“I still can’t see the connection, Gena. What was in the damn scrapbook? Why did it catch your attention? What makes you so sure we’re dealing with a serial killer?” Stephanie repeated, her voice hardening with anger.
“First, let me tell you who I think the victim is and then maybe you’ll understand the connection,” Gena said gently.
Stephanie opened her mouth to argue, closing it at Gena’s determined expression.
“We believe the victim is Hollywood actress Carolyn Mathers. You know, from the hit show The Real Thing,” Gena said, not taking her eyes off Stephanie’s face. She waited to see if Stephanie recognized the name.
“Carolyn Mathers?” Stephanie repeatedly hoarsely, the air in her lungs dissipating. She struggled to breathe, silently counting to ten and taking deep breaths.
Gena grimly watched her face drain of color. “You know don’t you?”
Stephanie nodded blindly, unsure if she could put together a constructive sentence. Her vision blurred, and her heart felt like it was beating a million miles a second. It felt like it could, at any moment, explode out of her chest.
She gasped out loud, her lungs burning for air. She fought the inner urge to scream. Taking another deep breath, she struggled for control.
“You’ve made the connection. You know who Carolyn Mathers is,” Gena pushed. Her face darkening with turmoil, she swallowed hard, unable to tear her eyes off Stephanie’s stricken face.
Stephanie nodded, closing her eyes. She could feel tears sliding down her cheeks and wiped them away quickly. Keeping her eyes closed, her voice barely a whisper, she said, “Gena, Carolyn Mathers is Lyn Jeffreys.”
Opening her eyes, her pain-induced gaze met Gena’s. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?”
Chapter Twelve
Gena tilted her head back, lifting her already empty cup to her trembling lips. Realizing her coffee was finished, she crushed the coffee cup in her hand, wrapping her fist tightly around it. A ripple of pain shot through her and a sudden image of a laughing, carefree Lyn Jeffreys flashed through her mind followed by one of Carolyn Mathers’ tortured and mutilated corpse.
Unable to speak, she focused on the stream of traffic congesting along the strip. She’d dealt with more murders than she could possibly ever keep count of, but to deal with two of her friends murdered within a week of each other was almost too much to comprehend.
She took another drag of her cigarette, noticing the way her hand was slightly trembling. Stubbing out her cigarette, she tossed the butt into her crushed coffee cup and tossed the coffee cup onto the table, her eyes meeting Stephanie’s.
Stephanie silently stared back, the pain in Gena’s Onyx eyes mirrored in her own amber ones. Gena’s voice was barely a whisper when she spoke.
“It hasn’t been officially confirmed yet, but deep down I knew. I think I knew as soon as I heard her throat had been slit that we were dealing with a multiple killer. I won’t call him a serial killer because we don’t know if he is. I just didn’t know it would be like this. But as soon as I saw the photo, I knew it was her.”
“What photo?” Stephanie asked sharply, her body tense. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer, but was unable to stop herself from asking anyway.
She played her fingers around the rim of her coffee cup, recalling the last time she’d spoken to Carolyn. It was only a month ago. Carolyn had called her – excited about a project she was working on. She’d been so secretive about it all, not ready to share her news with Stephanie, yet unable to contain her excitement.
“You know, I spoke to her recently. She was working on a pet project; one she said was going to catapult her back into the spotlight again,” she said dully, staring at Gena without really seeing her.
“She was negotiating a seven-movie deal with Callendor Studios. I’ve been trying to reach them to discuss Carolyn, but they keep stonewalling me. I need to find out who knew about the deal and who might have wanted her dead,” Gena mused.
“Call Blaze, and ask him to get you in with Callendor’s President. He’s so hot at the moment they’ll bend over backwards to kiss his ass,” Stephanie said, referring to their mutual friend and Gena’s some-time lover.
Gena nodded in agreement, reaching out to link Stephanie’s pinkie finger with her own. “You kept in touch with Lyn after university, didn’t you? I didn’t know. I just assumed -”
She watched Stephanie detach her hand from her grasp. Shaking her head, she repeated, “I didn’t know. I didn’t think you two were close at university.”
