyes. “Trust me on that.”
“I’m sure you’re right.” Of course she was. This man wouldn’t be sitting at home watching football or playing with his kids instead of murdering women. But knowing he had apparently been killing with her in mind from the start was too much to take. “Doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“I know.” Scowling, Jac examined the envelope. “Nothing.”
“You didn’t expect him to be that sloppy, did you?”
“Maybe I was hoping he wanted to get caught.” Jac managed a tight smile. “He must, to mess with you.”
Not knowing how to respond, Eve murmured, “Dust the photo. I’ll cross my fingers.”
Jac dusted in silence and Eve watched, grateful for the momentary lull in conversation. Her mind kept slipping away to thoughts of what Selene might be doing. Was she home alone? Or with another woman? Eve’s stomach turned at the thought of Selene with someone else.
“I really thought this thing with Selene was for real.” Eve hadn’t meant to say anything out loud, especially not to Jac, but she couldn’t keep this to herself anymore. She was angry and confused—not just at Selene, but also at Jac, all over again. Though she thought she’d forgiven Jac for her betrayal, this thing with Selene dredged up all her old resentments. Because she lacked the strength to confront Selene, Jac made an ideal target for her rage. “I thought this time I’d found someone who wouldn’t lie to me. Who understood that the one thing I want from a relationship is honesty.”
Jac blinked, taking a deep breath then exhaling. In a low voice, she said, “You only knew her a month. That’s not enough time to get a real read on someone.”
“It didn’t feel like only a month,” Eve said quietly. She couldn’t explain to Jac how she had felt connected to Selene from almost the first moment they met. How Selene had made her feel stronger, more beautiful, more confident and centered than she ever had. All that sounded illogical, silly—two things Eve prided herself on not being. “You know me, Jac. I don’t trust easily. I’m not the type to fall for someone so quickly.”
“I know you aren’t.” With a disgusted sigh, Jac packed up her fingerprint kit, having come up with nothing. “I was surprised you had.”
“It just felt right.” Eve bit her lip hard, looking away from Jac as she struggled to bring her emotion under control. “I’m an idiot.”
“No, you’re not.” Stripping off her gloves, Jac collapsed back into her chair and folded her hands over her stomach. “I can give the photo to our tech guys, see if they can clean up the background and identify any landmarks. And we can get a handwriting analyst in here to help us construct a profile on this guy. Other than that…”
“Yeah.” Eve picked up the photo, forcing herself to study the woman’s face for the first time. Her obvious happiness was infectious, which only made Eve feel worse. “I’m not used to dealing with someone so careful, so meticulous. Charles Dunning wasn’t like that.”
“Not ultimately, no. But we spent a lot of restless nights hunting him down, too.” Jac nudged Eve’s ankle with the toe of her shoe. “We’ll get this guy. Who knows, maybe the dirt from the photo will lead us somewhere.”
“I hope so.”
Jac cleared her throat. “And I hope you’ll think again about staying at my place. Considering.”
“Considering that I have a serial killer obsessed with me?” Mustering a brave chuckle, Eve shook her head. “That’s hardly news, Jac. We already knew he was fixated on me, that he had my address and phone number. So, really, nothing has changed.”
“Except now he’s shown us how bold he can be. He went to your apartment. In broad daylight.”
“He attacked me in Golden Gate Park, too, which seems even bolder, at least from my perspective.” Though Jac obviously thought it foolish, Eve refused to cave to the temptation to flee. “Look, by staying right where I am, I’ve given him a specific target, a place where he may poke his head out again. It could be our best chance of nabbing him, really. If I retreat to a secure location, we may lose our only opportunity to draw him out.”
Scowling, Jac said, “How did I know you’d come up with a semi-logical reason to be a stubborn ass?”
“I guess you just know me well.”
“Guess so.” Jac seemed pleased by that. “You eat dinner yet?”
“I haven’t.”
“Why don’t you let me have something delivered? That is, if you don’t mind hanging out here for a while.”
Twenty-four hours ago, Eve would never have imagined having dinner with Jac again so soon. But she was hungry, she was shaken up, and she really didn’t want to be alone. As determined as she was not to be chased away from her apartment, she couldn’t quite imagine returning there yet. Especially not with the way it made her miss Selene so badly. Not that she would admit that out loud. “I don’t mind hanging out.”
