Never Look Back

by Mary Burton

  “More jagged,” Shepard said.

  “Exactly.” Dr. Connor held out the finger. “This kind of clean cut would also have required some strength. A weaker person would have worked the handle of the cutters repeatedly, leaving more tears and marks.”

  “Our killer is a physically strong man,” Shepard said.

  “I’d say so,” Dr. Connor said.

  Ramsey inspected the severed digit. Over the years he had seen dozens of ways humans could mutilate and dismember each other. The only way to professionally process and then proceed was to remain distant from the fact it was a human.

  The doctor placed the finger back in its original position on the table.

  “Symbolically, the right hand is considered the physical hand and has greater visibility,” Ramsey said. “The left hand represents character and beliefs. Romantic promise. Chastity.”

  “Isn’t there usually a sexual element with serial killers?” Shepard asked.

  “In most cases, yes,” Ramsey replied. “And if not sexual, gratification is attained through the victim’s suffering or death.”

  “This guy has a complex with the ladies,” she challenged. He could see her cheeks flush as if she were trying to control her temper. Most would not have noticed the subtle change, but he did. “What kind of sexual fantasy expresses itself this way?”

  “It’s important not to prejudge,” Ramsey said. “If you get angry, it could cloud your judgment.”

  “Funny, I find anger fuels me,” she said.

  “Anger is easy,” Ramsey said carefully. “Dispassion takes practice.”

  Shepard shoved out a sigh. “You’re saying if our killer quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, he might not be a duck?”

  “If you mean he’s not sexually motivated, then yes.”

  “Fair enough.” She shifted her attention back to the doctor. “Which two fingers belong to Cindy and Nina?”

  “Cindy Patterson’s is the one I just showed you,” Dr. Connor said. “And Nina Hall’s is the one to the right of it.”

  “And the other four?” she asked. “What can you tell me about them?”

  “The next three appear to be a little more recent. Maybe in the last five or six years. And the last finger is very recent, as in the last couple of weeks.”

  Shepard rocked back on her heels. “Could it be Christina Sanchez?” she asked. “According to Elena, her mother just died.”

  “I don’t know,” Dr. Connor said.

  “Hopefully we have a missing persons case on file. Were all the fingers removed postmortem?” Shepard asked.

  “Yes,” Dr. Connor said.

  Shepard reached for her cell phone. “Though two similar victims are not enough to establish a firm pattern, we can still reference their profiles. Given that set of guidelines, we’re looking for a deceased Caucasian female, potentially blond and in her late thirties.”

  “Can’t speak to the hair color, but age sounds right,” Dr. Connor said. “I can tell you this office has had no female victims that were brought in with missing fingers for as long as I can remember.”

  “If the victim hasn’t been brought here, then area cops don’t know about her either. Doesn’t mean there wasn’t a missing persons report filed.” As Shepard tapped the phone against her thigh, it chimed with a text. She glanced at the number and frowned. “Excuse me.” She opened the phone. Agent Shepard, this is Richard Barnard, Elena Sanchez’s caseworker. The hospital wants to release her by Wednesday to one of my foster families. Call me at your convenience.

  She read the text aloud, straightening her shoulders and rolling her head from side to side. If he had not been paying attention, he would have missed a series of expressions implying distaste for social services. As a cop, she clearly understood foster care was a better alternative than BB. However, he believed she personally loathed the option.

  “The girl needs to be with people who can care for her,” he said.

  “I realize that.” She shoved her phone in her pocket and refocused on their case. “Anything else you can tell us about these women?” Shepard asked.

  “Not at this time,” Dr. Connor said.

  “You identified two. That’s a start,” she said. “We have two families to notify. Maybe when we talk to them, we’ll discover more information about the women.” She ripped off her gloves and tossed them in the trash can. “Thanks, Doc.” Without another word she walked out of the suite and into the hallway.

  Dr. Connor shook his head. “She’s upset.”

  “She’s not upset. She’s pissed.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Death notifications put cops in a foul mood.”

  As Melina stared out the large glass window that overlooked the parking lot and the rolling land beyond it, she pulled in a couple of deep breaths. What she would not give for a few rounds in the ring right now. She just wanted to pound something.

  The autopsy suite door opened behind her, and she heard Ramsey’s steady, methodical footsteps. If she had to wager, she would bet the guy had ice water in his veins. He studied everything with such an exquisite detachment that she found herself envying him.

  “Were you ever in foster care?” he asked.

  That one-two punch of a question brought her thoughts into sharp focus. “Where’d that come from?”

  “I’ll take that as a yes?”

  “It’s a none-of-your-damned-business kind of response.”

  “A yes.”

  She readied a couple of verbal jabs but caught herself. Agent Ramsey was the senior officer, and the last thing she needed was a pissing match with him. “I was only in for a couple of weeks, but that was enough.”

  “How old were you?”

  “I was five.”

  “Almost the same age as Elena.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where were your biological parents?”

  He had the good sense not to refer to whomever had brought her into this world as Mom and Dad. Those titles she reserved exclusively for the Shepards.

  “I have no idea. My mother left me on the side of a dirt road about twenty miles outside of Nashville in the middle of November.”

