Cold Silence (A High Stakes Thriller) (49 page)

Clenching his teeth, Jordan swore to catch this monster if it killed him. And when it was over, he was going to take a long look and try to figure out what the hell he was doing with his life.

Ray turned the body into the light, a thin gasp escaping from his lips as he did.

Jordan shined his flashlight and cringed at the sight. The same as the other's, the mark looked like an uppercase
L
with touching lowercase
Os
on either side of the L. Cut with something sharp like a small scalpel, the mark still oozed blood. Pre-mortem, just like the others.

Zambotti pulled a tape measure from his pocket and pulled one end out against the skin. "The middle mark is one and one-eighth inches; each of these ovals on the sides an eighth of an inch high, a quarter inch wide," Zambotti measured out loud. "I'll check for consistency with the last ones to try again for the type of blade." His gaze met Jordan's. "Looks like the same thing, though—some sort of signature."

Jordan raised his head and looked away. "Damn."

Chapter 2

Without lifting her head from the pillow, Casey McKinley snapped up the ringing phone after the machine had picked up twice. "What?" she groaned.

"It's Billy," came the soft male voice that had been her only contact to the outside world for the six months since her husband and daughter returned to Virginia.

Propping herself on her elbows, she pushed her overgrown bangs off her forehead and looked around the dark room, blinking. "Where are you?"

Billy sighed heavily, and Casey could picture his hand nailed dramatically to one hip. "I'm outside."

"Well, why the hell don't you use your key?"

"You didn't answer the door. I didn't know if you were dead or something." He paused and tapped on the phone. "I didn't want to walk in on a dead body."

"So you called?"

"Well," he snipped back. "It seemed like a better idea than just barging in."

"Hardly. Let yourself in, already," she said, hanging up on him and rolling over in the bed. It was nearly eleven a.m., and she'd been in bed at least twelve hours. Still, Casey was sure that without Billy's visit, she'd have spent all day in bed. Since her release from the hospital, nearly a year ago, zombie had been her role of choice. Hiding under the covers had been her favored pastime. Michael and Amy had fought with her for nearly five months to get off her duff and start living again. She'd refused until she had driven them away. After they left, the job became Billy's.

She looked down at her hands, as though by some miracle she might have regained the use of them during the night. Instead, her fists stared motionless back at her.

Using the forefinger on her left hand, Casey pulled open the drawer in the bedside table and lifted out the picture of her daughter. The image was several years old—Amy holding a soccer ball, posing for a photo at the end of the season.

The picture's edges were tattered and bent. Casey ran a finger over her daughter's face and then closed her eyes, holding the picture to her. What was Amy doing now? What did she look like? Casey heard the front door unlock and returned the photo to the drawer, the ache of guilt sharp in her chest as she rolled herself into a tight ball.

She stared at her lifeless hands. In his savage beating, the killer she called Leonardo had broken nearly every bone in her right hand and almost as many in her left. Over twenty in all. He had also severed a half-dozen tendons and ligaments in her right knee, plus he'd cut into her thigh. She had spent six full days in and out of surgery. And still she couldn't write with her right hand or drive. She was lucky she could feel her hands at all, the doctors had told her. Lucky was the last thing she felt.

She struggled to move the fingers on her right hand. They formed a loose fist as she fought to clench them into a ball. Her hand refused to close. Frustrated, she kicked and flailed at the bedsheets and then collapsed.

"Hello!" Billy called, his voice growing closer.

"I'm not getting up," Casey yelled.

Billy stopped in the doorway and shook his head. "Oh, so you tell me to let myself in for nothing. Geesh, you can be such a bitch."

She glanced over, and he caught her eye.

He clicked his tongue to shame her and shook his head again. He wore black jeans, a black turtleneck, and cowboy boots. But today, his short dark hair had been carefully gelled to the side, exposing his bright blue eyes, full of mischief.

Casey pulled herself up onto her elbows, ignoring the difficulty of moving around with useless hands. "You have a date!" she accused.

Without responding, Billy moved past the bed and pulled the shades open. "It's like a cave in here. You need light, woman."

Casey moaned at the bright light as Billy opened the window. Billy's hair had caught her attention, and the undesirable stream of sunlight became less important. "Who's the lucky guy?"

He ignored her, picking up the discarded clothing and throwing it over his arm as her mother had always done when she was avoiding an issue. "Have you eaten?"

"Not hungry. Tell me about him."

"You've got five minutes to get dressed and meet me in the kitchen. I'll start coffee." Billy set the clothes over a chair and then started out the door. "I'll tell you about him while you're eating breakfast."

Casey smiled, victorious. "Deal." With the door closed, she sat up and pulled her pajama bottoms off. Finding her jeans, she dropped them to the floor and pushed her feet into the legs. Her hands in fists, she worked the jeans up around her knees, using her fists to move the fabric up over her legs. With the jeans around her knees, she lay on her back to let them shake down around her hips.

Halfway, her teeth clenched, she paused for a breath. Then, with a deep groan, she continued. It was getting easier, but the feeling of helplessness had once come close to drowning her.

Using the pinky of her left hand, she grabbed a belt loop and pulled the left side of the jeans over her hip. The jeans had fit her at one time, but they were much looser now.

