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Kitt made her way home, grateful for the dark. For the opportunity to lick her wounded ego in private. Tomorrow, she would hit the gym. The shooting range wasn’t a bad idea, either.
As she neared her house, she saw that something had been tacked to her front door. A note, she saw.
She climbed the stairs, crossed to the door. The note read:
Saw you on TV. Good girl. I’ll be in touch. Love, Peanut.
15
Friday, March 10, 2006 12:30 a.m.
The angel slept now. Golden hair spread across her pillow. Frilly gown carefully arranged. Just so.
She slept—but not beautifully. Not perfectly. Her blue eyes were wide with terror; her perfect bow mouth twisted into a sort of howl.
Horrible. Grotesque.
Trembling, he applied the lip gloss, smearing it. He attempted to dab up the mess, but his hands shook so badly, he made it worse. Tears stung his eyes and he fought them.
Mustn’t cry. Mustn’t leave any bodily fluids behind.
He backed away from the bed, to the wall. He sank to the floor and brought his knees to his chest. He clutched them, hands sweating inside the latex gloves. He felt ill. Light-headed. The angel had awakened. She had been afraid. Terrified. She had fought him. The terror and fight had ruined her. Made her ugly.
The Other One would be angry. Furious.
He was always watching. Judging him. Ready to scold. Criticize.
He was sick of it. And he was tired. So damn tired he sometimes felt he could close his eyes and sleep forever.
What if he did? Simply went to sleep, never to awaken. Like one of their sweet angels? Or if he disappeared, slipped away into the night? What would the Other One do then? How could he survive?
His mind raced; his heart beat crazily. The room spun slightly. He rested his head on his knees, struggling for control. He breathed deeply. Slowly. Remembering all the things the Other One had told him.
Stay calm. Think first, then act. Take care not to leave anything behind.
He had shown him all the tricks. Remembering them calmed him. Little by little, his heart slowed. His sweat dried.
The angel’s bedside clock glowed hot pink. He watched as the minutes ticked by. He had to wait. For the hands. To pose them.
They were his. All his. Important. A surprise.
Yes, he had surprised the Other One. A difficult, near-Herculean feat. He had weathered the fury that had ensued. The punishments.
But strangely, in the end, the Other One had been pleased.
Who knew? Maybe tonight’s surprise would please him as well.
16
Friday, March 10, 2006 7:10 a.m.
M.C. parked in front of the single-story, ranch-style home. The first officers had already cordoned off the area; one stood at the perimeter, the other was in the house with the victim.
She’d gotten the call as she stepped out of the shower; she hadn’t even taken the time to dry her hair. She needed a shot of caffeine—badly—but would have to make due with the cup of instant coffee she had downed on the way across town.
She swung out of her vehicle, shivering as the cold morning air hit her wet head. She hunched into her jacket, irritated with the cold, longing for spring.
Tullocks Woods. An odd choice of neighborhood for the SAK—or his copycat—to choose, certainly different from the last. Located on the far west side, heavily wooded with large lots, the area was well removed from everything else.
A destination, M.C. thought, frowning. Neither a thoroughfare nor adjacent to one. An unfamiliar vehicle would stick out like a sore thumb.
She’d had a couple of high school friends who had lived here. They’d hosted parties down at the neighborhood clubhouse—the Powwow Club. One of them had gone on to write murder mysteries.
A murder here was hitting way too close to home.
She slammed her car door and started up the walk. Behind her, she heard the sound of others arriving. No doubt the ID guys. Lundgren. The brass.
M.C. recognized the first officer from the range. Jenkins. Real young. A great shot.
She signed the log. “What’ve we got?” she asked.
“Ten-year-old girl. Marianne Vest. Appears to have been suffocated.”
“Parents?”
“Divorced. Mother found her. She’s hysterical. Her pastor’s on the way. A neighbor’s with her now.”
“Anyone else home?”
“No. Big sister spent the night at her best friend’s house.”
“Lucky her. Anything else I should know?”
He hesitated. “No.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re certain?”
“It’s just, it’s—” He shifted his gaze. “It’s pretty horrible.”
She nodded. “Let’s keep access to the inner scene as limited as possible. Any questions about that direct them to me. Or Detective Lundgren.”
M.C. said the last grudgingly; she heard it in her own voice and wondered if he did, too. She stepped into the house. It smelled of burned toast. The mother sat at the kitchen table, hunched over a cup of coffee, expression blank with shock.
The neighbor stood awkwardly behind her, looking ill.
M.C. turned right, heading down a hallway. Finding the victim’s bedroom wasn’t difficult—an officer stood outside the door.
