While toasting a frozen bagel, Riley thought about last night’s meal she’d shared with Bowman. She hated leaving good food on the table. No matter how many years had passed, she never forgot the raw gnawing of hunger dished out to her by the streets. Since those days, she never wasted food. God, the steak on her plate had been so tender she could have cut it with a blunt knife. And she’d left most of it. Damn.
Finishing the last of the bagel, she moved to her computer. She typed: serial killer, New Orleans, and strangled girls. Everything and nothing popped up, so she added the date from twelve years ago. A few references hit that briefly mentioned four girls, all minors, found dead. Strangled. Because the girls were underage, their names were never released. The bodies were all displayed in places where they could be easily found. There were no follow-up stories.
All victims matched a similar description. Dark hair, dark eyes, between sixteen and seventeen, and all runaways. Just like her.
None of the articles mentioned playing cards discovered at any of the crime scenes. That made sense. Always a smart idea for cops to keep a few facts undisclosed that only the killer knew.
Absently, her fingertips now went to her neck. There’d been no sign of bruising on her neck. The needle marks had healed on her arm. Now, she almost doubted it had happened. But the playing cards didn’t lie. They were the evidence that she’d been taken.
She opened the bogus social media page she’d created to see if Darla had reached out. Four more of her friend requests had been accepted but nothing from Darla.
The alarm on her phone sounded, startling her back to the present. She went into Hanna’s room. “Rise and shine. It’s time to get up.”
“It’s Saturday.”
“You said you wanted up early for the run practice.”
Hanna groaned and turned on her side. “Five more minutes.”
“It doesn’t work that way. Five more minutes always leads to five more, and besides, you never really fall back to sleep. It just prolongs the inevitable.”
Hanna pulled the blanket over her head. “Stop making sense.”
“I’ll make you a coffee. Want a bagel?”
“With extra cream cheese.”
Hanna’s pouty voice made Riley smile. She sounded like a regular teenager, which was a good thing. “Coming up.”
Fifteen minutes later, Hanna emerged from her shower. She was dressed and her hair was pulled back. She sat at the table and took several sips of the hot coffee. “So how many more days do you have off?”
“Three.”
She bit into the bagel. “Are you actually taking time off?”
“Sorta.”
“Meaning no.” She took another bite and chewed. “I read about that strangled girl. Did you see her?”
Riley rinsed out her cup and put it in the strainer by the sink. “I did.”
“Was it awful?”
“It was. In a nutshell, don’t talk to strangers.”
“You say that all the time.”
“I mean it. Is Mrs. Taylor picking you up today?”
“No. Julia is skipping practice.”
“So you’re driving yourself? Do you have enough gas in your car?”
She took another mouthful of bagel. “Put ten dollars’ worth in yesterday.”
“Chew and then speak.”
Hanna rolled her eyes, chewed, and made a show of swallowing.
“I’ll see you this afternoon.”
Hanna saluted. “Roger that.”
Riley gave Hanna a quick hug as she passed. She was a step from her room when her phone chimed the arrival of a text. She glanced at it. Clay Bowman. “Damn it.”
“What?” Hanna called.
“It’s a guy who is proving to be a big pain in my ass.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Saturday, September 17, 9:00 a.m.
Bowman arrived in front of the medical examiner’s office first thing in the morning. Shield had called in favors and gotten him this weekend interview with the pathologist who’d performed Vicky Gilbert’s autopsy.
Riley pulled up in her SUV. Out of the vehicle, her jacket flapped open as her heeled boots landed with hard, determined strides across the parking lot. Annoyance sharpened her dark eyes as her gaze speared him. “Mr. Bowman.”
“Riley.”
They each showed their IDs to the guard and moved toward the elevators. Riley kept pace, double-timing it to match his long strides across the lobby. When the elevator doors closed behind them, Bowman hit the “Stop” button, freezing the car in place. Her eyes bored into him, oblivious to the limited personal space in the elevator.
“We’re on the same side, Riley. I need your help.”
“Right.”
“I’m here to help.”
“Or to impede?”
