Eternal

by V. K. Forrest

  Fia frowned. “Really? He find anything of use?”

  Sutton looked up, chuckling. “Not a thing. Not even sure he looked, but that’s neither here nor there.” She looked down at the envelope, then back at Fia. “Truthfully, I don’t know why I called you.” She groaned. “This sounds stupid, but I’m at such a loss with this case, it’s so disturbing and…I felt as if you and I made some kind of connection that night at the scene.” She grabbed her napkin, lowering her voice. “And no, I’m not coming on to you, Special Agent Kahill. I’m strictly heterosexual, although I don’t get the chance to demonstrate it nearly as often as I’d like.”

  It was Fia’s turn to laugh. In another life, if she had another life, she might like to have been friends with this woman. “I didn’t think you were. And it’s Fia.”

  “Ann,” she said. “Look, Fia, I called because I’m at that point in the case where it’s time to box up the evidence and stick it on a shelf and I don’t want to do that. I was hoping you could look at this other case”—she tapped the manila envelope—“and tell me if you think this is the same guy.”

  Again, Fia eyed the envelope. She remembered feeling that night as if she had seen the girl…the alley…something before. “How old is it?”

  “Fifteen years in October. Crime scene was only two blocks from where Casey Mulvine was found. I’d like you to look at these photos. It didn’t occur to me at the time, but if you compare them to the Mulvine crime scene photos, I think maybe these girls were posed. She hesitated. “By the same killer.”

  “Serial killer who hasn’t struck in fifteen years?” Fia tried not to sound too much like the arrogant, doubting FBI agent she could sometimes be when dealing with local police.

  The lieutenant shrugged. “Told you, I’m grasping at straws. But I can’t get anyone in my office to bear with me long enough to consider the possibility and you…you were there. You got the vibes.”

  Fia wanted to crack a joke about the “vibes,” but she didn’t. Sutton’s observation was too accurate. Accurate enough to make Fia uncomfortable.

  “Serial killer,” Fia mused aloud.

  “Look…I know you don’t know me,” Sutton said, “but my instincts are good and I’m telling you, this is the same man. I don’t know if he’s killed others in the area and we just haven’t put it together, or if he’s been out of town or in jail, or happily married until his wife dumped him last month, but he’s done it before.” She paused. “And I’m afraid he’s going to do it again.”

  “I’ll have a look,” Fia agreed, reaching for the envelope. As her fingertips touched it, she felt that same eerie tingling she’d gotten the night she entered the alleyway to meet with Sutton.

  So, was it the crime or was it the cop?

  It’s the mature thing to do, Fia told herself as she cruised the block for a parking spot. It’s the only way to settle things between us. For good. The only way to put this relationship behind so I can move forward.

  She hadn’t really come up with the mantras on her own. All she was doing was repeating the things Kettleman had said in their session yesterday.

  Fia rounded the block again and braked behind a UPS truck double-parked. She glanced at the manila envelope on the seat beside her. She didn’t have to slide the faded photos out to see them. They were burned into her mind, the brand still sizzling at the edge of her tender flesh.

  Maria Pulchecko, age twenty-one. Blond, like Casey Mulvine. About the same height and weight. She was found in the alley behind what had been the Clover, a pseudo-Irish pub, in the eighties. The place had since been sucked into the city’s creeping blocks of renovations, old brick buildings that had been divided into one bedroom and studio apartments.

  A nursing student, Maria Pulchecko had also been raped and strangled, but with her bra, not bare hands. A slightly different MO than Mulvine’s killer. But what was giving off the creepy vibes was that she was found lying in the alleyway in a position almost identical to Casey’s. And, as Sutton had observed, she didn’t appear posed…not until you compared the two women. Then, they eerily appeared to be the same woman…the same crime scene.

  A copycat killer? Possibly. Who? A cop, an emergency technician, a neighbor who had seen Maria Pulchecko sprawled in the alley fifteen years ago and had been dying to mimic the crime?

  Fia laid on her horn. What was the UPS guy still doing out at eight o’clock at night? She craned her neck, trying to figure out if she could squeeze by him, but there wasn’t a chance. A massive SUV prevented that escape maneuver.

