Generation 18 (Spook Squad 2)

Meaning there wasn’t much more he intended to help her with. She nodded. “Thank you for meeting me, General. You’ve cleared up a few problems.”

“Yes, it’s been most…interesting. Please call if you need anything else.”

If she needed anything else, Gabriel could do the calling. “I will.”

He nodded, and walked from the room. Tension flowed like water from her limbs, and she took a deep breath. She hadn’t realized just how uneasy the general had made her feel.

She took another deep breath, then she doubled over in the chair as cramps knotted her stomach. Cursing softly, she grabbed her bag and stumbled to the restroom.

And discovered, at the grand old age of nearly thirty, she was getting her first period.

GABRIEL DUCKED UNDER THE POLICE tapes and walked toward the house. The red and blue lights of the emergency vehicles washed across the white walls of the two-story building, providing color to an otherwise lifeless-looking landscape.

At this house, unlike the houses surrounding it, the owner had gone for the minimalist look—no trees, no grass, just white concrete to every corner. It was a landscaping trend he hoped didn’t catch on.

He showed his badge to the gnarled-looking police officer manning the front door, then walked inside. The smell of blood hit him immediately. Its odor was rich and sweet and almost fresh. Obviously, the murderer had been violent again.

The scent led him into the kitchen, where Warren Michaels and his autopsy team were already present. Warren himself was near the body, and annoyance flickered through Gabriel. His brother must have called them in, even though he knew Gabriel preferred to be first at the scene; it was easier to imagine what had happened without the interference of others.

The CSM hovering in the middle of the room spun round. “Identification, please.”

“Gabriel Stern, SIU,” he intoned, absently flashing his badge.

The first victim lay halfway between the cooking units and the counter. Her body was all angles, like a doll some child had broken and abandoned, and her red hair was darkened with blood. Blood also gleamed darkly on the white tiles, and it had splashed against the glass-fronted cooking units. The victim had put up quite a fight before she’d succumbed.

He knelt next to Michaels. “Anything new?”

Michaels snorted softly. “Yeah, the whole method of killing. She’s getting more violent each time.” He pointed to the purple bruising around the woman’s neck. “She strangled her until she was unconscious, and then stabbed her several times before gutting her. We’re dealing with a very sick person here.”

Or an extremely angry person. “How did the killer get in?”

“Glass door in the dining room.”

“Forced?”

“No. Can you believe they’d left it open? In this day and age?”

He smiled. Michaels had obviously never made a similar mistake. “No tray of cigarette butts this time?”

“She barely had time to escape. She must have been going out the back door as the State coppers were breaking in the front door.”

“Where’s the second victim?”

“In the upstairs bathroom.” The com-unit Michaels held beeped. “ID confirmed on this one. Margaret Jones.”

Which wasn’t one of the names on their list. “Have her parents been notified?”

“A unit is being sent there now.”

Gabriel nodded and rose. Red droplets led away from the body of Margaret Jones, back into the entrance hall. There was a small cluster near the base of the stairs, as if the murderer had stopped and looked up. Perhaps the second victim had come out to investigate the noise, only to see the bloodied killer and her knife.

But if that were the case, why retreat to the bathroom rather than heading for the nearest window? Even if she’d broken a limb in the jump to the ground, she might well have lived. The killer wasn’t likely to come after her in the middle of the street.

Gabriel continued up to the second floor. There was another gathering of droplets at the top of the stairs, indicating the killer had stopped once again, perhaps to listen. Which, in a sense, contradicted the idea that the killer was angry. Someone in the middle of a blood rage wasn’t this cautious.

So why was she becoming more brutal with each murder?

He headed toward the first doorway, which turned out to be the main bedroom. The pillows bore the indentations of two heads, and the rumpled state of the queen-sized bed gave evidence to the fact that not a lot of sleeping had been going on recently.