Carolina Rain (16 page)

“Fair enough
and I appreciate it.
” said
Alex as he began to lower his hand a second time.

“Wait. Before we leave the subject
completely
, there’s something I’ve been dying to say, okay?”

Rolling his eyes, Alex pointed at her
with his gloved-hand
. “I don’t think I want to hear this.”

“Stop it. Damn. I’m
still
trying to be serious.”

“Really? All right. Is this going to make me cry?”

“Maybe. It’s out of my character, so yeah, maybe,” answered Sophie.

“Fire away, then,”
said Alex.

Sophie slowly raised
her left hand off the wheel and
turned it back and forth, and then covered her nose and mouth with it.

“Luke, I’m your father,” she said in her best Darth Vader impression.

Manny felt his jaw drop and quickly scanned Alex’s face. The CSI
was
stunned. Then slowly, ever so slowly, his eyes became alive
. A
new
smile began to tug at the corners of his mouth. Then he snickered. That’s all Sophie, and Manny, needed. The inside of the SUV exploded with laughter.

Manny reached for a napkin in the glove box to wipe away the tears. His chest hurt, but he d
idn’t care. He looked at Sophie. S
he was still laughing so hard he wasn’t sure how she was keeping the truck on the road.

“You
. . .
you
. . .
Asian
. . .
heifer. That was totally uncalled for
. . .
but funny,” choked Alex, bursting into a howling fit.

When he’d settled down, he slid up the seat and
bent forward
, kissing
her on the cheek. “I need
ed
that
,
in a way
. N
ow can we move on?”

Slowing her
laughter
, Sophie
reached up to stroke the spot where Alex had kissed her.
“Any time, Dough Boy, any
time.”

“
Thanks
. . .
and d
on’t call me Dough Boy
.
”

“
You two never cease to amaze me
. A
re we done here?”

“Yep, I am,” said Sophie.

Alex nodded.

Shifting in his seat, Manny took out the three files that Josh had given him from his leather case and flipped open the one with Garity’s info.
“All right. W
hat can you tell me about Garity’s death?”

“Well, you read the report, at least the initial one
,
”
said Alex.

“
I did and I know he was shot in the back of the head, twice, and then dumped somewhere of
f
the North Carolina coast. The picture
was
a little fuzzy but I’d say it was
a
.38
. A
nd it was done execution style,” said Manny.

“I’d say that was right. The thing that’s not in the report yet is some of the toxicology profiles. The ocean washed away a lot of micro fiber information, no doubt, but there
was
some residual material
s
in his pockets and
,
oddly enough, still lodged in his teeth and between his toes.”

“Good God, I never knew you guys dug that deep. Come on, between his toes?” said Sophie, shaking her head.

Alex shrugged. “
It always depends on the victim. Most of the bodies we’ve seen the last few years have been nude, or almost. That changes my approach.”

“TMI. I don’t want to know about your approach when
they’re naked. Dean’s ei
ther.”

Ignoring Sophie, Alex continued.
“
There were fibers and traces that didn’t fit
with where the body was found
.
”

“Like what
?
” asked Manny, sitting up a little straighter.

“There was
also
a
rece
i
pt from a
restaurant
that we couldn’t quite read. B
ut we could see the first two digits of the zip code and it wasn’t a North or South Carolina zip. There was also a tag in his suit that belonged to a tailor exclusive to the upper Midwest and we
’
re running that down.
”

Manny felt
his stomach jump. “You mean Michigan?”

Alex sighed. “Yes. It could have been made in Michigan. But it also could have been Illinois or Indiana. So don’t jump to conclusions.
”

“But it’s possible he was in
our
state, isn’t it?”

“
Of course, but let’s do the leg
work before we go there, okay?”

“You’re right,” he answered, not feeling as confident as he sounded. Could
Garity
have
been watching Jen and Chloe? If so, why
had
n’t he ma
d
e a move? Manny shook it off. Alex was right. Hell, maybe he
’d
even bought
his suit
at a second-hand store in the Carolinas.

Alex continued
.
“
The lab is still running the
rest of the
particles through the spectrometer and after that process is completed, we should know the most like
ly
area of the country where
the extracts from the
compounds
and
samples
could be
found.”

“Good work
,
but this is nothing new for you. What
else
did you see that made you think analyzing those samples wouldn’t be run of the mill?’ asked Manny.

“Good question. When Dean and I put the third batch of samples
under the microscope
and
increased
the magnification, we noticed something unusual about one of the hair fibers.
Something that we thought didn’t make sense. So Dean dug further and did a
comparison
test to see if we were on the right track.”

