Jump The Line (Toein' The Line Book 1) Page 23

  I suck in several breaths of night air. What in the hell do I have?

  Not much. Two victims, Meera and Angie Miller, with Megalo’s signature bite wounds on their shoulders. And now this one, vic number three. I’ve also got case linkage, which Bite Doc helped establish with his HVO and TIDBIT technology, and I’ve got a signature and MO.

  But I have no why. I have no where. And I have no when.

  Captain Meyers’ words return to haunt me? Get this mess cleaned up pronto, Detective, or I’ll have your badge. Hell, I’ll be lucky if I get this mess cleaned up before the second coming. I stand and run my fingers through my hair.

  “Why is he doing this? Why, why, why?”

  Doc’s sour look reminds me that figuring that out is my job. “Son,”he says, waving me back down beside him,“what do you make of this?”

  Kneeling beside Doc, I note him staring at the vic with a puzzled look. “What’ve you got, Doc?” Suppressing my gag reflex, I look again and then I groan. “This cannot be.”

  “But it is,”Doc says. “It damn well is.”

  How?

  I walk myself back through each vic’s condition, trying to answer my own question. Meera’s and Angie Miller’s right shoulders are covered in the distinctive bite wounds that look like feet. I’d showed up tonight expecting to see identical bite marks on this vic. This one’s right shoulder is unmarred, completely free of bite wounds, but the left shoulder is missing.

  How can this be?

  I motion toward the tech. “Pull the black garbage bag back a little farther, would you? I need a closer look.”

  The area where the left shoulder has been removed looks like the stomach of a gutted animal, a fleshy bowl of mangled guts. Areas of flesh have been masticated—chewed away—or so I assume, gazing questioningly at Doc.

  He nods agreement. “Look,”he says, and then points. “The fatty tissue has ruptured, and it’s retracted like curly yellow rubber bands, back into the upper torso.”

  “Where in hell is her left shoulder?”I ask, unable to stop my panic.

  He shakes his head and pulls his lips into a puzzled grimace. “Wherever that shoulder is, it’s not pretty—”

  Pretty or not, it’s got to have those bite wounds shaped like feet on it. It has to. I can’t entertain any other idea. I won’t. This has to be Megalo’s MO. It has to be. “Why is he switching shoulders on us?”

  Scratching his ear, Doc stares at the crumpled garbage bag with its pitiful contents. “That’s the fifty-four dollar question, son.”

  I don’t want to think about the only possible answer. Either this is not Megalo’s vic, and everything I’ve conjectured all along is wrong, in which case I better start filing for unemployment, or . . . it’s Megalo’s vic, but for some reason he’s decided to change his signature and put the bite wounds on the left instead of the right shoulder, in order to toy with us.

  But why would he do that? And where in hell is that left shoulder?

  Like the location of the vic’s missing shoulder, the answer is known only to Megalo Don. What was that Bite Doc said? He’s complicated, both sane and insane. A mixed offender. Like Bundy. You’ll have a hard time catching him.

  And whaddya know? Bite Doc’s right again. He knows his serial killers.

  I do, too, but unlike Bite Doc who’s studied their mouths, I’m handicapped. I’ve merely studied them from a distance, and usually from textbooks at King’s Point, where I got my psychology degree. I’ve also worked Homicide for the last six years and solved several cases and sent several perps to prison, but this is my first homicide case with an actual serial killer.

  I resist the urge to pull a few Rolaids from my pocket. “Doc, I’m at a loss here.” For a second, I want him to act like my father and wave some magic wand that’ll make this mess go away.

  “It’s okay, son. Trust me. We all have to learn as we go at some point. That’s how we get experience.”

  “I guess so,”I say. Tonight, I’m thinking like SAC Smith: Megalo is growing progressively unstable. His cooling intervals, during which he goes home and stops murdering, the periods of time in which he behaves like any normal person, are shortening. His next kill might happen any time. Or it might already have happened.

  I gaze around. Everyone’s where they’re supposed to be, doing all they can. And NPD’s got the best team on the planet, including that jealous sonofabitch, Captain Meyers. “Doc, I’m done here, but I need a rain check on breakfast. I’ll see you instead at the morgue.” I check the time. “Soon as I can get there.” I don’t tell him I need a couple hours’ sleep. After screwing up and not looking inside Angie Miller’s mouth, I damned well intend to look inside this vic’s. “I want to see her.”