  “Who found you?”

  “Local sheriff.”

  “What are the chances?”

  “Pretty damn slim. But he found me.” She remembered the cold and the fear burrowing into her bones. She’d hated crying, even then, but she could not stop bawling as she’d stared up and down that dark road. And then there had been the sight of headlights. All in the space of a second, hope had collided with terror. What if it hadn’t been her mother coming back for her? Even then, she’d understood not to trust everyone.

  She often looked back and wondered how she could have missed that monster who had given birth to her. But a child, alone and afraid, would have given anything to be back with the devil she knew.

  “And he turned you over to foster care.”

  “Yeah. What I didn’t realize was that he went home and told his wife about me, and the next day the two were at the courthouse petitioning the judge to release me into their custody. A day later, they picked me up.”

  “Elena’s case touches a nerve.”

  “You could say that.” She managed a slight grin. “But don’t worry. I’m dialed in. I’ll find BB, the killer obsessed with fingers, and the Key Killer, even if it means turning over every rock in Nashville.”

  It was nine thirty when BB arrived at the East Nashville bar. She was glad for its stale, smoky air and the scent of booze. Her body ached as she angled her lean frame around the tables and sat in a back corner booth. A sigh leaked over her lips as she relaxed back against the worn red leather. She had been lying in her motel room for the last several hours and could no longer stand the four walls. They were starting to remind her of prison.

  She raised her hand, motioning to the gray-haired, tatted bartender with a smile. She adjusted her silk top and reached for lipstick in her purse.

  He looked her
way as he finished wiping down the bar and then signaled a waitress to the table.

  “What’ll it be?” the woman asked.

  “Bourbon. Neat, sugar,” she said. “Your bartender is going to be pouring a lot tonight.”

  “You got it.”

  She glanced in a small compact mirror and smoothed on fresh pink lipstick. She had screwed up, but that did not mean she had to look the part. Smoothing her blond hair back with manicured fingers, she pressed her lips together.

  Aching ribs told her the damn airbag had left her chest bruised and battered. She fished out a bottle of aspirin from her purse as the bartender set her bourbon in front of her. “Thanks, doll. Might as well get me another round.”

  “That kind of day?” It was a halfhearted attempt at conversation that she had heard one too many times.

  “You have no idea.” She winked, popped the aspirin in her mouth, and chased it with a gulp of bourbon. The blend burned her throat, and she would have coughed if her damn ribs hadn’t hurt so bad. But as the fire subsided, soothing warmth began to spread through her body.

  “Sonny, what the hell have you been doing?” she muttered.

  She gulped down what remained in the glass. The second glass arrived right on its heels. This time she sipped. She stared into the amber liquid. Neon lights from the front window sign reflected in the tawny drink as she tipped the glass slowly from side to side.

  Hitting that stump had been a stupid mistake. She’d had no idea it and a dozen of its friends were hiding in the tall grass, waiting to pounce on the dumbass who thought she could run the gauntlet. But she had been rattled. Images of the pickle jar flashed in her mind. What the hell kind of monster had Sonny turned into?

  BB’s hand trembled slightly as she raised the edge of her blouse. The initial redness on her belly was turning blue. Fucking stump.

  “Shit.” BB pulled out a packet of smokes from her purse. Lighting the tip of one, she inhaled deeply, savoring the burn in her lungs.

  When she had seen him face to face a couple of days ago, she had been startled by how big he had become. He had always been tall, but now he was muscular, and any hints of the boy she had known were gone.

  “I told you when you called last week that I didn’t want to see you,” Sonny said.

  “Honey, that hurts. After all we’ve been through.” She had always been able to sweet-talk him. “I want to make things right between us.”

  “Get out. I don’t ever want to see you again. And stop calling me.” He looked as if he was going to hit her, but Elena called out from the car. He looked past her to the child and stilled.

  “I want us to be a family.”

  He blinked and shook his head. “Go!”

  Irritated, she spoke before she really thought. “I’m not giving up on you, Sonny. You and me and the kid can be a family.”

  That seemed to piss him off. “You’re not my family.”

  “We are family. Give me the key so I can get the money out of the safety-deposit box. Once we have that, we can do anything.”

  He shook his head, a bitter smile twisting his lips. “You came for the money.”

  “I came for you.”

  “Really? Well, I threw out the key.”

  A smile tugged the edge of her lips. “You never throw out anything. Especially stuff I give you. Still have that gold key chain I bought you in Reno the night you got your cherry popped?”

  Hints of color rose in his cheeks, and he shoved her back. “Fuck off, BB.”

  “BB!” Elena shouted.

  The kid had gotten out of the car and followed her. “I’m right here, baby.”

  As Elena came closer, Sonny looked as if he’d seen a ghost. “Who the hell is that?”

  BB smiled. The kid was the trump card she would play next. She wrapped her arms around the girl’s thin shoulders. “Elena.”

  “Elena?” he said softly.

  “Looks just like the other little girl we both loved. Remember?”

  Sonny stumbled back, his gaze locking on the child. “Go away.”

  “My key, please.”

  He slammed the door in her face.