  More horns began to sound behind her and she glanced up in the rearview mirror. Being an agent, seeing dead women in alleys and men without their heads made her suspicious. Any one of the drivers behind her could be ready to blow a gasket, could pull a gun from his or her glove compartment and start taking potshots.

  A young Asian woman in a brown uniform jogged across the street, waved to Fia, and jumped into the UPS panel truck.

  Five minutes later, Fia had parked her car and was walking into the bistro where she had told Joseph she would meet him. It had to be somewhere public, she had insisted. And not a bar. He had a table for them in the back. She slipped into her chair, glancing at the candle flickering on the table between them and the single red rose in a bud vase beside the chrome salt and pepper shakers.

  “Could you have found a better-lit table?” she asked, tossing her bag on the chair beside her. Joseph had always been a romancer. And he’d been good at it. And he’d known it.

  “Hey, you picked the restaurant,” Joseph replied smoothly.

  She looked to the waiter. “A tonic water, please.” She glanced at Joseph. He’d shaved before he’d come and still smelled of expensive shaving cream. He’d always had a problem with a five o’clock shadow but he’d only ever shaved in the evening for big dates. “He’ll have another of whatever it is he’s drinking.”

  Fia waited for the waiter to walk away before she leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. “Okay, enough of this. I want to know why you’re here and when you’re going.”

  “Why I’m here?” He opened his arms innocently. He was wearing a designer linen shirt that was impeccably smooth, not a wrinkle to be seen. No tie. Entirely too much charm. “I told you why I’m here. Scouting out a new place for my partner and me to set up business. Elective plastic surgery has become a gold mine.”

  “So what was wrong with your business in California? Surely not everyone in Southern California has gotten a boob job yet.”

  “Fee, you’re such a cynic. So distrustful. Nothing was wrong. Everything was great. So great that we want to expand to the East Coast.”

  She didn’t like it when he called her Fee. That name was personal. Private. He no longer had a right to it. Hadn’t in a very long time.

  The waiter brought the drinks, but walked away without offering a menu.

  “I already ordered the foie gras and feta filo sachets.” He sat back, resting his ankle on his knee. “I told the waiter we would see how things went before ordering the entrées.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be staying long enough for an entrée.” Fia leaned forward. “Tell me what’s going on and don’t lie. You’re not a good liar.”

  He smiled. “Actually I am, Fee.”

  Actually, he was, but she wasn’t going to admit it. “You can’t be here. Not in this city. You agreed with me. We agreed, Joseph.”

  “We agreed, we agreed.” He reached for his fresh drink. “Years ago, Fee. We were kids.” He sipped from the glass. Something clear on the rocks. “Can’t we let bygones be bygones? Kiss and make up?”

  “There will be no kissing. No making up, Joseph.” She studied his face for a moment. He was very good at blocking his thoughts. It was as if she were standing in front of a brick wall when she tried to read his mind. Mentally, she stabbed at him. It was definitely a wall, but one with the tiniest chink in it…

  “What did you do, Joseph?” she hissed.

  He blinked.
“Do?”

  “In LA? Why did you have to leave?”

  For the first time since he’d reappeared in her life, she saw a flash of uncertainty on his face. Self-doubt. Maybe even self-loathing.

  “Joseph?”

  “It was nothing. A misunderstanding,” he said quickly.

  “But a big enough one that you had to move across the country?”

  “My partner and I really had been discussing opening another office.” He was practically whining when he said it.

  “So you’re admitting it. You did do something you shouldn’t have done.”

  He met her gaze. “Haven’t we all, Fee?”

  It was a direct accusation.

  “Oh, come on.” He slid forward, trying to take her hand, resting on the table. “I had a little problem with addiction. But I’m fine now. I’m great. And I’m ready to make a fresh start.”

  She pulled away.

  “We’re adults. Surely we could live in the same city.”

  “We couldn’t,” she insisted.

  He caught her hand and she didn’t pull away, not because she wanted him to touch her, but because she didn’t want to cause a scene. Not here, not this close to her office. Not so public. This wasn’t like in a bar where smoke and alcohol made people forget who and what they saw.