“Gena, there’s a lot about me you don’t know and my friendship with Lyn was one of them,” Stephanie snapped. Closing her eyes, she wrapped her arms around herself, not wanting to get into a fight with Gena. Not when she was so close to finding out what Gena knew. Not when she needed to get inside his head.
She slowly opened her eyes to see Gena pull out her cigarette pack again. Smirking, she knew Gena was never going to quit smoking the way she was going. Hazily, she wondered how Ben was dealing with his own self-imposed smoking ban. She wondered if he had broken it yet.
Realizing Gena was waiting for her to answer her question, she chanted silently to herself, trying to remain calm. When she was sure, she could speak without her voice breaking, she said quietly, “Lyn and I weren’t especially close in the beginning. We grew closer after…” She shrugged, ignoring Gena’s speculative stare. “We just grew closer. I guess we both realized we were kindred spirits, more alike than we thought. After university we stayed in touch.”
She mockingly shook her finger at Gena. “I know what you’re doing, Detective Evans. Stop trying to avoid my question. You mentioned a photo. What photo?” She asked, repeating her earlier question.
Gena bent down and retrieved her handbag from between her feet. Rummaging through it, she pulled out a photo and handed it to Stephanie.
Stephanie snorted in laughter at the butterflies decorating the photo frame. It was so not Gena, but it was; tough as old army boots but girly in her own kind of way. She gripped the framed photo tightly, smiling in remembrance as she stared at the photo. Angel, Carolyn, Gena and she, goofing it off at their graduation party. She traced her finger over Angel, her smile fading as she did the same to Lynn.
“I found this photo in the scrapbook,” Gena said quietly.
Stephanie dropped the photo frame onto the table in horror, jumping when it clattered loudly. She tentatively picked it up again, avoiding Gena’s eyes. “Then it’s not a coincidence.”
Gena shook her head silently, taking a long drag of her cigarette. Stephanie surprised her when she leaned over the table, taking the cigarette from her fingers and taking a drag. Shakily she joked, “These things will kill you, you know.”
“I think they’re probably the least of our worries, don’t you?” Stephanie asked, handing the cigarette back to Gena with a twisted smile. “Gena, I doubt the fact that you’re the lead Detective on these cases is a coincidence. I think the killer wanted you to find Carolyn. He wanted you to see his artwork. It’s possible he wanted to show you what he was capable of. He wanted you to see Carolyn exposed. He put the photo into the scrapbook because he knew you would pour over it for hours. He wanted you to see the photo and make the connection between Carolyn and Lyn Jeffreys. It’s why he dumped the body where he did. He knew it was your precinct that would take the call and investigate. More importantly, and this part’s the kicker, he wanted you to make the connection between Carolyn and Angel.”
“In other words, you think this son of a bitch is toying with me,” Gena snapped, trying to control the rage she felt boiling inside her.
Stephanie paused, her thoughts racing. “Yes and no. I think it runs deeper than that. I think it’s his way of establishing a personal connection with you. He’s forcing a personal connection on you.”
Watching the play of emotions darting across Gena’s face, Stephanie softened her tone. “You should check through Angel’s personal effects. There’s a
good chance the photo in the scrapbook is Angel’s. Only four copies were made, one for each of us. And check to see if anything else is missing. He may take trophies.”
Gena spat out curses, disgusted at herself. “God damn it, I didn’t even consider it could be Angel’s. I was just so shocked to see it. I’ll need to check, but you’re probably right. Hell, why didn’t I think of this?” She broke off, angry at letting something so monumental escape her.
Stephanie smiled ruefully at Gena, her voice husky with raw emotion. “I want to see the scrapbook.”
“You know I can’t let you see it. It’s not possible. It’s part of a chain of evidence. I can’t risk contamination. I shouldn’t be discussing this case with you right now. If anyone even found out I was discussing an open murder investigation, or the possibility of a serial killer, with The Times’ former crime reporter and recipient of the Dart, I’d get my ass served to the Disciplinary Board on a platter. Hell, if they even had any indication I knew you, or knew these victims...”
Gena scowled fiercely. “Damn it, you should know better than to ask me.”
