Jump The Line (Toein' The Line Book 1) Read online

  A dark thunder cloud of anger kicks up inside my skull. Where does she get off laughing in my face? Sure, I’m a deadbeat. Robbery. Fleeing and eluding. Blowing off my crim quiz and trashing my GPA, maybe losing my scholarship. And now—

  “What do you want?”I ask.

  “Are you Alaina Colby?”she repeats, clearly flexing her authority.

  “I, uh—yeah, I am,”I say, defiant. “So what?”

  She runs her gaze down my chest and then back up to my face, sneering like I’m a turd she’s kicking off her shoe. “Were you in Omar’s last night, dancing topless?”

  “Well, yeah, I—work there,”I say. “Any law against that?”

  “Yes.”

  Yeah-ass. She ladles out every word, her drawl so syrupy I could eat pancakes with it.

  “Newport has anti-nudity ordinances.”

  “Nudity is free speech,”I argue, warming. This is a familiar argument. I’ve actually written a senior paper on it. “Protected,”I add, in case she’s not up to speed.

  “Yes, but breach of minimum dress requirements is a misdemeanor. Not protected. I can arrest you,”she warns. “Anti-nudity ordinance zero, eighty-two, eighty-five.”

  Impressive. If I switched the zero to the middle of that ordinance’s number, I’d have Officer Barbie’s measurements. But it’s obvious she’s trying to sweat me down before my arrest. It’s also obvious she’s an amateur. My thunder cloud of anger darkens, little veins of lightning cracking against my cranium’s horizon like electrified black chrysanthemums.

  “At the risk of repeating myself,”I say,“what the hell do you want?”

  “Why did you run last night?”

  “Um—”

  She knows I ran last night?

  I reason through my answer. No, I cannot spew ordinances like she does, but I’ve picked up Robin from jail many times, so I know what’s what. I’m also a crim major. She has to at least tell me why she’s going to arrest me.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  She shakes open a leather wallet that costs more than this semester’s textbooks. “Kentucky NPD,”she says.

  I figured right. She’s a badge. The shield’s cold glimmer shocks me, even though I’ve been expecting this since the moment I got Detective Hawks’ message—his order—to call him.

  “Homicide,”she says, her fake smile girdled between luscious pink lips and a grimace that says she’s irritated with me. “I’m asking one more time. Why did you run from Detective Hawks last night?”

  Uh-oh. Crap. Homicide? So this, whatever“this”is, is a little more serious than jacking a Coke truck or robbing a bar. Homicide cops don’t do robbery. Don’t do Coca-Cola truck jackings, either.

  Robin. He’s done it now. Everything’s starting to make sense. His phone call. Don’t tell anyone where I am. Robin’s violent when he’s using meth. He’s already broken two guys’ jaws and put a couple of others in the hospital.

  My brain tripping over my fear, I try to figure out my next move. Where is that punkass brother of mine? Who has he murdered?

  I’ve got to find that little butt tick if it’s the last thing I do.

  And then because I love my punkass brother, and because I’m a Colby and fleeing and eluding the law’s instinctual, I resort to type. Raising my hand, I wave five fingers at Officer Barbie and start backing away from the reception window.

  “Um, can you give me five minutes? I’ll be right back.”

  “Hon,”she says, blue eyes narrowing,“y’all wouldn’t be getting’ ready to bolt on me, would you?”

  Who, me? Run from the law? “Hell no,”I say, backing.

  With the power of a pissed off alligator, she whips forward and jerks open the sliding glass window separating my office from the reception area. Then she springs up from the floor and starts climbing in the window. She’s half way through and spidering across my desk before I can manage to turn and fly toward the back.

  Chapter 17

  Doc says our perp’s a mixed offender. He’s complicated, as in Ted Bundy complicated. Good to know, but it’ll make solving this case within Captain Meyer’s timeframe a bitch, if not impossible. To make matters worse, I don’t like the way Doc’s asking if I’ve“troubled”myself to go see the latest vic in the morgue. He’s an irascible condescending bastard. I might have to show him I’m not the barbaric gumshoe he’s pegged me.

  What the hell? Why’s he acting so pompous? “Not up close and personal,”I tell him. “Other than the glimpse I got in the alley last night, I haven’t seen the vic. Not yet. All I’ve got are pictures the coroner faxed me early this morning.”

