Sweet Dreams Boxed Set (56 page)

“Why don’t you send one of your boys?”

“Because this is right up your alley. You’re already on site. You’re familiar with the territory. And despite what you still seem to consider your little fuck-up, you’re still one of the best in the business. C’mon, Baldwin. Humor me. Get out of the house for a while. Maybe do some interacting with the rest of the world. It might pull you out of the funk. You have been in a funk, right, Baldwin?”

Therapy. Yeah, he was falling for that.

“I don’t think this is such a good idea, boss.”

“Well, I do. They need another brain, Baldwin, and I don’t have any to spare. Since you’re probably not real up to date with the program, we’re losing guys right and left. Big bucks on the mashed potato circuit, everybody wants to be a consultant on cable TV. We’re low on resources, and all the remaining personnel are in Minnesota, working a skinner case. Guess you haven’t heard about that either. Never mind. Will you do it? It’s only a conversation.”

“I didn’t ask for any favors, Garrett.”

“This isn’t one for you, Baldwin. It’s a favor to me. Just call Price, go in and see him. You can make the decision from there.”

“Hold on,” Baldwin said as he pulled the phone away from his ear and reached for the TV remote. He turned up the opening of the local 10:00 evening news. A pretty blonde anchor in tortoise glasses, with a long nose and the requisite overbite that reminded men of what a mouth like that could do, spoke quietly, with the intonation of doom only a TV person could muster. Two female students from Vanderbilt University had been found brutally raped and murdered, their bodies left at two of Nashville’s very public sites.

“The press has it.”

“Hard to keep it away from them.”

He stared up at the ceiling, willing the report to go away. He heard a woman’s voice fending off detailed questions nicely.
Quelling the panic,
Baldwin thought to himself. Shaking his head, he turned the TV up to listen.

“…Shelby Kincaid, of Bowling Green, Kentucky. She was a sophomore at Vanderbilt, and was reported missing several days ago by her roommate.” She cut off a question, “No, we’re not releasing the name of the roommate, John. Get real.” There was a ripple of laughter throughout the room. “The second victim is Jordan Blake, of Houston, Texas. She was a junior at Vanderbilt. Yes, she is the daughter of Gregory Blake. We don’t have any indication this crime is in any way related to her father’s business.” There was a flurry of sound, voices, papers, phones. The woman ignored it and pressed on.

“We want to pass a message to all students in town. Don’t go out alone. Stay with friends if possible. Keep your doors and windows locked at all times. Go to class in groups. Don’t put yourselves in any compromising situations, especially with alcohol and drugs. We’re doing our best to find the suspect. Thank you.” The shouting started again, but she turned and walked out of the room. A man the TV screen named as Dan Franklin approached the podium. Baldwin wasn’t paying attention anymore.

Man, she was pretty. He thought he knew her from somewhere, though she looked a little older and worn a little thin. They’d picked the right woman as their PR spokesman. Spokeswoman. She obviously knew everyone there, had kept them under control.

As he came back from his thoughts, the female anchor threw it to her co-anchor. The story was over. Then it hit him.
Taylor Jackson.
That’s who she was—they went to Father Ryan together. He’d always thought she was hot as hell, but she was more into the scene than he had ever been. He’d never pursued the matter, and he’d bet a million dollars she’d never remember who he was. Besides, she was a couple of years younger, and he hadn’t been on the A-list on the private school circuit.

Baldwin switched stations and watched as another distraught female anchor gave the details of the rape and murder of the two girls. He was able to get a little more information before they cut away to the footage of the press conference. The rest of the story was a simple reprise. There was no new information coming out tonight.

He knew the cops had much more detail, but there was only so much the public could handle, much less understand. Without realizing he was doing so, Baldwin mentally began forming a profile of the murderer, murmuring to himself.

