A Serial Affair

He was silent when he shot her a look of disbelief. “And what’s Javier up to?” he asked, referring to her dad.

“Javier is Javier.” She sighed dramatically, not wanting go into the details of how her amorous father was inexplicably without a love interest for the first time in years. He had been driving Marina crazy with his determination to spend more time with her. She abruptly changed the subject. “Where’s the rest of the team hiding out?”

“I am the rest of the team.” He watched her take the computer out of her case and set it on the desk. Then he showed her the socket to plug in her power cord. “You know I work the Homicide Unit and I’m good. I have access to their resources and anything the C.P.D. has to offer. Where’s the rest of your FBI team?”

This time she smiled. “You’re looking at it. I’ve got access to the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime database and the VICAP and anything else we’ll need from the FBI.”

“We’ve got everything we need to bring down the killer.” Reed returned the smile and this time it was close to the charming, earnest one she was used to seeing. “If we really push it, maybe we can chase the killer down before the trail grows cold. We need to leave in about thirty minutes. Jade Dansinger was too upset to talk to homicide detectives early this morning. I’ve been calling the mayor’s mansion to set up another interview. The okay came just a few minutes ago. We need to talk to her and her friends about last night and anything they may have seen or heard. I’ve already lined up interviews with several of her and Washington’s friends.”

Marina nodded. “How about the staff at the hotel?” she asked.

“Third-shift detectives on the scene this morning interviewed them.”

Hope surged within Marina that they would have another piece of the puzzle. “Did anyone see anything?”

“Not really. They knew that Washington was out at the pool with someone, but no one bothered to look. Apparently, Jade and Elliot often took late-night skinny-dips and paid the staff to give them their privacy. There’s actually a room at the back of the hotel with its own private pool.”

Marina expelled a puff of air. “So do they at least know if Washington was out there with a woman?”

Reed shook his head. “No. No one saw or heard a thing. Washington must not have cried out or struggled enough to draw attention.”

Marina considered his statement. “Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe the first blow incapacitated him or he was already pretty much out of it. I hope they took samples of his blood.”

Spearing her with a glance, Reed said, “Bring that nose down a bit. Our crew is one of the best. They got the blood samples, some DNA from the scene and prints from the chair he’d been sitting in and the ones next to it. The forensic team is doing their thing. We should have all of the results in a few days.”

Marina nodded. “I don’t suppose anyone found the murder weapon?”

“You dream big, don’t you?” Reed remarked.

“It was worth a try,” she murmured, settling into her chair. “I’ll just take a quick look at the files.”

While Reed checked on the database search he’d initiated earlier, Marina set up her computer and opened a new spreadsheet. Then she got her first look at the files.

One file was that of Elliot Washington, the guy she’d heard about on the morning news. The other file was for the young man identified as twenty-five-year-old elementary school teacher, Colton Edwards. His body had been found in the middle of an empty stall at Union Station.

Working violent crime with Talbot, she’d learned the hard way that murder was never pretty. Mentally bracing herself, Marina went through the crime scene photos. Her stomach quivered.

Someone had stabbed Washington repeatedly and unmanned him with butcher-block precision. She hadn’t heard that part on the news. Had Washington still been alive when his killer had done that? Marina hoped not because it seemed that the killer’s need to punish and degrade had been strong. Her stomach threatened to heave.

Momentarily looking away, she found Reed watching her.

“Pretty graphic, huh?”

Marina nodded. “I’ve seen worse, but looking at this stuff never gets easier.”

Reed’s gaze dropped back to the screen. “No, it doesn’t.”

She pointed to the stack of pictures. “Just examining the way the bodies were maimed, it appears that we’re dealing with a serial killer who’s also a sexual predator. There are several famous serial killer cases where men and young boys were abducted, assaulted and brutalized, maimed and killed. Leaving the severed organs near the victim’s body appears to be our killer’s signature, as in actions he does above and beyond his mode of operation. If this is the case, then our killer will do this to all of the victims.”