“Cool. How does Chinese sound?”
“Delicious.” Eve didn’t let herself react to the familiarity of this scene. She and Jac had fallen in love over Chinese takeout when they worked the Charles Dunning case. In fact, Eve had been eating Kung Pao chicken from their favorite Chinese delivery place on the night she’d uncovered the evidence that cracked the case. As much as she didn’t want to go back to that romantic place with Jac, sticking to what had worked for their investigations in the past probably wasn’t a bad idea. “I’ll have my usual.”
“Figured.” Jac didn’t hide her pleasure.
“In the meantime, I’m going to call Wayne and ask him to start with this sample you collected.” Eve lifted the evidence dish and peered at the meager specimen inside. Hopefully there was enough there to analyze. If it turned out to be nothing more than insignificant dirt, she would be extremely disappointed. “I’ll make it his only priority. We should know within seventy-two hours.”
“Okay. I’ll make sure IT starts working on the photo analysis tonight.” Jac picked up her desk phone but didn’t dial. “Now that we’ve got a potential victim who may still be alive, this case just became the department’s only priority. And on that note, I’m assigning round-the-clock surveillance on your apartment. No more of this leaving-presents-on-your-doorstep-without-anyone-knowing bullshit.”
“Fair enough,” Eve said. As much as she hated the loss of her privacy, her stalker’s new gambit left her more than happy to be under constant watch. Their encounter in Golden Gate Park remained the single most terrifying experience of her life, and she had no desire to relive it. She had no problem stacking the deck in her favor.
“I plan to participate in at least some of that security detail,” Jac said quietly. The caution on her face signaled that she expected Eve to argue. “It has nothing to do with spying on you. You won’t even know I’m there. I’ll just…feel better knowing you’re okay.”
It wouldn’t be forever. And no matter how awkward it might be to have her cheating ex-girlfriend secretly shadow her, Eve didn’t trust anyone more to watch her back. So with a determined nod, she said, “Sounds like a plan.”
She could only hope it worked.
Chapter Twenty-five
After spending the entire night in a failed attempt to track Eve’s stalker through the city streets, Selene was exhausted and frustrated to the point of tears. Though she’d been able to follow the man’s scent from Eve’s building to a corner several blocks away, once again his trail had suddenly disappeared. Now she was certain he either owned a car or traveled via taxi, but that brought her no closer to discovering his identity and keeping Eve safe. The hours she’d just wasted randomly wandering through various neighborhoods hoping to catch a whiff of his scent had gotten her nowhere. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem likely that she’d find the guy by accident. For all Selene knew, he didn’t even live in San Francisco.
That meant she needed to come up with a new strategy. Though she hadn’t any idea what she planned to do when she found Eve’s stalker, Selene had no choice but to try to hunt him down. The police weren’t having any luck, and if she could do anything to help them, she planned to, even if it meant risking discovery.
Selene’s best-case scenario would be to confront the guy during one of his attempts to get close to Eve. Then she could follow him as he fled and hopefully find out where he lived. To do that, she’d probably need to keep up a constant surveillance on Eve. The fact that Eve already had the police watching her meant that Selene would have to be creative in her attempts to provide a second level of security without being noticed.
Unfortunately, creativity would have to wait until after she’d had a nap. It had been a long, draining night and her brain wasn’t cooperating. Right now she couldn’t come up with a plan of attack if her life depended upon it.
As Selene pulled her car up to her apartment, bleary-eyed and ready to get some much-needed sleep, the sight of Detective Jac Battle standing on her front porch sent her gut into sour, twisting panic. Jac turned at the sound of the engine, nodding curtly as Selene pulled into her parking spot, then cut the ignition. Heart pounding, she prepared for what she was sure would be an unpleasant conversation with Eve’s jealous ex-girlfriend. Without knowing whether Jac was there in an official capacity or simply as Eve’s defender, Selene wasn’t even sure what she should be nervous about.
Everything. Right now she was nervous about absolutely everything.
Taking a deep breath, Selene opened the car door and got out. She forced a polite smile and returned Jac’s nod. “Hello.”
“Good morning.” Jac clasped her hands behind her back, studying Selene’s face as she approached. Every inch the suspicious cop. “Long night?”
Selene didn’t let herself react to Jac’s subtle taunt. She had no idea what Eve had told Jac about what happened between them, but Selene wasn’t about to rise to the bait. “Can I help you with something?”
