“I never scar. Part of the genetics.”
“I see. So you weren't about much for the last few weeks.” Sorcha went back to staring out the window. She did a shiver-shake; then her lips curled in the worst imitation of a smile he'd ever seen, as she faced him. “Finished?” Reaching for the bowl, she pushed back the chair and rose.
“Yeah. Thanks. Very tasty.” Gray watched her place both forks in the bowl and then move over to the sink.
The tangy salad had tasted like beach sand; the food grated down his gullet.
Was she even listening to him?
“I'd better get going.” He stood and took two steps to stand behind her, rested both hands on her waist, and licked her neck. She tasted different. Gray licked her again, and she arched a tad, giving him more access. He couldn't refuse the subtle invitation, nibbled a path to her earlobe, and bit the plump flesh.
Sorcha whipped around and tiptoed. Her fingers curved over his jaw, she slanted her mouth over his and ate at his lips as if he were her last meal. Surprise dulled his reaction for a second, and then he exploded, making love to her with his tongue and teeth, kissing his love into her over and over.
A loud banging on the door broke his sensual trance. Gray lifted his head, his lungs gasping for oxygen. “Sorcha, honey, tell me what's wrong.”
She blinked and the wild look in her eyes vanished.
Gray choked back a curse.
He'd almost gotten through to her.
Grim foreboding tugged his mouth into a thin line.
She'd shut down on him again.
“That'll be Ted.” He kissed her forehead. “I'll be off as soon as I let him in.”
Forcing his arms from her proved harder than expected, and Gray knew he had to leave right away or else he'd push her too far. Without allowing his focus to wander, he strapped on his shoulder holster, shrugged into a worn leather jacket, and opened the door for Ted.
“I want you inside for the duration. If she goes into the bedroom or bathroom and closes the door for longer than five minutes, knock. If she doesn't come out, break the door down. Got it?”
“Sure, boss.” Ted raised an eyebrow.
“Keep me updated.”
“Sure thing.”
Until tonight, he'd been able to read her instantly. Sorcha had donned some kind of shield the minute he mentioned the word “murder.” She'd controlled her scent, her breathing, her reactions. And then that fucking scorching kiss, all passion and flame, all emotion, almost—Gray squeezed his eyes shut—almost as if she was saying good-bye.
He raised his lids to find he had arrived at Miss L's shop. Located at the top of Main Street, the yellow and white bungalow, mirror image of the dwelling opposite, housed Miss L's Sweet Stuff 'n Such specialty dessert shop in the front and her residence in the back.
“'Bout time you got here.” Butt propped on his vehicle's driver door, Henry whittled a long stick of teak. He straightened, reached through the car's open window, and set the carved wood and the knife he was using into a black gym bag on the passenger side. “I called Central. A team's on the way, including the county coroner. Doug's taking shots for our records.”
“Same as the others?” He had to take shallow inhales as the coppery taint of blood reached his nostrils.
“Worse. One leg chewed off.”
“He's escalating.” Gray took the cottage's steps two at a time; he surveyed the shop. “Nothing touched in here?”
“Not as far as we could tell. I bought a box of toffee for my nieces and nephews around three today. Place looks pretty much the same as it did then.”
Henry handed him a mask. “Trust me, you'll need it.”
“Thanks,” Gray said, snapping the rubber over his head and adjusting the nose guard. Henry preceded him through the passage connecting the front and back of the house. He understood why the detective had kept the door closed the minute he entered what was left of Miss L's combined kitchen, dining, and living room.
“Crap.” What had once been a charming, cozy space had morphed into a horror-movie nightmare. The walls, furniture, cabinets, even the ceiling, looked as if a machine gun filled with red paint had sprayed the room. “The body?”
“Scattered.” Henry pointed to the back of a lemon sofa with a half-inch-thick red streak from end to end. “Leg's in front of that. The torso's near the fridge. Baseball-sized chunks of flesh in the bedroom. She was dressed for work. The torso's still wearing part of that polka-dot yellow apron she used in the shop.”
