Wanting You

by Leslie A. Kelly

  He realized his hand had tightened and was crumpling the vile letter only when she tugged it from his grip.

  “It’s okay, I won’t ever look at it again. But I do keep them…just in case.”

  He hated that expression—just in case. Just in case what? Just in case she needed a reminder that a fucking monster had tortured and murdered someone she cared about? Just in case she ever started to forget that she’d crossed paths with a psychopath who’d wanted her to be the one under his knife?

  “Let me file it for you. I’ll find the perfect place.”

  Like a mail drop that fell directly into hell.

  Come to think of it, he’d happily put Angstrom in a box, mark it Warning: Forwarded from the Virginia Department of Corrections, and send it right down that chute too. The sonofabitch was going to end up there anyway; he would happily save the state the cost of feeding the walking piece of filth.

  “Forget it, okay?” she said, dropping the letter into a drawer and slamming it closed. “It just got to me a little because of everything that’s happened this week.” She spun the lid onto her travel mug, sealing it. “It was bad timing to hear from him. I’m not completely used to this place and I’m jumping at shadows.”

  “You’re the least shadow-jumping woman I’ve ever met, Evie Fleming.”

  He’d been telling himself that kiss this morning was the end of it, the final moment of intimacy that they could share. So why did he suddenly want—no, need—to take her into his arms and hold her close?

  He didn’t know.

  But he did it anyway.

  “C’mere,” he said, putting his hands on her hips and pulling her to him.

  She didn’t resist. Rowan wrapped one arm around her waist and cupped her head in his other hand, holding her tightly. She relaxed into him, her face buried in his neck, her warm breaths softly whispering against his skin. He felt the faintest trembles rocking her body, up and down, and back again, and recognized the brave front she had been putting on. She was not as calm about this letter—and her address being leaked—as she’d let on.

  “It’s okay, Evie. I’m here, and I’m not going to let anybody get to you.”

  If he had to sleep in his damn car outside, with Jagger and Cecil B fighting over who got shotgun, he would do it.

  Bodyguarding wasn’t in his job description. He was just supposed to be her assistant, her escort. But tough shit. She didn’t just have a lot on her shoulders this week; trauma was landing on her head like a shower of rocks. The mugging, the press intrusion, the betrayal by her agent, the goddamn letter like a bloody fingernail from the past scraping her out of the darkness.

  Most women—most people—would probably already have packed their bags. Or at least they’d be a whole lot less calm than she was right now. But that faint tremble, the rapid heartbeat he could feel against his chest, and the quickening exhalations hitting his throat were all that revealed the turmoil that was going on inside her head.

  He’d held her in his arms just fifteen minutes ago, wrapped in a hot embrace and indulging in a sinful kiss.

  This was completely different. She needed support, someone to lean on, someone to remind her she was not alone.

  And he needed to be that someone.

  Yeah, different. But pretty damned nice too.

  “Thank you,” she said as she pulled away. She took a deep breath, lifted her chin, and added, “I’m okay.”

  “You sure?”

  Her answering smile was obviously forced, but she got points for trying. “Yes.”

  “Okay.”

  “Ready to go?”

  Right back to work, as if they hadn’t already kissed like they were gonna spend the day in bed, and then hugged like she was gonna break down and weep. That was Evie.

  Glancing at the time on his phone, Rowan hesitated. Before they left the house, he wanted to understand what this morning’s field trip was all about. All the other names and places on the list she’d emailed him a couple of days ago had made sense in the context of her work. Today’s interview? Not so much.

  Remaining at the table, he asked, “So why is Phil Smith on your list?”

  “Do you know him?” she asked quickly.

  He shook his head. “No, but I’ve heard of him. Got some commendations before he hit his twenty-five and got out.”

  “Yes, I’ve read up on him. I was just hoping you might have a personal relationship. I’m not entirely sure he’s going to be open with me.”

  “I don’t remember him working on any of the cases you’re covering in this book.”

  She didn’t respond right away, instead busying herself cleaning off the counter, putting away cream and sugar. She didn’t once look at him.

  This didn’t feel like a few minutes ago, when she was worried about the letter from a serial killer. It felt more like she had something to say but didn’t know how to say it.

  “What’s going on, Evie?”

  She hesitated, and then walked over to sit in the other chair, facing him.

  “So,” she said slowly. “You probably know about the traits of serial killers.”

  “Well, I did a guest stint on Profiler once. Does that count?” he replied. Jesus, did the woman really not remember what he did for a living?

  “I’m sorry, that was stupid.” She lifted a hand to her face and rubbed her temple. “I just, I’m trying to figure out the best way to explain this.”

  He nodded, knowing he’d reacted a little too quickly. Probably because he was still distracted thinking about the hug, the kiss, and that damned sexy lingerie she’d been wearing when she opened the door.

  Beach cover-up my ass.

  “I’m trying to lay the groundwork here. I mean, you know the basics, what the studies say about serial killers?”

  “Sure. Usually white males. Bed wetters as kids, probably abused animals, fire setters. Targets one type of victim, almost always of his own race. So-called organized killers have jobs, lives, friends, and are highly intelligent.”

