Vicious: The Faces of Evil Series: Book 7 Read online

  “Yes, ma’am. How did you know?”

  Fury started to smolder deep in her belly as she grabbed something to wear from the closet. “I’ll explain when I get there. Is the crime scene unit on the way?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Officer Cook called Dr. Baron and she’s also en route.”

  Cook made that call? Really? Jess was going to have to keep an eye on him. Maybe she should speak to him about Sylvia. Then again, maybe she was making too much of the sparks she’d seen flying at the morgue yesterday.

  “I’ll be there soon, Sergeant,” she promised before ending the call. Braced against the closet door she watched the video again. Was this someone else Spears had invited to play games with her? Though she had not one single piece of tangible evidence to corroborate her theory, she was certain he’d resurrected the Man in the Moon to taunt her.

  We have to go outside where he can see.

  Fergus Cagle, aka the Man in the Moon, had said that to her. Then, his last words before being shot were about his daughter. Obviously he’d gone over the edge. The fact was, nothing he said was reliable. Still, in her gut, she sensed the Man in the Moon had started sending those remains to her because of Spears. Otherwise, how would Spears have known the location of the rest of the victims? But that alone wasn’t proof he’d directed Fergus Cagle’s actions. It only proved Spears had been watching.

  Whatever it showed, Jess had a feeling the Man in the Moon and, after seeing that video, this case were somehow related to Spears. She stared at her cell phone. If that was true, it meant three people had been viciously murdered just so Spears could send her a message.

  Hot, bitter bile rushed into Jess’s throat, and it was all she could do to avoid throwing up on Dan’s expensive carpet before she made it to the toilet.

  Another sign that nothing about her future was going to be easy.

  First Avenue North, 6:50 a.m.

  Jess stared at the building. Her stomach had only just settled down, and now it was threatening another rebellion. “This is the address?”

  It wasn’t like the two official vehicles and the crime scene unit van parked at the curb wasn’t a dead giveaway.

  Couldn’t be.

  “This is it,” Lori assured her.

  It had to be a coincidence. The building was the one where Dan had lived ten years ago when they’d run into each other on Christmas Eve. Birmingham was a relatively large city, the biggest in the state of Alabama, but the downtown area was a small world. There was bound to be crime in places she and Dan had frequented in the past.

  “You ready?”

  Jess reached for the door handle. “As ready as humanly possible with only one cup of coffee.” She faked a smile.

  Lori studied her a second too long, but kept whatever she was thinking to herself. Jess readied to face what would no doubt be another horrific murder scene. Logan Thomas. His image, big smile and eyes twinkling with mischief, kept playing in her head.

  The officer shadowing Jess’s every move this shift was propped against the side of his cruiser watching the official chaos.

  For a change, she was thankful for the added precaution. Distraction was a dangerous enemy, and lately distraction had been her constant companion.

  “There’s a security camera in the lobby,” Lori said. “A representative from the company that maintains the building is on his way.”

  “Maybe if we’re lucky the killer didn’t notice the camera.” Most criminals missed the little details. Though she had to admit, a surveillance camera was a considerably major item to miss.

  The uniform at the building’s entrance opened the door that, under normal circumstances, would have required a code for entry. Security measures wouldn’t have stopped this killer. Judging by the video she received, Logan’s killer had been his guest.

  Inside the small lobby was another uniform, this one monitoring the stairs and elevator. Between the elevator and the door leading to the stairwell was a wall of mailboxes. Above the mailboxes was a surveillance camera.

  Jess distinctly remembered this lobby from ten years ago. The camera hadn’t been there then. Otherwise, the place looked the same. Not that she’d paid much attention that long ago night. She’d been caught up in something that refused to let go. Desire, need, and the desperation to feel alive after the case she’d just solved.

  “Eighth floor.” Lori hesitated. “Elevator or stairs, Chief?”

  Jess dragged her head out of the past. “Did you say the eighth floor?”

  Lori nodded, a frown forming across her brow.