“Guy’s white, around 30, complete sociopath. He’s killing in a private place, probably has some menial night job that gives him free movement during the day. Lives with someone who can support him, had a crappy childhood, domineering mother, distant father, yada, yada, yada. Killing girls with similar characteristics of someone close to him, probably has a record, these aren’t his first crimes. Has kept souvenirs, keeping clippings from the paper and watching the media coverage. Doesn’t date, very organized, stalking the girls. Wants the police to see what he’s done, so he’s dumping in a public place. Lives in the area, has means of transport…” He trailed off. Typical profile of a serial killer.

It was getting redundant, and the profilers were getting a little sloppy, often throwing the same categories at all the killers. Granted, killers weren’t terribly original, but the complacency that came with dealing with these men was beginning to show. There were “former” profilers all over the cable news networks anytime a series of killings started, and even when there was only one violent crime to go on. They needed to be a little more careful. The word was out that they hadn’t been completely accurate in a few cases. He’d heard a former cop bluster his way through a television interview a few weeks before say, “Profilers don’t put cuffs on the criminals.” That could start some trouble.

Baldwin came back from his thoughts to hear Garrett yelling at him. “Sorry. What?”

“God, man, where’d you go?”

“Just watching a little TV.”

“I have something else I need you to know. It’s about Arlen.”

Baldwin tensed. “I don’t want to talk about him, Garrett. All bets are off if you bring him up again.”

“But Baldwin, there’s news—”

“That’s my deal, Garrett. No Arlen, and I’ll think about talking to your friend. Are we clear?”

“You’re not exactly in a position to make demands on me, Baldwin. Just let me tell you what’s happening.”

“No.”

Garrett was silent for a moment. “Fine, have it your way. Will you call Price?”

Baldwin gave a last longing look at the gun. “Yeah.”

He clicked off the phone and gently set it down on the table beside him. Went into the kitchen, fetched a Guinness. Poured it into an ice-cold mug from the freezer. He’d always preferred it cold, rather than the correct British lukewarm.

The gun wasn’t calling as loudly now. He’d felt a small adrenaline rush at the news reports. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to talk to the captain. He could pull out at any time and come back to his miserable little existence. Maybe fate was dealing him a new hand. He guzzled half the beer, called Price at home and set an appointment for 8:00 a.m. in the morning.

He sat back in the chair, took a smaller sip of the beer, picked up an empty notepad from the coffee table. Began writing out the thoughts in his head. Time to trade the mind of one madman for another.

Twenty-One

Taylor was wide awake. She had gone home after the press conference and hit the bed completely exhausted, thinking a good night’s sleep would help her think clearly in the morning. Instead, she kept reviewing the facts of the case. The white board from the squad room shone brightly in her mind’s eye. The faces of the dead girls ran over and over through her head.

After an hour of tossing and turning, she finally accepted sleep wasn’t going to come anytime soon. She got out of the bed and made her way to her pool table, flipped on the TV as she walked by for noise.

Racked the balls. Took the break. Smoothly cracked the balls into their respective pockets. She felt the tension go out of her shoulders as she finally started to relax a bit. The rain was still coming down. The local weather station had broken into the late night feed to give radar warnings for the severe thunderstorms moving through the area. Tomorrow was supposed to be even worse.

Taylor kept a small refrigerator in the back corner of the room. She made her way there and grabbed a bottle of ice cold Miller Lite. She sipped and mused, expertly sinking ball after ball, re-racking, breaking, playing eight ball against herself.

With a delicate meow, her cat jumped up on the table and began batting at the balls. Taylor couldn’t help but laugh. The kitten adopted from the local shelter and named Jade for her green eyes was at the very least Taylor’s best confidante. She had adopted her on a whim. She’d gone into the animal shelter to serve a warrant, saw the scruffy kitten sneeze and fell in love. She was surprised to realize that she never felt alone when the cat was around.

She racked the balls again, shifting her thoughts to the weird aspects of the case at hand. She hadn’t given the drug angle too much thought. These were college kids, who did stupid things like drink and do drugs to excess. Was it possible straight-laced Shelby had decided to lighten up a little bit and fell in with the wrong crowd? According to Gladys, Jordan was a habitual user, but none from her crowd knew Shelby. The limited connections bothered her. The beer and fatigue were dragging her mind into
Park
.

