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That was the supreme compliment for Manny. He was a frustrated athlete who’d been too short to play either basketball or football beyond junior high school.
“How in the hell did he get to her if she’s…a princess?” It had taken him a second to say the word. He’d never known a princess, even a media-created one, and he wasn’t sure how helpful one might be. But the prospect of getting a killer off the streets produced pure adrenaline in him. Up to now, he and Manny had come to a complete standstill in the case.
It had started seven months ago when they’d found the first body. A second, two months later; a third, another two months later; the fourth, two months later. This attempt was only a month since the last murder. All were killed on a Wednesday night. All were raped before being stabbed, but there had been no DNA, which led police to conclude the killer used both condoms and gloves. He never left clues, only a single red rose. The newspapers knew that. What they didn’t know was that the rose was always wrapped with a white satin ribbon tied into a neat bow.
Now they might have a witness who could tell them something about the killer. And, according to the beat cop, they might have to crawl over a mother to get to her.
They reached the parking lot and their unmarked car. “I’ll drive,” Cassidy said.
“I could have guessed that,” Manny said, fastening his seat belt and saying a Hail Mary, his usual practice when Cassidy drove.
Cassidy ignored it as usual. “What else do you know?”
“She apparently went for a walk outside the Municipal Auditorium.”
“At night?” Cassidy’s already preconceived notions about the woman dipped another notch.
“Yeah,” Manny said. “But she doesn’t know Atlanta…”
“You don’t go walking alone at night in any big city,” Cassidy interrupted. “She probably doesn’t have a brain in her head. And I’ll wager you my boat her mama will whisk her out of town faster than I can say boo.”
“No one wants your boat,” Manny said dryly. “And a boo from you would be enough to send anyone scurrying for a plane. Try to be charming for a change.”
“I don’t do charming,” Cassidy said, turning briefly to glare at his partner.
“Only because your heart isn’t in it since…”
“Don’t go there, Manny,” Cassidy warned.
Manny sighed. “All right. Back to Miss Merrick.”
“Miss…? Oh hell, you’re already besotted.”
Manny shrugged. “She must be something special. She got away. That puts her way ahead of the others.”
“Let’s just pray she knows something that can help us,” Cassidy said. He didn’t often depend on prayer, but he was ready to try anything. He couldn’t erase the thought that were he a little smarter, a little quicker, a little more intuitive, four women would still be alive.
He stepped on the gas pedal, and Manny crossed himself again as he beat a yellow light. Cassidy did not miss that, either.
They arrived at the hospital, and he parked illegally though he was careful not to block the emergency entrance. This, he thought, was an emergency. He wasn’t going to lose the only possible witness he might have.
He knew where to go, and in minutes he had the information he needed. Room number and condition, which was “satisfactory.” Poor Manny was practically running to keep up with him as he took the elevator to the neurology floor, checked the room numbers and rapped several times on the second door to the left.
“Come in.” The voice did not sound like that of a princess. It was obviously annoyed. And it belonged to a man.
Cassidy already had his badge out, and he flashed it to the three people in the room. A young man leaned against a wall, an older one sat half-sprawled on a window seat and a well-dressed woman in her forties sat on a chair. The bed was empty.
“Miss Merrick?”
“They are conducting tests,” said the young man who regarded him as if he were some strange creature. Cassidy returned the stare. “You are…”
“Paul Richards, Miss Merrick’s pairs partner and fiancé,” he said. “Tell me you’ve found the man who did this.”
Despite what Cassidy said to Manny, he knew enough about ice-skating to realize there must be more to Richards than was immediately visible. Still, he was singularly unimpressed, perhaps because of the contemptuous dismissal that flickered in the man’s eyes.
But then, after nearly thirteen years with the Atlanta Police Department, damn little impressed him.
Richards did not offer his hand, and neither did Cassidy. Instead of answering a question he thought rather stupid, he turned his attention to the blond woman huddled in the chair. She had scarcely moved since he and Manny entered. He went to her side. “Mrs. Merrick?”
She looked up at him, a glaze of tears hovering in her eyes. “How could something like this happen?”