  He nods. “Sure.”

  “Any ID on her?”I ask, recalling DeeDee told me the vic was a new hire at Omar’s.

  “The CSU techs have it,”Doc answers. “Found her purse stuffed inside the garbage bag with her. I’ll make a positive identification tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Doc.” I want to help him to his feet, but I don’t. He’s pushing fifty-five and in pretty good shape, but the booze is destroying his liver. Sometimes the idea that he’s my biological father swells me with sudden anger at my mother, or with pride. I never know which emotion I’ll have to deal with. “I’ll tell mom to call you about the Arabian,”I say, and then walk off to the end of the alley near the Brass Ass.

  “See you soon,”I say. “I want a look inside Jane Doe’s mouth.”

  “Sure, son.”

  Before arriving, my only thought was to process this scene and then get home and get some sleep, but Megalo’s changed the game. He’s hoarding his latest vic’s shoulder, and he’s either targeting—or he’s already targeted—his next victim.

  My thoughts fly to Alaina.

  “Dammit!” The neon star on the front of the Brass Ass no longer glows when I stride back past it. It’s turned off. The rowdy partiers have all gone home, their selfies and Facebook photos stowed in their cell phones. The street’s deserted. Like everything on Monmouth, like everyone in the world at this hour, even the Ass is officially asleep. Not me, I think with a yawn. I’m the only ass in the world still awake.

  Stewart and his cameraman are standing by the building’s corner. They glance my way, startled, but I give‘em credit: they stand their ground.

  “Good night—er, morning,”I say and leave them in peace. I’ve got to meet Captain Meyers in four hours. On top of that, I’ve invited DeeDee to my place for dinner tonight. But before I rush off home and then to the morgue for a look-see inside our third vic’s mouth, I’ve got to make one more stop. Even more than sleep, I need to make sure Alaina Colby is alive and that she’s going to stay that way.

  I want her. Dammit, I want her.

  Chapter 33

  When I hear the knock on my door, I yell,“Go away, Stoke.”

  Thinking maybe he’s come back to talk, or getting ready to offer some excuse for staying all night, I yell again,“Go home, will you! Jesus!”

  I open my door, ready to bust Stoke in the face, but then when I see Aidan, I think: I’m dreaming.

  But adjusting my eyes to the now darkened hallway, I know. No, I’m not. There’s a man standing in front of my door.

  “Hey,”I say, yawning. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Alaina,”he says,“You and I need to talk.”

  Recalling my embarrassment last time I was with him, the way I threw myself at him in his Buick, I swallow my cadaver breath and fight my feelings. After all, I’ve convinced myself there’s no such thing as love at first sight. Is there?

  He pushes past me and inside my apartment. His hands brushing my bare shoulders, he spins me gently around like a sleep-dazed zombie, guiding me back inside my apartment’s entry hallway with him, where we stand staring at each other. “Let’s get some coffee,”he says. “Looks like you could use it. I know I can.”

  “Uh, okay,”I say, wondering what time it is. My first clas
s is a nine o’clock. Before leaving for class, I like to spend an hour getting ready, giving myself plenty of time, since I have to hitch a ride to campus. My body’s telling me I should still be asleep, but thinking they can sneak past my sleeping brain, my traitorous eyes begin exploring Aidan.

  My little chorus line goes to work, kicking up tingly sensations in my tummy. The moment enfolds me. It feels sexy, sleepy, made for sex. Inhaling his masculine scent, the mixture of sweat and leather and rumpled clothing, I fight my urge to climb his frame and, once again, make a fool of myself. Not this time: I won’t throw myself at him again.

  I lean against the wall and stare, one eye shut, the other half open. I can only imagine what kind of spectacle I present. “What time’s it?” Better yet, why are you here? I yawn, his touch warming my sleepy brain. After my big screw-up in the Buick, I should feel embarrassed by what I’m thinking, but sadly, I’m enjoying it. Hiding another yawn, I watch him close the door, step in, and take charge. It’s way too early, but while my brain needs more time, my body catches up, coming fully awake. Like it did in the Buick, my world shrinks to a hot, intimate space. This is the only man in the world I’d swap my Graeter’s for dessert. I want to eat him. He’s becoming a craving of mine, I realize.

