Part 10 (2/2)

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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 a.s.sume 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.”

”Not to mention,” Harper cut in, ”if they were looking to make money, they left a whole h.e.l.l of a lot at the scene. Like kidneys.”

Jess turned back to the board. The woman who dared to show her face looked young, early twenties maybe. ”Templeton and Burgess may have been their first kills.”

”What makes you lean in that direction?” Hayes asked.

”Their work was sloppier the first time,” Harper explained, obviously enjoying the opportunity to show up the lieutenant. ”The crime scene looked somewhat the same, but a closer inspection of the way they butchered the chests of the two female victims indicates they had a harder time removing the hearts that first time. With Thomas they knew what they were doing. The work was a little cleaner.”

”That only suggests they hadn't removed a human heart before,” the lieutenant countered, ”not that they hadn't taken a life.”

Jess and Lori exchanged a look.

Harper crossed his arms over his chest. ”When you've worked as many homicide scenes as I have, you'll understand.”

Jess hoped these two weren't planning to waste time in a p.i.s.sing contest.

”What's to understand?” Hayes folded his arms over his chest in a mocking manner.

”The killers hurried from the scene,” Jess interjected. ”They didn't close the door much less lock it.” She turned back to the photo. ”They were excited and terrified at the same time. They couldn't believe they'd done it. But they weren't in a hurry after last night's murder. Now they're feeling brave. c.o.c.ky. This time they enjoyed all the excitement without the fear.”

Harper's lips twisted in a little smirk of victory.

Hayes would learn this wasn't as easy as experienced detectives like Harper and Wells made it appear. ”What kind of motives are we looking at?” Jess asked, moving on.

”Since we don't know the ident.i.ties of the killers, we can't prove a personal connection,” Lori said.

”Even without a distinct personal connection,” Harper added, ”could be envy or revenge.”

Hayes pushed off from his desk and moved toward the case board. ”But isn't the personal nature of these murders right in front of us?”

”The objective may have been to humiliate the victims,” Lori pointed out. ”When I was abducted by Matthew Reed, Eric Spears's protege, he wanted to scare me... to humiliate me the same way he did the other women he abducted. To anyone a.n.a.lyzing his actions, what he did to us appeared very personal but it wasn't. We were the p.a.w.ns he used to make a statement. Humiliating and scaring us was just for his personal entertainment.”

”One of the women,” Jess said, the images Lori's words prompted playing rapid fire in her head, ”was a federal agent. When she tried to escape, he cut off her hands and feet. She died as a result of those injuries.”

Silence thickened in the room.

”Some people are just screwed up,” Harper muttered.

Jess s.h.i.+fted her attention back to the case at hand. She glanced at the window beyond her desk. ”What about all those cameras the mayor had installed? Any chance we can pick up these two suspects on any of those?” The cameras had certainly helped save Jess a couple of weeks ago.

Lori shook her head. ”I already checked. There's one in that area, but the angle isn't right.”

The door opened, breaking the tension, and Cook strolled in. ”It took a while,” he said as he waved the pages in his hand, ”but I dug up the names all the way back to when the house on Raleigh was built.”

”Leave it on my desk,” Jess instructed. She didn't want to discuss her theory with the team until she'd had a look at the list herself.

Cook dropped most of the pages on her desk, and then waved the one he'd held onto. ”I also picked up some preliminary results on our latest vic from the ME.”

”You went by the morgue?” Harper asked the question on the tip of Jess's tongue.

Cook's head moved up and down, his expression full of enthusiasm. ”She called me. Told me to come by and pick it up.” His face fell. ”Was I not supposed to do that?” He looked from Harper to Jess.

”You did the right thing, of course.” Jess reached for the report. ”I'm just surprised Dr. Baron had anything to share this quickly.” She and Sylvia needed to talk. It was one thing for Cook in his foolish youth to l.u.s.t after the ME, but Sylvia was old enough to know better. What was going on in that woman's head?

Jess scanned the preliminary report. Nothing Sylvia couldn't have pa.s.sed along over the phone as she had many times before. ”No indication Thomas engaged in s.e.x before his murder,” Jess said, pa.s.sing along the results. ”His alcohol levels show he was considerably intoxicated at TOD. Dr. Baron does not believe the stun gun caused his death and more results are coming.”

Jess pa.s.sed the report to Lori. ”Let's check with neighbors at both scenes and see if anyone recognizes the blonde. Run her photo past the friends of the victims. Maybe someone will recognize her.”

With her team divvying up the tasks, Jess took her seat and reviewed the list Cook had dug up for her. The names were in reverse chronological order, starting with the present owner.

The first few pages were listings of tenants. Poor Cook had had his work cut out for him. He'd contacted each landlord for the names of their tenants, and he'd still turned the task around in record time. Not one name on the list was familiar to Jess. Fifteen years ago the house had been owner occupied rather than a rental. That same scenario proved the case from that point all the way back to when it was built.

Jess reached the name of the family who'd built the house and her stomach took a dive.

Paul and Wanda Newsom.

Her aunt and her husband had built the house where Templeton and Burgess were murdered?

For several seconds Jess could do nothing but allow the information to digest. This was exactly what she'd hoped Cook wouldn't find.

More than a little shaken, she stood. ”I think I'm going out for lunch.” She shoved the page into her bag and readied to go. She needed to speak to her aunt. There had to be a mistake.

It wasn't until Jess looked up that she noticed everyone staring at her.

Ignoring the questioning looks, she said to Hayes, ”Lieutenant, it's your turn to play chauffer.”

Jess felt Lori's eyes on her as she left the office. She couldn't look back. Couldn't say anything to her friends. If what she suspected was true, any friend of hers was in far more danger than they could possibly comprehend.

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