Getting more in depth with Shelby’s background had been hard; there was little new information to be gained. Calls around campus had given them a few answers, but left more questions in Taylor’s mind.

She was sure the girl was seeing someone. They hadn’t found any kind of birth control in her things; the campus clinic had no record of her being a patient with them, other than a bout with bronchitis earlier in the semester. No one else had been able to confirm or deny her out of class activities—apparently even the students in Shelby’s program didn’t know her well. Her advisor had lauded her with praise. Taylor sensed it was heartfelt, not just laurels for the dead. Her parents obviously cared for her. She was a hardworking scholarship student who seemingly kept her nose clean. So why would someone want to rape her, leave her body at the Parthenon and cover her with herbs?

The herbs told Taylor that whoever had killed Shelby loved her. Even though her body had been abused, she had been given some kind of tender send-off, a show of reverence.

She racked up the balls again.

Jordan Blake was a different story. Her file made much of the tale self-evident. Jordan was out of control. She’d been on academic probation since she arrived freshman year. She’d been booted out of her sorority pledge class, was in and out of the health clinic for three pregnancy scares. Nobody they talked to could give them any definitive ideas on where she had been in the days before her death. It seemed Jordan Blake was friends with everyone and no one.

Irrefutable fact—the girl was pregnant when she was killed. She’d been stabbed and thrown in the river. Even if the detritus on her body was comprised of the same herbs they’d recovered from Shelby, this wasn’t a crime of love. It was a crime of hate. Or passion.

Sam’s comment about the killer being the baby’s father rolled through her head.

Good girl, bad girl. Angel, devil. How could the same man have so much love for one and so much hatred for the other?

Taylor put up her cue and perched on the edge of the table. There was a thought niggling in the back of her mind, but she was too tired to gain access to it. She gave up for now, hoping it would rear its head in the morning. Maybe she could sleep her way to an answer.

Tossing the empty beer bottle away, she made her way back to her bed, hoping she was foggy enough to escape the nightmares about dead girls begging for her help to find them justice.

She wasn’t.

Bullets were flying in the darkened sky. She heard them whizzing by her head, felt the heat as they ripped through her hair. She saw him go down. She was screaming, clawing at him, trying to get away from the hand that reached up and grabbed her by the throat. She fell beside him. He was dead. She could see the entrance wound, glistening silver in the moonlight. Her hands were slick with blood: it covered all of her, drowning her in its viscous blanket, dragging her down into the weeds as they curled and spread over her body. There was no hope. There was no pain. She gave up her struggle and lay serenely next to the empty soul beside her, waiting for the strangling vines to drag her into the earth to decompose along with him. She heard a voice, turned to hear better. Jordan Blake’s empty eyes stared back at her. She jumped, and tried to roll away, but the vines held her tight. Only her head could move, and she turned away, not wanting to see. When she opened them again, Shelby lay beside her, wearing a crown of thorns, hands reaching for Taylor’s face, silently mouthing, “Please…”

Taylor rolled out of bed, heart kettle-drumming in her chest. Her Glock was in her hand, she was panting in fear.

She tried to control her breathing. Put the gun back under the pillow.

The dreams were getting out of control. She had lost her edge completely; the ghosts of her failures were dragging her down, haunting her every moment.

A thought—indistinct, clouded with fatigue. She needed to find a way to help the girls, but it was too late. They were all dead.

She lay back down, head against the pillow, eyes wide, too tired to even cry anymore.

The Third Day

Twenty-Two

Taylor was knee deep in the squad’s squalor and on her third Diet Coke. She’d come in before five, unable to stay alone anymore. At least there was activity at all hours at the CJC.

She was skimming the ViCAP files Lincoln had pulled when she noticed a very tall man walking toward Price’s door. She didn’t recognize him as department material, figured he was a political, maybe from the mayor’s office. Dismissed him with a distracted nod. She’d learned long ago when to keep her head down.