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“Thank you, ma’am.”
Charlie nodded, then made her way across the room toward her partner. At thirty-two, Vince was three years her senior. An average-looking man of average height with brown hair and eyes, Vince was anything but average when it came to being a cop. He had a string of commendations for his bravery in the field. Though he downplayed the awards, she knew firsthand that he deserved every one of them. Just last year he’d faced down a drugged-up junkie wielding a knife who was holding his own wife hostage. Vince got the woman away unharmed, but it had taken a dozen stitches to close the gash in his shoulder. No, Vince Kossak wasn’t even remotely average, she mused. He was everything she believed a cop should be—honest, trustworthy, a man you could stake your life on.
They didn’t come any more solid than Vince Kossak. And she’d been lucky to be assigned to work with him. The two of them made a good team. In the two years that they had been partners, she had learned a great deal from him. More than that, they had become friends. She trusted Vince with her life and vice versa. He was among the few people that she’d confided in about her sister’s murder and her determination to track down the killer.
Looking up, she caught Vince’s eye and he motioned for her to join him. “Thank you, Mrs. Ramirez. You’ve been a big help,” Vince told the woman and waved the uniformed officer over to join them. “Now if you’ll just go with the police officer, he’ll get your contact information and we’ll be in touch with you.”
“You will find this person who hurt Miss Francesca, yes?” the woman asked, her accented voice thick with tears.
“We’re certainly going to try.” Once the police officer led the woman away, Vince turned to Charlie. “Jeez, Le Blanc,” he said as he took in her wet hair and jacket. “Haven’t you ever heard of an umbrella?”
She shrugged. “The weatherman said no rain today.”
“And you believed him?”
“I was hoping he’d get it right for once.” Of course, he hadn’t gotten it right. Nine times out of ten, the weather forecasts were off the mark, as was typical for New Orleans. The weather was as wide-ranging as the people who lived there. You could find yourself in shirtsleeves and suffering from a drought one day only to be hit with freezing temperatures and floods the next day.
“You’re lucky they even let you in the front door of this place.”
“Trust me, that prissy manager wouldn’t have if he could have helped it,” she replied. “So what have we got?”
“The vic’s wallet is empty and according to the maid there’s jewelry missing.”
“A robbery gone bad?” Charlie asked.
“Maybe.” He gave her a quick rundown of the situation, explaining the maid had arrived that morning to help the victim get ready for her wedding, only to find the bride-to-be dead.
“Today was her wedding day?” While each case she investigated left a mark on her, Charlie couldn’t help feeling sad for the woman whose dreams had ended before they’d even begun.
“It was supposed to be.” He paused. “This one is going to be touchy, Le Blanc. Word from the top is that we’re to handle this with kid gloves.”
She wasn’t surprised given the real estate. “Who’s the victim?”
“Her name’s Francesca Hill. Age twenty-six, a former casino hostess.”
The name didn’t ring any bells. Charlie glanced around the apartment. Lots of white and black, bold splashes of red, modern artwork that looked like a kid had been let loose with finger paints. It all added up to one thing—money. “Casino hostessing must pay really well.”
“It does if you’re marrying the boss.”
Charlie arched her brow.
“The fiancé is J. P. Stratton.”
“Stratton,” she repeated. “As in Stratton Real Estate?”
Vince nodded. “And Stratton Hotels. The man also has an interest in two casinos and a professional football team. Our vic was supposed to become wife number five this evening.”
Charlie conjured up a vague image of a gray-haired man with a George Hamilton tan. The guy was sixty if he was a day. “Apparently Stratton likes his brides young.”
“Apparently,” Vince replied.
“Where’s the body?”
“In the bedroom.”
“How’d she buy it?” Charlie asked.
“We’re waiting for the M.E. to give the official cause of death,” he said, a troubled look coming into his eyes. “But it looks like she was strangled.”
For a moment, everything inside Charlie froze. Murder investigations were never easy. But the ones where strangulation was the cause of death were the hardest for her because it always brought back thoughts of her sister’s death.
“Listen, why don’t you stay out here and make sure the techies don’t screw up and I’ll handle things in there,” he offered and urged her away from the bedroom.