  Another of those little shots of adrenaline fired through Jess. This just got creepier and creepier. Dan’s apartment had been on the eighth floor. She swallowed, trying to loosen the emotion caught in her throat. “Let’s take the elevator.”

  Why was it nothing in her life came about in a routine manner? Just when she’d reached a major pinnacle in her career, a serial killer latched onto her like a bad rash and refused to go away. She couldn’t marry and have children the way her sister had. Was she forever destined to have the unusual and the bizarre crammed into her existence at the most inopportune times?

  Maybe this was fate’s way of showing her who was in charge.

  Closing her eyes, Jess leaned against the back wall of the elevator as it bumped into upward motion. She tried her very best to ignore the queasy feeling in the pit of her belly. Maybe the stairs would have been the better bet. Hopefully the feeling would pass. Soon.

  “I don’t mean to push,” Lori said quietly.

  Jess opened her eyes and turned to her.

  “But I’m here when you’re ready.”

  Lori was a good friend as well as a great detective, and they did need to talk. “I appreciate that.”

  Thankfully the elevator jolted to a stop at their destination. Jess pushed aside her personal worries and stepped into cop mode. Nature was taking care of the rest for now. Pregnant women all over the world went about their lives without freaking out or falling apart, she reminded herself.

  Lori led the way, taking a right out of the elevator. Jess followed. The carpet along the corridor softened their steps, lessening the likelihood of disturbing residents. Four apartments, two on each side, lined the corridor in this direction. Another uniform waited at the door where a young man’s life had ended.

  Jess stalled a few yards away.

  Apartment thirty-One.

  “This is it.” Dan grinned at her as he shoved the key into the lock. “It’s not where I hope to be in a couple of years but it’s home for now.”

  “This was Dan’s apartment.”

  Lori came to her side. “Chief Burnett’s?”

  Jess hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud. “Yes.” She accepted the gloves and shoe covers Lori offered her. Hands shaking, she tugged on the protective wear. By the time they walked inside the apartment her heart was racing. This couldn’t mean anything.

  Just a coincidence.

  The thick odor of coagulated blood had her breathing through her mouth. The main living area was one big space with a nice view of the city that she recalled vividly. The room was sparsely furnished, a typical bachelor’s apartment with a big sofa, an even bigger television and a table and chairs. An iPad sat on one those docks with speakers. Nothing appeared disturbed.

  Ten years ago it had been much the same. Dan had been working his way up in Birmingham politics and a downtown apartment was all he needed. She had admired the view of the city. She’d been gone so long that staring out at the lights had mesmerized her. Even now something wistful swelled inside her. Then Dan had kissed her and thoughts of the view as well as the pie she’d purchased at Publix for Christmas dinner with her sister’s family had vanished completely, taking all semblance of good sense with them.

  “This way, Chief.”

  Jess blinked away the past and met Harper’s concerned gaze. He’d walked right up to her and she hadn’t even noticed. Lori had already moved across the room and was speaking to one of the f
orensic techs.

  Breathe and focus.

  She gave Harper a nod and followed him to the small box of a hall that separated the one bedroom and bath from the main living space. The entire apartment had been carpeted before. Now it was hardwood or something that looked like hardwood.

  “Our perp used the same MO this time. Washed up in the bathroom, leaving a hell of a mess and dozens of smeared prints.”

  Like the previous scene, bloody hand and foot prints marred the tile. No discernable attempt to clean up the scene. The killer was daring them to catch him… or her.

  Four or five feet away the door to the only bedroom stood open. Inside, a tech videoed the place where Logan Thomas’s life had ended. Feeling numb, Jess took the steps necessary to enter the room. For the first few seconds she stared at the window on the other side. The drapes were open, giving an inspiring glimpse of downtown. In the middle of the floor a pair of jeans, boxers and an Auburn t-shirt lay in a pile. Smudged footprints, made in the victim’s blood, were tracked all over the floor. The tools the killer had used, hammer, hatchet, screwdriver, pry bar and box cutter, had been cast aside.

