by Chase, T. A.
Mac chuckled. “Sounds good to me, but we need to do some work tonight.”
“I know.”
Tanner started to clear the table, and Mac stood to help him. They got the dishwasher filled and ready quickly. Mac grabbed two more beers out of the refrigerator while Tanner turned it on. Mac set the bottles down and turned, reaching out to rest his hands on Tanner’s hips.
“Before we get into the photos and all the other shit, I need to kiss you.”
Mac could see his declaration surprised Tanner slightly by the widening of the man’s eyes. Yet there wasn’t any protest as he pulled Tanner close and brought their lips together. Mac tasted the tang of the barbecue sauce mixed with the hops from Tanner’s beer. He slid his hands around to grip Tanner’s ass, and Mac deepened the kiss, sweeping his tongue in to tease and duel with Tanner’s.
Tanner cradled the back of Mac’s head and caressed the skin at his nape. Matching moans filled the air as they pressed their groins together. Shit! All he’d thought about the entire day was how tight Tanner’s ass had been around his cock, and those thoughts appeared at the most inappropriate times.
Easing back, he rested his forehead against Tanner’s and breathed. “You’re like a drug I’m becoming addicted to totally by accident.”
“I know.” Tanner rubbed his thumb over Mac’s bottom lip. With a sigh, Tanner stepped away. “We do need to work. Tell me how your talk with Billingsley went. He didn’t seem too upset when you showed up at my office.”
Mac grimaced. “He wasn’t happy, but he let me stay on the case. Actually it wasn’t Cap I had problems with this morning. Sorensterm threatened to out me to the others.”
“The bastard. What’s his deal?” Tanner scowled.
“He’s homophobic, and after you showed up with me at the last crime scene, he made some comments about you. I told him to never use those words around me. I also said I didn’t care who you slept with as long as you did your job.”
Tanner squeezed his shoulder. “Of course, saying all of that means you’re fucking me, because a real man would agree with him. I’ve run into a few guys like that in the bureau. For the most part, though, they accepted me. I don’t flaunt my personal life in their faces.”
Mac nodded. “But you can see why I hesitate to come out, right? I’m not willing to risk my career and my life to tell the truth. I’ve never lied about dating women. Most of the other rangers assume I’m very private. They know better than to ask me about my personal life.”
“Sometimes it’s easier to say nothing and let them think what they want.”
Tanner led the way to the living room.
After sitting on the couch, Mac glared at the folders on Tanner’s coffee table. “I’m not looking forward to this. I’ve gone through those files so many times I think I have them memorized. I’m not sure looking at everything again will make any difference.”
“It can’t hurt.” Tanner joined him and bumped their shoulders together. “There has to be a connection between them. We just haven’t found it yet.”
“Of course there is. We have to figure out why he picks the girls he does. What is it about them he wants to kill? Is it really them or what they represent that he’s killing?”
Tanner grabbed Marissa’s file and leaned back against the cushions. “I’ve been working on that. To be honest, I haven’t quite figured out why he kills them the way he does, aside from the fact he likes knives and is comfortable with them.”
Mac frowned. “Does he need another reason than that? I would think slicing a woman until she bleeds is usually done because her killer wants her to suffer a rather painful death.”
“If this was a crime of passion and just one victim, I’d say yes. Our perp wants the woman to be frightened and struggle. But there are five victims and nothing I’ve seen of the crime scenes says this is a crime of passion. He coldly stalks and takes them without any fear of getting caught. That means he knows what he’s doing.” Tanner snatched up a pencil and a pad of paper. “I think I’ll search the database to see if there are any unsolved crimes fitting this pattern.”
“We already did that when we realized we had a serial killer on our hands. Nothing came up but some drug-related killings. We’re pretty sure none of these women were involved in drugs or had anything to do with that business.” Mac steeled himself and picked up Linda Happleston, the first victim. “I wish they were all blondes, or all Hispanic, or something like that. Some obvious connection. I hate when they get sneaky.”