  “I need you, Fee,” Joseph whispered, holding her hand tightly in his. “I really need you. I’m still in love with you. I swear I am.”

  “Do you need help, Joseph? With this addiction? Because I know someone who’s really helped me. She’s an excellent psychiatrist that specializes in this sort of thing.”

  “You, a shrink?”

  Spotting the waiter approaching with two plates, she slipped her hand out of his and slid back a little in her chair. Joseph served both of them small portions of the foie gras and toasted bread rounds.

  “I’m serious,” she said. “I think you should see Dr. Kettleman. I think she could help you. Help you see that the two of us together isn’t going to work.”

  “You mean like the two of us go together? Like couples counseling?” He licked his fingers. “The foie gras is excellent, isn’t it?”

  Couples counseling was not what she had in mind. What she had in mind was for Joseph to pack up and leave town. Tonight. “I guess that’s a possibility,” she heard herself say. “Do you want me to call Dr. Kettleman? Make the appointment?”

  “How about if I think about it?” He winked and then pushed her plate toward her. “You’ve got to try the foie gras, Fee. It’s absolutely lovely.”

  Fia didn’t stay in the bistro long enough to order an entrée. She went back to her apartment intending to clean the litter box, change into a pair of boxers, and watch an old movie on TV. But at her apartment, she found herself restless. And before she really had time to think it through, she was getting out of her car in Lansdowne, just blocks from where Casey Mulvine had been murdered.

  Dressed in her favorite leather miniskirt and boots because the weather had turned cool, she hit two pubs, then wandered into a little pool hall that was blaring punk music. She took a seat at the bar between a guy with pink hair and another shaved bald. Mentally, she flipped a coin. Pink Hair was the lucky winner…maybe loser. Just depended on how you looked at it.

  He said his name was Drummer, which more than likely had something to do with the fact that he pounded the bar top, his leg, her leg, with his fingers. It was nonstop and got pretty irritating by her second tonic. But by then her other candidate, the bald guy, had moved on.

  Drummer was drinking shots of vodka. By the time she watched him down his fourth, she knew all about his band, his mother charging him rent to live in his own house, and his cat that had run away last night and he still hadn’t found him. She didn’t feel bad for him, but she did for the cat. Hoped it hadn’t been hit by a car or gotten into a fight with a dog.

  Fia didn’t have to suggest they go to his apartment in the basement of his mother’s row house, he invited her. Conveniently, it was in the direction of her parked car.

  There was a shortcut to his place. There always was. When she stopped him in the alley, grabbed the lapel of his leather coat, and pulled him against her, he swayed drunkenly.

  “Want me, don’t you babe?” he muttered, slobbering on her cheek as he tried to find her mouth.

  She wasn’t in the mood for small talk tonight. She grabbed him from behind by a hank of his pink hair, tilted his head back, and before he could say “mommy,” she sank her canines into his throat. As he fainted in her arms, she lapped up the oozing blood.

  Fia expected that hot rush of excitement, the trembling in her knees, the ripples of pleasure. She got none of it. It was if she were drinking lukewarm bathwater. Annoyed, she let him slip unceremoniously to the ground. Stepping over him, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She thought it was the first time she’d ever not enjoyed human blood.

  Maybe it was the bad aftertaste of the cheap vodka he drank. Or guilt. She didn’t know which one tasted worse.

  Chapter 15

  All week, Fia’s finger itched to punch Glen’s phone number into her cell. But she couldn’t come up with a good reason to call him, no matter how much negotiating she did with herself. Nothing had come back on the crime-scene evidence, and there were no unusual findings in the wet autopsy report. The impalement hadn’t killed him, but mostly because he was then beheaded.

  Fia did e-mail Glen to let him know he should have received a copy of the report as well, but he hadn’t responded. She’d kind of hoped he’d write back, but when he didn’t, she couldn’t decide why. She knew it wasn’t her imagination; they’d definitely made a connection last week. But he was engaged. Maybe he wasn’t interested in connections. Or maybe she was reading entirely too much into his lack of response. He had, after all, warned her that he wasn’t good at e-mail.