  But the way Bite Doc just ordered me to his lab’s got me worried.

  Instead of going off on him for the remark about seeing a lady even I am not likely to seduce, I say nothing and follow the cave bear’s trail. Didn’t I promise to ignore my heartburn if I could walk away from here with something that advances my investigation?

  Yep, I did. Following Bite Doc across his lab, I polish off a couple of Rolaids. We stop in front of a wall of glass-encased shelving, and I wait for him to unlock a cabinet.

  “Fascinating work you do here, Doc,”I say, gazing at the macabre collection of artifacts from various victims Bite Doc’s identified for NPD and other law enforcement agencies.

  He just harrumphs.

  On display are the plastic impressions of cadavers’ bite wounds captured for posterity. They’re made of a pinkish-white rubbery material. There’s also an array of stone molds, made from the impressions of victims’ teeth. Row upon row, all the garish items sport labels marked with a black pen in Bite Doc’s spidery scrawl. To him, this collection represents pieces of forensic evidence, a fascinating puzzle needing solved. To me, it looks like prostheses from a Hollywood set for a Rob Zombie movie flick.

  “These are impressions of Meera’s bite wounds,”he says, selecting a rubbery set.

  I’m familiar with Meera, Megalo’s first victim. We found her in the alley behind Omar’s several weeks ago. We just saw photos, so I’ve no idea why Bite Doc wants me to look at Meera’s impressions, but I’ll go along. He’s the expert.

  Selecting several more rubbery impressions from a shelf, he walks me back across the lab. Laying them down gently, protecting his precious stainless steel exam table, he chooses one of the impressions resembling a bleached pile of grotesquely etched doggie bile. Using his scalpel, he points out an indentation.

  “I took this impression from Meera’s mouth at the morgue. Here, in her maxillary arch, the upper jaw, right quadrant if you’re facing her, you can see that your perp has removed Meera’s first and second bicuspid.”

  “Ah-huh,”I say, following along.

  The Rolaids not yet working, my stomach begins churning, adding to my unease. The impressions all look the same to me, but following Bite Doc’s busy scalpel and looking carefully I at last see the deep slash he’s indicating. It moves upward and then disappears into two gullies inside Meera’s gum line, or what was once her jawbone.

  “I get what you’re pointing to, but what’s your analysis, Doc? What exactly am I looking at?”

  “These are the sockets that held Meera’s teeth. He’s cut out these two. Here, the first bicuspid”—scalpel point—“and here, the second.”

  I’m not easily alarmed, but when I see the slashes, I can’t stop my heart from racing. “Why? Why would he do this to these girls?”

  “Perhaps, Detective Hawks, he’s keeping their teeth as trophies. Hmmm?” Bite Doc smiles. It’s condescending. That smile says, Must I do all the thinking?

  All that matters to me is penetrating the mystery of Bite Doc’s weird brain, grasping the pattern of the neurons fired by his obsession with forensic dentistry. And then, also, walking out today with something to move my case forward. So I hold my temper.

  Why’n hell didn’t I go to the morgue before coming here and look inside Angie Miller’s mouth?

  “What else, Doc?”

  I might as well he
ar the worst, I decide, since I’ve been such an ass. But I don’t ask how much worse this can get. I’ve been working the homicide gig long enough to know.

  “He’s taking teeth ante mortem, before she’s dead,”he explains for my benefit,“and without using anesthesia.”

  Bite Doc just confirmed my worst fear.

  “Meera’s mouth was filled with blood when I visited her in the morgue,”he adds.

  The explanation’s unnecessary, but I listen anyway, humbled. I really should’ve gone to the morgue and looked inside my vic’s mouth before visiting Bite Doc. It would’ve saved him some explaining this morning—and me some embarrassment.

  “Cadavers don’t bleed,”Bite Doc explains, drilling down unnecessarily on my stupidity,“so blood inside Angie Miller’s mouth proves her teeth were cut out while she was alive.”

  “Uh-huh,”I agree. This is gruesome, even for me. My anxiety skyrockets, my heart rate slamming along with it. I can’t take anything having to do with teeth, especially cutting or drilling. The root canal I had in my teens traumatized me. But this perp has cut out the vic’s teeth while she was still alive. And without anesthesia.

