by Lesley Davis
Synopsis
Goodness may appear in many forms; evil need only take one.
The Chicago PD Deviant Data Unit specializes in the dark and cruel aspects of criminal behavior. When a serial killer who leaves his victims oddly posed starts terrorizing the city, Detective Rafe Douglas leads the team tasked to find this sadistic killer. Still recovering from severe injuries sustained in the line of duty, Rafe’s tenuous hold on what is real is further tested by someone who wants in on the case and won’t take no for an answer.
Private Investigator Ashley Scott experiences the world through unveiled eyes. She alone can see that Hell’s inhabitants are breaking free from their confines and are bringing their evil to Earth. She believes the killer isn’t human and knows she has to convince Rafe there are more things happening in the Windy City than anyone could possibly realize. Only together can they solve the secrets revealed in the killer’s brutal slayings.
Dark Wings Descending
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Dark Wings Descending
© 2012 By Lesley Davis. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-60282-700-4
This Electronic Book is published by
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, New York 12185
First Edition: May 2012
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editors: Cindy Cresap and Stacia Seaman
Production Design: Stacia Seaman
Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])
By the Author
Truth Behind the Mask
Playing Passion’s Game
Dark Wings Descending
Acknowledgments
Thank you, Radclyffe, for your untiring support and fantastic encouragement always.
To the Bold Strokes family of writers and staff that bind us all together stronger than any Force I know!
For Cindy Cresap, who constantly has to tread through the mine field of Brit speak and does so with such grace, and amazingly, very little swearing! I appreciate everything you do for me and the care you take with my writing. You truly rock.
Thank you, Stacia Seaman, for making sure that nothing sneaks past on your watch! You are a great companion on this writer’s journey!
Thank you, Sheri, for another amazing cover that just blows my tiny mind! You’re fantastic!
For Wayne Beckett, for always supporting me in all I endeavor to do.
For Jacky Hart and Jane Morrison for never ceasing to offer support, friendship, and gentle hints for me to put my controller down and get back to writing for them!! Thanks guys!!
And for Cindy Pfannenstiel, with much love and thanks to you always.
xx
To the ones who watch over us and keep us safe from harm.
Chapter One
The dead woman was laid out in the alley like a grotesque mannequin, half-naked and fixed in pose. She lay on her back with one arm reaching up above her head while the other lay at her side. Her blond head was tilted as if to follow where her arm was pointing, her sightless eyes fixed on a point somewhere down the dark alley. A dark red stain spread underneath her from waist to shoulders. The blood fanned out, glistening like an oil spill framing her upper torso. Clouds shifted across the pale moon, and for a brief moment, the horror of what lay in the alley disappeared from view. Lost to the dark that blanketed the city. Dead to the night.
Ashley Scott leaned a little further out over the fire escape railing. The flashes from her camera lit up the alley like bolts of lightning. She stepped back into shadow as she heard the familiar wail of sirens racing to the scene she had just anonymously called in. She checked her watch. “Three minutes. Guess three murders in just over a month will make you skip a few red lights.” Carefully, she picked her way down the fire escape steps, then settled herself out of sight in a doorway well out of light’s reach. She watched the police cars draw up and scanned the faces of the officers who began to secure the scene. She didn’t spot the forensic team’s black SUV and strained to hear the conversations of the busy police as they cordoned off the area until the team’s arrival. She garnered the exact piece of information she needed from their chatter and furtively cast a look around. “Where’s a telephone booth when you need one?” she muttered, then stepped out of the doorway and strode purposefully toward the crime scene tape.
Ashley nodded at the policewoman guarding the alley entrance. “Evening, Officer Atkinson.”
“Hi, Jim,” Officer Atkinson replied and lifted up the crime scene tape for Ashley to slip under. Ashley headed straight for the body, snapping off photographs on her way to document the whole scene from close quarters. She took as many photos as she could, aware that the medical examiner was standing nearby.
“Evening, Jim,” Dr. Joseph Alan greeted her absently, patiently waiting for her to finish so he could get back to his own work. “Third dead woman we’ve been called out to looking like this. I hate to say it, but I’m beginning to see a pattern emerging.” He looked at the sky. “There’s not some strange planetary alignment going on that we don’t know about, is there?”
Ashley edged closer to the body, clicking her camera the entire time. She carefully stepped around the spreading blood. “I think Jupiter is right where it should be, Dr. Alan. Some people don’t need their stars aligned to kill.”
He shook his head. “What is the world coming to when a killer can’t leave a calling card so we can identify him from the rest of the crazies?”
“There was still nothing left on the body at all?” Ashley was aware of the previous victims. She’d been at the last one’s final resting place too. She steeled herself to stand over the woman and her eyes swept down the posed body. She couldn’t prevent the shiver of horror that chilled her to the bone at the look of abject terror frozen on the dead woman’s face. “She took a nasty blow to the head this time.”