  BB and the kid had found a motel and cooled their heels for a couple of days. That gave her time to figure out Sonny’s habits and schedules. On the third day, when he left for work, she broke into his house.

  As a kid, Sonny had had a habit of hiding his money in his shoes. She went straight to his closet and searched among the high-dollar country-western boots. She quickly found a few hundred bucks rubber banded around several credit cards shoved in a boot. Shuffling through the cards, she realized none had his name on them. Ol’ Sonny was stealing just like Mama BB had taught him. It made her proud.

  She’d been pocketing the cards when she had spotted the jar. One look at the grisly contents, and she’d known Sonny was far more dangerous than she had realized.

  She ground her cigarette into an ashtray. The bartender brought over another drink, and she gulped it down in one swallow. “I like your style, baby. I’ll take another.”

  “I’ll need a card to keep this tab running.”

  She handed him a credit card. “There you go, doll.”

  As the booze soothed her nerves, her thoughts slowed so that she could process them.

  She had wiped the car clean of her prints, so the chances of a cop identifying her quickly were slim to none. She had wiped the jar down as soon as she’d placed it in her trunk. And if she had not been in such a damned panic after the crash, she would have taken it with her. The little trinkets were her path back to the key.

  Leaving Elena behind had not been a choice but a necessity. There was no way she could drag her own battered body away from the wreck and have a kid in tow.

  Jesus, that kid could scream.

  Elena was a pain in the ass, but BB liked her. The girl was tough and was going to be a ballbuster one day.

  It was not like she had abandoned Elena or left her to face a pack of wolves. As she’d fled through the tall grass and shrubs, the distant sound of police sirens had mingled with the kid’s cries. The cops would see her right away and take her to the hospital to get checked out. There might be a foster home, but BB would find a way to track the kid. She no longer had the jar, but if she could get the kid, there still might be a chance to trade with Sonny.

  When she reached the bottom of her glass, she was tempted to order another drink. She pushed the glass away and asked the bartender for the tab. Drunks got sloppy and ended up in jail.

  The bartender brought her a slip to sign. The card had worked. Hopefully she would get a few more hours’ use out of it before it popped as stolen.

  The bartender picked up the slip, glanced at the tip, and smiled. “Thanks, Dee.”

  A crooked grin tipped the edges of her lips as she freshened her pink lipstick. “No, thank you, baby.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Monday, August 24, 11:00 p.m.

  Fear had been a part of Sonny for as long as he could remember.

  As a small boy, he was always terrified that his world would shatter. Day after day, he would conjure imagined scenarios that cast him alone in an empty, cold house or running down a dark, lonely road, chasing headlights that vanished into the night.

  The last few days had been particularly jarring. It should have been business as usual, but the foundation under his feet was crumbling.

  A girlfriend had once announced he had abandonment issues as she packed her things and left his house for good. She accused him of holding on too tight. That he needed to trust. “Not everyone is out to screw you over,” she had screamed as she’d slammed the door on her way out.

  But she had been wrong. Hell, his last girlfriend, Jennifer, had left him not even a week ago. He had moved on, of course, but as he sat in the tub with his new girl, Tammy, he made a point to savor this perfect moment, which he knew would not last.

  In the background, the country music playlist finished the last of twenty songs and reset to th
e first song. Roger Miller snapped his fingers in a steady beat, strummed his guitar strings, and launched into “King of the Road.” The smooth melody conjured memories of riding down back roads in a blue Cadillac, top down, with the sun warming his face as his outstretched hand tried to catch the wind blowing over his fingertips. But today, he resented the uncomfortable reminder that his time was up. Time to move on. Nothing lasts forever.

  The bathwater was turning cold, and the light was fading. The tall candles had melted down to nubs, leaving only a faint glow and a puddle of wax pooled on the vanity. He shifted and tightened his hold around her soft, supple shoulders as he pulled her closer to him. “It’s time.”

  She was silent. Undaunted by the chilling waters. He knew she enjoyed it as much as he did. Maybe more.

  He leaned her forward, rose out of the tub, and stepped onto the ice-blue bath mat that matched the towels on the rack and the paint on the wall. He gently laid her back against the edge of the tub and smoothed her blond hair off her face.

  The music’s novice chords of A, D, E, A, A, D, E repeated as the song rolled on like a trucker’s wheels.

  Nothing lasted forever.

  He dried off and dressed in dark jeans, a V-neck sweater, and worn cowboy boots that he had bought in Kansas City thirteen years ago. He glanced back at the woman with her arched back, which exposed the delicate curve of her neck. So beautiful.

  “I know you want me to stay, baby,” he whispered.

  Silent, Tammy ignored him. He had seen the same look on Jennifer’s face.

  Sighing, he reached in a small duffel and pulled out a favorite pair of bolt cutters. The sharp tip of the shears caught the fading candlelight.

  He knelt by the tub and gently removed Tammy’s hand from the water. “I want to remember you, like this, forever.”

  His fingers skimmed over the slim wrist. The pulse that had beaten so furiously when he had first met her had stopped. She felt no more fear. She no longer had to make the rent or worry about her ex finding a prettier version of her or about her crap boss pinching her ass when no one was looking. He had released her of her burdens.