Reed secured Edwards’ file and paged through to the selection of pictures. The wounds to his body and the gruesome removal and placement of the organs was similar to what had been done to Washington. His girlfriend, his mother and his fifth-grade class had been devastated. They’d written the heart-wrenching letters in the file to the detective handling the case.

Forcing herself to swallow against the dryness in her throat, Marina moved on.

In Washington’s file she noted that he’d gone to her and Reed’s alma mater, Merriwhether University of Chicago. He’d obtained a degree in business administration. On impulse she checked Edwards’ file. Same college, only his degree was in education. Typing the information onto the new spreadsheet, she wondered if she’d already found the most important link. If so, did that mean that Reed qualified as a potential victim? At twenty-nine, he was a few years older than both men. Only time would tell if he, too, was in danger.

Reed checked his watch and stood. “We’ve got to get going.”

Opting to leave her laptop locked in the task force office, because it could be intimidating to some witnesses and a chore to keep up with, Marina grabbed her purse and followed him out.

“Did you notice that both victims went to Merriwhether?” she asked as they got into an unmarked blue Crown Victoria.

“Yeah,” Reed answered grudgingly as he backed out of the parking space and took off. “What’s your point?”

“I know that you and a lot of people went to Merriwhether, but until we get more facts about this killer and how he’s picking his victims, you should be careful.”

“So you think I’m in danger?”

She didn’t like the trace of amusement that crept into his voice. “Reed, this could be serious,” she insisted, feeling like a teacher cautioning a child bent on ignoring reason. “You’re only a couple of years older than Washington and Edwards.”

“Fact, but what else do I have in common with them?”

Marina’s teeth kneaded her bottom lip. “That’s the ten-million-dollar question.”

With a slight shrug, he accelerated and entered the freeway. “I don’t remember seeing them on campus and I never met either of them.”

He appeared to be dismissing her arguments. Folding her arms in front of her, she threw him annoyed glance.

Those impossibly long lashes of his were still as he concentrated on the road.

Marina turned to stare out the window at the Chicago countryside. Were all men so arrogant or just the ones she knew?

“Of course I plan to watch myself and stay on guard,” he said, breaking the sudden silence.

Turning from the window, she met his amused glance.

“Don’t take yourself so seriously,” he said. “The work we do can be depressing enough.”

“Don’t you try to diminish the importance of what’s going on here,” she replied without a trace of amusement. “I’d hate to lose you as a member of this task force.”

“Is that all?” he asked softly.

Of course it wasn’t all. He was still her friend and she didn’t want to lose him. “Well, you’ve been my friend for how long?” she asked, making eye contact and letting her voice trail off. “I’d hate to lose you period.”

Something in his rapt gaze made her swallow reflexively. Was he trying to make her say that she still had feelings for him? She did, but they were tangled in a maze of emotions, thoughts and feelings resulting from the choice she’d made. Being alone with him for the first time in ages forced her to see him in a new light and it made her uncomfortable.

She was relieved when he turned his attention back to the road. Opening some of the files they’d brought along, she immersed herself in the notes the third shift detectives had made while interviewing the hotel staff.

At the mayor’s home, they flashed their badges and were shown to a library filled with couches and chairs, a large cherry desk and antique shelves of leather-bound books. Marina and Reed took seats in the flower-patterned armchairs in front of the bay window. Sunlight filtered in, warming the air-conditioned room.

The staff informed them that the mayor was away on business, but due back soon, and that Mrs. Dansinger and Jade would be in momentarily. Then they offered tea. Translating that to mean that Jade would be a while, Marina accepted a cup.

Ten minutes later, Jade Dansinger and her mother, Laura, entered the library. Poor Jade’s eyes were red and swollen, her aquiline nose pinched and flushed. She hadn’t bothered with makeup. The black silk pantsuit did nothing for her white complexion and slim frame. Her eyes were pale blue. A fall of baby-fine, platinum-blond hair covered her face when she took a seat on the couch next to her mother. Her collagen-filled lips quivered as she answered their questions.

Elliot Washington had taken a call on his cell phone and left the party on the North End at about midnight to meet a friend. He’d told Jade that it was part of the big surprise he was planning for her and had insisted on going alone. He’d driven himself in his Jag. Marina made a note to look at the cell phone records C.P.D. had undoubtedly subpoenaed.

