Her Last Wish (A Rachel Gift FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 1)

by Blake Pierce

  “The wounds are made by an amateur,” the coroner said, breaking apart Rachel’s thoughts and stopping her from revisiting that dark place. “Blind rage. I’d also suggest that the knife he used was rather dull. There are a few wounds that almost look as if she was impaled by something rather than stabbed with a knife.”

  “Is the first victim still accessible?” Rachel asked.

  “Yes, come this way, please.”

  The coroner led them out of the primary examination area and led them down the hallway, to a larger room. Inside, what looked like several small metal doors were installed into the wall. Rachel had been in more than her share of these and knew this was body storage area. If she’d had any doubt, the drastic change in temperature would have clued her in.

  The coroner walked to one of the drawers, pulled the latch, and the drawer popped open a bit. When he slid the drawer open, a long slab came rolling out smoothly. The first victim, Gloria Larsen according to the report, lay before them, her skin slightly blued from the chill of the storage compartment.

  “Same thing here,” the coroner said. “Hastily stabbed all about the abdomen. I do believe it took her longer to die. The lower cut just below the stomach would have been painful, but would not have bled as much.”

  Rachel counted the stab marks and nodded. “And she was stabbed less than the second victim.” She turned to Jack and said, “Which means the killer grew more confident with the second body.”

  What she thought after this, but did not speak out loud, was that the confidence he displayed on the second body meant there was a very good chance there was going to be a third. And probably a fourth and fifth and beyond if they weren’t able to catch him.

  Again, she briefly thought of the man looking at her through thick glasses—a man named Alex Lynch. A man that had haunted her dreams three months after the case had been closed. A man that had done the sort of unspeakable things she’d only read about in case studies during her time in Quantico.

  She closed her eyes against the thought of notorious mass murderer Alex Lynch and shook the thought away.

  “The report I have says she likely dragged herself across the kitchen floor,” Jack said. “There was blood smeared on the tile. We saw the same thing at the Masters’ house—a smear of blood across the grass from where she had presumably tried crawling to the stairs. Do you think there’s any chance the killer is doing it on purpose? Stabbing them in a way he knows isn’t killing them right away?”

  “I doubt it,” the coroner answered. “Again, the sloppy way in which the stabbing was conducted makes me think he was just letting himself go wild. I don’t believe the areas in which these women were stabbed was pre-mediated.”

  Rachel understood what he meant and actually thought he was right. She did find it peculiar, though, that the stabbing had been contained to the stomach. Why not the chest? Why not the back? Why not slitting their throats?

  As Rachel considered all of this, her phone buzzed in her pocket. It was not a number she recognized, but began with a Baltimore area code.

  “This is Agent Gift,” she answered.

  “Hey there. It’s Sergeant Owen. Sorry to bother you, but Lucinda Masters’ sister has gone from blowing up the husband’s phone to now calling the station. They patched her through to me and she’s being very insistent. I thought it might help with the case if you spoke to her. What do you think?”

  Rachel thought a grieving sister looking for some sort of vengeance was not the best lead, but she also knew that they didn’t have much to go on and this was a killer that was going to be very active.

  “Tell her we’ll be by to talk to her in about an hour. You got an address?”

  ***

  Jessi Parker lived in a nice two-story home, three miles away from her sister. When Rachel and Jack arrived, she was waiting for them in her living room. She was drinking a strong-smelling tea and regarded them with red, puffy eyes when Rachel and Jack sat down on the couch across from her. From elsewhere in the house, Rachel could hear the murmured voices of a man and child—presumably Jessi’s daughter and husband.

  “We understand that you were relentlessly calling Kel in the wake of your sister’s murder,” Rachel said. “And then the police. While I understand you’re going through quite a lot, I have to ask if there is any reason for it. Do you have any leads or information that can help us find who is responsible for this?”

  “No, and you see, that’s just thing.” Jessi Parker was frantic and highly emotional. Her words were coming out quickly, all slurred together. She was an emotional mess, and Rachel was going to be very surprised if they gathered anything of note from speaking with her. “Lucinda didn’t have enemies. I know it’s the sort of thing a grieving sister is supposed to say, but I mean it. Lucinda was the sort of woman everyone loved. And to think that someone jut decided that she didn’t need to live anymore…”

  Jessi stopped here and slammed her hands down on the coffee table. The strike was hard enough to cause her cup of tea to jump slightly, some of it sloshing out.

  “Mrs. Parker, did the police tell you that Lucinda was not the first?”

  She nodded, wiping fresh tears away. “Yes. And that somehow makes it worse.”

  “A few days ago, there was another woman murdered in the exact same way. Her name was Gloria Larsen. Do you happen to know if your sister knew a woman by that name?”

  Jessi’s red eyes squinted hard in concentration for a few moments but then she shook her head. “I don’t recognize that name. Kel might, but…” She shrugged, as if she really didn’t expect much from Kel, either.

  “We also understand that Lucinda’s divorce from her first husband had been finalized last year and the marriage to Kel is only about four or five months in. Do you happen to know what cause the first marriage to fail?”