  “What’s up?”I say, trying for relaxed, cool, but instead sounding anxious.

  “Do you have coffee?”he asks. “I’ve got something we need to discuss.”

  “There.” I point to my Wal-Mart coffee maker sitting on the kitchen counter, and then toward the overhead cabinet, where I keep coffee and filters. “You make. I’ll drink.”

  “You’re a coffee fiend, too?”

  “Yep.” Just one more thing you and I have in common.

  I don’t tell him what kind of fiend I am over tight glutes. I’ve watched Misha dance since I was a teen, often salivating over Baryshnikov’s tight beautiful butt, but Aidan’s? Sweet hells! It makes my tongue hard. I watch the muscles in his lean torso strain against his slacks when he reaches up into the cabinet, and then pulls a thin filter out and slaps it inside Mister Coffee’s deep plastic gullet.

  “You’re efficient,”I say.

  “Experience,”he says, filling the coffee pot. “Cop,”he adds, and then offers me one of those snarly-lipped smiles. “We detectives love our donuts and coffee.”

  I smile.

  Despite my efforts not to, despite my recollection of my Buick debacle, I feel it. South of my navel, my butterfly chorus line is practicing chemical anarchy—lust. I’m starting to get used to feeling this way around Aidan, but the intensity surprises me. This is like no rehearsal I’ve ever felt. “Experience counts,”I say, giddy.

  When he doesn’t answer, I bite my lip. Is he upset? Is it because I have only Styrofoam cups? My freaky little Hyde Park classmates refuse to use Styrofoam: they say it’s not green. Robin and I agreed we’d use them because we don’t have time to do dishes.

  My first lucid thought when the coffee smell grabs me and shakes the sleep from my brain is—Robin! He’s here about Robin. Why else?

  “Is my brother in trouble?”

  I resist the urge to stomp a cockroach running for cover on the countertop. They’re not used to lights being on in my kitchen at—

  Bam! Aidan whacks the roach and then washes his hands in the sink. “Too bad for that bastard,”he says.

  Pleased and wondering why even his violent act of whacking the roach thrills me, I glance at the clock on the kitchen range. “I’m barely awake,”I say, hinting, hoping he’ll tell me why he’s here at this hour.

  Wiping his hands on a paper towel, Aidan smiles, turns his attention to me. “I like you like this,”he says.

  My brain isn’t so fuzzy from sleep it fails to recognize the look in his eyes. “You like me . . . how?”

  Working eight to midnight at Omar’s, I don’t get home before one or two most nights, so sleeping in as late as possible is a must. Yesterday wasn’t my day. I got no sleep. To top it off Stoke and I worked on the profile of Ang’s killer before he left tonight—last night?—whenever he left, and then we studied for our crim quiz. I was exhausted by the time I kicked him out, deciding after all not to work Ang’s shift. Let Omar cope, I’d decided. That’s what I’ve been doing. Now I’m happy: I made the right call for once.

  “Bare,”Aidan says,“I like you . . . bare.”

  Bare?

  Aidan’s steady gaze finally clues me in to the fact I don’t have on a stitch of clothing, other than my panties. “I’m . . . I’m so used to dancing topless. I . . . don’t wear much to bed—”

  I silently thank Brick Verbote’s Heavenly Father who, possibly, is starting to like me, for the long black hair hiding my breasts—mostly. But it doesn’t stop my nipples from tightening beneath Aidan’s gaze. I shrug, unapologetic. “Sorry, but I wasn’t expecting company.” If you show up here at this hour looking like you do, then you’re liable to get an eyeful—and more.

  “Don’t apologize. You’re beautiful.”

  His caress as he pulls a lock of hair across my exposed breast makes me rethink my assessment of the fiasco in the Buick. Could I have been wrong?

  “Um,”I say. His caress sending shivers through me, I back from my tiny kitchen. “I better get dressed. I mean, if you’re here to talk about Robin, I’m sorry, but he’s not—”

  “Don’t be sorry,”he says,“for anything.”

  “I’ll be right back,”I say.

  “Don’t leave, please.”

  Reaching for a fistful of my hair, he wraps it gently around his hand and uses it to pull me close to him. Stepping into his gentle tug, I close my eyes and feel my heart stupidly slamming against my chest, the brush of his holster against my bare skin. Still gripping my hair, he pulls me up on tiptoes for a mini-version of the exacting fouettéen tournant.