Reaching around, she grabbed the belt loop on the other side and heaved it over her other hip. Using a hook and line her husband had made for her right after she'd come home from the hospital, Casey looped the hook through the zipper's hole and tugged the line up with her pinky. Now, just the button remained. Casey sank down on the bed, wishing she had her sweatpants. Michael had bought her sweat suits in four colors to make dressing easier.

But Billy had taken them away, saying they were too close to pajamas and made her lazy. He had also told her that she looked like shit in them. It hadn't been their smoothest day together. But all her husband's love and affection had failed to have even a fraction of the impact Billy did.

Casey glared at the button hole, remembering the first time she'd fastened one after the attack. Concentrating, she set to maneuvering the button through the hole with the knuckle of her index finger.

"What's taking so long?" Billy called from the other room.

Casey snarled at the door. "If it takes too long, bring back my sweats."

"No chance," he snapped back.

Another minute passed and she heard two quick knocks. "Your eggs are ready." The click of Billy unlatching the door was followed by the sound of him padding back to the kitchen.

Casey smiled at the gesture. On one of Billy's first days, right after her husband and daughter had moved back to Virginia, the door had been latched and Casey had been unable to open it. Sobbing, she'd waited nearly an hour before Billy had come to check on her. "What the fuck is wrong with you? Couldn't you hear me?" she'd shouted.

He'd shaken his head slowly.

In response, she had shoved her crippled fists in his face. "I can't open a goddamn door, I can't tie a shoe, or cut a tomato, or brush my teeth, or fasten a belt, or shoot a gun. I can't do anything."

Billy had been quiet the rest of that day. But afterward he'd never let the door remain latched for long. He also never expressed an ounce of pity for her. Perhaps that was the reason he had been able to motivate her as her husband had been unable to do. She had driven her husband away, unable to cope with his pity.

Looking down at her fists now, Casey opened and closed them in the same slow methodical way Billy had worked with her to do. The left one was better. While she still had trouble controlling the individual fingers, she could spread her palm almost wide enough to hold a large grapefruit. But the right one was still stiff and worthless. Her shooting hand. He'd been sure to destroy that one completely.

"Stop your self-pity," he said.

She turned to see Billy standing in the doorway. "Lay off," she snapped.

"Don't give me that bitchy tone. Get in here and eat these eggs."

Casey shot him a dirty look and pushed past him toward the kitchen. As always, Billy kept it immaculate. Like the rest of her house, the kitchen was sparsely decorated in light pines and whites. Sterile was how some would describe it. No pictures, diplomas, or awards hung on the walls of the living room or den. When Billy had started, she'd had no wall hangings at all. But slowly he had convinced her to buy a couple of Ansel Adams prints. Even those kept the tone of the place cold in their black and white.

She sat hard in the pine chair and stared at her eggs, then raised an eyebrow. "Cheese?"

"Just a little," Billy replied sharply.

She smiled broadly and stood up. Crossing the kitchen to where Billy stood, she planted a kiss on his cheek.

Billy rolled his eyes. "Don't think that's going to get you more cheese next time."

Casey smiled and sat back down. Fastidious about what went in his body, Billy thought cheese was like hardened orange gelato. And cheese was the least of it. One of the first things he had done was to empty the house of alcohol, sweets, and most of the cigarettes.

At least Casey had a small stash of cigs hidden away to steal a smoke when Billy wasn't around. But Billy could always tell when she'd been smoking them. He had also refused to buy anything other than skim milk. Now that she was shopping with him, they compromised on 1 percent.

Coffee had been Billy's next intended victim, but she'd threatened to fire him. They had fought on and off for a few days, but in the end she had won. Though he had successfully weeded most of the vices from her life, Casey knew he had accepted that coffee was one he would be powerless to stop.

She drank her coffee slowly now, knowing Billy would make only one cup. Leaning forward on the table, she said, "Tell me about this man."

Billy stared into his cup, swirling his spoon in the ginseng tea.

"You promised," she reminded him.

He nodded. "I met him at the hospital. He was visiting a friend with AIDS when I was visiting Mrs. Levinski. She fell in the shower and broke her hip."

Casey smiled. "Go on."

"That's it. That's how we met. His name's Kevin. He's incredible. He reads palms—it's so sexy."

"That's his job?"

Billy shook his head. "That's his art. For work, he's a tax accountant."

"An accountant who reads palms?" He sounded like a freak.

"You're so closed-minded, Casey."

"I am not." Casey wondered what his last name was. She'd have liked to have someone check him out. "You met this guy at the hospital? What do you know about him?"

Billy crossed his arms. "I know plenty."

"Have you been to his house?"

"No."

"Have you met any of his friends?"

Billy scowled. "Don't you dare turn Kevin into one of your suspects. Not everyone is a killer, for God's sake. I really like him, so pretend like you do, too. You've got your head screwed on so tight that you can't even see the good in people anymore. I'm amazed you let me come work for you. Or did you do a background check on me, too?"

Casey shook her head. She
had
done a background check on Billy—actually, she'd had the FBI do it. And no one was more thorough than the FBI. But he was right. Leonardo was always her first thought. "I'm sorry," she said. "You're right."

"I want you to meet him." Billy broke into a crooked smile. "I like him." He stared into the distance and then waved her off, ending the conversation. "Go on. Go do something. I'll finish this up, and we'll do your exercises."