Seeing Stephanie’s mutinous expression, she softened her tone. “You know as well as I do that I shouldn’t even be involving you, but it was the quickest way of finding out whether this was Lyn or not.”
Swallowing hard, she didn’t know how to ask Stephanie the question plaguing her since she’d seen the photo in the scrapbook. Her conscience pricked at her for even bringing it up. “You said you kept in touch with Lyn, right?” She began, refusing to call Lyn, Carolyn. Even thought part of her held onto the very slim chance Lyn Jeffreys and Carolyn Mathers weren’t the same person, this wasn’t the reason she refused. It was because she didn’t want to imagine her former roommate and friend as the tortured, nameless victim she had seen exposed on the morgue’s slab.
Now here she was, preparing to ask Stephanie to do the very same thing, she refused to do. She felt like the world’s biggest hypocrite, even while she rationalized she needed someone to officially identify the body.
“Yes, we stayed in touch after university. In the beginning, we caught up at least once or twice a week. Eventually we both got busy and it became every few weeks and then once a month. We used to catch up and have lunch at Casey’s.”
Stephanie’s face lit up with a smile of remembrance, recalling the lunches they’d all shared during university. More often than not, their one-hour lunches in between their classes had spilled over into long stretches of drinking and gossiping about the latest boys they were dating.
Gena returned her smile, her own memories of their local college haunt bittersweet. “God that place was crazy, especially on Friday nights,” she said casually, sharing a knowing smile with Stephanie. They both said simultaneously, “But damn their food was amazing.”
Chuckling in remembrance, their laughter died and they shared a sad smile. Gena cleared her throat nervously. “That was a long time ago,” she said.
Stephanie nodded in agreement, whispering softly, “A lifetime even.”
They both lapsed into silence, deep in their own thoughts. Gena was the first to break it. “Do you remember the last time you saw each other?”
Stephanie nodded; her expression suddenly guarded. “Four years ago. It’s not one I’ll ever forget. It was the night Carolyn was attacked.”
Gena froze, startled by Stephanie’s confession. Narrowing her eyes speculatively, she studied the woman opposite her carefully. “Lyn was attacked?” She waited with bated breath for Stephanie to answer, quickly making the connection between Carolyn Mathers’ throat and Lyn’s attack.
Stephanie nodded, shuddering with undisguised horror. “God Gena, there was so much blood. Carolyn almost died,” she whispered, shaking her head, not wanting to remember her friend’s attack, yet unable to stop the images flashing through her mind.
“We caught up for dinner. Lyn was excited about how well her TV show was doing, and she’d just been offered a three-film deal with some big studio,” Stephanie recalled with a smile. “She was happy and I was feeling pretty good myself. I’d just secured my position at The Times as their #1 crime reporter and Dominic and I had just discovered we were pregnant.” She smiled sadly, toying with the gold chain around her neck.
Gena saw the flash of grief in her eyes before she carefully hid it, noticing for the first time the man’s solitary wedding band on a chain. Dropping her eyes to Stephanie’s fingers, she saw they were bare. It crossed her mind suddenly that while Stephanie wore no sign she was even married to Leigh Walker, she wore Dominic’s wedding band on a simple gold chain close to her heart. It made her wonder, as she had many times before, why Stephanie had walked away from the only man she seemed capable of loving.
She reached out and touched the ring gently, withdrawing her hand when Stephanie jerked away, quickly clasping the ring in her hand and closing her fingers around it, almost as if she was afraid to lose it.
“Dominic’s?” she asked quietly, watching Stephanie nod mutely.
Leaning back in her chair, she fell silent with growing turmoil, digesting what Stephanie had just told her. “Son of a bitch, you were there weren’t you? You were there with Lyn when she was attacked,” Gena said, swearing fluently.
Stephanie shook her head in denial. “I wasn’t there when she was attacked,” she argued. “I was the one who discovered her though.” Closing her eyes, she could still remember the sight of her friend, only meters away from her car, lying in a pool of blood.
“Do you remember how she was attacked?” Gena asked, her breath hitching in her throat.
Stephanie nodded, lifting her gaze to meet Gena’s anticipatory one. “Sweet Jesus, Gena. Her throat, it was slit. Like Angel’s.”
