He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not

by LENA DIAZ,

  HE KILLS ME, HE KILLS ME NOT

  LENA DIAZ

  Dedication

  To Nalini Akolekar—my mentor, my cheerleader, my rock.

  To Esi Sogah—thank you for believing in my story.

  To Sheila Athens and Valerie Bowman for your friendship. You are pure gold.

  To Anita, Eileen, E J, Gail, Lisa, Maria, Pam, and Tracy—thank you for everything.

  Thank you, Eileen Carr, Margaret Carroll, Alyssa Day, FCRW, and the Unsinkables.

  Thank you, Officer Glenn Morningstar, for patiently answering my many questions.

  Thank you, my wonderful son and daughter, for loving me no matter what.

  Above all, thank you, my dear husband. I don’t deserve you, but I’m keeping you.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  The sweet music of her screams echoed in his mind as he inhaled the lavender-scented shampoo he’d selected for her. He sat cross-legged on the carpet of pine needles, stroking her hair, his fingers sliding easily through the silky brown mass he had washed and brushed.

  Underlying that scent, the metallic aroma of blood teased his senses. He traced his fingers across her naked belly to the sweet center of her. The temptation to linger was strong, but the ritual wasn’t complete.

  He picked up the blood-red rose and tucked its velvety petals between Kate’s pale, generous breasts. Molding her cool fingers around the stem, he pressed her palms together, embedding the single remaining thorn in her flesh. As he stood, her sightless pale blue eyes stared at him accusingly, just like they had in Summerville the first time he gave her a rose.

  Let her stare. She couldn’t hurt him anymore, not today.

  A rhythmic pounding noise echoed through the trees, an early morning jogger trying to beat the impending heat and humidity of another scorching summer day. The sun’s first rays were starting to peek through the pine trees, glinting off the rows of swings and slides.

  Thump. Thump. Closer. Closer. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead as he listened to the jogger approach. Was Kate coming for him again, already? No matter how many times he punished her, she always came back. He’d walk around a corner and there she was, condemning him with a haughty look, taunting him with her sinfully alluring long hair.

  He risked a quick glance down and let out a shaky, relieved breath. She was still lying on the ground. She hadn’t come back to torture him.

  Not yet.

  After one last, longing glance at her body, he slid between some palmettos and followed his makeshift path through the woods. He emerged at the parking lot of Shadow Falls’ only mall, next to a row of dumpsters. Exchanging his soiled clothes for the clean ones he’d hidden in a plastic bag, he quickly dressed. Then he stepped around the dumpsters, pitched the bag into his trunk, and got into the patrol car.

  Loosening his tie in deference to the already sweltering eighty-degree heat, Police Chief Logan Richards did his best to blend into the shadows beneath the moss-covered live oak tree. Several feet away, Officer Karen Bingham interviewed the young female jogger who’d discovered the body. Logan had offered to help, but Karen had informed him the young woman didn’t need an NFL linebacker hovering over her when she was already terrified.

  He’d never been a professional football player, but he conceded the point. His size intimidated people. That had served him well when he’d worked as a beat cop here in Shadow Falls, and later as a detective in the roughest precincts of New York City. But intimidating this young witness was the last thing he wanted to do.

  She sat on a wooden bench a few feet away, sheltered from the press’s cameras by a stand of pine trees. Her freckled face was pale and her shoulders hunched as she wrapped her thin arms around her abdomen, shaking as if she were in the middle of a snowstorm instead of the Florida Panhandle in July.

  Someone called Logan’s name. He looked toward the obscenely cheery yellow tape that cordoned off a section of the park, contrasting starkly with the macabre scene within its borders. Medical Examiner Cassie Markham was waving at him, ready to share her initial findings.

  Logan crossed to the tape, ducking beneath it, careful not to step on any of the bright orange tags his detectives were using to mark off their search grid.

  Cassie was kneeling next to the body, sliding a brown paper bag onto the victim’s hand. One of two Walton County medical examiners who rotated on-call duties for Shadow Falls and the neighboring communities, Cassie rarely had the need to visit this small rural town in her official capacity. Logan had only met her once before, about six months ago when she’d handled a domestic violence case, right after he’d moved back to take the job as chief of police.

  “Hell of a way to spend a Sunday morning,” he said when she looked up at him.

  “You got that right.” She tossed her head to flip her short blonde bangs out of her eyes. “Is she your missing college girl?”

  He gave a short, tight nod. “Carolyn O’Donnell.”

  “How long was she missing?” Cassie picked up another brown bag and gently lifted the victim’s other hand.

  “A little over three days. She disappeared late Wednesday night, from this same park.”

  “I’m guessing a young woman her age wasn’t playing on the swings. Neighborhood hangout?”

  “So I hear.” An uneasy feeling gnawed at the pit of his stomach as he noted the way the body seemed posed, her legs spread for maximum shock value. Ligature marks darkened her wrists and ankles. Stab wounds riddled her abdomen and extremities. Many of her bruises were deep purple or black, indicating they’d begun to heal before she was killed. Dreading the answer, he asked, “How long has she been dead?”