  “Is this what you want, Alaina Colby?”

  My butterfly chorus spins and kicks dangerously fast in my lower belly. “Well—damn. Yes, it’s—”

  Without asking, he bends and kisses me, grinding his lips against mine the way I had his, only less brutally, and with abandon.

  “—it’s definitely what I want,”I finish, when he releases me, his taste on my lips sending my thoughts careening.

  “Me, too, he says,”green eyes hungry for more, which he takes.

  The moment spins out of control—I love it. Grabbing the wall as he pushes me back, I feel Aidan’s hands cupping my butt. Lifting me up, he walks us down the hall toward my bedroom, holding our kiss, one big long hot knee-trembling kiss.

  For a heartbeat, this feels . . . wrong. I don’t know him. But then something bursts free inside me. Who cares? Never mind the fact I barely know Aidan Hawks. We kiss several more seconds. I’m getting lost, his mouth all over mine, sucking me into him.

  Then as suddenly as it arrived, my dreamy mood vanishes. What am I thinking? Aidan is here to question me about Robin. He’s a cop. No cops. Berta’s rule.

  “Stop, Aidan, please. I need to get dressed.”

  He drops me gently, reluctantly to the carpet, and I feel myself brushing against him, my nipples scratched tenderly by his starched shirt. Why does everything about him, even the pain as his shirt rakes my bare skin, do this to me?

  “Alaina, I’m sorry. God, what—am I thinking?”

  He runs his hands through that thick blonde buzz cut. For a second, I want things back the way they were a second ago. I want to feel his lips and body pushing into me. Then I realize where my priorities lie. Robin is family. This man, Aidan Hawks, is the law. He’s a LEO.

  “Give me a minute to get dressed,”I say,“and then we can have that talk you came for.”

  Chapter 34

  Getting dressed, I decide the important thing is for me to keep my perspective. He’s a cop. Detective Aidan Hawks is here to sweat me down about Robin. I’m not giving him one damn thing. Certainly not sex.

  When I re-join Aidan, he’s sitting at the tiny chrome and plastic dinette set Robin and I salvaged f
rom Goodwill. My butterfly chorus line in my tummy lets me know they’re totally pissed at me for interrupting their dance. How can I want Aidan and yet not like him at the same time? This is the most stupid, mixed-up feeling I’ve had, ever.

  Bad upbringing, I guess. And Berta’s constant bitter hatred of LEOs.

  “Coffee,”he says, pointing to a Styrofoam cup of coffee setting on the dinette.

  I’m dressed. Jeans, hoodie, my hair finger combed. No makeup—none needed I’m told. No shoes. Feeling like I need to get control, I sit, not the usual plop-my-butt-down kind of sitting my snooty Hyde Park classmates have perfected, but a dancer’s conscious lowering of my body. Only then do I scoot my chair into the table.

  And bump into Aidan’s long legs.

  “Sorry.”

  Liar, my body answers, my knee jerking like I’ve been shot with warm butter.

  “I don’t know where Robin is,”I say, fighting back anger, frustration with my family, and most of all with Berta Colby. Why can’t I have a cop if I want? What about mylife? Don’t I have the right to indulge in a little Colby hedonism tonight if I want? I don’t have to roll over on Robin to have sex with a LEO, do I?

  I do.

  He’s been gone since Monday and won’t tell me where he is and—honestly?—I’m done worrying about Robin Colby’s butt.

  Except that’s my job, so while I tell myself I’m done, I’ll never stop doing it.

  One of the most useful things Berta Colby taught me—if you ask her—is how to lead a cop around by the nose when you’re on the hot seat, when you’re being interrogated or“interviewed”as they prefer to call it. Turn the table: question the cop.

  “Do you have any idea where my brother is?”

  “Don’t you have some means of locating him?”Aidan counters, tilting his head, a cocky gesture I’m coming to love.

  I take in the blonde hair, the buzz cut, the expression. He’d look badass with an earring or two and a tatt on that ropey tanned neck. The gaze from his deep green eyes doesn’t bore into me like some cops’ does; instead, it ravages me. Inside I’m melting like butter on a summer sidewalk.