ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS BOOK 1 (9 page)

“Grimes, I want to hear everything, even if you duplicate information you think you’ve given me before, okay?”

Grimes was gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were turning white. “Yeah, I know. Sorry. Where was I?”

“At her hair.”

“Right. So her friend Amanda tells me that Jessica has this long curly brown hair that everybody would kill to have, but she hates it, so she straightens it. She also told me that they’ve done a little experimenting, with alcohol and such. But Jessica never really liked it, so she’s not a big party girl. She smokes on the sly, her parents don’t know about that. She’s just this smiley, sweet, soft-spoken girl with a head full of smarts. Seemed pretty grounded to me. Her buddy told me that she thought Jessica was a little naive, especially when it came to the boys. She’s definitely a virgin. Or was, until this asshole got a hold of her.”

“Okay, that’s good. Tell me about how she disappeared.”

“She was walking home from work, wearing green scrubs like all the staff. It’s a pretty small hospital, they cater more to the indigents and poorer folk who don’t have stellar health care. So anyway, her usual routine was to walk home, change clothes and go to the gym. Amanda indicated Jessica was pretty insecure about her body, that she spent a lot of time working out. Of course, Amanda thought Jessica was perfect, but you know how young girls are. Never believe in themselves the way their friends do. At least that’s what I get from my daughter. You don’t have any kids, do you?”

“No, I don’t. Please, go on.”

“Okay, okay, don’t get so touchy. She left the hospital at five-fifteen and never made it home. Parents reported her missing around nine that night, and they put out the alert and started the search. Didn’t make a difference. She had to have been long gone by then.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because when you found her in Nashville, she’d been dead for a while. Three days from snatch to find. The M.E. said she’d been dead at least twenty-four hours.”

“Any idea where he held her? I’m assuming he didn’t stay in the apartment with her the whole time?”

“Nope. Roommate came home, found the blood but no Jessica. We checked as many motels as we could along the route from Jackson to Nashville, showed her picture around. Hell, man, there’s tons of motels, hotels, bed-and-breakfasts along the route. Too many to cover in this short a time frame. Plus, he may be local. Have his own place to keep them.”

Baldwin thought for a moment. “I’d be inclined to disagree with that theory. This guy has a plan. I can’t imagine that he’s picking a random motel to do his business. He certainly has a familiarity with each area, but he can’t be local to them all.” He grew silent, wondering. The killer had already covered five states. He’d have to have the geographical forensics team do a workup, see if there was an equidistant point that the killer might be working from. He made a note in his book.

“Let me make a call, I want to hear all the information the Nashville police have gathered about Shauna Davidson.”

He dialed Taylor’s cell phone, happy when she answered on the first ring. “It’s Agent Baldwin,” he said, trying to sound officious.

“Hi, Special Agent.” Her tone was teasing, playful, and he realized she must be alone. He wished he were there with her.

“I’m going to put you on speakerphone. I’m in a car with Special Agent Jerry Grimes, he’s been working the Alabama and Louisiana cases. He’ll need to hear this information, too. You’ve got the background on Shauna Davidson?”

Taylor’s voice rang true on the speaker, crisp and professional.

“We do have her background. Here you go. Twentyone, five-six, hundred forty pounds, brown on brown. Attended Middle Tennessee State University, studying premed. Parents are Carol and Roger Davidson, both of them are accountants. Pretty well off, which explains the apartment being so nice. She was an only child, a bit spoiled according to her friends. She ran with a group of girls—they call themselves the Posse. Names are Megan, Kimber and Tiffany. They do everything together. They were all out together the night Shauna disappeared.

“They were barhopping, got a little drunk and went on the make. They went into a bar called Jungle Jim’s for their last stop. Megan and Kimber were talking to a couple of guys and trying to get them to buy some drinks. Tiffany had separated from the group when they got there. Her boyfriend showed up and was all kinds of put out, saw her dancing with another guy. She was drunk, he was pissed. She sat with him and got engrossed in their conversation. Shauna was with Kimber and Megan while they were talking to the boys. Apparently she didn’t think things were going anywhere, and when one of the boys made a pass at her, she blew him off. According to Megan, Shauna made the loser sign at him, you know, put her hand up to her forehead in an L, which made Kimber and Megan laugh. Kimber pointed out that Shauna wasn’t an angel, but she was pretty picky about who she’d fool around with. And that’s the last they remember seeing her.