  The walls were white, uncluttered and untainted by the ugliness that had occurred within them. A single dresser stood on one side of the room facing the king size bed where the victim waited for her assessment. The sheets beneath the body were twisted and soaked with blood.

  “Vic doesn’t appear to have been strangled or suffocated,” Harper said quietly. “The wounds all appear to be post mortem.”

  “Something stopped his heart before it was taken from him.” Jess ignored the tossing and turning in her stomach. The same brutality and crudeness utilized to pry open Lisa Templeton’s and Alisha Burgess’s chests and to remove their hearts had been used on this young man.

  “Drug overdose, maybe?” She stepped closer, searched his cold, marbled skin for any signs indicating cause of death. There were plenty of ways to end a life that might not be readily visible.

  “That’s my thinking,” Harper said in answer to her question.

  A puzzle best solved by the medical examiner.

  “He’s been dead for five or six hours anyway.” Jess turned to the detective. “You haven’t found any messages or notes of any sort?” She steeled her body to stop the trembling. Whoever committed this murder wanted to share the experience with her—at least the before part.

  But why send her a prequel to this murder and not the other two?

  Harper shook his head before searching her face. “How did you have a description of the vic and the Auburn t-shirt?”

  She passed him her cell. “I was sent a preview via text just before you called. Submit the video into evidence, would you?”

  The ability to breathe grew more difficult as Harper played the video and the victim’s voice echoed in the room. Had he been murdered because he lived here? If so, how was that connected to the murders in Homewood?

  Jess swallowed the bitterness climbing back into her throat. And how was it that the perp sent her the video only moments before Harper’s call? Another coincidence? She didn’t think so. He or, more likely, she had been nearby, waiting and watching for the police to arrive.

  “Who called this in?” Jess glanced at the body of the young man whose life had been wasted.

  “Neighbor. Some sort of symphony was blasting from the victim’s iTunes playlist.” He handed the cell back to Jess. “First on the scene turned it off in deference to the neighbors.”

  “You certainly have a way of attracting the genuinely weird, Harris.”

  Jess turned to find the medical examiner waiting in the doorway, assessing the situation before jumping in.

  Dr. Sylvia Baron shook her head sadly. “There always seems to be at least one encore to every case that lands in your lap.”

  “I’m a regular creep show magnet.” Jess didn’t bother attempting a smile for the ME. She just didn’t have it in her. “No visible cause of death this time.”

  Sylvia Baron searched for a clean spot on the floor to leave her bag. Finally she gave up and shoved it at Harper. “Let’s see what we have here.”

  Taking her time, she studied the victim, and then she glanced at Jess. “Let’s turn him over.”

  Harper passed Sylvia’s bag to Jess. “Let me do that, ma’am.”

  Jess couldn’t decide whether to hug the detective or to scold him for presuming she was unable to do the job. Truth was, at the moment she felt completely incapable of the task.

  The gurgling sound of gases moving around inside the victim as he was rolled to his side had her gritting her teeth. Holding her breath was the only way to keep the urge to heave at bay. She’d seen, heard, and smelled this dozens of times. Didn’t seem to matter to her confused body.

  “I can’t tell you if this is cause of death,” Sylvia announced, “but I can tell you how the killer most likely disabled him.”

  Jess spotted the marks. “A stun gun.”

  Sylvia nodded. “More than one hit.” She pointed to the sets of red marks. “One, two… three. We may be looking at the cause of death.”

  “Time of death?” Jess hated that her voice squeaked. Sylvia glanced at her. She hated even worse the ME noticed.

  “Give me a minute.” Sylvia reached for her bag.

  While the ME measured body temperature, Jess ushered Harper out of earshot. “Have Cook go down to the property assessor’s office as soon as it opens and dig up the names of the owners for the house on Raleigh Avenue. I want to know every tenant who’s lived there since,” she shrugged, “I don’t know. Have him go back as far as he can. I need that list ASAP.”

