Count to Ten (31 page)

“This is the guy that did Burnette’s kid,” Jergens said, his mouth flattening. “SOB.”

“Which woman is dead?” Reed asked and the two shook their heads.

“Both were burned pretty badly. The neighbors said they were both about the same size, both brunettes, but nobody would make an ID. That’s the DOA.” A gurney was being rolled toward the ambulance, the body bag zipped.

Mia motioned the MEs to stop. “Well, let’s find out.” They cringed then exhaled in unison as the ME unzipped the bag. The burns were bad. “Not Adler,” she murmured, then turned back to Petty and Jergens. “Did the neighbors at least provide a name?”

Jergens checked his notes. “Roxanne Ledford. She called in the 911.”

“Tell us what happened,” Mia said calmly. “Start from the 911.”

Jergens nodded. “Rape in progress was called in at 3:38. The 911 operator told her to vacate the premises, but she didn’t. We got here at 3:42.

“We could see flames upstairs and in the lobby when we got here. Petty radioed for the fire department. I grabbed the extinguisher from the cruiser and tried to go in, but the fire in the entry was already too big. Another cruiser was behind us. I went to see if the perp was still on the grounds and Petty and the other two started evacuating.”

Mia lifted her eyes. “But you didn’t find anyone?”

“No. I’m sorry, Detective. There was nobody around.”

“The last time, he drove off in the victim’s car. I want you to find out which cars belonged to Adler and Ledford and see if they’re still here. If not, put out an all points.”

“What else?” Petty asked. “We really want this SOB.”

Mia looked around. “Any of these guys the super?”

“That one.” Petty pointed. “Tall, big guy wearing the fuzzy pink slippers.”

“Find out if the building’s got security cameras. I want any and all tape from the last week. Oh, and what are we doing for these people? We gotta worry about exposure.”

“Two buses are on the way,” Jergens said. “We’re going to put them in the elementary school down the street until we can set up a shelter.”

“We’ll need statements from everyone. I want to know if there was anybody around here that anybody didn’t know.” She shot them a hard smile. “Thanks. I appreciate it. So will Roger Burnette.” She looked up when the officers moved off to follow her orders. “We need to get to Brooke. Maybe she can tell us something.”

“Hunter and Mahoney pulled them out.”

She shot him a look of disbelief, then started toward the trucks at a run. “They went in
again
? There are four companies here. Why Mahoney and Hunter for God’s sake?”

He remembered the look of honest affection she’d given Hunter at the Hill fire. A nasty voice whispered in his ear, but Reed dismissed it. Whatever had happened between Mia and Hunter in the past, Reed had been the one to leave her bed tonight.

“They wanted to go in. After pulling corpses, it really makes you feel good to pull out a live person. The other chief understood that and let Larry’s guys go in for the -rescue.”

“Like Howard and Brooks let me have DuPree.”

“Yeah. Just like that.”

Hunter and Mahoney sat on the back of the truck. Both looked shell-shocked.

Mia put her hand on Hunter’s shoulder. “David. Are you two all right?”

Hunter nodded, his eyes flat. “Fine,” he murmured.

Mahoney grimaced. “Yeah. Sure. We’re just fine.” But the sarcastic words were filled with pain. He closed his eyes. “I really hate this guy.”

“What happened?” Reed asked quietly. “Tell us everything you saw.”

“We went in the front,” Mahoney began. “He’d started a fire there, too, but the 186 knocked it down. Smoke was heavy in Adler’s apartment, but the stove was in place.”

“Where did you find them?” Mia asked.

“In the back bedroom.” Mahoney shook his head, cleared his throat. “The bed was in flames, all the walls, carpet, everything.” His voice broke. “There were two women in the room. One was on the floor. I picked her up and started out. Called for backup for Hunter. When I got her out, the EMTs said she was already dead. She was wearing flame-retardant pajamas, so her body wasn’t burned so badly, but her face and hands were. She’d been stabbed. Ripped open.” He pursed his lips and turned away.

