The Next Victim

Synopsis:

Enthusiastic fans of Jonnie Jacobs's thrillers know what they're getting in bestseller after bestseller: riveting suspense, knockout writing, and a smart, world-weary heroine who can kick butt and take names when she needs to. Now Jacobs delivers another gripping tale of sex, lies, secrets, and murder whose razor-sharp twists and turns don't let up until the very last page is turned. A body count that's rising. A lone witness on the run. A killer who'll do anything to buy silence. It's the most dangerous case of attorney Kali O'Brien's career -- and it's hitting way too close to home.

The last time Kali spoke to her brother, John, he was desperate to tell her something but too drunk to get it out. Now he's dead, an apparent suicide by overdose. That would be shocking enough, but the cops have more bad news: John was also the lead suspect in the recent double homicide of two women in Tucson. The victims include the wealthy heiress of the corporation John worked for and Olivia Perez, a pretty college coed whose family is determined to make someone pay for the crime, and Kali's at the top of their list -- if she can't clear his name first. It's a tricky case that's about to get even trickier.

Kali didn't know her brother very well, and in death, the only clue he's left behind is as damning as it is mysterious. Hidden in the pages of his dictionary is a photo of three attractive young women. One is Olivia Perez. One is a street-tough runaway named Crystal. The third woman -- a strip club dancer and porn actress -- has just been found in a ditch, the victim of a brutal slaying. As shocking as the woman's death is her connection to Kali's brother. How did they know each other? What was John trying to tell Kali the night he died? And would someone kill to keep him from saying it? Suddenly her brother's suicide is starting to look a lot like murder.

Kali's only hope for solving the case lies in finding the last girl in the picture -- a witness who knows far more than she should, maybe too much to live -- and Kali has to get to her before the killer does. It's a search that will plunge her into the secrets and lies of her own family and deep into the sex industry's hidden underworld of going-nowhere-fast girls looking for easy money, where fantasies can be had for a price, blackmail is deadly, and silence can be bought with blood. And if Kali isn't careful, she could lead a cunning killer straight to the last target while putting herself in line to be the next victim...

The call came a little after two in the morning and pulled Erling from a particularly pleasant dream. As a homicide detective with the Pima County Sheriff's Department, he was used to being awakened at odd hours, but engaging his brain was always a struggle. He remained blurry eyed, clinging to the remnants of sleep, until the dispatcher read off the address of the crime scene--one that was painfully etched in Erling's memory.

Instantly, he was fully alert.

His pulse quickened and an involuntary cry escaped from his lips, waking Deena, who had long ago learned to sleep through the intrusion of middle-of-the-night calls. She shot him an inquiring look, which he pretended not to see.

"Sorry, honey," he said. "I've got to go."

"What is it?"

"Just work."

"Figures." Deena sighed and rolled over, turning her back to him.

A shaft of moonlight illuminated her form and Erling took a moment to study the familiar curves of her body, the splash of auburn hair streaked with gray. There were times he could still see in her the playful and sexy woman he'd married twenty years earlier. What he saw more often, though, or rather felt, was an aloofness tinged with reproach. It had been that way for four years--since their eleven-year-old son, Danny, had died in a skateboarding accident. Erling could never decide whether the tragedy had caused the problems in their marriage or simply exacerbated existing ones he'd been blind to at the time.

Erling headed for the bathroom, where he showered quickly before pulling on slacks and a collared knit shirt. Before leaving the house he gently shook Deena.

"Don't forget, Mindy needs to be up by seven in order to study for her sociology test." At eighteen, their daughter still had trouble getting out of bed on her own.

"I'll make sure she's up."

He kissed Deena on the cheek. "Have a good day."

"I'd tell you the same but I guess a dead body kind of precludes that."

Especially given the address, Erling thought, with an ache in his gut.

There was no mistaking that the large, tile-roofed house on Canyon View Drive was a crime scene. Half a dozen patrol cars were parked in front. The coroner's van and mobile crime tech unit sat in the driveway. Yellow police tape cordoned off the house entrance and part of the yard. Already, a news helicopter was circling overhead.

As he passed under the tape and through the front door, Erling felt a tremor of longing and sadness.
Please
, he whispered silently,
don't let it be her
.

Inside, the evidence of carnage was everywhere. A blue handblown glass vase had been knocked from the library table, one of the floor lamps had been overturned, and the rocking chair lay on its side. Bits of flesh and brain matter were splattered against the cherry cabinets. Dark, sticky blood pooled on the terra-cotta tile floor. Erling had trouble breathing.

Across the room, he could see a female form crumpled against the wall. Olive-toned skin. Wavy black hair, long enough to fall below the shoulders. Erling felt a surge of relief. Definitely not Sloane.

"Other one's over there," the uniformed officer told him, pointing in the direction of the fieldstone fireplace. An image flashed in Erling's mind: Sloane in front of a blazing fire, facing him and slowly unbuttoning her blue silk blouse.
Don't think about it
, he told himself.
Stay cool and don't think
.

"It's pretty awful," the uniform warned. "I couldn't do more than take a peek myself."

Erling glanced over and saw a woman's leg and sandaled foot protruding from behind the sofa. Female also, but fair. He didn't recognize the shoes but that didn't mean anything. He hadn't seen Sloane in five months.

He said a silent prayer as he moved closer. The body was sprawled on the floor, arms and legs akimbo, the face largely blown away. Erling's gut rumbled and churned.