  “Like a Bundy or a Gacy.”

  She didn’t say like an Angstrom, though thinking about it, he knew that monster would have to be classified as organized. He ran a business, he socialized with customers, he planned well in advance, he copied keys and got addresses.

  But no, he was absolutely not going to use him as an example to one of his own victims. He hadn’t killed her—thank God—but Evie was one of the man’s victims nonetheless.

  Seeing a shadow cross her face, and figuring her mind had probably gone there, too, he quickly went on. “Disorganized or sloppy killers aren’t necessarily that smart. They don’t plan as well, they act on impulse, they don’t usually even try to hide their crimes. Like that Sacramento vampire guy.”

  “Yes. You know about signatures?”

  “Sure. Serial killers usually have them. Something unique about their crimes that distinguishes it from others. It’s usually psychological need, not something strictly required to accomplish the murder.”

  “Yes, and it’s often how investigators are able to string cases together.” She swallowed and her lashes fell over her eyes. “Angstrom’s license plate collection was his trophy case, but not his signature because he didn’t leave it at the crime scene. His signature was the…the…”

  He reached across and took her hands in his, clenching tightly. He’d read up on Angstrom after he and Evie met. He knew exactly what that sick fuck had done to her roommate and to so many others, beyond kill them. “Stop. I understand.”

  She squeezed his hands back and didn’t pull away. Rowan knew he was disobeying his mental rules, but there was just no way he could let go. Not when she was so obviously in need of human connection.

  He wanted to continue to be what she needed. At least for right now.

  After taking a few deep, steadying breaths, Evie squared her shoulders and continued. “Sometimes that signature is pretty subtle. It’s not always easy to associate crimes with each other, especially if they take
place in different jurisdictions, with different investigators. None of those jurisdictions views their case, their piece of the pie, as part of a whole—a serial crime—because they don’t know there are others spread all across other areas.”

  “Which is how the Night Stalker got away with what he did early on.”

  “Precisely. His preferred target was older women. He often broke in through first-story windows—which made for a long, hot, miserable summer for the city of LA since everybody started closing their windows at night. That was all part of his MO, despite his change-up of the means, since the method was so different in many cases. But it wasn’t always that way, and he attacked all over the region.”

  “All over the state, actually,” he murmured, knowing Ramirez had taken a field trip up toward San Francisco before his reign of terror had ended.

  Yeah, terror.

  He’d heard about that long, frightening summer and could envision the entire area gripped with fear. This city seethed when it got hot now. He didn’t even want to imagine what that had been like back then.

  “But he also left a pentagram at his crime scenes—that’s a signature,” she explained. “Practically a literal one.”

  “Right. So, back to Smith. You haven’t answered my question yet,” he said.

  But even as the words left his mouth, a possibility blossomed in his mind.

  Evie was a researcher. She was out here looking into serial crimes. She had dug her way into the middle of one once before. Now she was talking about it as if…

  “No,” he snapped.

  She blinked but said nothing.

  His hands tightened. “Tell me that’s not what you’re really doing here.”

  Her eyes shifted. “Of course it’s not. I’m working on a book. Want to see my contract for it?”

  “Don’t sidestep. Tell me you aren’t Veronica Mars’ing your way onto another serial killer’s radar.”

  She sucked in her bottom lip. Rowan froze.

  “I’m right? You think you’ve found another Angstrom operating here in LA?”

  It wasn’t at all far-fetched that there could be another monster loose in a city this size. He knew the stats, knew the FBI believed there were as many as fifty active serial killers in the U.S. right now. And LA was a prime spot for sociopaths to find the perfect victims. Filled with runaways, drug addicts, underage prostitutes, undocumented workers…Along with the starry-eyed dreamers, the stars, and the millionaires were the hungry, the desperate, the broken. The City of Angels was an ideal hunting ground, which was why it had attracted more than its fair share of serial killers in the past. So no, he could muster no surprise that another one might be working the streets of LA right now.

  But damned if he wanted Evie Fleming to have anything to do with it.

  “Let it go,” he demanded. “Write up your notes and I’ll make sure they get to the right person. Then you bow out and forget everything you know or suspect.”

  She reacted only with a slight tensing of her body.

  “You can’t get involved with this, Evie.”

  “Nor can I convince anyone I’m onto something with just suspicion.”

  “So tell somebody your suspicions and let them investigate it.”

  “The LAPD isn’t busy I guess? They don’t mind journalists-turned-authors telling them what to do without having a shred of proof? Rich, spoiled Hollywood TV show type tells one of the biggest police forces in the country that they’ve overlooked a serial killer in their midst, but can’t say how she knows other than a suspicion? That’ll go over so well.”

  “Damn it,” he muttered. “You might be right.”

  Sure, a good cop would always look into tips, but without any evidence, and coming from somebody like her, it might not make it to the top of somebody’s already heavy caseload.

  He sighed, let go of her hands, and got up to make himself another cup of coffee to drink right now, rather than hitting the travel mug. Partly to stall for time to think, partly because he suspected he was going to need all the coffee. Like, all of it.