Charlie narrowed her eyes. “All right, Kossak. What’s in that bedroom that you don’t want me to see?”
Vince eyed his partner carefully, noting the shadows beneath her dark brown eyes. In the years they’d worked together he’d watched Charlie push herself, driven by demons to find justice for the victims. He knew from the countless hours she spent poring over case files that the demon that drove her hardest was finding her sister’s killer. It was the reason he was worried now about how she would respond to what was in the next room.
It had nothing to do with her toughness. He’d seen Charlie hold it together at more than one bloody homicide scene when even a seasoned vet would have lost his lunch. As far as he was concerned, there wasn’t a better, smarter or more dedicated cop on the force than Charlie Le Blanc.
But for all her smarts and toughness, Charlie Le Blanc had a heart, a heart that sometimes felt way too much. And her sister’s murder was like a wound with a bandage on it that had been pulled off too soon. It was painful. And it wouldn’t take much to reopen that wound again.
“You going to answer me, Kossak?”
“Come on, Le Blanc. We’ve got a female strangling victim. Give yourself a break. Let me handle this one.”
“I can carry my end of the job, Kossak,” she informed him, her already husky voice dropping even lower.
“Nobody said you couldn’t,” he said sharply and when he noted heads turn in their direction, Vince hustled her over near a window and out of earshot of the fingerprint team. Lowering his voice, he repeated, “I never said you couldn’t carry your end of the job. Hell, half the time you’d carry mine if I’d let you. But you are not personally responsible for solving every homicide in this city.”
“I know that.”
“Then act like it. Cut yourself some slack for once.”
“I can’t,” she told him and looked away.
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t,” she insisted.
“Why can’t you?” he pressed.
She whipped her gaze back to him and spat out, “Because if I don’t stop him, he might kill another—” She paused, took a steadying breath. “He might kill someone else.”
Vince said nothing. But he had no doubt that what she had been about to say was that he might kill another innocent girl like her sister.
“I thought you said this one was high priority,” she said more calmly. “So are we going to process the scene or not?”
Vince knew any further attempt on his part to dissuade her would be pointless. So he said, “Let’s do it.” He headed to the bedroom, knowing she was behind him. He paused at the door and donned gloves so as not to mar any evidence. “Ready?”
“Ready,” she replied as she finished putting on her own gloves.
They stepped into the room. It was huge, almost the size of his apartment, he noted as he surveyed the scene a second time. Only this room smelled of booze, perfume and sex. The virginal-white color scheme was only broken by the clothing that lay strewn on the carpet and the golden-blond hair of the woman who lay on the bed.
“She’s beautiful.”
“Yeah,” Vince replied. From a distance she did look beautiful, like something out of a painting, a siren draped in satin sheets. Her heart-shaped face looked as if it had been carved from ivory. It was smooth and perfect. The green eyes stared glassily up at the ceiling. The long, yellow-gold hair was spread out against the pillow and fell across pale shoulders. One hand rested near her face, the diamond ring on her finger catching the light. Only the marks across her throat marred the picture of beauty. He eyed Charlie, worried about the impact of the scene on her. But other than a momentary stiffening, she gave nothing away.
“Judging by that rock on her finger, we either have ourselves a very dumb thief or robbery wasn’t the motive. The way she’s positioned on the sheets with her hair spread on the pillow and her hand near her face looks staged,” Charlie remarked. “Our killer is evidently into showmanship—which tells me this was no robbery turned homicide. And it was no act of passion either. It was planned.”
He had reached the same conclusion himself. “Given the security in this place, I’d say our vic must have known her killer.”
She glanced down at the discarded underwear. “I’d say she knew him well enough to go to bed with him,” Charlie added.
“I figure they started off with drinks in the living room,” he began, mentally re-creating how the murder had gone down.
“Then they decided to take the action into the bedroom,” she continued. She walked past the high heels that had been discarded a few feet from the door, then stopped in front of the black sequined dress that lay in a heap. “Pretty,” she said and stooped down to examine the dress. She checked the label and read, “Ricardo’s. I know this shop. It’s very expensive.”
