Cavanaugh's Bodyguard (9 page)

“Maybe if you stop grandstanding for a minute, you’ll realize that as long as we stick together, Howard’ll have a harder time getting back at us.”

She leaned back in her chair for a moment and studied her partner. At one time, she might have resented his comment, which implied she couldn’t look after herself. That wasn’t the case anymore. These days she trusted her instincts—and her partner.

“You really do have a big-brother complex, you know that?”

The way he looked at her in response sent an unexpected warm shiver shimmying down her spine. “Yeah, that’s what it is, a big-brother complex,” Josh echoed sarcastically.

Unwilling to dissect and examine what she’d just experienced, Bridget lowered her eyes to her monitor and got back to work.

The extra detectives who had been sent over, Joel Langford, Sam Kennedy and Gary Cox, as well as she and Youngblood, had been plowing through a mountain of applications for the last three days. They pulled the ones for the applicants who had washed out or been rejected outright and subjected them to closer scrutiny. Each form dictated a follow-up.

A number of the failed applicants had moved on and had either left the area or the state entirely. They were set aside, reducing the numbers a little. But that still left a fairly large number of would-be police officers to contend with. Each one had to be interviewed, their whereabouts on the nights in question verified. Bridget came in early and stayed late, compiling the list of former academy candidates to interview. Once it was put together, the real work began.

* * *

“You get the feeling that this is getting us nowhere?” she asked Josh as the third day saw them wearily walking away from yet another one-time hopeful police academy applicant who ultimately hadn’t been able to make the grade.

Finding the former applicants hadn’t been easy and talking to them had gotten them nowhere. Many were still resentful at being rejected. Others were suspicious as to why they were being sought out at this date.

All in all, Bridget knew of far more pleasant ways to spend her time.

“It
was
a good idea,” Josh told her, too tired to be very convincing despite the fact that he did believe what he was saying. “The odds of us finding the serial killer right off the bat are so astronomically low that I can’t even come up with a qualifying number. But just because we haven’t found him yet doesn’t mean that you were wrong to think he’d washed out of the academy.”

If this kept up, she would have to start checking Youngblood’s ID periodically. “What’s with you lately?” she asked as she got back into the car. “You’re not usually this encouraging—not,” she quickly added, “that I don’t appreciate it.”

Josh shrugged, securing his seat belt. “Figure you have enough to deal with right now, what with Howard breathing down your neck and…” His voice suddenly trailed off.

“And?” Bridget repeated, turning to look at him as she waited.

“And that identity crisis thing you said you were having.”

Bridget knew he meant well, but she still didn’t really want to have the subject brought up. “Never called it an identity crisis.”

For a second, he left his key in the ignition and just talked. “Okay, whatever it is that has you wondering who you are.”

She took offense at what he was saying. “I know who I am,” Bridget protested. “I just don’t know what last name I can use in good conscience.”

He laughed to himself as a thought occurred to him. His eyes met hers. Hers contained a question. “Why not be like those rock stars who go by one name?” he teased. Then, assuming a deep voice like the one that might be heard making a TV promo, Josh said, “And now, here’s
Bridget
.” He accompanied the single name with a sweeping gesture of his hands.

Bridget shook her head. “Sorry, it’s just not unique enough.”

“Maybe not the name,” Josh allowed. Then let his voice trail off.

Their eyes met for a moment. Bridget realized she was holding her breath, as if she was waiting for something. Waiting for what? For him to finish his sentence? Or for something else?

She wasn’t making any sense, she thought, annoyed with herself. But she did have an excuse. The hours that she’d been putting in ever since the task force was formed had been long and grueling. She was bone weary and consequently, punchy. The mind wandered when you were punchy.

At that moment, as if to further torment her, her cell phone rang.

A half a moment later, so did his.

Josh turned off the ignition he’d just turned on and fished out his phone. “Youngblood,” he declared just as Bridget was saying evasively, “This is Bridget,” into hers.

As the people on the other end of their respective lines relayed their messages, Bridget raised her eyes to her partner’s. The look she saw in his told her that he’d gotten the same message.