  “This line,”Bite Doc continues,“is the incision from the knife, or perhaps . . . a scalpel, which he used to extract the teeth. Now recall,”he adds,“Meera is missing two teeth in her upper right quadrant as you’re facing her.”

  I watch, fascinated. Bite Doc pulls another rubber impression from his Meera collection, giving me an even clearer view. “If you take time to pay a visit to your latest victim in the morgue,”he emphasizes,“you’ll find Angie Miller is also missing her bicuspid and lateral incisor, but in the upper left quadrant as you’re facing her.”

  My heart rate climbs. I feel a mounting desire for several beers with the guys this evening. “But, Doc, why cut out two teeth?” If I hadn’t been in homicide the last six years, I’d think it a mighty damn illogical thing to do. “Why not remove just one? Or three? Hell, why not remove all of them?”

  “Detective, dentistry is an art of extreme symmetry. No one with your perp’s obsession with pain would pull just one tooth, or even two from just one victim. That would be . . . completely imbalanced artistically.

  “In time,”he adds, watching my face,“I suspect he’ll pull enough teeth from his victims to complete a full set of teeth from sixteen adults. Most likely, all female.” He chuckles, watching me frown. “To keep things balanced, Detective Hawks, but you wouldn’t get that, would you?”

  “Sixteen . . . victims? All women?”I ask, ignoring Bite Doc’s jab.

  “Yes,”he says, clearly exasperated. “Sixteen. All women.”

  My stomach churning, I run my tongue over my teeth in an attempt to do the math.

  “That would be thirty-two,”Bite Doc says, not bothering to suppress another chuckle. I can’t lay my finger on it, but for some reason he’s pissing me off all over again. It’s the persistent way he looks so damn superior, like I’m some provincial rube misfortune’s plopped within his worldly sphere of influence.

  “You have thirty-two adult teeth, including your wisdom teeth, assuming you have not had any pulled.”

  What kind of man would do this?

  I force myself to a cold steely calm, to a guiltless plane where my own male sexual fetishes feel petty. I’m nothinglike Megalo. I’ve got an over-active libido, yes. I’ve got a foot fetish, too, but—giving myself a pat on the shoulder—it’s okay to want a woman, or two, or even three or four, as long as I respect her as she deserves. As long as I never hurt or harm her.

  I’m coming for you, Megalo.

  It’s my job. I’m going to find out what kind of sick bastard would do something like this to an innocent girl, and I’m going to catch and lock up his ass.

  “Jesus—”I start to say, but catching the blasphemy before it escapes my lips, I instead make a mental note: I’ll rabbit to the morgue soon as I get done here and get a look inside the latest vic’s mouth. Although I’ve little doubt he’s right, it’ll help me confirm—or deny—Bite Doc’s theory that Megalo is removing the vics’ teeth while they’re still alive.

  “Interesting, verrrrry interesting, Detective,”Bite Doc says, re-inspecting the photos of the latest vic, which I brought him this morning. “I’ll load these into my computer, and then we’ll compare both victims’ bite wounds using computer-generated HVO.”

  “What’n hell’s HVO?”

  This time his face flushes florid red. I ignore the menacing look: Bite Doc’s on NPD’s payroll. He will tutor me any damn time I ask. I didn’t come here pretending to be an expert in forensic dentistry. I came here to figure out how to catch a murderer. I let him stew.

  “It’s our way”—for those of us in the know, his baleful glare says—“of using technology to strip your perp’s ego, once we get a good look at his teeth.”

  That explains a lot. “HVO. Voodoo. Isn’t it all the same?”I ask, deliberately tormenting him. I’m a dick by temperament and by profession. Doc’s look tells me he agrees. Do I give a rat’s ass? No. I’m twenty-seven, but I consider myself an old school, boots-on-the-ground investigator. I don’t completely trust computers or the geeks who use them. That goes double for science, like odontology, or forensic dentistry. I let Doc’s condescending glare go for the time being. I’ll look up HVO later.

  “When I get hold of him, I’ll worry about matching our perp’s teeth against your impression of the vics’ bite wounds,”I say, glancing at my watch. “I guess you and I are about finished?”

  Gluing his gaze to the color photos, Bite Doc says, clearly unwilling to let my remark go,“Yes, well, I’ll let you know what else we uncover about your perp’s exciting personality by examining his teeth and your vics’ bite wounds.”