Gena swore, her insides churning with a sudden fear she could barely conceal. “We found scar tissue on Carolyn. Cynthia, my Medical Examiner, believes Carolyn was attacked at least once before,” she whispered with a shudder. She wrapped her arms tightly around her body, suddenly feeling cold in the warm sun. “My God, Stephanie, do you know what this means?”
Stephanie nodded, avoiding Gena’s grief-stricken stare. “I think he was finishing the job. He killed Carolyn to tie up the pieces. Angel was never meant to be his first kill, Carolyn was,” Gena said breathlessly.
Chapter Thirteen
Stephanie sat cross-legged on Jesse’s leather couch, analyzing the past 48 hours. She turned her head to stare outside the living room, not even seeing the magnificent beachside view, which had sold Jesse on the house the first time he saw it. Lifting her laptop off her knees, she placed it on the coffee table, unable to focus on anything but her conversation with Gena.
Carolyn and Angel were dead. Nothing else seemed to matter. Both were victims of a deranged serial killer, one who seemed to be targeting her friends. It was eerily familiar. She dropped her head to her chest, letting her salty tears flow freely, the same words playing over and over in her mind. Angel was never meant to be his first kill, Carolyn was. He killed Carolyn to tie up the pieces. He was finishing the job.
Wiping away her angry tears, she sighed raggedly. Carolyn never stood a chance. She’d signed her own death warrant before even arriving back in L.A. Stephanie’s heart ached. She wished she could turn back time so she could tell Carolyn to stay where she was, to stay in Nice; stay where she was safe.
If only she’d known. She should have known, a voice taunted her. It felt like she was screaming inside and she drew her knees up close to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, trying to ward off the chill seeping through her bones.
After their discussion this morning, Gena asked her to go to the morgue with her and officially identify Carolyn Mathers as Lyn Jeffreys. The ride to the morgue was one of Déjà vu for them both. It was Gena who had shown up at Stephanie’s apartment that fateful Sunday morning and broken the news to her about Dominic. It was Gena who had driven her to the morgue and stood side by side with her when she officially identified his body. And it was Gena w
ho had accused her of not feeling anything, of not loving Dominic enough when she’d been dying inside.
Despite her experiences with the cold reality of sex crimes, Stephanie still hadn’t been prepared for the sight of Carolyn lying on the metal slab. Standing there, in a room resembling a sterile tomb, she’d stared down at her friend and found it impossible to breathe. Images of Dominic’s lifeless body, on a similar table, had suffocated her and blurred her vision. She’d stumbled out of the morgue, emptying her stomach contents into the nearest trash can like some rookie crime reporter.
She groaned, feeling the beginning of a migraine coming on. Rubbing her temple with her fingers, she uncrossed her legs, standing and stretching languidly. Padding barefoot into the kitchen, she took a glass out of the kitchen cupboard, turning on the cold tap and filling it. Moving to where her handbag sat on the kitchen counter, she pulled out her migraine prescription, and popped a tablet into her mouth. Taking deep gulps of water, she wandered aimlessly into the living room, smiling how everything was so perfectly in place. Jesse was a real neat freak. It always made her laugh how he liked everything in place as opposed to Dominic, who used to leave his things scattered throughout their house.
A vase of sterling silver roses, sitting in the centre of the dining room table, caught the corner of her eye and she was immediately drawn to their beauty. Padding softly towards them, she leaned over and inhaled their scent. Jesse knew her so well. He knew sterling silver roses were her favorite. She smiled at his thoughtfulness.
Taking one of the roses out of the vase, she carefully touched its petals, enjoying the silky, soft feel of their delicate petals against her skin. Her lips curved into a smile, recalling how Jesse’s hands had been just as soft last night. He had touched every inch of her, first with his hands and then with his mouth. As soon as he’d kissed her, she’d been completely lost. She has surrendered herself to him.
Leigh never got her that wild. Sex with Jesse was always extremely erotic. Even after a large consumption of alcohol, they hadn’t been able to fight their attraction to each other. From the first moment Dominic introduced them, they’d shared a mutual desire, one which came to life after she ended her marriage to Dominic.
Nowhere to Run (Stephanie Carovella) Page 10