“I hope so. I wanted to talk to you about that phone call you made last month. You know, the one where you reported finding a body in Golden Gate Park.”
Selene kept her expression neutral and indicated that Jac should step aside so she could unlock the door. Jac did so with another curt nod. Inviting Jac into her sanctuary wasn’t her first choice, but she refused to have this discussion on her front porch where anyone could overhear. She pushed open the door and strolled inside, gesturing for Jac to follow. “Would you like something to drink?”
“No, thanks.” Jac stepped into her foyer, taking a none-too-subtle look around. “Nice place.”
“Thank you.” Selene led Jac to the living room and pointed her toward the couch. “Have a seat.”
Returning her intense focus to Selene’s face, Jac sat carefully at one end of the couch. “Sorry to drop by so early in the morning.”
“It’s okay.” Selene sat at the other end of the couch, careful not to let her face or voice betray her anxiety. True, she had nothing to hide as far as knowing more about the murders than she let on. But so much of Selene’s involvement in this case was tied up in her ability, so talking about any of it with Jac meant treading on dangerous ground. “This is an important case, I know. But the last time I checked, anonymous tips to the police weren’t illegal.”
“Not illegal, no.” Jac gave her a slow once-over. “I’m not here to arrest you, Ms. Rhodes.”
“Selene.”
“Okay. I’m not here to arrest you, Selene. I just want to find out if you know anything that could help us find the man who’s killing these women. For Eve’s sake, given that he seems to be obsessed with dragging her into the middle of his psychosis.”
Selene returned Jac’s serious look, jaw so tense her face ached. “If I knew something that could help, I’d tell you. Believe me. The last thing I want is for Eve to get hurt.”
Mouth twitching, Jac murmured, “That’s not what I heard.”
It took everything Selene had not to slap the smug look off Jac’s face. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, you know. Seems to me you’re the last person who should be passing judgment when it comes to hurting Eve.”
“You’re right, I made a mistake. A terrible mistake.” Jac’s eyes glittered with ugly satisfaction. “But I’ve learned from my mistakes. Quite frankly, I’m not entirely destroyed that you’ve gone down the same road I did. Not that I would wish Eve any more heartache, because she doesn’t deserve it. But I’m glad she figured out you were no good for her now, before she got too attached.”
“Are you here to talk about your ex-girlfriend, or did you want to discuss something in an official capacity?” Anger made it hard to get the words out. When Selene was this tired, it became difficult to control her emotions, and that was an extremely perilous state to be in. On a few occasions, though none within the past ten years, Selene had shifted against her will due to extreme emotional distress. That led her to try to stay calm at all times, but hearing Jac compare the two of them—and knowing that Jac saw their breakup a
s an opportunity to win Eve back—threatened to push Selene into dangerous territory.
“How did you manage to stumble upon that body so early in the morning?” Jac tilted her head, watching Selene’s face. “She was dumped pretty far off the beaten path. Not someplace I’d imagine a beautiful woman to be exploring by herself at sunrise.”
Shrugging, Selene said, “I was taking a walk. I decided to take a shortcut through the trees. I enjoy nature, and sometimes I want to pretend I’m not in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the country. So I detour off the beaten path.”
“You don’t worry about who might be lurking in the woods with you?”
“I have martial-arts training,” Selene lied. In reality, she didn’t often worry about her personal safety for two simple reasons. One, she didn’t get out much. But more important, if push came to shove, Selene could shift into something that would terrify even the most vicious mugger or rapist. “I can take care of myself. I wasn’t worried.”
“I imagine you were pretty shaken up when you found the corpse, though.” Jac gave her an expectant look. “Right?”
“Of course. Who wouldn’t be?”
“So help me understand something. From what Eve has told me, it’s clear that you called in the location of the body before you found her after the attack. So why did you go back into the park?”
Selene hesitated, trying to ignore the way Jac’s mouth twitched in apparent delight at her momentary uncertainty. Briefly, Selene considered lying and telling Jac that she’d had to cut across the park to get home after making her call, but dismissed the idea at the realization that Jac might know exactly which pay phone she’d used. Although it would have been impossible for her to hear Eve’s cries for help from that location, it was the only explanation she could offer. “I thought I heard something, so I went to check it out.”
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