“They’re all feeling horribly guilty about it. They were really drunk, and no one was paying a lot of attention. Megan and Kimber saw Tiffany leave with her boyfriend, and when they were ready to go, they didn’t see Shauna and assumed she’d gotten a ride with Tiffany.”

“Did anyone see her leave the bar?”

“Well, a bouncer thinks he remembers seeing her leave alone. Says he saw her walking north on Front Street, which would be the way she would go if she was walking home. But that’s it. Until she showed up in Georgia, that is. Same guy?”

“Same guy. We found a hand that we think belongs to Jessica Porter at the scene. It’s being processed. But we have a problem.”

“Don’t tell me.”

“Another girl’s gone missing. A doctor from Noble, Georgia. We’re headed that way to get some more information. Keep close to the phone, okay? We should have some more information for you soon.”

“Okay, thanks for letting me know. Talk to you later.”

Baldwin clicked the phone off. “Let’s talk some more about the crime scenes. What kind of evidence did you find at the scenes where the bodies were recovered?”

“Nada. Nothing. Zip. They were lying on their backs with their arms kinda stretched out, legs crossed at the ankle. But there’s nothing to indicate they hadn’t been just dumped there. We don’t even have tire prints. Just some loose trash that the techs collected from the scenes. Cans, bottles, papers, that kind of thing. Did you get any of that from your Nashville site?”

Baldwin took a deep breath. “No, nothing evidentiary at all. Just Jessica’s body and what’s presumably Jeanette Lernier’s hand. We’ll have to wait for DNA to match it absolutely…”

“Just like here in Georgia. Man, this is totally fucked up.”

“He’s not giving us much to go on, is he? And now we have Marni Fischer missing. She’s been gone how long?”

“Since yesterday after her shift ended, around five.”

“If he’s holding them for three days, that gives us until tomorrow night, right?”

“Yeah. And this guy uses the interstates. So he could be anywhere by now.”

Baldwin looked at the file in his lap. Marni Marie Fischer, age twenty-eight. A beautiful face stared at him with laughing eyes. He perused her features, noting the differences between this new missing girl and the ones before. She was older, he saw that immediately. The first three girls had been in their late teens. And Marni had dark blond hair. All of the previous victims were brunette. He found himself saying a quick prayer that maybe Marni Fischer was simply missing, not the latest victim of the Southern Strangler. Grimes’s phone rang, and he picked it up, listening intently to the person on the other line. He hung up and shook his head as if trying to clear the cobwebs, then dragged his eyes back to Baldwin.

“Okay then, let me fill you in on what they’ve got. A whole bunch of nothing, to be succinct. Sheriff wants us to meet him over at the hospital now. They want to tow Marni’s car to the impound lot, but they kindly agreed to wait for us. I know you like to look at your scenes in situ.”

Baldwin nodded at him. “Great, that will be a big help.”

“He’s also bringing photos of the scene so you can see exactly how they found it.”

“Then let’s hope there’s something that will give us an idea of where he’s taken her.” Baldwin slid lower in the seat, chewing his bottom lip. He had a bad feeling that they weren’t going to find anything that would let them save Marni Fischer.

Taylor and Fitz pulled up to Baptist Hospital’s emergency entrance and parked. Making their way through the emergency-room throng was an adventure. Taylor counted six patients that had blood streaming from various places along their bodies. The fluorescent lights made the blood look orange. She swallowed back a moment of distaste. The last time she had come through these doors was on a stretcher, her own blood threatening to spill onto the linoleum floor. Her last major case popped into her mind—it was always there, just below the surface.

She and Baldwin had met on that case four months prior. He’d been in town on a sabbatical, Metro had needed the help of a profiler. A mutually beneficial relationship ensued, one that pushed Taylor and Baldwin into long hours and tense situations. Being thrown together, two strong personalities in conflict, there had been an inevitable attraction. They had been on the trail of an armed suspect. In the end, cornered, the desperate suspect had gotten into a face-off with Taylor, and lost.

But it wasn’t without a price.