She reached him and nodded. “Anybody else been in?”
“No, Detective.”
“Did you touch anything?”
“Took her pulse, that’s it.”
M.C. glanced toward the child’s bed. From this position she could see the victim’s hands were once again posed oddly, the right hand with the three middle fingers extended, the left in a fist.
She experienced a quiver of excitement, of expectation. They had a fresh scene. A new, best chance for catching this guy.
Maybe this time he’d slipped up.
“Morning, Detective Riggio.”
She turned. Detective Scott Snowe. The first detective from ID. No doubt the chief would send the entire bureau. Snowe had his camera and video recorder. He wanted to get his initial shots before the room filled up. And before anything was disturbed.
“Detective.”
Snowe motioned toward the bedroom. “This is a pretty fucked-up way to start the weekend. So much for TGIF.”
“No joke. You want to get your shots?”
“If you don’t mind. I’ll be quick.”
“Have at it.”
He stopped just inside the door. “Lundgren’s on her way in. She and a Channel 13 news van pulled up at the same time.”
“How’d the press hear so fast?”
It was a rhetorical question and the detective didn’t answer.
While he went to work, she quickly inventoried the other bedrooms. There were three in total. The teenager’s looked as if a tornado had struck. The master was only slightly less chaotic, but for different reasons. Baskets of clean clothes, yet to be folded. Several stacks of paperback books on the nightstand. Romances. Mysteries. Typical genre stuff. Two empty wineglasses beside them.
M.C. frowned. Had the woman had company last night? She bent and without touching either of the glasses, sniffed. Wine, definitely. Both white.
She shifted her gaze to the other side of the bed. Clearly, if the woman had had company, they hadn’t slept on that half of the queen-size bed. It was neatly made—and covered with stacks of paperwork. She crossed to them. Mama Vest must be a Realtor. The paperwork consisted of flyers, listings, comps, things like that.
“Anything jump out as wrong?”
M.C. turned. Kitt stood in the doorway. “Not yet. You’re late.”
“The media’s all but erecting a big top out there. Or should be.”
“You wanted the job of ringmaster, you got it. Congratulations.”
To her credit, Kitt let that pass. “Apparently, the local affiliates of all three networks received an anonymous call about the murder.”
“Anonymous calls seem to be popular these days.”
“So do murders of ten-year-old girls. Is this another SAK copycat?”
“Looks that way, though I haven’t been in yet. Gave Snowe a few minutes to get his shots.” She paused. “He posed her hands again. Saw that from the doorway.”
Kitt nodded, and together, they headed for the victim’s bedroom. M.C. noticed that the other woman was limping. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “You’re moving like a lame horse.”
Kitt sent her an irritated glance. “I went for a run last night. Had a message waiting for me when I got home. Thumbtacked to my front door.”
“Peanut?”
M.C. saw her wince at the name. “Yup. Said he saw me on TV and would be in touch. Bagged the note and brought it to ID this morning. Which, by the way, is why I’m late.”
M.C. didn’t comment. They reached the child’s room, stepped inside. Several more ID guys had arrived; they all stood silently by the bed.
Kitt and M.C. joined them. Snowe looked over at them, visibly shaken.
“I didn’t expect this,” he said.
M.C. didn’t have to ask what. The Sleeping Angel they had expected to find was, instead, a work of horror. The child’s once-beautiful face was screwed into a terrible scream.
Kitt took a step backward, as if propelled by strong emotion. M.C. held her ground, though not without effort. They had all worked grislier crime scenes, seen bodies mutilated beyond recognition, victims who had been subjected to vile indignities, pre- and postmortem. But this child, the terror frozen on her face, was somehow more chilling, more horrible.
“This one saw him coming,” Snowe muttered.
M.C. cleared her throat. “If we’re lucky, she got a good whack at him. Scratched him, pulled out some hair.”
Snowe squatted, examining the oddly bent fingers. “Nothing to the naked eye. Pathologist will scrape the nails. Here he is now.”
She turned, grateful when she saw it was Frances Roselli on call. She wanted all the experience she could get.
The older man reached the bed, made a sound.
“It isn’t pretty, is it?”
He slipped off his glasses, cleaned them, then slipped them back on. M.C. sensed he was composing himself.
“You got your shots?” he asked Snowe.
He had, and he and the rest of the identification team moved on. He looked at M.C. and Kitt. “Detectives?”
“Anything jump out at you, other than her expression?” M.C. asked.
“Not yet,” he said. “I want to get her hands bagged, then I’ll give her a look-over.”
They thanked him and left him to his work.
“Talked to the mother yet?” Kitt asked.
“No. Let’s do it.”