  “Absolutely. When Lucinda and George—her first husband—were dating, they agreed on everything about their future: where they’d live, how many kids, pets, and all of that. But something changed after marriage and George changed his mind about having kids. He decided he did not want any, but Lucinda stood firm. They fought over it for the better part of twelve years until it sort of became a poison to their marriage. She left him and when she did, I think she originally planned to go the sperm bank route and have a child and raise it on her own. But then she met Kel, and everything worked out. From what Lucinda had been telling me, she and Kel started trying for a kid almost right away.”

  That explains the prenatal vitamins, then, Rachel thought.

  “Any idea where the first husband is these days?” Jack asked.

  “He moved to New York almost immediately after they separated. And my mind went there, too. Did George do it? But no…despite their constant arguing, George loved Lucinda very much…even at the end, I think.”

  “You don’t think jealousy of another husband might have driven him to it?”

  Jessi gave another of her non-committed shrugs and said, “I suppose anything is possible, but I’d find it very hard to believe.”

  “And what about Kel?” Rachel asked.

  “I don’t know him well enough to judge. But I do know that Lucinda fell for him very fast. She seemed happy—which was great because she’d been so miserable once she turned thirty-nine. She felt that she’d wasted so many years and that her biological clock was nearing its end. She finally found some happiness and then…”

  She shook her head and Rachel could tell she was struggling with more emotion.

  “It’s okay,” Rachel said. “You’ve actually helped quite a bit and we’ll leave you to your grief now.”

  Grief, she thought. If you told your family about the tumor, this is the sort of thing you’d be causing them.

  She felt selfish by even making the comparison, so she got up and headed for the door. “Please, Mrs. Parker, let us know if you think of anything else.”

  “I will,” she said, but she was already starting to weep.

  Rachel, not wanting
to leave her there alone, waited until her husband poked his head out of the kitchen down the hallway before leaving. Jack followed and they headed to their car, ushered out by Jessi’s wails.

  CHAPTER NINE

  As Rachel drove away from the Parker home, Jack looked through the case notes and located the phone number of the first victim’s husband. Rachel listened to Jack’s end of the short conversation. She was always amazed at how he was able to shift gears, to put the light-hearted and often goofy personality behind to turn on kindness and compassion when appropriate. It was almost like working with a robot sometimes.

  When the call was over, Jack said, “The husband of Gloria Larsen is Doug. He’s currently staying at his mother’s house. Speaking to him for that little bit made me think he’s of a mostly rational mind and he says he’s good to speak to us—maybe even eager.”

  “Good. I think we may need to check in with Kel Masters after this, though. We can speak to everyone listed in those files, but he’s going to be the best bet.”

  “Local PD insinuated that he didn’t have much to offer in regards to the case,” Jack pointed out.

  “Maybe after a few hours of being able to process it all, that will change.”

  Jack left it at that and they continued the short drive to visit with Doug Larsen in moderate silence. In between residences and with no active conversation taking place, Rachel started to again feel the pressure of her diagnosis. She wasn’t sure what it was that she felt more pressed to tell Jack than her own family, but it was beginning to make her feel uncomfortable.

  They reached the home of Doug Larsen’s mother less than fifteen minutes later. Somehow, it had already come to be noon and Rachel felt that the day was quickly getting away from her. Even she could sense some of her own urgency when she knocked on the front door. It was answered by an older woman with a worried look on her face. Her eyes seemed to say “Oh, it’s you” as she opened the door wider for them.

  “You’re the FBI folks?” she asked.

  “Yes ma’am,” Rachel said. “Is Doug still here?”

  She confirmed that he was and led them into her home. It was a nice house, and well-cared for. Pictures of family were hanging everywhere and the smell of something baking was radiating from the kitchen. Banana bread, if Rachel’s nose was correct.

  They found Doug Larsen sitting at his mother’s kitchen table. His hands were wrapped around a mug of tea as he looked out over a flowerbed in the back yard. He looked to be in his early-to-mid forties and he, like his mother, looked worried and very tired.

  “Make yourselves at home,” the mother said. “Can I get you coffee or tea?”

  Rachel and Jack declined as they sat down at the table. Doug finally turned his weary eyes in their direction and offered the closest he could get to a smile.

  “Thanks for meeting with us,” Jack said. “We’ll do our very best to keep this as short as possible.”

  “I’m in no hurry,” Doug said glumly. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

  “Have you been back to your house ever since it all happened?” Rachel asked.

  “No,” Doug said. “I’m sure you know that I was the one that found her. There was just so much blood and…and I can’t even think about going back there.”

  “The police records indicate that you didn’t find anything stolen…that nothing seemed out of place. Is that correct?”

  “As far as I could tell. Not to seem like an ass, but I wasn’t exactly taking inventory of our stuff. I found her on the kitchen floor, bleeding more than I thought possible. When I saw her like that, I went to her and saw that she was already dead… my brain sort went into lockdown, you know?”

  Rachel nodded. For now, she assumed they’d be okay to trust the police report. If the case truly stalled on them, they could go to the Larsen residence later and have a look around.

  “Can you think of anyone that might have had a grudge against your wife?” Rachel asked.

