“And COD?” Croft asked. He knew that her health didn't matter. All that mattered now was finding the animal who stole her life.
“Again, she was killed by the same method. I found her hyoid wasn’t broken either, and she was dead before he strung her up.”
Emma was running this case, so she needed to start handing out the duties.
“Paris, you’re on profile. I need to know why this sicko is doing this to the women. It seems odd to me that he’s killing them, dragging them to a forest, and decorating the trees with their corpses.”
Dante whistled. “That’s definitely crazy.”
They were all aware.
Emma continued, “Tessa and Mace, can you handle the research? We’re going to have to interview anyone who knew these two women.”
Tessa glanced over at her fiancé. It was hard not to think back to her last male partner--before Curtis. It rubbed Paris the wrong way. When he simply winked at her, she knew he was fine with her partnering up with the Native cop.
What a relief.
“We can do that, Emma,” Mace stated, finishing his muffin. It looked like they were going to be tied to some desks on this one.
“Emma?” Steele began, getting her attention before she could go on.
“Yes?”
“Before you get started, there’s something else we need to discuss. I know you’re ready to jump into this one, but I need to lay out all the facts.”
“What?”
He lowered his voice. “Brynn was definitely alive when she was hung up in that tree. She fought to get down. The other two women had no DNA under their nails, but she had a ton under hers.”
“Okay, so he didn't kill her. Maybe he thought she was dead, and when he lifted her from the ground, she came to?”
“I don’t think so. This is like a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit for me. I thought about it all night, and it’s off.”
They stared at him.
“What has you all stirred up, Steele?” Greyson asked. The fact of the matter was, this man was good at his job. Yes, he hired him to work on his team, but it wasn’t all because of his brother. Croft saw intelligence in the man, and that was always welcome in the FBI.
“As I was doing the autopsies, there were too many inconsistencies.”
Emma was curious. “Like?”
“First, there’s the rope. It was the same for the first two women, but then Brynn’s was different,” he offered. “I know that may seem insignificant, but it’s bugging me.”
Paris shook his head. “It’s not insignificant, Doctor. Every piece matters.”
Croft agreed.
“Okay, go on,” stated Greyson, making mental notes as his ME broke it all down. “You’re part of this team, and if you see something off, point it out.”
“Thank you. I’m bothered that Brynn was knocked out when she was taken. The other two women didn't have a scratch on them. All three were clean when it came to tox, but that bump on the noggin was likely how the killer subdued her.”
They made notes.
“So you’re tagging that he overpowered the other two relatively easy, but had to really take Brynn out.”
“Yes. I know she’s a cop, but if you look at the three victims, Brynn was the smallest. Cop or not, she was struck from behind. Why?”
There could be a million reasons, like she knew her killer, or that her abductor was afraid she’d get to her gun.
The list was long.
Steele continued, “Another discrepancy is the location of the body dump. The first two women were left on state game lands, but Brynn was left in a state park.”
They all looked around.
“Doc, we upped the patrols around the game lands. That might be why he switched it up,” Mace suggested. “Maybe he saw the patrol and moved it to the next best thing.”
He shrugged. “Okay, I’ll give you that, but then I want to add two more things, and it might sway you to my side of the argument.”
“Okay,” Greyson said, “shoot.”
“The first two victims, when they came to me, were logged in with their clothes intact. That’s everything, but when I was stripping Brynn, her panties were missing.”
They looked around.
That alone screamed sexual assault. “So she was raped?” Emma asked, her voice barely a whisper.
Steele shrugged. “The clock rape test says no. There was no bruising or tearing.”
They looked around.
Steele continued, “If that’s not weird enough, then let’s go with the fact her purse, gun, and badge were gone too. On the other victims, they were missing jewelry. Brynn had her wedding band, earrings, and necklace still on her.”
That had their attention.
“He took souvenirs, but the wrong ones?” Tessa asked.
Ford found the way their team worked fascinating. “So, Doctor Bentley, do you believe that there are two killers?”
He nodded. “Yes. I really can’t see one person doing this. There are too many discrepancies. I’ve been doing this a damn long time.”
Paris interjected, playing devil’s advocate, “Or he’s switching it up, since he realized he grabbed a cop. Maybe he took her, saw the badge, and then thought, ‘oh, shit!’.”
Steele didn't mind them questioning him. This was his job, and he was supposed to give them the facts and let them solve it. This was all part of the process. Deep down, he prayed he was wrong, but it didn't feel that way.
“Well, yes, that could have happened.”
Emma glanced over at her partner. “Mace? You look like you want to say something.”
“I do, but it’s pretty shitty.”
They braced for it.
“There’s one way to know for sure. We’re going to have to wait for the next victim. When that body pops up, we’ll be able to compare it against the first three. If it follows Brynn’s murder, we’ll know the killer is just crazy. If it reverts back to the first two women, we’ll know the doctor is spot on.”
Yeah, that was shitty.