“One person couldn't have done this,” Gray muttered.
“I agree. But there isn't a single footprint in here. Not that I could find, anyway.”
This didn't look like the work of human beings.
Avoiding the blood staining the wooden floor, Gray picked his way to the front of the sofa and choked back bile. Unable to stare at the mangled leg for longer than a few seconds, he turned his head and noticed the cheerful, daisy-patterned drapes had not been drawn.
Swallowing hard, he inspected the leg again. A jagged, uneven cut had severed the thigh from the torso. Chunks of flesh had been gouged out of the quadriceps. Bone showed in places. The skin over the knee was in scraps. The shinbone glistened wet and an unearthly white in spots. The second toe hung at a drunken angle to the instep; the right big toe had been severed entirely. All the other toes were intact.
“Back of the house?”
“Nothing. Not a blade of grass trampled,” replied Henry.
“The timing's off. We were expecting something on the twenty-ninth. All of the others have been exactly the same number of days apart. This one's early.”
“First one where the body's not whole,” Henry remarked.
“Thought I heard voices,” Doug Wicks said as he came in through a door off the kitchen. “Nothing in this room, boss. All the knickknacks are in place.”
Miss L's locally famous collection of porcelain fairies and mushrooms decorated every spare inch of the cottage, including the shop. Gray surveyed the room. “Nothing broken?”
“Not that I could see,” Doug answered.
“She had to have put up a struggle. So why isn't anything broken?” Miss L would have screamed at the top of her lungs.
Unless Miss L knew the killer, trusted him or her, and she'd been drugged or severely restrained and gagged.
And the drapes hadn't been drawn.
Gray'd had dinner here often, and he knew Miss L's methodical habits well. In the summer, she drew the drapes at eight, in the winter, at six. Summer for Miss L began on the summer solstice, almost eight weeks away.
That meant she'd let the killer in after the shop closed at five and before six. Miss L kept to herself mostly. She was friendly and knew everyone in Twisp, but she invited few people into her personal life.
“They're here,” Henry announced, pulling Gray out of his musings.
Crap. He'd been so lost in thought, he hadn't heard the approaching vehicles.
No slipping up, not now; Gray tunneled his fingers through his hair. “Let's leave them to it, Henry. When we get back to the station, dig out the old shots of the other murders. Maybe we'll notice something with the scene fresh in our minds.”
Located at the other end of Twisp, a one-minute drive down Main Street, the station had been recently constructed and boasted state-of-the-art equipment.
The minute he started the Durango, Gray dialed Ted.
“What's up?”
“Hang on a minute,” Ted replied, his voice low.
Gray heard the muffled footsteps.
“Sorry, boss. She's a mite short-tempered, and I didn't figure she'd relish hearing me talking about her.”
“Everything okay?” Gray switched off the ignition and exited the car.
“At first she didn't want me in the cabin. But then she started working on something, and now she doesn't notice me at all.”
“Crumpled pieces of paper on the table?” His lips curled as he shoved the inner door of the 400 open.
“No, she's putting them in a garbage bag hanging off the back of one of the chairs. I'm fricking sick of listening to the same CD over and over, though.”
“Keep me posted.” He hung up and automatically went through the motions of brewing a fresh pot of coffee.
What was Sorcha doing? What was so important about this lyric she wanted to remember? And why The Sound of Music?
“I put the files of all the murders in the conference room,” Henry said as he poured coffee into a mug.
Gray jerked; he realized he'd been standing there staring into space. He scowled. Crap, he was acting like a lovesick fool.
Forcing his mind onto the case, he ordered, “Dig out the file on the McFaddens as well. And pour me a cup, will you?”
“The McFaddens? That was a murder/suicide.”
“I know, Henry,” Gray said as he accepted the proffered mug.
“Aye, aye, boss. I'll bring the McFadden file in and tell Doug to hightail it to the conference room.”