  Thursday evening, Fia was surprised to hear from Sorcha. She called to invite Fia for a “girls’ night” Saturday at her place. She also made mention of a matter they needed to discuss, but wouldn’t give any details, promising she would explain when Fia arrived.

  Fia surprised herself by agreeing to go. Maybe she was intrigued by the matter Sorcha referred to. Maybe she just wanted to get out of Philly and away from Joseph. Or maybe she was beginning to realize how homesick she was. Clare Point wasn’t all bad; the people weren’t all that bad. And Sorcha was right; they had been good friends. Fia thought maybe she missed her more than she realized.

  Fia showed up at Sorcha’s little duplex house on the beach Saturday night, just as the sun was setting, with a bottle of vodka and a tray of good sushi she’d picked up at a gourmet deli near her apartment.

  “You came!” Sorcha met Fia on the front porch with a big hug. “Come on in. We’re making martinis, then I thought we’d sit out here. The weather’s so divine.” She grinned, seeming tickled with herself as well as with Fia.

  Fia caught a snippet of Sorcha’s thoughts. Something about Fia having the guts to come. Fia wondered what she meant, but didn’t want to know the answer badly enough to ask.

  “Last renters for the season left this morning,” Sorcha bubbled, waving Fia inside. “I’ve got the place all to myself until April!”

  Fia followed Sorcha into the large eat-in kitchen that had recently been remodeled. “This is great,” she said, feeling a little awkward. She didn’t socialize much in Philadelphia beyond bar stools and grocery shopping with Betty, who was too hard of hearing to expect much in the way of conversation.

  “I’ll be damned.” Eva, who was standing at the granite counter pouring liquor into a martini shaker, pointed to Sorcha. “I owe you five bucks.” She looked to Fia. “I bet Sorcha you wouldn’t come.”

  “I said I was coming,” Fia protested, laughing as she set down her hostess gifts.

  “I still bet you weren’t coming.” Eva picked up the bottle of vodka Fia had brought. “But Belvedere? Glad you did.”

  “Hey, there.” Shannon came out of t
he powder room. “I thought that was your voice I heard.” She surprised Fia by throwing her arms around her and giving her a big hug. “Glad you could come.”

  “You are?”

  Shannon made a face as she slid onto one of the stools on the far side of the breakfast bar. “You bet. I’m going into the woods tonight after midnight, believe me, holy Saint Mary, I want an FBI agent with me.”

  “We’re going into the woods?”

  “I didn’t tell her.” Sorcha pretended to whisper a secret to the other two women.

  “You didn’t tell her?” Eva put the lid on the antique glass-and-chrome martini shaker and began to shake it.

  “Didn’t tell me what?”

  Shannon peeled back the plastic wrap on the tray of sushi and chose a piece of tuna and seaweed. “You gotta tell her.”

  “And I’m going to.” Sorcha carried four martini glasses to the counter.

  “I think maybe I’ll pass on the martinis.” Fia raised her hand to stop Eva from pouring her one. After her behavior at the party last weekend, Fia was thinking that “no alcohol beyond Tavia’s ale” was a good rule of thumb.

  “Come on, you have to have a martini,” Sorcha protested. “How can you come to girls’ martini night and not have a martini?”

  “You’re going to want a drink before you hear this one.” Eva elbowed Fia. “Shannon thinks that Kaleigh and some of the other girls are practicing some kind of witchcraft on the game preserve.”

  Fia reached for a glass. “Maybe just a small one.”

  “So do you really think there’s such a thing as witches?” Shannon whispered in the dark, only a stride behind Fia.

  The four women had retired to Sorcha’s front porch with their martini shaker and talked until after midnight. Fia had managed to say no after one green-apple martini and one wedding-cake martini, so her head was clear as they entered the game preserve. Her weapon, strapped into the leather holster she wore over her black Nike T-shirt, was loaded. For what, she didn’t know, but ever since they left the parking lot, taking the same deer trail into the woods that she and Glen had followed a little more than a week ago, she’d had a bad feeling.