Even all these months later she could see the knife swinging at her, feel it bite into her flesh. She’d killed the man, but not before he left her a permanent souvenir, a wicked slash across her jugular.

Her hand went to her throat. She wouldn’t have it any other way—she and Baldwin made a good team. When she nearly died, he’d been right at her side, and hadn’t left. Still, being back in this emergency room gave her the chills. She tossed the thoughts away.

“Fitz, where would she be?”

“Probably up in surgery. Chief asked the E.R. doc to put her down as Jane Doe so the media wouldn’t get their hands on the story. Let’s see if it worked.” He went over to the information desk, badged the receptionist and asked for Jane Doe’s whereabouts. He turned to Taylor with a smile and pointed toward the elevator, then lumbered away before the receptionist could get too interested. The subterfuge was working so far. Taylor joined him, and they rode up to the surgical floor in silence. The antiseptic smell leaked into the elevator before the doors opened. Taylor was assaulted with a memory of time served in the hospital. She was sorry that Betsy would have to experience the other side of policing—recovering from assault. It happened, not to everyone, but often enough. The elevator doors opened before she could fully relive her pain, and they went to the nurses’ station.

“You have a Jane Doe up here?” Taylor asked, trying to look noncommittal. The woman looked right back at her and Taylor immediately saw that everyone knew Betsy Garrison was Jane Doe. But the nurse played along.

“She’s just back from recovery. The doctor is with her now. Down the left hall, she’s in 320.”

They thanked her and walked toward the room. Taking a look inside, they could see two men, one the doctor in his green scrubs, the other Brian Post, Betsy’s partner. He looked stricken, but after a moment he laughed and sat down next to the hospital bed. Taylor knocked softly on the door. They looked up and beckoned her and Fitz in.

Betsy Garrison, the tough, feisty head of the Nashville Metro Sex Crimes Unit, was sitting up in the hospital bed, a huge white bandage covering the left side of her head. She looked beaten up and tired but gave as genuine a smile as she could muster.

“Taylor, Fitz, c’mon in. Join the party.”

Taylor took up residence on the opposite side of the bed from Post, who was scowling possessively at Betsy. That’s interesting, she noted. Looks like Post has more than professional concern for his partner. She leaned over and gingerly gave Betsy a hug. Fitz leaned against the door to the bathroom, looking distinctly uncomfortable. He was an old-fashioned kind of guy, didn’t like to see ladies in distress. Betsy picked up on it immediately. Her voice croaked as she spoke, still rough from the anesthesia.

“Fitz, I see that your chivalrous sense of justice is piqued. Why don’t you take Brian here and get him a cup of coffee. He’s been mothering the hell out of me.”

Fitz didn’t have to be told twice. He crooked a finger at Post, who reluctantly rose. With a brief kiss on the one unbandaged piece of Betsy’s forehead that was still visible, Post followed Fitz out of the room. Taylor settled in and gave Betsy an expectant look. They’d known each other for several years, had actually been on patrol together. They were as good friends as two female cops could be, and had a great deal of respect for each other.

Betsy jumped in first. “It looks worse than it is. Broke my nose and the cheekbone. But they got everything fixed up, and I’ll look better than before. That sweet doctor did my nose while I was under. No more bump!”

Taylor gave her a small smile. “You’re keeping up a brave face. How are you really?”

Betsy deflated slightly, trying for a smile and grimacing instead. “I hurt like hell. I’m embarrassed as hell. I feel like an idiot. My own suspect rapes me? I mean really, if that got out on the force, I’d have to resign. None of the guys could ever look at me the same again. As it is, Brian’s just about to die having to see me like this.”

“But Brian’s got more than a professional duty to you, am I right?”

Betsy shifted uncomfortably, the starchy sheets crackling at the movement.

“Caught me. We’ve been dating for six months or so. He’s a great guy. I know they always say not to date anyone you work with…” She trailed off, eyes sliding away.

Before the horrible case that nearly cost Taylor her life, she had been caught up in the shooting of one of their homicide detectives. The fact that she had slept with him wasn’t well known. Taylor looked into Betsy’s eyes, wondering if the female in her had picked up on the long-dead affair. Deciding there was nothing to her statement, she brushed the comment aside.