“She was out alone,” he said matter-of-factly. “That can be dangerous anywhere.” He wanted to ask why her mother had not taught this small fact of life to her, but resisted. “When did you arrive at…the scene of the attack?” The preliminary report said she’d been present when the police arrived.
“Almost immediately,” the woman said. “Paul had finished changing clothes, and we were looking for the security guard to call a cab. We couldn’t find Marise or the security guard. Then we heard the sirens and I…I knew it was her. We followed an ambulance around the corner and saw her. She was so…still. Her blood…”
“Did she say anything? Anything at all?”
She shook her head, then seemed to remember her manners. She held out her hand graciously. “I am Marise’s mother, Cara Merrick.” Tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry, but the doctors said she suffered a concussion. She hasn’t awakened yet. The doctor thought she would be conscious by now. He told us…”
Cassidy’s heart sank. He’d hoped that she would be conscious by now. He knew that traumatic head wounds often caused at least temporary amnesia of events that occurred just before the injury. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Merrick,” he said.
“I plan to take her to Seattle as soon as the doctors say she can leave,” she said. “I have been looking into charter flights…”
“She’s a witness,” he said. “We think her attacker has killed at least four other women. We need her here.”
The woman stood and drew herself up tall. And as she did, he immediately knew his first instincts had been wrong. This was not a weak woman. She wanted people to think she was, but she wasn’t. “No, Detective,” she said simply.
Cassidy looked at his partner. Manny mouthed something like “charm.”
“And you?” Cassidy turned to the man sitting on the window ledge.
“David South, their coach.” The man straightened, and Cassidy recognized the loose grace of an athlete. “The doctors say they don’t know when she will wake. Or if she will have permanent damage when she does. The bastard cracked her skull against the pavement. We had to withdraw from the Challenge today. But we have the Sectional in three weeks. She shouldn’t miss it. Hell, she can’t miss it and stay in competition.”
Cassidy exchanged looks with Manny. They had been together so long now, they needed nothing more than a blink of an eye, a shrug of a shoulder, a tightening of the mouth to communicate.
Cassidy was beginning to feel very sorry for the princess. Everyone seemed to care more about getting her back to competition than about her well-being.
“We’ll wait here,” he said, leaning against a wall. Manny took up a position on the windowsill next to Mrs. Merrick.
“I tell you, she is unconscious,” the younger man insisted. “And as soon as the doctor says she can be moved, we will leave this…city.”
Not if Cassidy had any say in it.
“Why did she go out alone?” he asked the mother. “Was there a…quarrel of some kind?” The attack had occurred at ten o’clock. What had made a young woman wander by herself in a less-than-safe area? Not, he thought wryly, that there seemed to be any safe ones these days.
“There was no quarrel,” Cara Merrick said. “We were almost ready to leave after practicing all evening. It was very odd for her to just…disappear without telling anyone.”
Not really. Cassidy somehow knew that.
“Had anyone approached her? Stalked her, perhaps?”
Cara Merrick shook her head.
“And the security guard who found her didn’t see anything?”
“You will have to talk to him.”
“I will,” he said. “But I want to know if you heard or saw anything, either before or after the attack. If you have any idea why she went off alone, whether she intended to meet anyone…”
“Absolutely not,” the mother said. “We didn’t know anyone in this city. There had been no threats. No one with an unusual interest in her.”
“But still,” he persisted, “why would she be wandering alone?” He turned to her partner, who looked distinctly uncomfortable at the questions. “Would you know, Mr.… Richards, is it?”
“It is, and I have no idea,” Richards said. “She probably just wanted a breath of air. We’d been practicing for hours.”
Cassidy studied him carefully, then turned back to the older woman. “Mrs. Merrick, as I said, we believe the man who attacked your daughter has killed at least four women. She was very lucky to escape tonight. Your daughter might be our only lead.”
The door opened then, and he turned. Two orderlies were wheeling a gurney into the room, and for a moment he felt as if all the breath had been sucked out of him.
A blond woman lay on the gurney, her eyes closed. A bandage was wrapped around her head, and she had a huge bruise on her cheek. Lush dark eyelashes contrasted with the fine blond hair. Manny had said she was a stunner. He had not exaggerated. Despite the bandage there was no mistaking that this was a very pretty woman. She also looked young and vulnerable and, God help him, as if she were indeed a princess from a fairy tale. Hell, Manny had put that nonsense in his head.