There’d been another murder by the serial killer.

She closed her phone and slipped it back into her pocket. “At least we can rule out the last two guys we just talked to,” she said grimly. “Although that’s not much of a consolation.”

“It’s a start,” Josh said with a resigned sigh as he turned on the ignition again.

* * *

The woman who had stumbled across the body lying in an alley behind a strip mall and had subsequently called 911 was still there when they arrived on the scene some fifteen minutes later. Sitting before the open rear doors of an ambulance, it was obvious that the young woman was very much in shock and fighting the strong desire to scream.

As they approached, the woman kept running her hands up and down her arms. Moreover, she was sitting on the floor of the ambulance, precariously perched and rocking to and fro in a vain attempt to comfort herself.

The first officer to respond to the call, treading lightly around the witness, told them that the woman’s name was Alyce Jackson and that by some strange stroke of fate, she and the latest victim, Diana Kellogg, worked together.

“Diana didn’t come in today,” Alyce said, plucking her words out of the middle of her thoughts when Bridget and Josh asked her to tell them what happened. She pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling. It wasn’t working. The woman was a bundle of nerves. “Wasn’t like her to miss work and not call. She’s usually so good about things like that.” She looked from Bridget to Josh. “She was responsible, you know?”

Josh glanced at Bridget before saying to the distraught woman in a comforting voice, “Yes, I know the type.”

“But I thought, she’s young, maybe she met someone and had such a good time, she just lost track. That happens you know.” There was a desperate note in her voice, as if trying to convince herself, not them.

“Was she meeting someone last night?” Bridget asked her gently.

Alyce took a deep breath before responding. “Yeah,” she answered, nodding her head.

They were going to have to be careful, Bridget thought. The woman was fragile. “You know who?”

The brunette shook her head, tears shining in her eyes. “I don’t think Diana knew who, either. It was one of those dates you get set up for you online. The group was called Romantics-dot-net or dot-com or something,” she said, frustrated that the exact name escaped her. “He gave her a description of himself, but said he didn’t want to send her a picture. He told her that he wanted to see if she could pick him out since their souls had touched.”

“How’s that again?” Josh pressed, glancing at his partner uncertainly.

“Those were the words he used,” Alyce insisted. “Diana repeated them to me. She thought they were so romantic.” Alyce pressed her lips together again, struggling to hold herself together. “The whole thing made me a little uneasy and I offered to go with her, but she said that would really look awkward. She told me she was meeting him at a very crowded place so I shouldn’t worry. But I had a feeling, I did,” the woman cried, grasping Josh’s hand hard with both of hers.

Struggling not to cry, Alyce paused a moment before going on. “Diana just got tired of not having someone in her life, you know?” She looked from one to the other for a sign of understanding. “And what with Valentine’s Day coming, she said she was determined not to spend that day alone.”

“I take it she didn’t have a boyfriend?” Bridget asked the woman.

Alyce shook her head. “Not since she broke up with Alex.”

Josh raised an eyebrow. Were they finally catching a break? “Alex? Who’s Alex?” Maybe that was an angry ex-lover who didn’t like being dumped.

“He was her fiancé.” Alyce said, struggling to keep her voice from breaking.

Bridget had her notebook out. “This Alex have a last name?”

A hopeless look came over their witness’s face. “Yeah, but I don’t know what it is.”

Josh mentally crossed his fingers. “Do you know where we can find him?”

“Texas. Dallas. That was what the breakup was all about. He wanted her to come to Dallas with him. She didn’t want to leave.” Alyce was crying now and didn’t seem to realize it yet. “God, but I wish she’d gone with him. She’d still be alive now if she had.”

Alyce raised her troubled eyes. “Do I have to look at her again?” she asked, her voice cracking and trembling. “To make an official ID, I mean. I watch procedurals on TV,” she explained haltingly. “I really don’t think I can handle seeing her again like that.”

“No, not right now,” Bridget promised, her voice calm, soothing. “Tell me, does Diana have any family or next of kin we need to notify?”