Silence reigned in the conference room when he strolled in and took a seat. Both Doug Wicks and Henry glanced his way for a few seconds.
Gray pulled out the McFadden files and began reading. Fifteen years ago on a sultry summer night, Alistair McFadden brutally murdered his wife, Catriona, shot his daughter, Sorcha, in the head, and then turned a gun on himself.
Catriona McFadden's body had been hacked and stabbed over thirty times. Aileen O'Riley discovered the bodies, called 911, and ultimately saved her granddaughter's life. Sorcha had been hospitalized for over two months, the doctors at first opting not to remove the bullet from her skull until her condition stabilized.
The neighbors on either side of the McFaddens saw nothing out of the ordinary, heard no screams or disturbances from the house. According to the coroner, Catriona's death would have been agonizing, and she had been alive until a final blow almost severed her head from her torso.
No weapons of any sort had ever been discovered. The coroner's report suggested the use of both a machete and a long, thin knife on Catriona. A .38 bullet killed Alistair McFadden, while the bullet from a .22 injured Sorcha. No weapons had been found at the scene of the crime.
Gray checked the coroner's name and frowned. “Wasn't John Fowler the coroner for the county before Donald Henley?”
“Yeah, Fowler was in his last year when I joined the force,” Henry said. “Why?”
“Who is this Dr. Rooks? His signature's on the McFadden autopsies.”
“Never heard of him,” Henry replied.
“Wasn't it a high profile case?” Doug asked. “Maybe they called in someone from Spokane.”
Gray grunted in acknowledgment of the logical suggestion even as his stomach pitted.
“Where are the crime-scene photos? And the tox-screen results.” Gray rifled through the first file, the second, and then checked through the whole box.
“Should be there. Those are the only two boxes in the back listed as McFadden. That info's over fifteen years old. None of it's been entered into the computers.”
“There are no pics or tox reports here, Henry. Check with Central. Maybe they've been digitized or are pending digitization.” His gut churned. That icy, back-of-the-neck feeling settled over every inch of Gray's flesh; no coincidence, an unknown coroner signing the McFaddens' autopsies and the tox reports missing.
The black-and-white typing blurred as he remembered Sorcha asking about her grandmother losing weight. Did she suspect Aileen's death wasn't natural?
“Henry, who found Aileen O'Riley's body?”
“Miss L. Why?”
“Who was on the scene?”
“Me.”
“Was an autopsy done?”
“She died in her sleep. Why would there be an autopsy?”
“So there was nothing suspicious?”
“Heck no. The cabin wasn't touched. The bed was hardly mussed.”
“Here's something,” Doug announced. He had five files open in front of him. “Three of the four initial bodies, Frank, Taunton, Spring, and now Miss L, have one thing in common—a toe missing from the right foot.”
“What?” Gray pushed away from the table. “Let me see that.” He walked to the other side of the table and studied the reports. “How'd we miss this?”
“It's noted in the coroner's reports but isn't mentioned in the write-ups.” Doug stroked his jaw with a thumb and forefinger. “Each one's written by a different officer, and I don't recognize any of these names.”
“Retired before I joined.” Gray touched one open file, then the other. “Both of them. And Henry only began to suspect a serial killer after the last murder. Henry, how'd you miss this?”
“A case goes cold after eighteen months in this county, and the files are forwarded to that department,” Henry replied. “Those records were stored at Central until I requested them a while back. I've been meaning to go through them.” He shrugged. “Didn't get around to it, or I'd have noticed the toe thing.”
His phone rang. Gray glanced at the LCD and groaned. He snapped open the phone.
“Susie, what's up?”
“There's something you need to know about Sorcha,” his sister replied.
Gray ambled over to a chair tucked into a corner and sat.
When he ended the conversation, Gray propped his chin in his palms and considered the new facts. A recurring nightmare had brought Sorcha back to Twisp.
Not Aileen's death?