“And the second woman?” Reed asked quietly.

Hunter swallowed. “She was tied to the bed. Nude. Her body was on fire. I grabbed a blanket and rolled her up in it. Her legs were broken. Bent at angles.”

Mia suddenly stiffened, her eyes swerving to the road where a woman with a blonde braid approached. Two officers turned her away. “Goddammit.”

Carmichael again. “She was following you,” Reed commented and her eyes flashed up to his. He knew she was thinking the same thing he was. Carmichael had been waiting outside her apartment. She’d seen Reed leave just before Mia had. That he’d spent the night would be all over the front page.
Shit.

But Mia’s attention was already back to Hunter. “What happened next, David?”

“I had to cut the ropes to get her out of there. But I didn’t touch anything else. I picked her up and carried her out. She was burned.” His jaw trembled and he clenched it. “Badly. The EMTs weren’t sure if she’d make it.”

Mia squeezed Hunter’s hand. “If she does, it will be because of the two of you. You have to hold on to that, David.” She let go and looked up. “I have to talk to Brooke.”

Reed looked up at the building. The fire was nearly out. “I’ll stay here and go in as soon as I can. Foster and Ben should be here any minute. Can you call Jack?”

“Yeah.” She kicked at some gravel at her feet. “Dammit, we missed him again.”

Thursday, November 30, 4:50 A.M.

“I’m Detective Mitchell. You just took in a Brooke Adler. Rape and burn victim.”

The ER nurse shook her head. “You can’t see her.”

“I have to talk to her. She’s the only one who’s seen a killer. She’s his fourth victim.”

“I wish I could help you, Detective, but I can’t let you see her. She’s sedated.”

A doctor walked up, brows crunched. “She’s -heavily sedated, but somehow still lucid enough to mutter. She has third-degree burns over ninety percent of her body. If I thought she’d survive, I’d make you wait. Hurry. We were just about to intubate.”

Mia fell into stride beside the doctor. “We need to do a rape kit.”

“Already noted on my chart. She looks bad, Detective.”

“I saw his first two victims in the morgue, Doctor. They looked bad.”

“Just tryin’ to prepare you.” He handed her a mask and surgical drape. “After you.”

Mia came to a stumbling halt. Acid rose to burn her throat, choke her air.
Dear God,
was all she could think for the first five seconds. “Oh, sweet Christ.”

“I tried to tell you,” the doctor murmured. “Two minutes. No more.”

The nurse standing at Brooke’s side glared. “What’s she doing here?”

“She’s the bad cop,” the doctor said blandly. “Let her through.”

Mia shot him a sharp look. “What?”

He shrugged. “That’s what she kept calling you. The bad cop.”

“She’s muttering something about ‘ten,’?” the nurse said.

“Like the number?”

“Yes.”

“Hey, Brooke, it’s me, Detective Mitchell.”

Brooke’s eyes opened, and Mia saw wild fear and excruciating pain.
“Ten.”

Mia lifted her hand, but there was no place to touch her. “Who did this, Brooke?”

“Count to ten,” Brooke whispered. She moaned in agony and Mia’s heart clenched.

“Brooke, tell me who did this. Was it someone at Hope Center? Was it Bixby?”

“Go to hell.”

Mia flinched. The woman had been afraid to talk to them. They’d forced her to speak, she and Reed.
I’ll have to live with that.
And though she knew this wasn’t her fault, she understood Brooke’s anger. “I’m so sorry, Brooke. But I need your help.”

“Count to ten.” She labored for a breath and machines started beeping.

“Pressure’s dropping,” the nurse said with grim urgency. “Oxygen level’s dropping.”

“Push one amp of epi,” the doctor commanded, “and start an epinephrine drip. Get ready to intubate. Detective, you have to leave.”

“No.” Brooke struggled, pathetically. “Count to ten. Go to hell.”

The nurse was injecting a syringe into Brooke’s IV. “Get out, Detective.”