“Did Elliot seem upset or worried?” Reed asked, scribbling in his notebook.

“No, he was happy,” Jade answered in a voice clogged with tears.

“Did he say or give you the name of the friend he was meeting?” Reed continued.

“No.”

Marina added a question of her own. “Do you know if he was meeting a male or female friend?”

The mayor’s wife shot Marina a warning glance. Laura Dansinger was fiercely protective of her family. She handled the police and press with an iron hand.

Jade’s eyes widened with shock and outrage. “He wasn’t meeting another woman, if that’s what you mean! He wasn’t cheating on me.”

With a surreptitious glance at the others in the room, Marina noted that none of their faces reflected the same outrage. Most showed pity. Laura Dansinger’s chin dropped. She slowly brought it back up, meeting Marina’s gaze with pure strength of will.

“We were unofficially engaged,” Jade continued, showing them the four-carat diamond ring on her finger. “Daddy was going to announce it this week and Elliot was working on a surprise for me.”

“But you don’t really know who he met, do you?” Reed interjected calmly.

Jade’s voice cracked. “No.”

“Did he often spend the night at the Hartford Hotel?” Marina asked carefully.

Dabbing at her eyes, Jade took her time answering. “We…we went for lunch sometimes and after parties,” she admitted in a low voice.

Evening haven and afternoon delight? This more or less had been verified by some of the hotel staff’s statements to the police. Marina made a few notes in the little book she kept in her purse and kept her expression bland.

Reed looked up from his notes. “When he left the party, did you notice anyone else leaving?”

Jade shook her head negatively. “No.”

“Do you know if he’d received any threatening notes or letters?” Reed asked.

“No. Everyone liked him.” More tears fell from Jade’s eyes. She wiped at them with a tissue.

Marina chewed the top of her pen. “We need a list of all his friends and ex-girlfriends.”

Jade’s chin came up, her lips quivering again. She’d obviously been hiding something. She chose her words carefully. “His ex-girlfriend was Lissa Rawlins and he dropped her when he met me. She…she was angry at first, but I think she got over it.”

Nodding carefully, Marina noted it. Then she urged Jade to list the names of Elliot’s friends and note which friends had been at the party. As she and Reed finished the interview, she asked if Elliot had known Colton Edwards. Jade did not recognize the name, but added that Edwards could have worked at Quarter Financial with Elliot or attended MUC with him.

Respectfully reserving the right to return with more questions if necessary, Reed and Marina left the mayor’s mansion.

In the interest of getting as much done as possible, they stopped to pick up fast-food sandwiches on the way to their next interview. Eating as they traveled, they arrived at the apartment of Elliot’s best friend, Josh Jones, in Rogers Park.

Jones was obviously grief-stricken about the death of his friend. Through questioning, he basically confirmed the things Jade told them, except he thought they should check the alibi for Elliot’s ex-girlfriend, Lissa. When Elliot dropped her for Jade, Lissa’d had a hard time accepting it and had been angry enough to stalk him and cause a scene in several restaurants and clubs. When asked about Elliot’s late-night meeting, Jones told them that Elliot sometimes met and slept with other women on the side, and that everyone but Jade knew that was the reason he’d left the party early. Jones knew nothing about the woman he assumed Elliot went to meet.

Marina and Reed left Jones’ apartment and hurried to the last-known address for Lissa Rawlins. It was a condo near Grant Park. Flashing their badges, they got past the front desk guard. According to the guard and the sign on the mailbox in the lobby, it was still Lissa’s place, but no one answered the bell or the phone number Jones had given them. On the way over Reed had checked with Homicide, and they had not been able to talk to Lissa, either. Marina and Reed decided they would call back in the morning.

Heading for the office, Reed and Marina agreed to call it a day. Halfway there, Marina’s stomach growled so mournfully that she turned her head in embarrassment.

On the other side of the car Reed chuckled. “Want me to stop for some carry-out?”

“I would,” she replied regretfully, “but I promised to have dinner with Dad tonight.

“Father, daughter dinner, huh?” Reed grinned.