“Why, Le Blanc, I never would have guessed that you’d go in for this kind of number,” he said in an effort to distract her from what awaited.
“Oh, I’d go for it all right. The problem is I’d never be able to conceal my gun in it or be able to afford it, which is exactly what I told my sister Anne when she dragged me into the place to see a skirt she’d been drooling over.”
“Did she buy it?” The question was out before he’d been able to stop it and he could have kicked himself for the slip. Anne Le Blanc was little more than a kid, but for some reason she got under his skin.
“No. I managed to talk her out of it,” she said and went back to examining the dress. “We should get the techs to dust the zipper for prints. There’s always the chance we’ll get lucky.”
But it wasn’t likely, Vince thought. A killer who would take the time to pose the victim wouldn’t make the mistake of leaving his prints on the dress’s zipper or anyplace else.
Charlie moved farther into the room and stopped again, this time to check out a spot on the carpet. She poked at the matted section of carpet with her gloved fingertip, then sniffed it.
“My guess is it’s champagne,” he told her. “There was an empty bottle in the living room and a couple more bottles in the bar.”
She nodded, rose and continued toward the bed. “So they get a little more frisky here. She loses the bra,” Charlie said, playing out the scene just as he had. She looked at the overturned glasses that rested on the night table, eyed the panties beside the bed. Then she spied the black silk stocking draped on the bed next to the victim. Suddenly her body stiffened.
Vince was sure Charlie noted, as he had, that the stocking looked smooth, no visible snags, not even a crease, as though it had never been worn. Instead, it appeared to have been placed beside the victim for effect.
Finally she looked up at him. “The other stocking isn’t here, is it?”
“No,” he told her, knowing the conclusion she would draw. Her sister had been strangled, her body posed in the bed in a similar manner and a single black silk stocking found at the scene.
“He took the other one as a trophy. Just like the last time,” she said and stared once more at the bed. “Just like when he killed Emily.”
Two
Cole Stratton studied the floor plans of the newest Logan Hotel for which he and his firm, CS Securities, had been contracted to provide a security system. Spreading out the blueprints on his desk, he made notations to those areas where additional cameras would be needed. Logan Hotels, which had begun with a few small, luxury hotels a decade ago had blossomed into an international chain whose “L” logo guaranteed excellence in accommodations and in service. Cole had set his sights on this account nearly a year ago. Getting the call from Josh Logan telling him the job was his had been the culmination of months and months of hard work. It had been a major coup for him. He should be thrilled. He should be out celebrating.
Instead, he was sitting in his office on a Saturday afternoon trying to assuage his concern for his sister by concentrating on business. But it wasn’t working. Frustrated, Cole threw down his pen and rammed his fingers through his hair. If only he had been able to convince Francesca not to file charges against his sister, Holly. But despite his efforts, the woman had been determined to follow through on her threat and have Holly arrested for violating the restraining order. Even though he’d sent Holly out of town for the time being, it would only be a temporary fix. If Francesca had contacted the police this morning, as she’d sworn she was going to do, they would already be looking for Holly. For his sister’s sake, he hoped Margee Jardine’s skill as a lawyer would be able to override J.P.’s political influence. The last thing his sister needed was the trauma of being dragged into the police station by her father’s newest wife.
“Damn,” he muttered. Thinking about what Francesca was putting his sister through infuriated him. But he couldn’t lay all the blame at Francesca’s feet. No, J.P. was the one responsible for this mess. If the man hadn’t fallen into lust with his own daughter’s friend, Holly wouldn’t be in trouble now.
Damn you, J.P.
The selfish S.O.B. didn’t care whose life he ruined as long as he got what he wanted. If he weren’t so angry at Francesca, he might even feel sorry for the woman, because it wouldn’t be long before she discovered that being Mrs. J. P. Stratton came at a very high price. His mother had paid it. First with her fortune, then with her dignity and finally with her life. The women who had followed had paid a price as well. So had each of J.P.’s children—including himself.