“Were yo
u? And which test?” Manny asked, feeling his unease grow.

Raising his palms, Alex frowned. “We’re ninety percent sure we’re right
, yet
it still makes no sense. Hair types for all
mammals and
animals are different. Even human ethnicity dictates the strength and structure of head hair,
as opposed to
even arm or leg hair. At any rate, we
found
a hair lodged in a crack in the sole of
Garity’s
shoe. It was African
-
American.”

“And
. . .
?” asked Sophie.

“We checked our internal database for a preliminary match. It looks like it belonged to Max Tucker.”

CHAPTER-21

Sitting
i
n the stained chair,
legs crossed
, Lily waited for Scarecrow Man to show. He was already five minutes late and she was
, after all, on a schedule
. Not to mention, this rendezvous site had been his idea, his choice to extract “payment” for his
perverted
blackmail scheme. He wouldn’t elaborate on what he saw, or thought he saw
, at the
Krantz
house.
In
stead
,
he wanted to do it in person.

Running her hand over her knee, she
considered
her reaction to his revelation. Most people
would
have panicked or
,
at the very least, needed a moment to gather evaporated composure. But she had no such emotional response. No fear or apprehension. No devastating fall of her heart to her stomach.

Standing, she walked slowly to the curtain-drawn window and searched the sparse parking lot. Part of her had almost wished something along those lines would have happened. It might have meant she was less broken
—
by the standards of normalcy most people adhered to
anyway
—
and getting closer to some emotional Nirvana. But that wasn’t her destiny. She had, instead
,
sat down and asked
her accuser
why he hadn’t said anything to anyone, the answer already obvious, at least to her
.
Th
is “meeting” arrangement had confirmed it; he wanted something. And perhaps that something was her.

“Go figure,” she whispered.

His hands had remained steady and he
hadn’t flinched or hesitated
while explaining his plan to meet and discuss his long-distance observation. In fact, he was entirely too calm
too
sure.
It was as if he’d been through this type of situation before, and that, above all things, had piqued her curiosity.
She’d studied her kindred spirits
, other serial killers
who
had experienced the joy
of what she was
doing, and was sure she recognized one or two
as they passed on the street or made eye contact in
some
store
over the years, but this was something different. Her would-be tormenter carrie
d
a secret of his own and that was the true reason she was enduring the almost-rancid air of this pathetic excuse for a hotel
room
.
Maybe it was as simple as never
having slept
with a woman before?

The knock on the door interrupted her train of thought, but also prompted a
gathering
anticipation that she was quickly beginning to
. . .
crave
.

Pulling
the neckline of
her shee
r blouse lower, she cracked the door, removing the tarnished chain from the latch, then swinging it open. She had just a brief look at Scarecrow Man before he pushed her with both hands, sending her sprawling. The door closed with a loud thump
. He pounced on her,
flipped her over on her stomach, then was on top of her squeezing her
outstretched
arms against the matted carpet with his wiry hands.

Lily
kept her voice steady. “What’s the hurry
,
darlin
’
? We’re not going to talk before you bend me over?”

“We’re going to talk, bitch. But I’m making sure
you don’t
have any surprises for me. Carl never saw it coming,
all that
y
’all
did to him, and that ain’t gonna happen to old Daryl, got that?”

He bent closer to her ear, his breath rank with beer and onions. “I’m smarter than that old fart, way smarter,” he warned, his excitement already obvious against her backside. “I got a few things in place that will send your pretty ass to the chair if somethin’ happens to me, got that?”

“I got it, and
I’ll bet you are smarter, Daryl.
But this is no way to start a ‘relationship
,
’ so get off me and let’s sit down like adults and talk about what you saw, or think you saw, okay?”

If there was a
n occasion
in her life that she
heard
someone thinking, this was it.
He
hesitated, started to release her, then clamped his hands tighter, released th
em again, then
squeezed so hard
she almost yelped
.
He released her right hand and she listened as he pulled something from out of his shirt. A second later she felt the cold, sharp blade caress her cheek. Slowly, like he was debating the wisdom of his actions, Daryl lowered his stubbled chin to her face. “If’n you try anything stupid, I’ll gut you like those pigs I carve up
at the slaughter
house. Blood don’t bother me none and I ain’t known for my humor.”

With that, he thrust his groin hard against her
,
then stood up, backing away from her.

Gathering her strength, she shut down the smile that her new “friend” never saw and switched to the scared little girl that had caused
far brighter men, including her father, to
melt more than once. She felt her excitement
swell
. So this is what those millions-of-dollars-a-movie idiots in Hollywood must feel like when they slip into a role that fits them completely. She was born for this one, as Daryl would soon discover.