  Cassie finished securing the paper bag before answering. “She’s not in full rigor yet. Liver temp indicates about six hours, but it’s hard to be specific in this heat. Might be longer.”

  Logan scrubbed his hand across his brow to ease the dull ache that was starting to bloom. While he and his men had been searching door-to-door, the killer was sadistically torturing this young woman. Where the hell had he stashed her? And where was he now? Was he already searching for a new victim? Logan blew out a frustrated breath. “Tell me what you have so far.”

  “Not much beyond the obvious.” She peeled off her gloves and stowed them in her kit, then stood up beside him, her head barely reaching his shoulder. “The amount of blood doesn’t fit the injuries. She was killed somewhere else and washed down before he dumped her.”

  Logan nodded, having reached the same conclusion. “Trace?”

  “A few cotton fibers, nothing remarkable or distinctive. No hairs. No bite marks. He sliced off her fingertips. I figure she scratched him and he wanted to make sure we couldn’t get his DNA from under her nails.”

  The perp was aware of forensic techniques. Then again, who wasn’t these days, with all
the crime scene investigation shows on TV? Logan didn’t ask if the victim had been raped. The answer was painfully obvious. “Semen?”

  “I’ll take swabs but I doubt we’ll find anything. As careful as he was not to leave any other evidence, he probably wore a condom. There’s bruising on her neck, petechial hemorrhaging in her eyes.”

  “He strangled her.”

  “Yes, but I suspect that was the killer’s version of ‘love play’. I can’t be sure until I perform the autopsy, but I’m leaning toward exsanguination as cause of death. She has deep puncture wounds in her abdomen. She would have bled out in minutes.”

  “What about her face?” A deep, ragged wound splayed her open from temple to jaw. Logan hoped to God she was already dead when the killer cut her.

  “That’s unusual, isn’t it?” Cassie said. “It would have bled all over the place. Not enough to kill her, but it would have hurt like hell.”

  Logan’s hands curled into tight fists as he struggled to tamp down his anger. Ten years ago he’d allowed his emotions to control him, and he’d made a tragic, rookie mistake that allowed a killer to go free. How many other women had suffered and died at the hands of that killer because of Logan’s screwup? That question haunted him every day. The whole mess was the reason he’d fled Shadow Falls so long ago and had gone to New York City.

  He’d worked in the toughest precincts to be the best detective he could be, so he’d never make that kind of mistake again. No matter how much he wished he could wrap his hands around the throat of the animal who’d tortured Carolyn O’Donnell, he couldn’t let his anger cloud his judgment. Other women’s lives hung in the balance if he made any mistakes with this investigation.

  “Did you hear about the rose?” Cassie asked, breaking into his thoughts.

  “The responding officer said Carolyn was holding a long-stemmed, red rose.”

  “That’s right. The rose bud was nestled between her breasts and the stem was stripped clean of all but one thorn, which he embedded in her right palm, postmortem. Creepy.”

  Definitely creepy, but if Logan’s suspicions were correct, that rose might be part of the killer’s signature, his pattern. Everything about the scene told Logan this was the work of a killer who’d killed before—and would kill again.

  Cassie motioned for her assistants to bring the gurney. “When I finish the autopsy, I’ll overnight the samples to the state lab.”

  “Hold onto the samples. I want to give the Feds first crack at the evidence.”

  Cassie nodded, her relieved expression telling him she was just as anxious as he was to get help with this case. Shadow Falls was a small town with limited resources. And although Logan had worked on several serial killer cases in New York, no one else in the Shadow Falls Police Department had that kind of experience. He couldn’t do this alone.

  Cassie gave him a friendly wave and turned to help with the removal of the body.

  Once the body was carried outside the taped-off area, Logan crouched down to examine the footprints he’d noticed earlier. He followed the trail to a group of palmetto bushes. Some of the palm fronds were bent and twisted as if someone had recently passed between them. When he parted the leaves, he saw a narrow trail hacked through the woods. Someone had spent hours, maybe days, cutting this path. The killer? Had he also selected his victim ahead of time? Or did Carolyn O’Donnell just have the bad luck of being in the park when the killer made his move?

  Looking back, Logan located his lead detective, David Riley. At thirty, Riley was only five years younger than Logan, but a lot less experienced. When Logan had taken the job as chief and inherited Riley as the lead, he’d assumed Riley was in that role just because the department was so small and there weren’t a lot of candidates to choose from. But Riley had quickly proven his abilities.

  He was smart and friendly, able to play good cop or bad cop, depending on the need. He could charm a confession out of a suspect before they’d even seen the trap he’d set.

  Unfortunately, Riley was speaking to Randy Clayton, a well-seasoned officer with a mouth that never quit. Clayton, who’d already been a veteran back when Logan began his career, wasn’t a bit pleased that the rookie he’d once taunted was now his boss. Logan only tolerated his smart-ass attitude because Clayton was due to retire in a few months.