“One more minute.” Mia leaned closer. “Was it Bixby? Thompson? Secrest?”

The doctor leaned over Mia with a growl. “Detective,
move.
” Mia backed away, helpless, horrified, while the doctor and nurse battled for Brooke’s life.

Thirty grueling, endless minutes later, the doctor stepped back. His shoulders sagged. “I’m calling it. Time of death oh-five-hundred twenty-five hours.”

There had to be a word for what churned inside her. But that word wouldn’t come. Mia lifted her eyes to the doctor’s weary gaze. “I don’t know what to say.”

The doctor’s mouth tightened. “Say you’ll catch who did this.”

Roger Burnette had demanded it for Caitlin. Dana had demanded it for Penny Hill. “We will. We have to. He’s killed four women. Thank you, for doing what you could.”

Grimly he nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” She got to the door and stopped. Forced herself to turn around and look at Brooke Adler one more time. Then crossed herself and backed out of the room.

Thursday, November 30, 5:45 A.M.

The child watched from his hiding place.
He
was outside again. He didn’t know what the man buried, but he knew it had to be very, very bad. Because
he
was very bad.
Doesn’t anybody else know? Am I the only one that sees how bad he really is?

He thought of his mother, tossing and turning in her bed and he was suddenly, fiercely angry. She had to know. She had to see. She knew he disappeared in the night. But she got up every morning and put on her best face. Made him bacon and eggs and smiled like they were normal. They
weren’t
normal.

He wished he would just go. Leave them alone. He wished his mother would throw him out. Tell him to never come back. But she wouldn’t, because she was scared. He knew that. He knew she had a right to be.
So am I.

Thursday, November 30, 7:20 A.M.

“Daddy?”

Reed looked up from buttoning his shirt, buttonhook in one hand. “Yes, Beth?”

She stood in his doorway, her brows drawn together in worry. “Are you okay?”

No. He was sick at heart. Two more. “Just tired, honey. Just really tired.”

She hesitated. “Dad, I need more lunch money.”

Reed frowned. “I just gave you lunch money on Monday.”

“I know.” She made a face. “I owed some library fines. I’m sorry.”

Feeling unsettled, he gave her another twenty. “Return the books on time, okay?”

“Thanks, Dad.” She slipped the money into her jeans. “I’ll go put your coffee on.”

“I could sure use it.” Wearily he sat on the edge of his bed. Mia had been right. He was a wreck this morning. He wondered where she was, imagined her back in her apartment, alone. He should have held off, waited until they could establish the ground rules. No strings. But he hadn’t been able to. His mind had been too full of her, his body at the edge of control. He had to stay in control because he didn’t want to hurt her.

He looked around his bedroom. Everything here was as Christine left it, elegant and tasteful despite the passage of time. Mia’s room was a hodgepodge of clashing colors, orange and vivid purples. Striped blankets and plaid curtains. All rummage sale stock.

But the bed had served its function quite well. Sex with Mia could become addicting if he allowed it. But he didn’t allow addicting behaviors. He was stronger than that. Absently he rubbed his thumbs over his numb fingertips. He’d stopped himself from drinking when it got out of hand, something his biological mother had never done. A disease, she’d said. A choice, he knew. She’d loved the liquor more than she’d loved him, more than she’d loved anything. He grimaced, pushing the thought of his mother out of his mind. He’d thought about her more this week than in years.

He had to stay in control. Not let this thing with Mia distract him from what was important. The life he’d built for Beth. For himself. He lifted the fine gold chain from his nightstand and put it around his neck. A talisman, perhaps. A reminder, most certainly.

He had to get moving or he’d be late for morning meeting.

Chapter Fifteen

Thursday, November 30, 8:10 A.M.