“It shouldn’t take long,” he admitted. “Our killer is dropping bodies two days apart.”
Paris spoke up, “That’s not going to give us much time, especially if he escalates.”
Greyson looked at the date on his calendar. “Then we shouldn’t have one until tomorrow night.”
“There’s one more damning piece of evidence,” stated Steele. “It’s the pink elephant in the room. I know no one wants to go there, but Brynn had sex. I’m positive it wasn’t rape. So where are her panties, why didn't he bag up, and who the hell is it from?”
It was time for Greyson to fill them in on the rest. Normally, he’d keep this to himself, but the team needed to clear Curtis. He was the husband. The media would sway the world to believe he’d killed his wife.
Now that Steele found aberrations, they would claim copycat killing to cover his trail. That’s the last thing they needed, and Croft was going to cut it off at the pass.
“We need to keep this quiet,” he prefaced. When they all glanced over, he continued, “The semen isn't going to be Curtis’s. Those aren’t his swimmers,” he said, lowering his voice. He was aware the man could wake up at any time, and this was a bad conversation to have with him in earshot.
“I know that already,” stated Steele. “I have the results from the DNA test.”
They all waited on baited breath.
“This is going to make your jobs a million times worse.”
That didn't sound good--at all.
“Who?” Ford asked.
“After being jumped by your brother this morning, I had a call from Max.”
No one flinched. Maybe Steele did it to see if he could really trust the people around him, or maybe he did it to rattle his boyfriend’s cage.
There was nothing sexier than an agitated Croft.
“The semen had a positive match in the database. It was easy to find it because we had it on file.”
“Some sicko, rig
ht?” Ford stated, getting angry.
Steele shook his head. “No. It seems that Brynn had sex with a Greg McGuire right before her death.”
They looked around when the name didn't ring a bell.
“Who’s that?” Croft asked.
“His name popped in the police database. He’s a detective in the vice division, and her partner before she died.”
Ford started cursing.
Croft closed his eyes and rested his head on the back of the couch. He knew this was going to make one hell of a mess on their end. Now they had a married detective having sex with her partner, and he had to be investigated.
Vice’s captain was going to flip his shit over this.
In fact, the entire squad was going to be pissed off at them. It looked like the FBI was trying to nail a cop to the wall. It was never good for interdepartmental relations.
Never.
“You have to be kidding me,” Ford stated.
Steele shook his head. “Sorry, but that’s what we have. The sperm doesn’t lie. Detective Westmore-Briggs was having an affair.”
The implication silenced all of them.
“Oh shit,” muttered Tessa. She knew exactly what that meant. “Curtis told me two weeks ago that he was thinking of hiring a detective to follow his wife.”
They all focused on her.
“He thought she was cheating.”
Greyson and Emma were the only two not shocked by that, and clearly their faces showed it.
“You knew?” Ford asked.
“He admitted that he wasn’t sleeping with his wife for the last month. He also said the sex was over. I was about to tell you but Steele beat me to the punch.”
“Jesus,” muttered Dante. “This is going to sting.”
Croft sighed. “Yeah, it is, and we have a huge mess. We have a killer, and now two more suspects to add to the list--this detective and Curtis.”
They all got it.
“This is why I didn't want the media to get their hands on this. If Curtis knew she was cheating, and then finds out he wanted to die, they’re going to judge him on that. They’re going to say that he could have killed her. Add in that we know that Steele thinks it’s likely two different killers, and we have an ever-growing pile of shit.”
Paris tried to reassure them. “We really need to see what happens with the next victim. It’s my opinion we run this like it’s one killer until we have more. She could have been grabbed after her liaison, and that clears the detective. She also could have had her purse and gear taken in a panic. The killer might have freaked out when he noticed she was a cop.”
They all wished it was that easy. It still left Curtis swinging on this. He was the only one who didn't have an escape route out of this mess.
“What can you give us, Paris?” Croft asked. “I know it’s early, and you’re just getting the autopsy reports, but what can you tell us? We need you to point us in a direction.”
He thought about it.
“Please, Paris,” Emma stated.
Tessa dropped her hand on his leg, offering him reassurance. He patted her fingers and did his job.
“The killer is going to be in his thirties or forties. He’s going to be methodical. Since he’s not killing the women and stringing them up right there, he’s using this area for a reason. That takes planning. I know he’s not hiding them. Yes, the forest is big, but he’s placing them in the trees. His goal is to have them found or he would have killed them and dug a hole. He’s displaying them for the world to see.”
“Okay, and?” Emma urged.
“He’s covering their faces, and that speaks volumes. He’s ashamed and can’t look them in the eye. For some reason, these women shame him. I’d go with some personal connection. It’s deep rooted and damaging him. This screams mother issues. That’s my gut instinct.”
That was a decent start.
“He’s going to be a watcher. He’s picking these women for a reason. If we do have one killer, Brynn is going to be included in that. At some point, she crossed his path, and since she was in vice, that seems possible. They work in the seedy part of town and generally undercover. He might have picked her not knowing she was a cop.”