  Doug shook his head and said, “You know, the cops already asked me all of this. And I’ll tell you what I told them: I can’t think of a single person that would have done this.”

  “Had you noticed any changes in her demeanor over the last week or so?” Jack asked. “Did anything seem sort of off?”

  “Not that I could tell. You know...I keep going through the contacts on her phone, trying to imagine any of these people that would have either done this or might have known. No one pops up, though. And even if I thought someone might know something, what the hell am I supposed to do? Call them and ask, ‘Hey, you didn’t happen to have anything to do with the murder of my wife, did you?’”

  “You have her phone?” Rachel asked.

  “Yes. It was the one thing of hers I managed to take with me when the cops helped me get out of there.”

  “Would you mind if I had a look?”

  “Whatever you need,” Doug said. He fished around in his pocket and took out his wife’s phone. It was an iPhone with daisies printed on the case. A pop socket clung to the back with the infamous yellow smiley-face on it. He tapped in his wife’s passcode and handed it over to Rachel.

  She went to the collected texts and scrolled through them as Jack continued asking questions. She listened along as she scrolled for any answers. Jack asked if there had been any strange activity in their neighborhood, if they had a security system, if his wife had ever told him she felt scared or threatened. As Doug answered no to all of these questions, Rachel could find nothing of interest in the text threads that had been saved to the phone.

  Yet, when she went to the call history, she found something of note. Scrolling down, she saw that all of the recent incoming and outgoing calls were from people that had been saved into her contacts list. The one exception to this was the very last number Gloria Larsen had called before she died. It was a local number—the area code was proof of that—but it was not a saved contact. Based on reports, Gloria had been killed somewhere between five and six in the afternoon. This call had been made at 4:17.

  “Mr. Larsen, do you happen to recognize this number?” Rachel asked, showing it to him.

  He leaned in and studied it closely, but shook his head. “No. I have no idea.”

  “You mind if I call it?”

  Doug thought about it for a moment. She figured he was trying to determine if it might be the number to someone he wasn’t prepared to hear about. Maybe a secret lover? Maybe something worse?

  “Yeah,” he said, the word barely coming out at all. “Go ahead.”

  Rachel called the number and elected not to place it on speaker mode. She remained in her seat at the table and listened to the phone ring on the other end. It was answered on the third ring by a woman’s voice.

  “Regency Fertility Clinic, how can I help you?”

  The link snapped in Rachel’s head like a puzzle being put together. Just like Lucinda Masters, it appeared that Gloria Larsen had been trying to get pregnant. She thought about introducing herself, giving her badge number, and asking for whatever information they had on Gloria Larsen—appointments, check-ups, anything of that sort. But she figured they should ask Doug about it before going that route.

  “I’m so sorry,” Rachel told the woman. “I have the wrong number.” She hung up and looked to Doug, handing the phone back to him. “That was Regency Fertility Clinic.”

  Brief knowing came across Doug’s eyes and he then blinked away tears. He took a deep, shaky breath and looked to the phone. “Yeah. We’d been trying to get pregnant. For a few years, actually. The doctor said it wasn’t a hopeless endeavor…but that we’d have to work at it because the chances were pretty low. We’d talked about fertility treatments but…well, I didn’t know she’d been speaking with them.”

  Rachel chose her next words carefully, aware that she was treading on sacred ground. “I understand something like this is very personal. Would you like to call them back and ask how long Gloria had been contacting them, or would you prefer for us to do it?”
>
  “You,” he said right away. He was again fighting tears back. “I don’t know if I could deal with the weight of that. I mean, I just finished a few calls for the funeral and…”

  “Of course,” Rachel said, getting to her feet. “We’ll head over there, just to see if there’s anything that can help with the case.”

  “Do you think there could be?”

  Rachel didn’t think it wise to let him know that the other victim had also been dealing with pregnancy issues, so she kept it simple. “When we don’t have answers, we just have to exhaust all possible options. So we’ll just have to wait and see.”

  “Thanks for your time,” Jack said.

  They turned to see the mother standing there behind them. Rachel assumed she’d been there the entire time, listening. Without a word, she led them back to the front door. She was pleasant enough, but it was clear she wanted them gone so that her son could sit alone with his thoughts.

  Getting back into the car, Jack said: “Two women, both trying to get pregnant. I’d say that’s a pretty solid link.”

  “Same,” Rachel said. “But why? And how did the killer know?”

  She slid behind the wheel as they shared a look. It was not a look of excitement, but one they had shared any times before—one that communicated motivation and urgency. It was a look that said: “Let’s go find out.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The individual that had killed two women in the span of three days worked nine hours every weekday in an Advanced Learning school. Once, in a time that seemed like a lifetime ago, she had worked as a teacher in an elementary school, third and fourth graders, with an experimental year as an art teacher that had gone bust. She’d always had a passion for kids, even now.

  Murder was new. It had only been a part of her life for about a week and a half now. It had been much easier than she’d been expecting. It wasn’t fun, per se, but it was something that exercised the mind. She’d had to truly do some soul searching over the last several days and while murder was not an enjoyable act, it was far from the brutal evil act so many movies and television shows had made it out to be.