This deep-sixed all his theories into next week. Nothing made sense.
And how in the hell did The Sound of Music factor into the big picture?
Chapter Eight
Sorcha knew what she had to do.
Figure out the lyric.
Get rid of Gray.
For his own sake.
His damned guard, Ted, refused to leave her alone. He planted his huge form on the sofa in front of the television.
She'd heard The Sound of Music soundtrack at least fifty times. White trotted into the living room and nudged her dangling hand with a cold, wet nose. Obeying the canine's implicit command, she followed him to the kitchen and opened the sealed bag of dog food.
Knees bent, leaning against the wall, she waited for White to finish eating his food and listened to the haunting “Edelweiss” solo for what seemed like the zillionth time. When Julie Andrews's chirpy rendition of “My Favorite Things” began, the proverbial lightbulb lit; she bounded to her feet and headed straight for the dining table. Without any forethought, she sat and began writing on a blank slip of paper.
When the pen finally stopped forming words, Sorcha studied what she'd written.
Sorcha McFadden's Favorite Things.
Miss L's cupcakes and Mama's sweet kisses
Papa's big fat hugs and Grams's fae wishes
Caroling and snow and sleigh bell rings
These are a few of my favorite things
Pixies and brownies and gnomes and hobgoblins
Halloween ghosts and apple bobbings
Easter eggs and bunnies and my dog, King
These are a few of my favorite things
Grams's hidden fairy mound
Where lost treasures can always be found
Soaring with dragons and visiting realms
These are a few of my favorite things
When the sun shines
When spring brings
Flowers and Susie and confetti ice-cream cones
And then I won't ever have to be alone
The world closed in; her rib cage battered her lungs, her heart. She wanted to round into a tight ball and ignore the crickets chirping, White snoring, the sound of love leaving her life in a roaring she couldn't ignore. Sorcha rose and headed for the bathroom. A watershed of memories clashed over her, around her, enfolded her.
She curled into a fetal ball on the bath mat and rocked her body back and forth as memories long dormant crowded her brain: Mom and Dad watching her first ballet performance, her father giving her hot and cold clues during t
heir annual Easter-egg hunt, Mom helping her press her first Santa cookie.
How in the name of the Lord had she blanketed this for so long?
She couldn't think, the images staining her pupils too vibrant, too real. She grew drunk on memories, on happy times, on idyllic times.
Gradually, reality seeped into her brain. Little bits and pieces—White's whimper, a knocking on the door, the television blasting in the background. Sorcha stilled all movement and prepared to face the world.
Grams's message. There was more to it than the return of her memory.
Sorcha uncurled, dashed the tears from her eyes, and stood. She had to be gone before Gray returned. He would take one look at her face and know she'd remembered. But the memories excluded her father. Because she had too much of him in her?
For so long she'd avoided thinking those words. Sorcha swallowed, grabbed a towel, and blotted the tears from her face.
Oh God. She understood those four lines.
Grams's had left her a message, and it was in Spokane. Her parents and Grams had loved Spokane—the theaters, the restaurants, the cobblestoned streets. The four of them had spent many a weekend in the city.
On her eighth birthday, Grams had taken her to Spokane to see the play The Sound of Music. They had left early in the morning, had eaten lunch at an outdoor café, and then Grams had taken her to a bank. They'd gone into a little room with a metal box. Grams had explained that people used safe-deposit boxes like fairy mounds, storing their treasures in them for safety.
She'd extracted a black velvet pouch, emptied the contents into Sorcha's cupped hands and said, “Happy birthday, my love. This is the luck of the O'Riley's.”
Sorcha remembered fingering the gold locket all night, tracing the four-leaf clover embedded on the front, loving the feel of the oval pendant. Grams had told her that the O'Riley luck passed from generation to generation.
The key must fit that safe-deposit box.
Was that bank still around?
What had happened to that locket?
An insistent knocking on the bathroom door drew her attention.
“What do you want?”
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