More Than A Lawman. Anna J. Stewart

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СКАЧАТЬ he is still hunting.” In any other circumstances, Cole might have smiled at Eden being a step ahead of them. “He was just hiding deeper underground.” Cole walked into the freezer, his eyes immediately going to the hook hanging from the ceiling.

      Fresh rage descended and he gritted his teeth. He scanned the line of bodies and saw the pale copper-blond hair of a young woman. For an instant, he envisioned Eden’s face on the corpse. He attributed the unease to the arctic freezer temps, rather than dwell on the fact that he easily could have been too late.

      He’d seen a lot during his ten years on the force, especially in the last two, serving as a detective. The crimes, the victims, the aftermath of what human beings were capable of inflicting on one another were like slash marks on his soul. Was it any wonder some cops lost their faith in...everything? But when the victim was someone you knew, someone you cared about... The breath he exhaled may as well have been fire, given the anger behind it.

      Cole’s eyes burned as he blinked the vision of Eden away, but he couldn’t stop the image of her hanging in this place. What had been going through her head? Had she been awake? Screaming?

      No. Eden wouldn’t have screamed. She’d done exactly what he would have expected her to do: she got herself down.

      “Eden was lucky,” Jack muttered as if sensing where Cole’s thoughts had taken him.

      “I doubt luck had much to do with it,” Cole said. Their killer had wanted Eden found. “Glad to see Hendrix is on scene.” He inclined his head toward the older silver-haired woman standing in front of a row of gurneys. The medical examiner headed up the entire forensic division, as well she should, given her nearly twenty-five years on the job.

      “They’re taking bets,” Jack said. “This big a development, odds are it’s less than twenty-four hours before the Feds arrive.”

      Not one to pass on a sure thing, he said, “Give me ten on twenty-three. Mona,” Cole acknowledged the coroner and stepped over to greet her and hand over the last cup of coffee. “Any idea how long they’ve been dead?”

      “Won’t know for sure until the bodies thaw out.” Mona Hendrix gazed upon the first two that had been removed, her laser-like blue eyes widening behind thin wire frames. “But these aren’t recent kills. I’d say anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. So, Cole, tell me, what do you see?”

      He hated this necessary game, but at least the frozen corpses didn’t have that sickly sour stench that crept into his nostrils and settled in the back of his throat. Instead the stench had been partially obscured by the frost.

      “Their clothes are all still intact,” he observed, blanking out the fact that these people had once been living, breathing members of society. “And so are the bodies. No mutilations visible. Strange.” The previous three victims had been cut open, organs left exposed. These bodies didn’t have that. “A change in MO? Or are you saying it’s a different killer? This isn’t the Iceman?”

      Mona glanced at him, disapproval evident in her face. “You know better than to put words in my mouth, Detective. I asked for what you see. I didn’t say tell me what I was thinking.”

      Cole circled the gurneys, checking for differences, any variances from the first three victims’ files he’d memorized, a necessity a month back after realizing Eden had the Iceman in her sights. She might be used to working alone, but she wasn’t a cop. Somebody had to be her backup. “Like the original three victims, there doesn’t seem to be any racial, physical or gender-specific commonalities, but how they were found and where...”

      The Iceman had led him to this spot. Brought Eden here. Eden... She hadn’t been focused on anyone other than the Iceman for ages. Who else could it be?

      “What about their blood?” he asked and gave himself a mental pat on the back when Mona blinked wide eyes at him. It took a lot to surprise her.

      “Their blood?”

      Cole bent close and examined the side of the neck of one of the victims. “We need to take another look at the previous bodies.” He did the same check on the present victims, pointing to round puncture markings near the jugular in each case. “Eden’s doctor found these same pinpricks and bruises, only smaller, and on her arm, too. He believes whoever took her also took a significant portion of her blood.”

      “Is that so. Well, it’s good to have a starting point, but it’ll be a few days before I can confirm that.”

      “How about prints?” McTavish asked.

      “We’ve got in one of those fancy new digital scanners. We’ll see how well it works. In the meantime, I’ll pull the files of the previous victims and go through them again. Interesting. Given their injuries, any blood loss would have been attributed to those markings, but you’re suggesting the blood itself was what he was after? I’ll take another run at the photos, too, see if I can find any more wounds similar to these. So, is it him?”

      “Going by the evidence in front of us?” Cole cast doubtful eyes to Jack, who shrugged. “I can’t say for certain. But my gut tells me it is. There’s a reason we didn’t get anything from him in almost two years. If he’s changed MOs, that could explain it. I’ll have Dr. Collins send you a sample of Eden’s blood to have something to compare.” For the first time, he felt a crack, however thin, appear in the case.

      “Sounds good.” Mona returned to the freezer to supervise the removal of the rest of the victims.

      “What game is he playing?” Cole couldn’t wrap his brain around the scene. “There’s so much that’s wrong. If I hadn’t gotten that call from him, I might not even believe it myself.” And hesitation, as Cole knew all too well, could be a cop’s worst enemy.

      “Buck up, Delaney.” Jack shifted on his feet. Cole turned. “Boss is in the house.”

      “And he’s brought a friend. Looks like I should have bet on a shorter time.” Even Cole wouldn’t have guessed the FBI would turn up within a half hour. “Lieutenant.” Cole nodded at Kevin Santos, a cop with twenty years’ experience, most of it in homicide, despite the fact that he looked like a computer geek. Three years behind the lieutenant’s desk hadn’t dulled his detective skills one bit. Nor had it affected his capacity to detect what Cole’s grandfather would have called nonsense.

      “Detectives Delaney and McTavish,” Lieutenant Santos greeted them and approached them with a guarded look in his eyes. He gestured to the man behind him. “This is Agent Anthony Simmons, our new local FBI liaison. His office is suggesting we establish a task force on the Iceman investigation.”

      “Shoot,” Jack muttered. “Missed it by two hours.”

      Cole noted his lieutenant’s arched brow and wondered if his superior had entered the betting pool himself. “Sir, while we value the FBI’s willingness to help—”

      “We do?” Jack choked on his coffee.

      “Respectfully, Agent Simmons,” Cole said, as politely as possible, “nobody knows this case better than my team.”

      “That may be true.” With dark, tired eyes, and a wariness that spoke of too many years on the job, Agent Simmons gave a slow nod. “But you have to admit, given this morning’s developments, one has to wonder if you and your team should have known he’d surface again.”

      Whatever СКАЧАТЬ