  Sighing in resignation, Logan motioned for Riley to join him and wasn’t surprised when Clayton tagged along, his usual smirk firmly in place.

  Logan ignored Clayton and addressed Riley. “Has anyone searched this area yet?” He parted the fronds, revealing the path between them.

  Riley’s brows rose in surprise. “We stayed out of this section, waiting for the medical examiner.”

  Logan drew his gun from the shoulder holster beneath his suit jacket. He stepped between the palmettos, careful to avoid their sharp tips, keeping to the edge of the path so he didn’t tread on any of the footprints. “Let’s see if we have company.”

  Riley and Clayton glanced at each other with wide eyes and drew their weapons. The three men followed the path through the thick brush. A few minutes later they emerged at the edge of the mall parking lot, next to a row of dumpsters.

  Logan motioned to the others and they fanned out, checking possible hiding places. When he was sure there was no danger, he holstered his weapon. “I’ll call for another team to tape off the area. Secure the scene until they arrive.”

  Clayton tugged on his pants to pull them up over his protruding belly. “Riley, doesn’t this seem similar to that other murder when you were a street cop? About four years ago?”

  A look of realization crossed Riley’s face. “You’re right. I should have thought of that.”

  “What murder?” Logan glanced back and forth between them.

  Clayton scratched at the gray stubble on his jaw. “There was another girl that went missing, and then turned up in a cabin all cut-up a few days later. There was a rose in her hands too. I can’t remember her name though, something like Diana, Deana—”

  “Dana,” Riley said. “Dana Branson. I should have thought of her as soon as I saw the body this morning. I wasn’t a detective back then, but I heard the details, saw the pictures.” He shuddered, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “It seems like an obvious tie-in now, but I was at the convention when O’Donnell went missing, and didn’t think about it when you called me, Logan. Maybe if I’d been here a few days ago, I might have—”

  Logan waved Riley into silence, impatient to hear the details about the other murder. “Clayton, tell me what you remember about the other case.”

  “The vic was Caucasian, mid-twenties, long, brown hair, blue eyes. She, ah . . .” He cleared his throat, his face flushing red. “She was missing for three days before we found her. Just like O’Donnell.”

  Logan’s throat ached with the urge to shout his frustration. He wished his men had told him about the earlier case when O’Donnell first went missing. Would it have changed how he’d directed the search? Maybe, maybe not. It all depended on the details of that first case and whether there were any clues to that perp’s identity. Without knowing for sure, he wasn’t about to lay that kind of guilt on someone else. He was the chief. Ultimately, he was responsible. “Who were the suspects in the original case?”

  “There weren’t any suspects. All the leads went cold,” Clayton said. “But Branson wasn’t alone. There was another woman with her.”

  Disbelief had Logan clamping his jaw shut to avoid saying something he knew he’d regret. How could his men have forgotten a brutal, double homicide in a town of fifty thousand people? Especially since the only murders around here were usually the result of a drunken bar fight or a crime of passion between two people who supposedly loved each other. He took a deep breath and prayed for patience. “Who was the second murder victim?”

  Clayton shook his head, his smug look returning. “You got it all wrong,” he said. “The second girl, Amanda Stockton, she got away.”

  Amanda eased her tired
body down onto her leather couch to take a much-needed break from her computer. Making a living by writing computer programs at home rather than having to go into an office was a blessing, but it was also a curse. She’d become the hermit her sister had once accused her of being, working inside on a beautiful weekend rather than going out. The sky—visible from her back windows—was so blue it hurt to look at it. And she knew if she went outside she’d smell the salt in the air, might even be able to hear the waves crashing on the shore a few miles away.

  She’d enjoyed the ocean once, a lifetime ago. She’d loved hearing the sand crunch beneath her feet, feeling its cooling touch between her toes, listening to the cries of sea gulls overhead. But those days were gone, a part of her past. She could never be that carefree again, that ignorant of the people around her, that exposed, vulnerable.

  Wary of the all-too-familiar path her tired mind was taking, she forced those thoughts aside and curled her legs beneath her. With one click of her remote, her brand-new, sixty-one- inch, high-def TV snapped to life. A decadent luxury, it had put a huge dent in her savings. But she’d only turn thirty once, so she’d splurged.

  Instead of spending her birthday last week visiting her parents’ graves like she usually did, she’d watched two action flicks on her new TV, and shoveled handfuls of fattening, buttery popcorn into her mouth.

  She didn’t regret buying the TV.

  She did regret the popcorn.

  An extra hour on the treadmill had been enough to keep her from indulging again anytime soon.

  After clicking through the movie guide, she selected a crime scene drama. With her past, she knew most people would think her odd to like those kinds of shows, but it made perfect sense to her. It was all about control, facing and overcoming fears.

  Not letting him win.

  But instead of the show she’d expected, the screen filled with a live shot of the outside of the building that housed Shadow Falls’ city hall and police station. A red banner underneath the picture declared “Breaking News.”