  “Do you have reason to believe location is the link between these murders?”

  Jess hesitated but only for a second. “I don’t know, Sergeant, but I’d like to rule out a scenario that’s nagging at me. It’s probably nothing but—”

  “I thought this place looked familiar.” Sylvia turned to Jess. “Didn’t Dan live here before he bought his house?”

  “You know,” Jess looked around as if she hadn’t noticed, “I think you might be right. Since I was in Virginia I really can’t recall.”

  Sylvia accepted the lie and went on about her business. Jess had a sinking feeling whatever was going on with these murders wasn’t about whether Dan had lived here or not… it was about that evening a decade ago when he brought her here. They’d made love all night in this very room. The sun had come up the next morning through that massive window while the city’s first snow of the year started to fall.

  Jess had left that Christmas morning without saying good-bye. Not once in ten years had she allowed herself to look back. Until a few weeks ago…

  Sylvia was right about what people were saying. The evil that intended to destroy Jess had followed her to Birmingham, and clearly had no intention of leaving before the job was done.

  How many people would die before he achieved his goal?

  11

  Birmingham Police Department, 11:15 a.m.

  “We have two killers.” Lori posted the updated information on the case board. “Or, at least, two people participating in the kills. Two distinct sets of prints—not belonging to the victims—were lifted from the tools found at the scene, but no hits in any of the databases.”

  “We believe the perps are female based on the size of the prints collected, but we can’t confirm that conclusion by the prints alone,” Harper said as he perused the report he’d just received. “Analysis on the hair collected from the shower drain at the Homewood house shows two distinct Caucasian specimens besides those of the victims: one brunette and one a pale, bleached blond.”

  “The killers are reasonably organized,” Hayes spoke up. He’d propped against his desk, legs crossed at the ankles. “They bring the tools, new ones, they need with them. I’m running down where the particular brands are sold locally. Depending on what I find, there’s the potential for security videos or a sales person who might recall the buyer.”

  Lo
ri flashed a smile for the newest member of the team. Jess had a feeling Lori had news that would take this investigation from going nowhere to getting somewhere.

  “None of the neighbors noticed anyone coming or going in Mr. Thomas’s building.” Lori waltzed over to her desk and picked up a folder. “However, a few minutes ago, I reviewed the surveillance video.” She returned to the case board and posted more photos there. “Two females left the building at one-fifty. Dr. Baron estimated time of death between midnight and two this morning.” Lori gestured to the photos. “Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have our killers.”

  Jess reached for her glasses as she moved around her desk. Slipping them on, she stepped closer to the board to inspect the images of the two women. “What kind of bag or sack is the one in front carrying?”

  Lori tapped the photo. “With those blue cinch ties, I’d say Hefty trash bags. You know, the big black ones used for yard cleanup.”

  The brunette kept her face turned from the camera. Both wore sweats but they were too clean to have been worn during the murder. The female with pale blond hair had on a hoodie but she hadn’t bothered to wear the hood up. The photo had captured her as she turned to look directly at the camera and smile.

  Not afraid of getting caught.

  “Their clothes are in the bag,” Jess said, mostly to herself. “In addition to the tools, they bring a change of clothes and shoes to the scene.”

  “After they strip off their bloody clothes and clean up,” Harper picked it up from there, “they put on the clean clothes and shoes they left near the door. Anyone who saw them on the street wouldn’t think twice. Just a couple of residents taking their garbage to the dumpster in the alley.”

  Jess studied the blonde’s face. “What about the heart?”

  “Since they’re not carrying anything else,” Lori answered, “we have to assume the heart’s in the bag, too.”

  “Unless they ate it at the scene.”

  Jess turned to Hayes. “You think this is some sort of cannibalistic ritual? We have no evidence to support that conclusion.”

  “We don’t have any rumblings about black market organ sales either,” he offered. “That doesn’t leave many other options.”