He tried, instead, to go back to being a detective. She was blond. The other victims had been blond, too. That might mean the killer was looking for blondes, not specifically prostitutes. Maybe the prostitutes had just been targets of opportunity.
He watched as she was moved, along with an IV, onto the bed. She appeared small, weightless. She’d probably appeared vulnerable to a killer.
“As you can…see, she can’t answer your questions,” Mrs. Merrick said. She went over to the bed and took her daughter’s hand in hers. “Will you please leave?”
He glanced at Manny and nodded. “We’ll stay in the lounge outside,” he promised.
She returned his gaze. “We don’t want her to stay in this city one minute longer than necessary.”
Cassidy looked back down at the sleeping beauty who’d been shifted onto the bed. She’d been strong and smart enough to survive—or had it just been luck? More to the point, had she seen the attacker?
He watched the older woman loom over the patient as if warding off evil spirits. “I have some more questions.”
“The other officers have all the necessary information,” she said curtly. “And I think I asked you to leave.”
Obviously his charm wasn’t working. Well, it seldom did. Still, he wasn’t going to let the injured woman go without talking to her.
“We’ll be waiting outside, Mrs. Merrick. She could save lives.”
Then he turned to his partner. “Let’s go, Manny.”
Hours went by. Cassidy had learned patience a long time ago, but now the stakes were very, very high. He’d asked the nurses at the station to alert him if there was any news. He also kept an eye on the door. He and Manny took turns getting coffee and sandwiches. Noon came and passed. Then a nurse hurried into the room, followed, a few moments later, by a man who was obviously a doctor.
When the nurse came out, Cassidy approached her. “Anything wrong?”
“She’s awake,” the nurse said.
“Does she remember anything?”
She looked apologetic. “Sorry. I can’t talk to you about it.”
He and Manny exchanged glances. Damn, but he wanted in that room.
But Cassidy also felt relief for her. He felt an odd tug somewhere inside that he feared had nothing to do with his current case. He told himself that he merely wanted whatever information the skater might have. That was all. He couldn’t even think of anything else. He stayed away from women these days. Especially women like her. She was so far out of his league as to be on another planet.
Then he wondered why he’d even harbored that fleeting thought. Even if by some miracle she agreed to stay in town, she wouldn’t look at him twice. And he sure as hell wasn’t interested in a relationship. Any relationship.
“Whatcha think?” Manny asked.
“I think we are going to have to be very convincing.” While waiting, he read over the preliminary crime report. He’d been surprised at her age. Twenty-four. She’d looked younger. Born in California. The report was ridiculously void of details about her, and he was hungry for more. Most of all he wanted to know how she’d survived the attack and whether she had seen her attacker’s face. As usual there was no other evidence. No fingerprints. No strands of hair. Only the victim.
He tried to think of her that way. The victim.
The doctor left the room, closing the door behind him. Cassidy strode toward him and displayed his badge. “How is she?”
“Conscious. She’s in a lot of pain, but that’s usual with this kind of injury.”
“Can I see her?”
The doctor hesitated.
“She might have seen her assailant,” Cassidy said. “We think it’s the same man who’s killed four women.”
“I’ve read about them. But weren’t most of the victims pros…working girls?”
“Yes. But now I’m wondering if he specifically targeted prostitutes or if they were just more vulnerable.”
The doctor nodded. “You can see her if her family approves. They want me to discharge her today so they can fly to Seattle.”
“Should she be moved this soon?”
The doctor shrugged. “We would like to keep her another night, but we can’t force her to stay.”
“Does she remember anything?”
“She’s a bit hazy about what happened. There’s no permanent damage, but sometimes there is amnesia concerning events immediately preceding a head injury. Now, excuse me.”
Cassidy stood aside as he left.
Manny came up to him as the doctor disappeared down the hall. “Ready to breach the lion’s den?”
“Lioness,” Cassidy corrected as he strode to the door and knocked.
The mother opened it and blocked the door. She looked at her watch, then back at him. “Do you never sleep, Detective?”
He tried again to give her a charming grin. “I’m told your daughter is awake,” he said.