Unfortunately, by the time his father’s new bride discovered the cold, ruthless man behind the charming facade she’d married, it would be too late. She would have become another casualty of J. P. Stratton’s ego and greed. But, maybe not. After all, Francesca Hill struck him as the type of woman who always landed on her feet. Of course, her share of J.P.’s fortune would certainly help cushion her fall.
But Francesca wasn’t his concern. Holly was. And for the time being, there was nothing more he could do but wait and hope Francesca was too busy preparing for her wedding to follow through with the charges. Reminding himself that his sister was safely tucked away for now, he picked up his pen and went back to work. Lost in the challenge of the hotel project, he didn’t register the pounding on the door out front until he heard the shouting.
“Cole!”
Recognizing his brother Aaron’s voice, Cole pushed away from his desk and headed down the hall to the reception area. His first thought was that there had been a warrant issued for Holly. Just as quickly he dismissed that notion. Margee Jardine’s contact in the police department had promised to notify her if a warrant was issued.
“Cole, open the door!”
He frowned as he approached the door, suspecting that his brother was there to try one last time to convince him to attend J.P.’s wedding. Younger than him by four years, Aaron had been blessed with his mother’s blond hair and green eyes while he had inherited his father’s dark hair and blue eyes. Even though he more closely resembled his father than his four half siblings, it was Aaron who shared the closest bond with J.P. And it was Aaron who constantly tried to bridge the rift between them. Cole unlocked the door.
“It’s about damn time,” Aaron snapped. “I’ve been trying to reach you for over an hour. Why in the hell aren’t you answering your cell phone?”
“Because I didn’t want to be disturbed,” Cole told him. “So if you’re here to try and change my mind about going to J.P.’s wedding, you’re wasting your time.”
“There isn’t going to be any wedding,” Aaron told him, his voice flat. “Francesca’s dead.”
For a moment, Cole thought that his brother had made some sort of tasteless joke. After all, Aaron had made no secret of the fact that he thought J.P. marrying his own daughter’s friend was disgusting. But one look at Aaron’s face and he knew his brother wasn’t joking. “What happened?”
“It looks like she was murdered.”
Cole’s brain tried to process the news. The determined young woman he’d tried to reason with the previous night was dead? “When? Where?”
“Sometime last night at her apartment,” Aaron informed him. “The maid found her a few hours ago. Blackwell, the manager at the Mill House, called me and I had him phone the police. Then I went over to the apartment building to wait for them. Seeing that dead body shook me up. You’d think my years in the military and in the SEALs would have prepared me for something like this.”
“Sit down,” Cole told his brother, motioning to the sitting area where sofas and chairs had been grouped around a square marble table. Aaron sank down into one of the upholstered chairs. Cole did the same and waited for his brother to continue.
“Anyway, once the police arrived, I left and came looking for you since I couldn’t reach you on the phone.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Cole said and meant it. “Do the police have any idea who did it?”
“Not that I know of. They think robbery might have been the motive. Francesca’s wallet was empty and the maid said some of her jewelry is missing.”
“A robbery at the Mill House?” Cole remarked skeptically. He knew the building and the security system. Both were excellent.
“I know. I find it hard to believe, too. But it’s the only thing that makes sense. You know how the old man drapes all his women in jewelry and shows them off. He spent another chunk of change on a bracelet for her just last week. And Francesca wasn’t at all shy about flashing her little gifts under everyone’s noses. The woman might as well have pasted a sign on her back. Every thief in a five-state radius could spot her as an easy mark.”
Somehow he doubted the street-smart woman would allow herself to be anyone’s mark, Cole thought. But then he also couldn’t see her going down without a fight. “How did she die?”
“The police say it looks like she was strangled.”
Like a lightning bolt, a dark memory from his childhood flashed through Cole’s mind—a furious J.P. arguing with his mother, grabbing her and choking her. He’d been no more than five at the time, too small to take on a man J.P.’s size. But he’d grabbed his baseball bat and struck J.P. across the back as hard as he could. It had earned him a backhand and a bloody mouth, but it had given his mother time to get away. “How did J.P. react when you told him?”
“He doesn’t know yet,” Aaron said. “That’s why I was trying to reach you. I was hoping you’d come with me to break the news to him.”