Tanner snorted. “There is a connection between them, and you’ll find it, Mac. You don’t have all the information on the last victim yet, so there’s still stuff out there you don’t know about them.”
“I feel like each one of these ladies was a good friend,” Mac muttered.
“And the deeper you dig into their lives, the more intrusive it feels, yet I’m sure they wouldn’t mind as long as it caught their killer in the end.” Tanner paused for a second, his head tilted like he’d thought of something. “Did you say the only murders you found in the database resembling these were drug related?”
“Yeah. There were one or two in Texas, a couple in Arizona, and a few in California.” Mac dug through the files, trying to remember which one he had opened when he got the information. “Here.”
He tugged Amy Bradley’s file out. She was the third victim and the one clueing them in to the fact that a serial killer wandered the streets of Houston. Tanner took it from him.
“I wrote down the case numbers and stuck it in her file. Do you think there might be a connection we haven’t found yet?”
“Hmmm…” Tanner flipped open the folder and shuffled through the papers to pull the right one out.
Mac watched his lover stand and stroll over to the laptop set up on the desk in the corner of the living room. He shrugged when Tanner didn’t answer him. He didn’t think any of the women were druggies or mules used by the drug cartels to move product. None of them had boyfriends connected to the trade. Every one of the victims seemed perfectly ordinary. None of them engaged in activities putting them in danger, unless one counted going to the clubs of Houston dangerous. Knowing what he knew about what went on in those clubs, Mac would consider them dangerous for women. Of course, not all the women frequented those places, so it didn’t really count as a link between them.
He pulled out Linda’s credit card statements. He hadn’t made it through all of them yet. Linda was a shopper and had a lot of cards to various stores around the city. His head pounded at the thought of having to stare at all those numbers and try to figure out any small thing connecting her to the other women.
There was a Post-it note stuck on the last page. After reading it, he double-checked the charge to Tim’s Gym. Something jogged his memory, and he scrambled to dig out the statements from all the other victims. He swore softly when he realized they didn’t have Marissa’s statements yet.
“Hey, did you ever get a copy of Marissa’s credit card statements?” He glanced over at Tanner.
“Not yet. I asked about them earlier today, but the detective I talked with said they hadn’t arrived.” Tanner typed, his fingers flying over the keyboard. “You might want to check your e-mail. They might have come in this afternoon while you were gone.”
“Good idea. I have to go out and get my briefcase from the car.”
Tanner grunted, intent on whatever he was looking at on his screen. Mac smiled as he left the house and walked to his car. At least Tanner’s dedication to his job gave Mac hope they’d catch the bastard sooner rather than later, though knowing there would be another killing coming made his stomach clench.
He popped his trunk and bent to grab his briefcase. Out of the corner of his eye, Mac spotted a dark Suburban parked on the opposite side of the street several houses down from Tanner’s. Nothing about the vehicle screamed suspicious, yet Mac’s cop instincts pinged on the SUV. He couldn’t tell if anyone was in the vehicle because the windows were tinted black.
The angle he stood at didn’t give him a good look at the license plate. Frowning, Mac considered going up to the vehicle, but what if there was some kind of stakeout happening in the neighborhood? He didn’t want to interrupt it. With a shrug, he headed back inside.
“Hey, Tanner, have you seen a black Suburban parked on your street before?”
Tanner glanced up at him and nodded. “A few times. Tinted windows and making all your cop vibes go off?”
“Yeah.” Mac set his briefcase on the dining table and opened it before pulling out his laptop. “Does it belong to someone in the neighborhood or is something going down around here?”
“I think it belongs to someone who visits one of the neighborhood teenagers. I keep an eye on it and everything, but so far nothing bad’s happened in the area.” Tanner waved a hand in the general direction of the kitchen. “I have the license number written down just in case. I ran it, and nothing came up.”
“I should have known you would be on top of it.” Mac booted up his computer and carried it over to the coffee table.
