woman shortened her long strides to let her keep up.
“Old habits die hard. When I hitched a ride in that monstrosity you call a vehicle, I put a tracking beacon on it. You have a habit of going off the reservation. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have a little insurance.”
Alexa had done that once before, a few months back. The woman was neck deep in high-tech spy gear. And she knew when and how to use it.
“But tracking me in the middle of the night? What’s up with that?”
“I couldn’t sleep anyway. And Conan O’Brien was a rerun.” She glanced over her shoulder as she hobbled a step behind. “Besides, I didn’t like your odds this time.”
“I could’ve taken ’em.” She moved her jaw, making sure it still worked. “I was wearin’ ’em down.”
“Yeah, their knuckles will be real bruised tomorrow. I know how hard your head is.” Alexa smiled and raised an eyebrow. “I hope you realize I didn’t have to tell you the truth about that tracking beacon. And I probably messed up a perfectly fine manicure for you. Consider this my way of bonding.”
“Yeah? Well, next time…let’s go bowling instead.” Even aching, she forced a smile, pondering what had just happened. “And what’s with the CIA badge? On St. Lawrence Island, you were wearing FBI gear.”
The blonde shrugged. “A girl has to know how to accessorize.”
Jess knew she wasn’t going to get any more out of her. But as she turned to get a better look at the woman, she took stock of the black trench coat with matching Kevlar. It felt good to have someone backing her up, even if the woman had a flair for drama.
“So what’s with the Matrix knockoff, Trinity?”
“A little over the top?”
“Maybe.” Jess shrugged. “But it worked for Keanu Reeves.”
Alexa grinned. “Damned straight.”
Buena Vista Motel
Off Madison Street
4:20 A.M.
Even at this hour, the Eisenhower Expressway droned, nothing more than white noise to urban sprawl as Ray Garza drove by Garfield Park on his way to another murder. He pulled into a motel parking lot after spying the rotating red-and-blue beacons of police cruisers and the Mobile Crime Lab on the scene. ET-South drew the short straw, and evidence techs were hard at work as he walked through the police barrier, past the curious onlookers who had already gathered outside the yellow tape. And the usual media crews were on duty, making the most of the show.
“Detective Garza, can we have a word?” a woman reporter called to him, holding out a microphone with camera rolling and bright lights.
“Yeah, have two. No comment.” Avoiding the bright lights, he never bothered to look to see who’d asked the question.
With his badge clipped to his belt, he didn’t need an introduction to the beat cops who’d secured the scene. Too many deja vu scenes like this had played out before, giving them the inside track on depravity no one should have to witness firsthand.
He nodded a greeting and headed for the motel room, the one with all the traffic. As he got closer, a young cop in uniform heaved the contents of his stomach onto the asphalt sidewalk two doors down. Worse timing on his part, and he might have caught the splatter.
“Hey, watch the shoes,” he said as he walked by.
Rousted in the middle of the night, Ray wore a navy polo shirt and jeans with running shoes and a CPD windbreaker. When he walked over the threshold, a wave of stench hit him as he hit the door. Moldy stale air mixed with the metallic tang of blood, excrement, and other bodily fluids, the rank smell of violent death. He kept his expression blank as he looked onto the scene, but he never got used to it.
The day he did, that would be the day he’d quit.
A woman’s nude body lay sprawled on the bloodstained and soiled mattress. Her skimpy clothes were tossed onto the floor, nothing more than a heap of spandex and torn lace. From where he stood, her face was partially covered by a pillow. Deep gouges cut into her flesh, too many to count with all the blood, especially around her neck. And blood splatter streaked the walls and ceiling, a grisly tableau.
Dim lighting in the room had been a blessing until an evidence tech took photos. Every time the camera flashed, the harsh light assaulted the body and added another stark image to his memory.
“What do we have, Nigel?” He breathed through his mouth and pulled out his notepad and pen. “Talk to me.”
“Dead hooker. Killer used a knife, but we haven’t found the murder weapon.” His partner, Detective Nigel Walker, gave him the lowdown. “Castoff suggests there was a lot of rage involved once the killer got into it. TOD is estimated at no more than two hours ago. Around two, I’d guess.”
Tall and lanky with thinning hair, Walker had the drawn face of a human basset hound. And his slow Southern drawl came from Texas, but his eyes took in every aspect of a crime scene. The man was thorough and knew his stuff.
“Who found the body?”
“The night manager,” Walker replied. “He got a complaint about a TV playing too loud. When he didn’t get a response from his knock, he used his key. He phoned 911 after he backed out of the room…said he didn’t touch anything.”
“He didn’t come in and turn off the TV?”
“No. It was still on when I got here. I turned it off myself.
The man’s deadpan expression didn’t flinch. Ray might have chuckled at his dry sense of humor, but he shifted his focus back to the body. No amount of training ever prepared him for a scene like this. And no one deserved to die in such a brutal way—naked and degraded. Whoever had done this wasn’t stable—at least that’s what he preferred to believe.
“We get any bloody prints?” he asked.
Fingerprints in a motel room could be easily explained away unless they were marred in blood or confirmed as part of the murder scene.
“Mostly smudges, but we’re still workin’ it,” Walker replied, and added, “Hard to tell with all the blood, but it looks like she’d been beaten recently. New stitches and all. M.E. will tell us more. And here’s something you should see.”
His partner pointed to a series of shallow wounds to the victim’s stomach.
“These don’t appear to be very deep,” Walker said. “M.E. will have to make the final determination, but it looks like the killer jabbed and poked her.”
Ray had seen this type of wound before—and recently. Apprehension twisted his gut.
“She didn’t die fast,” his partner continued. “She was mutilated and tortured. And these shallow punctures don’t look postmortem either. You ready to have a look?”
Without answering, Ray stepped closer to the bed and leaned in as Walker lifted the pillow off the dead woman’s face. He stared into glazed dead eyes, sightless and wide with terror. Her mouth gaped open.
Despite the horror on her face that distorted her features, he recognized her. He’d seen her booking photo.
“DL says her name is…” His partner read from a driver’s license taken from a purse on the nightstand.
“I know who she is.” Ray straightened up and shook his head. “Camille Regan, aka Jade. And, Nigel, things just got more complicated.”
CHAPTER 18
Late morning
After Ray Garza’s visit to her home last night, Sam hadn’t slept much since hearing his news on Harper and the kid’s connection to Jessie’s past. She had no doubt her friend was battling old demons again—shutting her out