Ashley’s camera flashed to document the injuries. She noticed how the woman’s hair had been swept out of its natural parting to hide the wound. Did the killer regret what he’d done and had made some attempt to make her beautiful once more? Ashley found herself unable to look away from the woman’s face. What had once been a pretty visage was now a contorted mask of fear. “Nasty neck wound too.” Ashley saw the deep slash that had slit the woman’s throat wide open. Hope it was quick. She made her way down the posed body, noticing how the woman’s clothes had been ripped to shreds. “I can’t get my head around this one, Doc. The killer rips open their jackets and shirts and pulls down their skirts or pants, but there is no sign of a sexual assault.” She took a few more pictures, frowning at the state the clothing had been left in. “The clothes are cut off strangely,” she said to herself. “Almost like they were just in the way. As if leaving the body unclothed wasn’t to defile them, it was just a simple act of moving the cloth out of the way so he could get to what he wanted.” She took a step back and called the medical examiner forward. “Care to do the honors, please?” She moved around so that the doctor could ease the body over for her.
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br /> Ashley grimaced as she saw the familiar trait of this particular killer. “And again with the ripping open of the back.” She took her photos, making sure to capture the horrendous wounds. The skin had been cut right through to the bone, exposing the spine itself. Jagged cuts ran from the base of the neck down to the hips. The skin was pulled back and everything else had been hacked at to reveal the bones inside. “Why would you kill someone just so you could rip open their body to expose their backbone?”
“Maybe he’s searching for one of his own?” Dr. Alan said as he placed the woman back on the ground reverently once Ashley signaled she was finished.
Ashley spared him a look. “He doesn’t even take a piece of disc with him. You’d think if he was cutting someone open to get to their spine he’d want something specific from it.” She watched as he got back to his feet with a groan. “You okay there?”
“I’m too old to be dragged out of bed to come to yet another dead woman in an alley,” he grumbled.
Ashley looked him over, seeing a balding, slightly overweight man in his late fifties who had seen death in all its forms for way too many years. “I’d say you still have plenty of years left, Doc. Then you can retire on that yacht of yours with Mary and kiss Chicago good-bye.” She looked at him over the top of her camera. “You’ve got grandbabies to bounce on your knee one day before you even think about getting too old.”
“I hope you’re right. I’d rather deal with them than any more of these.” He stared down at the body. “I estimate time of death at being barely an hour ago.”
Ashley nodded, knowing that was roughly the time she’d been informed that another body had been left. “And no one saw or heard anything again, I bet.” She looked up at the surrounding apartment buildings that crowded the alley like protective monoliths.
“This killer strikes so fast they don’t have time to make a sound.” Dr. Alan pointed at the victim’s neck wound. “He comes up behind them and cuts their throats open, very effectively silencing them.”
“He’s got to be covered in blood,” Ashley said, looking at her feet. She had been making sure her boots didn’t touch any of the blood that stained the ground. “Yet there are never any partial prints left behind.”
“He’s clean and efficient all right. It’s like the devil himself slips in and brings his own hell on earth.”
Ashley’s whole body tensed at his words. She forced herself not to react and just continued taking photos. She looked at the dead woman, her sightless eyes wide open and her last terrifying moments etched permanently on her face. Her mouth was left open in an endless silent scream as she lay posed reaching for…what? Ashley shook her head. Salvation maybe? Someone who could stop the madman? “I think the devil’s been here all along, Doc, but only a few of us recognize his handiwork.”
Dr. Alan slapped her gently on her shoulder. “Finish up your job, son, and I’ll get this lady taken away from here.”
Ashley nodded distractedly as she heard more cars pulling up. Taking this as her cue, she faked looking at her camera in dismay. “Oh Christ, Doc, I’m sorry. I’ve been running on empty. The damn camera has no memory card in it.” She stepped back from the body. “What a stupid amateur mistake. The boss will have my head if he finds out. I’ll be back in just a second. I need to go get one from my case.” She watched from the corner of her eye as Dr. Alan just sighed and stared back up at the stars.
Ashley left the crime scene and dodged under the tape. There was a growing crowd of officers all huddled together keeping the fast-arriving press and interested onlookers back from the alley. She spotted Detective Stephanie Powell gathering people together. Ashley let her eyes linger just a second longer than usual. Please tell me you’re not in charge now that a third murder makes this a serial case and headline news at ten every night. She saw another detective rush past Powell, a man who appeared to be in his late thirties, quite tall and boyishly handsome. He seemed to be making a path for the detective who was following him with a much slower gait. Ashley’s curiosity got the better of her and she stopped to see who this other detective was. It was a woman, at least five feet eight, making her easily as tall as her male counterpart. She was slender but broad-shouldered. Ashley was surprised to note she looked oddly frail as she walked past. Her handsome face was also strangely mottled under the moon’s waning light. A woolen beanie hat embroidered with a police shield was pulled down over her head, hiding any clue to her hair color. Ashley grinned as the male reached out a hand to the woman only to receive a withering glare in response.