C
ount to ten and go to hell?” Spinnelli sat at the head of the table, frowning. Jack was there, along with Sam and Westphalen. Spinnelli must have been shoring up the troops because Murphy and Aidan Reagan had joined them. Mia had taken the chair farthest away where she sat alone, eyes shuttered. But Reed knew her emotions churned. She’d called him when she’d left the hospital, her voice heavy with despair.

“Those were her dying words,” she said, blandly now. “Literally.”

Westphalen was watching her closely. “What do you think it means, Mia?”

“I dunno. I thought at first she was telling
me
to go to hell.” She huffed once, sardonically. Painfully. “God knows she had the right.”

“Mia,” Spinnelli started and she held up her hand, straight-ening in her chair.

“I know. It’s not our fault. I think it’s what
he
said to her, Miles, right before he lit her on fire. I’ve never seen anything like that before. I know I never want to again.”

“Then let’s get busy.” Spinnelli went to the whiteboard. “What do we know?”

“Well, Manny Rodriguez couldn’t have done it,” Mia said. “He was in holding.”

“You were right about him,” Spinnelli agreed. “Now it’s even more important to find out what he knows and isn’t telling. What else? What about the victims?”

“Brooke Adler and Roxanne Ledford,” Mia said. “Both were schoolteachers. Brooke, English; Roxanne, music. Roxanne was twenty-six. Brooke just turned twenty-two.”

Spinnelli’s expression became one of grim resignation. “Cause of death?”

“Cause of death for Adler was cardiovascular collapse secondary to overwhelming burns,” Sam said. “Cause for the second victim was the stab wound to her abdomen.”

“The blade?” Mia asked tightly.

“About six inches long. Thin. Sharp. He plunged it into the abdominal cavity and”—he made a horizontal slicing motion—“cut her, approximately five inches across.”

“The knife is consistent with his sexual assault on his victims,” Westphalen said. “Many believe the knife is an extension of the penis.”

“I’d like to take a knife to his extension,” Mia muttered.

Reed cringed. He wasn’t alone. “Smoke inhalation?” he asked.

“None. Ledford died within a few minutes at most. Well before the fire started.”

Spinnelli wrote it on the whiteboard, then turned. “What else?”

“Adler’s car is gone.” Mia checked her notes. “We have an APB, but nothing so far.”

“He repeated that part of MO,” Spinnelli said thoughtfully. “What else is the same?”

“The device was the same,” Reed said. “I found rem-nants in Brooke’s bedroom and at the front entrance of the building.”

“Adler’s legs were broken like the first two victims,” Sam added. “But she wasn’t cut like the Hill woman. If she had been, she probably wouldn’t have lived long enough to have been rescued. Ledford had only the stab wound and the burns caused by the fire.”

“I think it’s safe to say Roxanne Ledford surprised him,” Jack said. “We found pieces of her violin around where firefighters found her body. I think she hit him with it.”

“After she called 911,” Mia murmured.

“And we can be thankful for that,” Spinnelli pronounced. “If she hadn’t, Adler wouldn’t have lived as long as she did and a lot of other people may have been hurt.”

“Thirty people lived there,” Reed said. “Ledford may have saved their lives.”

“I’m sure that came as a great comfort to Roxanne’s -family,” Mia said harshly.

“You told them?” Westphalen asked gently.

“About two hours ago. They didn’t take it well.”

Neither had Mia, Reed thought.

Murphy squeezed her forearm. “It sucks, kid,” he murmured around his carrot stick.

She chuckled bitterly. “Y’think?”

Reed wished he could touch her too, hold her hand, but he knew that was out of the question. He fixed his eyes on the board. “There was no gas explosion. The apartments only had electric. There was also a difference in the egg fragments.” He pushed a glass jar holding a lump of melted plastic to the table. “I found this a few feet from Brook’s bedroom door. I think the egg came apart before the fuse burned through. It never shattered.”

Spinnelli’s mustache bent down. “Interesting. Theories?”

“Well, if I’d set the device, I would have put it on the mattress itself. It would have caught fire faster and have been closer to Adler’s body. But I don’t think it was there.”