He paused.
“What?” Ford asked.
“Or he picked her because of it. We won’t know until we get more information.”
Well, that sealed it.
Croft glanced over at Ford. “We need her files. She may have touched on something while she was investigating, and that could have put her in the killer’s line of sight. We’re going to have to retrace her steps and hope we run into a nutjob.”
Chris Ford knew how hard that was going to be. Greyson might as well have asked him to singlehandedly clean up Vegas. Vice wasn’t his division …it was going to be tricky. He was going to have to butt heads against the captain of vice, and once the man found out one of his detectives was banging the dead cop...
It was going to be ugly.
There was no quicker way to seal the mouth of a cop than to accuse a fellow officer.
“We might be able to help,” Steele offered. “There are hundreds of pieces of trace for each woman. Max and his team are going over them right now. If we pull something, I’ll send it over.”
“Anything that stands out?” Tessa asked.
“Nothing particular as of yet. We have a lot of hair, fibers, and other innocuous things. I know it’s like a needle in a haystack, but we’ll do our part.”
“Is there anything else?” Greyson asked his ME.
“Not that I’m aware of right now. I’m going to head in and get my other cases done. Then I’ll go back over our victims. I don’t want to piss off the other Feds. I bumped the three vics ahead of other cases, and you’ll be getting complaints if I don’t’ get them done.”
When he stood, he leaned over and gave Dante a kiss. Before, he wouldn’t have been so brazen in a room full of people, but they weren’t going to hide anymore.
“See you later, babe. Stay safe,” Dante said, as his boyfriend left.
No one in the room flinched except for Captain Ford. “Wow, I didn't see that coming,” he stated.
Immediately, Dante went on edge. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.
Croft gave his brother a look. If he was going to come out, this was going to happen.
“I only meant that I now have hope.”
Emma lifted a brow. “Why?” she asked.
“Maybe Greyson will dump you and go after men so I can scoop you up. Women who cook are a commodity.”
She started laughing that the man went there.
It was obvious that Greyson didn't find it nearly as funny. Instead, he gave the captain a look. “Over my dead, cold body.”
Dante relaxed. He should have known that someone his brother and sister-in-law called friend wouldn’t be obnoxious.
Before Greyson could make a comment about Ford checking out his wife, the captain’s phone chimed.
Then the cursing started.
“Shit! We have a problem.”
They all paused.
“What?” Emma asked.
“Our hopes of keeping this quiet are deader than a doornail. The captain of vice just texted me, and they know about Brynn being dead.”
“How the hell?” Croft asked. “We locked this down pretty tight. She’s supposed to be off from work today.”
“TV.”
That said it all.
The media vultures had struck again.
Emma grabbed the remote and the TV came to life. All seven of them watched as their hopes of keeping this under wraps went down the drain. On the screen, Lewis Reynolds, a reporter with the Vegas news, was reporting.
Someone gave him all the details.
The public now knew that a detective was dead, she was strangled, hooded, and left for her old partner, Emma Croft to find her.
“Shit!” Greyson muttered. “We have a leak and they just pointed the media at us.”
; Emma couldn’t believe it.
They’d been so careful.
“They just reported everything we have. There’s nothing left for the imagination. This is going to make it that much harder to do our jobs.”
Paris shook his head. “This is bad. If this was the killer, he’s upping his game. He wants to take this public. He’s on a mission, and they’re the most dangerous people to hunt.”
Croft was well aware.
“We have to get moving, and fast.”
Emma knew it was time to get their asses moving. Time was ticking, and the media had just started the clock. “Paris, you, Tessa, and Mace have to start digging. We need to know everything about victims one and two.”
They got up and rolled out.
Captain Ford didn't need to be told his job. He was going to have to head to vice and smooth this out with them. Then he was going to have to fight to keep this in their house. There was no doubt in his mind that vice had asked to handle Brynn’s murder as a special circumstance.
If the shoe was on the other foot, he would have done the same thing.
“I’ll cut off Captain Sherwood. He’s heading vice, and I might be able to smooth this over,” he stated, chugging his coffee. “Report in as soon as you can,” he stated.
With that, he was gone.
“Dante, you’re on babysitting.”
“What are you two going to do?” he asked.
Emma knew it was now an uphill race. They were going to have to get to Detective McGuire before vice, the media, and anyone else did.
“We’re on interviews,” Croft stated.
Emma grabbed her things, tucking them into her bag. Greyson did the same, holstering his weapon.
“Keep Curtis away from the TV,” he ordered.
“How the hell am I supposed to do that?” Dante asked.
“Bro, I don’t care, but figure it out. Play a video game, take him to the gym downstairs, but don’t let him watch the damn news! The last thing he needs is to hear that the media is using his dead wife as the lead in story.”
They headed out, hoping they could contain this before it was too late.
They didn't have high hopes.
* * * Croft & Croft * * *
Hell Is Burning Page 12