“She’s got an older brother somewhere on the East Coast, I think. She never mentioned anyone local.” Alyce stopped as her voice hitched. Clearing it, she tried to talk again. “How can anyone do something like that to another human being?” she asked.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Bridget told her. Looking around, she spotted a female officer working alongside another officer as they both tried to keep the growing crowd from pushing forward and contaminating the crime scene. “Be right back,” she told Josh. Hurrying over to the officer, she tapped the other woman on the shoulder. When the latter turned around, Bridget indicated Alyce. “Officer, could you go with Miss Jackson to the hospital and then once she’s checked out, see she gets home all right, please?”

“Sure thing.” The policewoman, Officer Mahon, seemed happy to be relieved of what she was doing. “Anything to get away from this crime scene. I’m having trouble keeping my lunch down,” she confided in a lowered voice.

“We’ve all been there,” Bridget assured the young woman.

The officer followed Bridget back to the waiting ambulance. Bridget made the introduction. “Officer Mahon is going to see to it that you get home all right after they check you out at the hospital, Alyce.”

“I didn’t get hurt,” the woman protested. Her eyes welled up again. “Diana’s the one who got hurt. Who got killed,” she sobbed.

“You’re in shock,” Bridget told the woman softly. “We just want to make sure that you’re all right,” she added. “Here. If you can think of anything else, give me a call.
Anytime,
” Bridget emphasized, handing Alyce one of her cards.

“How come that argument never works with you?” Josh asked as they walked away from the ambulance and the distraught witness.

The paramedic was just getting Alyce to move onto a gurney and preparing to shut the doors so that his partner could drive to the hospital. Officer Mahon would follow them in her squad car.

Bridget looked at her own partner innocently. “What do you mean?”

“That time you were smacked in the head by that idiot who decided he was going to go into training for the L.A. Marathon right then and there, stashes of pot still hanging out of his pockets.” He saw that Bridget was deliberately acting as if she didn’t remember the incident. The hell she didn’t, he thought. “I nearly busted a gut chasing him down. When I cuffed him and dragged him back, you looked like you had all the makings of a nasty concussion, but you utterly refused to go to the local E.R. to get yourself checked out like I kept insisting.”

“There was a reason for that,” Bridget replied coolly.

“And that is?” he asked, waiting for her to elaborate.

“Because I’m invulnerable,” Bridget told him matter-of-factly, ending her statement with a wide, cheerful grin.

Josh sighed and rolled his eyes, then said sarcastically, “Oh yeah, I keep forgetting all about your superpowers.”

She merely smiled at him as if they were having a normal, perfectly plausible conversation. “They do make a difference.”

“Yeah, especially during a psych exam,” Josh muttered.

The lightened mood disappeared as they went back to where the ME was just finishing up her preliminary notes. Directly next to her one of the crime scene investigators was snapping the last of his photographs.

As Bridget drew closer, both the ME and the CSI unit member became only peripheral noise to her. All she could really see or focus on was the woman lying on the ground in the alley. Like the others, her hands were folded below her carved-out chest cavity, as if she were praying.

Maybe she had been, Bridget thought grimly. For a moment, she said nothing, merely looked. But the longer she looked, the angrier she became.

“I want this guy, Josh,” she told her partner, her teeth gritted together.

“You’ll have to get in line, Bridget,” Josh told her. “There are a lot of relatives who feel the same way you do.”

With effort, she tore her eyes away from the young woman who appeared as if she’d had everything to live for—until life was so painfully torn away from her. Bridget raised her eyes to his. “On a slab,” she emphasized. “I want this guy on a slab. I want to put him there myself.”

“Don’t let Howard overhear you say that,” Josh warned seriously. “He does, he’ll accuse you of carrying on a vendetta.”

“Right now,” she murmured, more to herself than to her partner, “Howard is the last thing I’m worried about.” She struggled not to let her emotions get the better of her. Filled with high hopes, Diana Kellogg had been slaughtered before she’d had a chance to really live.

Just like the ten victims before her.

The bastard who had done that would be made to pay for it.