“Just show me the damn body, Dean, and quit with the nursemaid attitude.”
Ashley liked the deep quality to her voice, even colored by the exasperation audible in it. She wondered at the story behind his solicitude. Aware she needed to leave, Ashley disappeared into the crowd, cradling her camera protectively to her as she passed Crime Scene Photographer Jim Pope as he headed toward the scene. She heard Officer Atkinson remark, “How many more pictures are you taking tonight?” but never heard his reply as he set about doing his job. Ashley slipped through the cars that lined the alley and crossed the road.
Out of sight of prying eyes she shifted; a glimmering, sparkling, golden tone colored her world for a moment and then dissipated. Ashley watched her reflection in a small window as she lost the appearance of a young man with short cropped hair and a height of at least six feet dressed in his CSI uniform. Left behind was a much shorter woman, sporting tousled blond hair and wearing a long black jacket over her black shirt and jeans. She stared at the reflection looking back at her. “Still a neat trick,” she told herself and headed for home.
*
Entering her apartment building, Ashley chuckled quietly at the boy who sat sprawled in his chair, supposedly keeping watch. His head was back, his mouth wide open as he slept.
“Nice to know you’re keeping the building safe, Jeffrey,” Ashley whispered, electing to take the stairs to her second-floor apartment so as not to disturb him with the elevator’s noisy arrival. The building was silent. Everyone else was apparently asleep as she walked down the corridor to her door. She opened it and reached in to switch the lights on. She studiously ignored the drabness of her hastily rented apartment, trying once again to quell the desire for a home of her own. She didn’t even flinch when a voice spoke from her living room.
“Was it the same pattern as the others?”
Ashley locked the door behind her and just stared at the man in the room. He was incredibly tall and impossibly slender, his hair a blond that was almost gold. His attention was fixed squarely on the photos attached to a board resting on an easel.
“Good morning to you too, Eli. Please, do make yourself at home.” Ashley tossed her keys onto the small table by the door and wandered into the room. She had to physically nudge Eli out of her way to switch her laptop on. “You need to scoot over, Eli. You’re in my way. Stop hogging the death board.” He stepped back absently, his attention never wavering as she puttered around him. Ashley watched with satisfaction as the laptop booted up. “If you see anything, any kind of signature to what this guy is doing, please don’t hesitate to speak up. I could do with the help.” She removed the memory card from her camera and popped it into her laptop’s SD slot. Eli crowded in behind her and peered over her shoulder. “What the hell has gotten into you? You’re quieter than usual, which isn’t saying much, I know, but you’re beginning to creep me out!”
Eli stepped back but his eyes flicked between the laptop screen and the board. “There is something very wrong about these deaths.”
Pulling up the new photos on her screen, Ashley cut Eli an incredulous look. “They are incredibly violent, gruesome, bloody deaths.” She straightened to look at him. “Wrong doesn’t even begin to cover it.” She set the photographs to run as a slideshow. She and Eli watched the tableau of shots flash by one after another as the scene was captured in its vile testament to evil. Ashley watched each photo with a growing sense of unease.
&
nbsp; “Eli, I don’t think this guy is going to stop any time soon.” She was barely able to suppress a shudder as a photo flashed up of the woman’s terrified face, twisted and contorted in her final moments.
Eli craned his neck for a look at one particularly graphic close-up. “I’d say he’s just gotten started.” He straightened again, then turned his attention to the easel behind him. “You’re going to need a bigger board,” he pointed out drolly.
Ashley couldn’t help but laugh at Eli’s comment, glad for the slight lightening of the mood. She headed for the small kitchen just off the main room, opened up the fridge, and removed a bottle of beer. She twisted off the lid and drank deeply. “I think it’s time I go find out what the police investigation has managed to find out about these women.”
“Yes, now that you’re here…”
“Yes, now that I am here I can go do my magic trick and walk into the Chicago Police Department. I can gather intel and walk right back out again.” Ashley took another long drink from her bottle, not thirsty anymore but needing the bitter taste to sharpen her senses. “I got here in time to see body number two.” She gestured to the board littered with the photographs of the second victim. “And tonight I’ve got body number three to add to the wall. I need to gather information on the first woman killed and see if their autopsy reports have something we just can’t see by looking at the body via Kodak.”
“Do you know who the lead detective is?”
“I couldn’t tell, but they had the press darling Stephanie Powell courting the news crews again.”