Aidan Reagan was scratching notes on a pad. “Why not?”

“Because if it was on the mattress, she wouldn’t have been alive when Hunter and Mahoney got to the bedroom—she would have looked like Penny Hill and Caitlin Burnette. Also, the burn patterns indicate the fire started on the floor close to the door, so it took a few minutes to spread to the bed.”

“It would explain the severe burns on the second victim—the Ledford woman,” Sam said. “Even though her body had no accelerant, she was closer to the origin.”

“And finally, I found what looked like ammonium nitrate deposited deep in the carpet fibers. Somehow the egg ended up on the floor, with enough force to break it open.”

“She kicked it?” Mia asked and Reed shrugged.

“It’s possible.”

Sam shook his head. “Her legs were broken. It’s hard to believe she kicked it.”

“The doctor said it was hard to believe she was still -muttering after being sedated,” Mia said. “She was in excruciating pain, yet she kept asking for me.”

“She tried to stab him,” Jack commented. “We found a butcher knife on the living room floor with Adler’s fingerprints on it. Unfortunately, no blood, so she didn’t get him.”

“I think Brooke Adler was a lot stronger than I gave her credit for yesterday.” Mia’s smile was bitter. “Again, that came as a great comfort to her parents.”

“Mia.” Westphalen’s mouth bent in sympathy. “You told both families back-to-back?”

“I’m sure it hurt them a hell of a lot more than it hurt me. But, speaking of hell, I’m thinking he said ‘go to hell’ as some kind of symbolic tie to the fire.”

“Makes perfect sense,” Westphalen agreed. “So the people he’s killed have done something that he’s condemned them to hell for doing. What about ‘count to ten’?”

“His fuse,” Reed said. “Penny Hill’s neighbor, Mr. Wright, said that he heard the tires squeal, saw the car driving away and a second later the house blew. Now assuming Wright is... well, right, and assuming Hill’s killer ran as soon as he lit the fuse, he would have had about ten to fifteen seconds to get away. I tried it.”

“But why ‘ten’?” Westphalen mused. “It has to have some significance besides a Clint Eastwood-esque belligerence.”

Mia’s face tensed. “I hope it’s not the number of people he plans to kill.”

There was a half beat of silence. “Well, that’s an uplifting thought,” Jack muttered.

“Let’s have some encouraging news,” Spinnelli said pointedly. “Jack?”

“We ran prints all day and night. Theoretically, all the prints in the art room and the science lab should be accounted for. Everybody at Hope Center has been printed, staff and residents. But one set of prints was unmatchable to any of the prints on record. And although it’s redundant at this point, they don’t belong to Manny. Also, the prints don’t match anything in AFIS, so our guy doesn’t have a record.”

“Someone’s had access to the school without being printed,” Spinnelli mused.

“Maybe.” Mia met Reed’s eyes and he could see her wheels turning. “But Secrest didn’t seem like a slouch. He’s a secretive SOB, but he knows what goes on at that place. I can’t see him letting just anyone stroll through. Bixby had print cards on every teacher and juvenile, past and present. Every print should have been accounted for.”

Reed thought he knew where she was headed. “So Secrest missed somebody or one of the print cards Bixby gave us was wrong. Either through design or oversight.”

Spinnelli’s jaw tightened. “Print everybody at that school. If they balk, haul ’em in.”

Mia’s smile was sharp. “My pleasure.”

“Have you found any connection between Burnette’s and Hill’s files?” Spinnelli asked.

“Um, no.” Her composure slipped for an instant and Reed couldn’t help but think about what she’d been doing instead of reading files. But they were entitled to some time of their own. He wouldn’t feel guilty about it. He hoped she wouldn’t either. She cleared her throat. “We’ll keep looking. Did the news shows give the women’s names?”

“I caught two of the local broadcasts,” Aidan offered. “Both Channel Four and Seven said they were withholding the names of the victims until their families were notified.”

“I saw Channel Nine news,” Westphalen added. “Same thing.”