It might not be her. No way to know for sure without a formal ID.

But in his heart, he knew. The curve of the neck, the mole on her shoulder, the jade and silver ring on her right hand. Swallowing hard against the bile that threatened to rise in his throat, he crammed his shaking hands into his jacket pockets, hoping no one would notice, and closed his mind to the memories.

Erling experienced a familiar tug of anger and sadness at the senseless loss of life. The feelings came with the job, he supposed. Only this time the mantle of professional distance failed him. This wasn't just another victim; this was a woman he'd held and kissed, and laughed and loved with. This was Sloane.

Michelle Parker, his partner of six months--a younger detective with the tenacity of a bulldog--had been talking to the responding officers when he had arrived. Now, notebook still in hand, she crossed from the wall of windows in the living room to join Erling by the kitchen archway.

Michelle brushed a wisp of chestnut brown hair from her forehead. "What a way to start the day, huh?"

"It's what we do," he snapped. His chest was so tight he could barely breathe.

Michelle's face registered surprise at the curt response. A moment of hollow silence followed while she regarded him thoughtfully. "Some of us do it in better humor than others," she said finally.

The sudden, if subtle, hint of tension in the air jolted him like the snap of a rubber band against his skin.
Get a grip, Shafer. You want the whole damn world to know
?

"So, what've we got?" he asked, more hospitably.

Michelle glanced at her notebook. "Call came in just after midnight. A neighbor noticed the lights had been on all day and the morning paper hadn't been picked up. She called the house and when no one answered came over and rang the bell. Then she went around the side and peeked in the window. She saw a body on the floor and called nine-one-one."

"Do we have an ID on the victims?"

"Nothing positive. Best guess is that the older one is Sloane Winslow. This is her home."

Older one
. Erling cringed. Sloane was only forty-one, two years younger than himself, and much too lovely to be called
older
.

"Her maiden name was Logan." Michelle paused. "As in Logan Foods."

When he didn't respond right away, she added, "The grocery chain."

Erling whistled softly. It bought him a moment's time. "You know anything about the family?"

"I didn't even know it was a family business until the neighbor filled me in. Do you?"

The moment of truth.

Or not.

Erling knew he should remove himself from the investigation. He had personal connections to one of the victims. Emotional connections. Big-time emotional connections. Department policy dictated he step aside and let someone else handle it.

But he couldn't do that. Not without explaining. Word would get around. Eventually it would get back to Deena. His stomach clenched. He couldn't. He simply couldn't take that chance. Not after Danny.

Besides, he wanted to personally nail the creep who'd done this. He needed to do it--for Sloane even more than for himself.

Michelle gave him that curious look again. She was still waiting for an answer.

"Only what I read in the papers," Erling said. The lie burned his tongue. Maybe, just maybe, they'd find the killer and wrap this up quickly.

"So, tell me."

"The grandfather started the business right here in Tucson. Sloane Winslow and her brother, Reed Logan, have controlling interest, though it's Reed who actually runs the company. Winslow lived in L.A. with her husband. It wasn't until she divorced and returned to Tucson a few years ago that she got involved in the business at all."

"Local gentry, local money." Michelle frowned. "I guess this one's going to be in the headlines."

"Afraid so." They looked at one another and Erling voiced what they were both thinking. "The lieutenant will put our feet to the fire if we don't hand him a suspect in short order."

"Can we do that?"

"You tell me. How's it look?"

Michelle flipped to a different page in her notebook. "Crawford's here from the medical examiner's office. His initial estimate is that they've been dead twenty-four to thirty-six hours. Both were shot at close range. The older woman in the head. The younger one in the chest and right leg. Weapon appears to be a shotgun."

Again Erling felt the tightness in his chest. Sloane moved with grace. A woman completely comfortable in her own skin. He couldn't imagine the terror she must have felt when she saw the gun in the killer's hands. His mind flashed to a vision of Sloane trying frantically to fend off the inevitable. For a moment, he couldn't breathe. Then he shook his thoughts clear.

"We have the weapon?" he asked.

"No." Michelle paused and glanced around the room. "Looks like they put up a fight, doesn't it? But even with two of them, they'd be no match for a sleazeball with a gun."

Erling grunted agreement. "Any ID on the second victim?" he asked, moving in to take a closer look. She appeared to be in her late teens or early twenties. The
older woman
comment made sense to him now.

"The neighbor who called it in is a regular verbal fountain. Says there was a young woman living here with Winslow. Olivia Perez is the name. She was a student at the university."

"A relative?" Last Erling knew, Sloane had been living alone.

"A boarder, I think."

"A boarder?"

"I know, it doesn't make a lot of sense. The Logans must be loaded."

Certainly not in need of taking in boarders. "What do we have in the way of trace evidence?" Erling sent a silent prayer to the heavens for a dumb perp. One who'd left fingerprints and fibers, maybe even his driver's license.

"We won't know until the techs have finished going over the place. But there's an old guy a couple of houses down who gave us the description of a car he saw out front Tuesday night. A silver Porsche with a broken taillight. If Crawford's right about the time of death, that would put the car here near the time of the murders."

An eyewitness wasn't as good as a dumb perp, but Erling would take it. At least a Porsche wasn't your average, run-of-the-mill kind of car. "Did the old guy see anyone?"

"He thinks the driver was male but can't say for sure."

"What about other neighbors?"

"Nothing so far. The houses are pretty far apart and private."