“Why did you want to know about the credit card statements? Do you think you might have something?” Tanner stood and stretched.
The small patch of tanned skin revealed by the lifting of Tanner’s shirt distracted Mac for a second. When it disappeared under fabric, he reminded himself of Tanner’s question.
“I might, or at least one of the detectives who’s been going through the statements might. So far two of our victims have charged something at Tim’s Gym. I’m hoping the others will as well.”
“It’s a start. Could be where he’s finding them, but I’m still struggling to figure out how he picks them.” Tanner took a copy of the head shot from each file and spread them on the table. He stood there, studying them again. “It’s there, just at the edge of my mind, but I can’t grasp it. Usually finding the underlying connection is as easy as looking at them. Not this group. Different heights, weights, hair color, and eye color. Nothing is the same on each of them.”
Mac watched Tanner tug his bottom lip and bit his own to keep his needy groan from bursting free. They still had more work to do before he could take Tanner to bed. He dropped his gaze to the screen in front of him and opened his e-mail. Scrolling through his new messages, he found one from the detective he’d given the job of collecting all the statements from the various card companies.
Clicking on the attachment, he downloaded it to his files and opened it along with the other electronic statements he had from the other victims’ cards. He did a search for Tim’s Gym.
“Shit. I’m not sure it’s anything more than a coincidence,” he muttered as he scrolled through the different papers.
“Why?” Tanner didn’t move from where he stood at the table.
“Because only two of them charged something at Tim’s Gym. Not even at the same location.” He pushed the computer away from him and stood, pacing the floor. “I don’t believe he’s picking them randomly. If he was, he wouldn’t be stalking them for days before he grabs them.”
Tanner shook his head. “He’s mentally organized. Each action is thought out beforehand. He knows where he’s taking her once he grabs the woman. He knows where he’s going to dump the body. Each woman is killed by around the same number of strokes.”
“What? Why didn’t you say that during our meeting with MacLaughlin and Billingsley?” Mac propped his fists on his hips and glared at Tanner. “It might have been important.”
“It is important, but not to discovering his identity. It helps me form a profile of his psyche. That’s all. Trust me, if I thought it would help give you an idea of who he is, I’d have told you as soon as I figured it out.” Tanner turned and met his gaze. “I’m surprised one of you didn’t catch on to that. It’s in the ME’s reports.”
“I haven’t had a chance to go through all of them yet. Sorensterm was the lead on those, and we know how he feels about me.” Mac shoved his hand through his hair. “Not a good enough excuse, is it?”
“Not really.” Tanner nodded toward the files. “You should pull them out and read through them. Marissa’s arrived today. The ME put a rush on it because any new information we can get will help.”
Mac held his hand over Marissa’s file and hesitated. “Shit, I don’t want to know all the fucked-up stuff he did to her.”
Tanner gripped Mac’s shoulder tight. “I know, but I can tell you, he didn’t do anything different to her than he did to the others. I will say Marissa must have been more difficult than the others. She sustained more cuts than the other women. While the wounds were within the thirty to forty amount, it was higher than the others.”
“Why?” Not sure what emotion prompted him, Mac reached up and entwined his fingers with Tanner’s.
“Why what? Why was her count higher than the others? Or why does he only cut them between thirty and forty times?” Tanner sat next to him and pressed close, their hands dropping to lie on his thigh.
“Both, I guess.” Mac didn’t want to hear how Marissa had died. How scared she had been and how much pain she had been in. He didn’t want to think about how he couldn’t save her. It didn’t matter that he didn’t even know Marissa was in danger until it had been too late. He still felt like he should have done something to keep her alive.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Tanner murmured as he laid his head on Mac’s shoulder.
Mac shrugged his other shoulder. “It feels like it is. I’ve been working this case for six weeks. I should have something on him, so we can warn women about him.”
“That’s not how things work, Mac, and you know it. If you haven’t caught him within the first forty-eight hours of the killing, then it’s going to get harder and harder to find him.”