“Yeah. He insisted, and he’s been a little weird lately.”

Reed turned his head to make momentary eye contact. “You don’t think he’s sick?”

“I hope not.” Marina considered the thought and dismissed it. Her father was a big baby. If he were sick, she’d know it because for most of her twenty-eight years she’d been his number-one choice for unofficial nurse. “Nah, he seems to be having some sort of midlife crisis.”

“Again?”

Something in Reed’s tone made her want to defend her father. He could be very dramatic and quite emotional, but she never doubted his love or that he had her best interests at heart. “Okay, Reed. Cut him some slack. He hit his fiftieth birthday in January and has been trying to fight getting older every step of the way.”

Reed simply laughed, a warm, rumbling sound that made her smile in return.

“All right, now, you’ll get there someday yourself,” she warned.

“Lord, I hope so.” Reed maneuvered the car around a corner. “I plan to have it all by then.”

“And what does having it all mean for you these days?” she asked, venturing deeper into the personal without thinking.

“Smart, hot-looking, sex freak of a wife who’s crazy about me, a couple of kids, big house in the burbs, a job as captain, and a Jag.”

“You don’t ask for much, do you?” she quipped.

“Hey, I’m working on it. What about you?”

Marina clasped her hands behind her head. “Tall, good-looking hunk of a husband who treats me like a queen and knows how to admit when he’s wrong, a couple of kids, a house that we love, a challenging job, the latest Mustang…”

They were at the red light near the station. Reed turned to face her. She sensed seriousness beneath his light tone. “You’ve got the sports car and the job. How are you coming on the rest?”

Marina forced a smile. “Now I’ve got to find the man, then work on the house and kids.”

They flashed their badges as he drove through the gate into the station lot. He spoke in an even tone. “What happened to Emilio?”

She fought an unreasonable wave of guilt. She’d really made a mess of ending things with Reed by letting things simmer between them too long. Ending the romance between them had been difficult. All was fair in love and war, wasn’t it? She answered him in a casual tone. “Emilio was a nice guy, but it didn’t work out.”

Reed parked the car. He took the key out of the ignition and faced her. Most of the warmth had faded from his expression. “That’s too bad.”

“Yes, it is,” she replied, pushing back with her tone. The sudden distance between them made Marina feel as if she’d been slapped. There’d been an unsaid criticism in his expression and his voice. There’d been a hint of “you made your bed now lie in it” in his tone, too. That made her mad. Reed had no right to judge her or her actions. If his shorts were still twisted over what had happened in the past, it was too damned bad.

Snapping her mouth shut, she got out of the car. “See you tomorrow,” she called over her shoulder. He replied, but she really didn’t hear it because she was too busy walking to her car and fuming.

Driving home she reflected on her first day on the assignment and hoped that past history wasn’t going to make Reed a pain in the ass to work with. Finding the serial killer would be difficult enough.

She thought about poor Jade and then the unlucky Elliot Washington. He’d obviously chosen the wrong woman to cheat with. Had Elliot’s ex, Lissa, been that woman? Marina was looking forward to their talk with Lissa Rawlins.

Chapter 3

Marina Santos always managed to push Reed’s buttons whether she wanted to or not. Wound up from his first day on the task force, and more than a little out of sorts from seeing Marina and trying to adjust to working with her, Reed grabbed a quick hot dog on a bun covered with chili gravy and onions at his favorite Coney Island restaurant. He drove around the city until he reached one of his favorite spots, the Xsport Fitness Gym. He worked out and pumped iron until most of the restless feeling disappeared.

Instead of heading home this time, Reed turned his truck onto his mother’s street. It wasn’t his evening to take care of her, but he was close enough to stop and check on her. Her blood sugar levels had been fluctuating, her blood pressure was high, and she’d seemed overtired the last couple of days. The area’s streetlights were out again. Porch lights shone like an oasis on several neighborhood homes, but they did little to dispel the gathering darkness. The small one-and two-story brick structures were old and worn.

Most of the older inhabitants had already given up the warm evening air for the relative safety and security found inside their homes. Like his mother, Trudy, they were clinging to the homes they loved come hell or high water.