  “Exciting personality? Doc, I have other words for him. Sadistic prick’s one.”

  Plus more terms of endearment I keep to myself. No need to offend Doc’s Mormon faith too unnecessarily. I scan the lab, looking for a spot to interview Alaina Colby. I’m certain Bite Doc’s not going to let me use this most sacrosanct of all Verbote Dental’s holy spaces. “Do you have an employee lounge I can use?”

  “This way,”he says. “You can use my storage area—”

  As Bite Doc’s booting me from his lab, the hallway outside erupts in screams.

  Doc lists his leonine head sideways. “What on earth is that?”

  “Let’s go find out,”I say, certain my little dancer’s making another get-away attempt. By now, I’m starting to feel her, to get a sense of Alaina Colby’s MO. She’s a runner, as well as a dancer.

  Chapter 18

  “Halt! Police!”

  I hear Officer Barbie yelling behind me. I’m running down the hallway expecting to be plugged in the back any moment, but before I have time to worry about being shot, I slam head-on into a hard wall of muscle.

  “Oomf!”

  “The hells’s going on here?”the wall says, a tangle of arms as taut and unyielding to my escape efforts as a steel cable.

  “Stop fighting!”

  His arms encircling my rib cage, he whisks me up off the carpeted hallway, sending a thrill shooting through me. Before he plops me back down, I wrap my brain around the hardness of his arms. He’s got, if not the grace of Mikhail Baryshnikov’s highly conditioned lean dancer’s body, then at least Misha’s strength. His arms still around me, I wiggle against him. Let him play rough cop. Maybe I’ll get lucky: he’ll cuff me.

  “Aidan, uh, Detective Hawks,”Officer Barbie says, running up and coming to an abrupt halt,“she’s trying to escape.”

  “Miss Colby,”he says,“is that true?”

  I turn in his arms and stare up into his eyes. Aidan. So my LEO’s got a first name. Aidan. Detective Aidan Hawks.

  Like they did across the room in Omar’s, our gazes lock, and I feel it again, like an exquisite punch of adrenaline—and lust—and something else, an attraction my Literature prof calls the“ineffable effable.” This time the feeling’s more p
owerful, since I’m wrapped in his embrace. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt. The intense buzz fills me, sets up a thrum deep in my belly. When he smiles, the feeling grows more intense, a tender river of liquid fire screaming through my core and slamming against my brain.

  Then I notice something weird. Why is he staring into my eyes like this? Are my feeble efforts to untangle myself from his arms amusing?

  For a second, my old insecurities surface. I’m Crip, thatgirl. I don’t deserve the warm happy rush I’m feeling. I’m not Cinderella to her handsome prince: I’m a Goshen Colby. My family’s Duck Dynasty, but in a trashier and a more darkly re-imagined way, like Silence of the Lambs. And this man, whose body is electrifying mine, is a LEO. He’s the law.

  Despite sagging self confidence, I don’t fight the feeling. I love the pull of his upper lip into that sexy snarl that my mom would kill for—if it didn’t belong to a cop. It’s dumber than asking for champagne at a Colby hog roast—it’s right down embarrassing—but I want to reach up and rough up his blonde buzz cut. Except I’d have to stand en pointeto reach him. He’s so tall.

  For a few heartbeats, we stand scooped into each other, me gazing up into his eyes and fighting the pulsing lust heating my belly. “I wasn’t trying to escape,”I say, shoring up my nerve and sucking air in tight little gasps, becoming acutely aware we have an audience. When he releases me, I see the vicious look on Barbie’s face.

  She’s jealous. Good.

  “She—she didn’t read me my rights,”I say, trying to recover from the bolt of whatever just hit me. Squeezed between Officer Barbie and Detective Hawks and feeling my common sense returning, I finally recall: these two are Newport PD. Homicide. I pray I’m wrong, and that Detective Hawks—Aidan—is here to arrest me, not my deadbeat murdering brother.

  “She didn’t Mirandize me,”I say.

  Officer Barbie laughs, more coldly this time.

  “Who says we’re arresting you? And for what?”Aidan says, scowling over my head at her, his green eyes sparking with anger. I hope he kicks her butt up between her perfect shoulders, if he can reach that high.