  “Okay,” he finally said, “what are we talking about here?”

  “You’ll really listen?”

  “Of course I’ll listen.” He wasn’t promising to believe, much less to help, but he was fair-minded. Not to mention curious.

  “I’ve found what I believe are twelve connected cases that nobody else has put together.”

  Twelve.

  He didn’t react, merely saying, “Go on.”

  She did, filling him in on names, locations, dates. As she spoke, he had to lean back against the counter, bracing himself with a flattened palm on the countertop. He kept going back to her first sentence.

  Twelve.

  Going back fifteen years.

  How the hell? It was crazy, right? If twelve women had been murdered by the same killer in this geographical area, surely somebody would have linked the cases together by now.

  Somebody other than a writer with a dark and vivid imagination.

  “Why are you so convinced of this?” he asked once she’d finished describing the cases. “What makes you the expert, seeing what nobody else has ever seen?”

  “It’s not that nobody else could have seen it,” she insisted, rising from her chair and standing stiffly. “It’s that nobody else would ever have really looked.”

  “Bullshit,” he said.

  “I didn’t mean that they wouldn’t have cared to,” she quickly explained, realizing she might have sounded offensive. “I mean, these cases were spread out over a decade and a half, and, with the exception of the fourth and the seventh, they all took place in different jurisdictions.”

  Ramirez. The Night Stalker’s name flashed through his mind again.

  But that had been decades ago. Police methods and communications had advanced by leaps and bounds since then. Which was exactly what he told her.

  “Of course, you’re right. But these crimes were spaced out so very far apart, and there were definite variations in MO. One detective might have been looking into the shooting death of a woman in Glendale for months. He gets nowhere, the file goes to the bottom of his pile. In this city, there’s always another case to investigate.”

  That much was true. Murder rates had fallen in recent years, but violent crimes were definitely on the rise.

  “A year later, when another woman is found dead—strangled—in Redondo Beach, why is he going to connect it to his case in a metro area the size of this one? It’s not like Ramirez when they were all happening in a compact period of time. And, like with Ramirez, the means of death varied.”

  She was making sense. He crossed his arms and nodded for her to continue.

  “I don’t blame anybody for not catching on to it.”

  He thought about what she’d said. “How’d you put it together? What’s the link?”

  “Honestly, I was just researching crime statistics, neighborhoods, and victimology. The number of Caucasian women between the ages of twenty and twenty-five murdered over the past fifteen years seemed higher than I would have expected. So I dug into them to find out why.”

  “And you found something they had in common, other than their age?”

  She nodded slowly. “The signature.”

  Ah. That’s why she’d made sure he had a primer on serial crimes.

  “Aside from the victimology, the age, the race, the sex, and the fact that these women were all killed at home, there is what I think is a very clear signature, Rowan.”

  He waited, but she didn’t go on. His curiosity was aroused now, his investigator senses pinging. She’d caught him; she’d interested him.

  He wanted to know more.

  Finally he prodded, “So what is it? What did you see?”

  She mumbled something.

  “What did you say?”

  Looking out the window toward her small backyard, she murmured, “Flowers.”

  He wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. “Flowers?”

  Sh
e nodded.

  “That’s the big reveal?”

  Her jaw clenched a little. He dropped the attitude.

  “Okay, help me understand this.”

  “I’ll try.” She licked her lips and swiped a strand of hair off her brow. “So, as I said, each one of the women I’ve singled out was killed in her home. And each one had a vase of perfectly fresh flowers, in bloom, on her bedside table.”

  Her seriousness told him she thought that was very significant, but frankly, Rowan just didn’t get it. “Don’t all women like flowers?”

  “Yes, most do. But we don’t all have fresh flowers in vases in our bedrooms all the time. A birthday, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, an anniversary, maybe. But none of these crimes took place around any such holiday. So why would every one of them have fresh flowers sitting in their homes for no reason at all? One, sure, easy to write off. Maybe two. Hell, Rowan, maybe five. But twelve? All of them murdered at home, Caucasian, and around the age of twenty-five?”

  His heart skipped a beat. Jesus, when she said it like that, it really did raise his hackles.

  He started to think like a cop and not like a protector of a woman who managed to get herself into some really bad situations.

  “So you think the killer poses as a flower delivery guy?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  He blew out a breath.

  “If that were the case, I’d think there’d have been a broken vase or a crushed stem somewhere along the way. There hasn’t been. The flowers mean something else.”

  Realizing why she’d felt the need to carefully go over the basics of serial killers, he started to catch her meaning. “You think he’s leaving the flowers as part of his own ritual…his signature.”

  She nodded, looking relieved. “Yes.”

  He let the theory sift through his mind, tossed it around.

  And couldn’t come up with an immediate reason to decide she was wrong and change the subject. So he kept going. “All the same type of flower?”

  She nibbled her lip and slowly shook her head, admitting, “No, all different.”

  He frowned. She could be right about the flowers. It did seem strange, though not entirely out of the realm of possibility. If they’d all been orchids or roses or something, it would be easier for him to believe. The killer might be leaving particular flowers at the scenes of his crime because that flower had a certain meaning to him.