“For your usual murder case,” he pointed out.
Tanner stroked his thumb over Mac’s knuckles. “But in a serial murder case, you have to treat each victim as a separate case while you’re gathering evidence. Sure there are a ton of clues to connect it to the other murders, but who’s to say that with the latest one, he didn’t get sloppy. Maybe someone saw him around Marissa right before she disappeared or someone saw his vehicle. Once you have him on one case, you connect him to the others.”
Mac dropped his head and stared at the carpet under his feet. “In my mind, I know all this, and I know it’s not my fault Marissa died, but my heart’s a different story. Aside from José, she’s the only person I ever chose to care about, and she’s gone now. See why I don’t get emotionally involved with people? Some way or another, they always leave, even if they don’t mean to do it.”
Tanner remained quiet. Had he offended the man, or was Tanner trying to figure out a way to back out of what was happening between them? Mac admitted to himself he liked Tanner way more than he should, and wasn’t that fucked up. They’d only met recently, and already they were lovers, yet even without the intense attraction he felt for the agent, Mac knew they’d have been friends.
“I don’t know anything about your background, except what you told me.” Tanner held up his hand to stop Mac. “And I don’t need to know any of it unless you want to enlighten me. But from what you’ve said, I guess I understand how you feel about Marissa and about caring for people. No one I loved ever walked away from me. I was young when my mother left my father, so it didn’t affect me much unless you count clinging tighter to my mother.”
Silence reigned in the room for a few minutes as Mac thought about his mother. He didn’t know much about her, only that the authorities had taken him away when he was five because she was an addict. He’d never wanted to know anything more about her. He scrubbed his face with his free hand and sighed.
“We need to get some work done. I need something to give to Billingsley tomorrow. I want to show him he did the right thing by keeping me on the case.”
Tanner laughed softly and pushed to his feet. “Tell him you think he’s picking them up at gyms or at least that’s where he finds them.”
Ma
c shot Tanner a surprised glance. “Gyms? What makes you say that? Only two of them went to Tim’s Gym.”
“I didn’t say he found them at the same gym, simply that he finds them at gyms. You said they all had memberships, right? It might not seem like a big deal since they didn’t go to the same one, but trust me, I’ve got a hunch it’s where he starts.”
With that pronouncement, Tanner strolled back to the dining room table and began to stare at the photos again. Mac studied Tanner’s straight back for a moment before turning to his computer and doing what Tanner suggested.
He searched through credit card statements and other bills gathered in the victims’ names. Still only two had gym memberships listed. Mac frowned but kept digging. Tanner knew what he was doing, and even though they’d just met, Mac trusted Tanner’s instincts already.
An hour later, he found what he was looking for and shouted.
“Hot damn!” He entered the information on the main case file page before highlighting it on each victim’s file. “You were right, Tanner. They all went to the gym.”
Tanner didn’t reply, and Mac twisted around to see what the other man was doing. Tanner stood in almost the exact same position as an hour before, still staring at the photos, though Mac noticed something different about the pictures. After standing, he walked over to where Tanner stood and got a glimpse of what he studied now.
The enlarged copies of the wound carved into each woman’s breast were laid out on the table with each head shot. The carvings stood out red against the rather pale flesh of each victim, and Mac winced at the thought of how much pain they’d felt while the killer etched his signature into their skin.
“They were dead when he did it.” Tanner didn’t look away from the gallery of photos.
“How did you know what I was thinking?” He leaned closer to Tanner, absorbing the man’s warmth and musky scent.
“I thought the same thing when I first saw it on the fifth victim’s chest, but as I traced the lines, I realized there wasn’t any blood anywhere around the wound. This is his true ritual. This is the one thing he must complete the same way each time.” Tanner trailed his finger around the outside edge of each swirl. “This is what’s going to help us catch him. We study this mark, and we’ll begin to understand why he does what he does.”