“And the fire started after press time for all the papers,” she said.

Reed followed her train of thought. “So, we may be able to assume that Bixby and his friends haven’t heard about the murder yet, unless they’re somehow involved.”

She nodded, brows lifted. “I think we’ll go back to Hope Center this morning. I want to see if the Axis of Evil can look us in the eye.”

Reed’s lips curved. “The Axis of Evil? Bixby, Thompson, and Secrest. It works.”

She smiled back, then her mouth was grim again. “And I want to tell Manny that Brooke is dead. Maybe that’ll unsettle him enough to tell us what he’s hiding.”

“Wait until I’ve talked with him,” Westphalen requested. “I’m afraid if you push him any harder, he’ll break and we won’t get anything from him. I’ll be done by lunchtime.”

“All right. But no later. I don’t want him having time to get his story right.”

“What about Adler’s apartment?” Murphy asked. “Any cameras?”

“No,” Reed said. “This was a no-frills place and what they had wasn’t maintained properly. A couple of the units didn’t even have working smoke detectors. We’re going to have to question all the residents the old-fashioned way to see if anybody saw him.”

“Murphy and Aidan, you get the statements,” Spinnelli said. “Anything else?” he asked as everyone stood up. “Then let’s meet back here at five. I want a suspect with a name, Mia.”

She sighed. “One can hope.”

Thursday, November 30, 8:15 A.M.

He had to squint as he scanned the headlines. He was tired. He’d debated calling in sick, but that would have looked somewhat suspicious. Under the circumstances.

But what circumstances they’d been. He’d been on a roll last night. Four. Zapped. Gone. That had to be a record. It was for him anyway.
My personal best.
He chuckled and flipped to the next page of the
Bulletin.
They seemed to be the fastest with new stories, so he’d started with their paper. But there wasn’t anything new about him on page one. Just recycled hash from the press conference the day before. He sat a little straighter. He’d rated a press conference.
Cool.

He scanned the other news. And stopped at the bottom of page three when he saw two familiar names. Joanna -Carmichael and none other than Detective Mia Mitchell.

Apparently Mitchell had been shot at on Tuesday night. A gunman had fired shots in her neighborhood, at 1342 Sedgewick. Well, that was something you didn’t see every day. A cop’s address printed in the paper. That had to be fate or karma or something. He was becoming a firm believer in fate. Apparently this gunman had some kind of grudge against the good detective, related to another shooting almost three weeks ago. Apparently the gunman was a piss-poor shot and ran away.

He tore the article and meticulously trimmed the edges. Mitchell was a busy lady. Lots of enemies. She’d come too close yesterday. With Brooke Adler dead, she’d have every reason to come closer. If she got shot, they’d just put on more cops. But they’d be looking for this guy. He ran his finger under the name of the gunman.
Melvin Getts.
If Mitchell happened to die, they’d look even harder for the poor -bastard. It would be distraction and that’s all he really needed now. Just a little distraction to buy a little time.

He shoved the article in his book, along with the others. He could sleep when it was over. Now, he had a loose end to tie up, then a sad face to put on. Poor Brooke was dead. He’d be devastated. And quick to offer his personal assistance to the cops.

It was the least he could do.

Thursday, November 30, 8:35 A.M.

A giant yawn nearly split Mia’s head in two. “I’m tired.”

“Me, too.” Solliday was typing at his computer with a slow methodical rhythm.

He looked crisp and professional and not tired in the least and for a second she allowed herself the luxury of remem-bering what he’d looked like sprawled in her bed after the third bout of the best sex she’d ever had. “What are you doing?”

He didn’t look up. “I think that before we go back to Hope Center, we should have a little background on the actors.” His lips quirked up. “I mean the Axis of Evil.”

“I should have done that already,” she muttered and forced herself out of her chair.

“Well, you didn’t,” he said mildly. “That’s why you have a partner, Mia, so you don’t have to do everything yourself.”