Here and there, youths sat on porches or stood in groups talking. The old neighborhood was rundown and becoming dangerous for those unable to hold their own against the local toughs and predators looking for victims.

Reed parked the truck in front of his mother’s house. The porch light was off but a warm glow around the edges of the blinds indicated that his mother was still up and about.

Peering around the quiet block, he got out of the truck. A warm evening breeze enveloped him. Something moved in the dark. Reed froze. His hand moved close to the Glock pistol he wore strapped at his waist. Innate caution and the desire not to hurt anyone unless it became absolutely necessary kept him from drawing the pistol.

Reed stood listening to the darkness. Nothing but the wind. He studied the surrounding trees and bushes, looking for movement. Nothing. Still his instincts told him that someone was hiding in the darkness, watching him. Instinct had saved his life more times than he cared to remember.

Fleetingly, he thought about being stalked. He wasn’t the kind of man who saw menace everywhere. In the truck earlier, he’d dismissed Marina’s suggestion that he could be in danger from the serial killer because the profile was still too general, but the possibility remained. He thought of Elliot Washington and Colton Edwards. Maybe someone had stalked and watched them in the dark before moving in close to viciously attack them.

Dismissing the thought, Reed stepped around the side of the truck. It was more likely that a druggie or neighborhood tough was lurking in the bushes, hoping to mug him. “Police officer. Who’s there?” he called into the dark.

Footsteps echoed on the sidewalk and changed to the muffled sound of someone running across the grass. The sound of breaking glass fractured the relative silence. His pulse raced. Reed drew the high-powered flashlight from his pocket and switched it on. Illuminating the trees, bushes and sidewalk, he satisfied himself that no one hid nearby. Walking up the driveway, he headed for the back of the house to check for broken glass.

Easing between his mother’s house and the one next door, he was glad for the absence of trees and bushes to hide an attacker. Behind the house, broken bottle glass littered the area near the trash. He guessed that someone had thrown the bottle to attract his attention.

Shining his light over the small garage and the few trees in his mother’s yard and the yards on either side of her, he saw nothing out of the ordinary. “Damn fool kids,” he muttered under his breath as he returned to the front. He would sweep up the glass tomorrow when it was daylight.

Warm light and cooler air hit him in the face as he used his keys to open the security door and enter the house. Inside, Trudy Crawford sat at her desktop computer under a floodlight in a corner of her living room.

Golden-brown eyes mirrored his. Seeing him, her mouth broke into a smile. “Hey, Be-be,” she said pleasantly as she pulled the reading glasses off her nose and laid them in front of the large magnifying screen on the desk. “What’s up, Lieutenant?”

She was so proud of him that she never tired of calling him that. “Just you, Mom,” he said with a smile of his own. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay,” she assured him. “I’ve got two wonderful sons who make sure I stay that way.”

“What was your sugar level?”

“Four hundred,” she answered, looking properly chastened, “but I didn’t eat anything that wasn’t on the diet today. I even turned down the muffins in knitting class. I must be coming down with something.”

“I hope not.” Moving closer, he kissed her cheek and enjoyed the warm hug. As she released him, he took one look at the computer screen and burst into laughter. “Computer dating for seniors, Mom?”

“Why not?” she asked with a straight face. “I’m not looking to get married, but I could sure use some company. I don’t remember the last time I had a date.”

“I take you out to dinner every week, Mom,” he reminded her.

She gave him the look and deepened her tone. “And you’re my son. You’re cute, but you don’t count, Be-be.”

He studied the questionnaire she’d been filling out. He didn’t like the idea of his mother dating someone off the Internet. He knew that all sorts of predators lurked there, hidden behind their computers. Still, Trudy wasn’t his child; she was his mother and would do as she pleased. “Don’t give them any personal information.”

“Of course not,” she agreed readily, “And you’ll probably want to personally meet and check out any of them before we go out, right?”

“For sure.” Reed pulled a chair up next to her. “Why don’t I help you with the form?”

“I’d love that.” She patted his hand. “You sure you don’t have a date or something better to do?”