“Careful,” he warned. He released the button and the elevator descended, the doors opening to the cool antiseptic air of the medical examiner’s offices and Joshua Shield.
Shield was dressed in his trademark dark suit with his shock of white hair combed off his angled face. He strode straight to them, his attention riveted on Riley. Dark eyes collected and inventoried details quickly. “Trooper Tatum. I’m Joshua Shield.”
“I recognize you from your press pictures.”
Bowman noticed that most people were intimidated by Shield. They dropped gazes, shuffled feet, or fidgeted in some way. Not Riley. She glared at him as if he were a rookie intern late for his first briefing.
Shield extended his hand to her. “Nice to finally meet you,” he said. “Mr. Bowman speaks well of you.”
Clasping hard, she held his gaze.
“Solving this case is a team effort,” Shield said.
Smiling, she shook her head. “We’ll see.”
Bowman gave her props for not pulling punches.
“Consider the advantages of my expertise,” Shield said. “My company resources helped you in the past.”
“You were an uninvited guest that I could have managed without.”
He grinned as if enjoying the sparring.
Before he could respond, Dr. Kincaid appeared. She wore a lab coat and glasses that covered slightly bloodshot eyes.
“Dr. Kincaid,” Bowman said. “We appreciate you meeting us. Sorry to get you out of bed so early on a Saturday morning.”
“Mr. Bowman, Mr. Shield, you gentlemen have friends in powerful places.” Calm and unruffled, she extended her hand to both.
Shield shook her hand. “We help each other out when we can.”
Dr. Kincaid glanced at Riley. “I’m assuming Agent Sharp called you.”
“No, it was Mr. Bowman. But I contacted Agent Sharp.”
“Good,” Dr. Kincaid said. “Follow me.” She led them down the long hallway and pushed through a set of double doors. “I understand you also want to see Vicky Gilbert’s body.”
“Correct,” Shield said.
“Your timing is fortuitous. The funeral home is picking up her remains in a couple of hours. Her mother opted for cremation.”
“And you’ve done a complete exam?” Shield asked.
“I have. I’ve collected enough samples so that we can run any kind of test conceivable in the future if necessary. The Gilbert family is anxious to have a memorial service.”
“Their daughter ran away from home over a month ago and they didn’t call the police or try to find her,” Riley said. “What’s the big rush now?”
A slight shift in Riley’s tone could have made her sound bitter. But she kept her voice monotone, effectively hiding any potential anger or resentment.
Bowman reached in his pocket and removed a slip of paper. “Dr. Kincaid, I’d like you to test for this sedative.”
“Propofol? That’s a very powerful narcotic and I don’t see it often.”
“If we’re dealing with the man we suspect is the killer, this is likely the drug he used on his first four victims. This killer is a creature of habit. The sedative is one of his signatures.”
>
Dr. Kincaid folded the note and tucked it in her lab coat pocket. “I’m already testing for Rohypnol thanks to Trooper Tatum’s suggestion.”
“You suggested it?” Bowman asked.
Riley met his gaze. “It made sense to test for drugs, including this particular one, which is common with sex offenders.”
Dr. Kincaid crossed to a bank of square refrigerator cubbies and opened the second one from the left. She pulled a long tray containing a sheet-draped body.
Riley moved toward the body, traces of sadness tugging at her cool facade.
Dr. Kincaid pulled back the sheet and revealed the pale, expressionless face of Vicky Gilbert.
Bowman’s anger sparked as he remembered the bodies he’d seen in New Orleans twelve years ago.
“The victim was eighteen,” Riley said. “By two days.”
“I can tell you from the autopsy that she was in good general health at the time of her death,” Dr. Kincaid added.
“Most of the Shark’s victims experienced some form of abuse before they ran away,” Bowman said. “Young girls like Vicky Gilbert are often the most vulnerable.”
Riley grew so still he wasn’t sure if she was breathing as Dr. Kincaid reviewed the autopsy summary.
“I’ve read about the New Orleans cases,” Riley said, her voice professional. “Many of the girls were missing for days if not weeks before their bodies were found. Mr. Bowman, you might know better than most what he does with them in the interim.”