Angelique Lemoraux wiped down the bar and glanced at the clock. 1:00 a.m. Dead tired she might be after hours of bartending, but sleep eluded her when she worked the bar. Her body screamed for rest, but her mind was still wired. Not that she’d trade the night shift. Tips were always better at night, especially on the weekends. Her weekend tips could easily make a rent payment for her.
Stretching, she finished wiping down the bar. Her current patrons were all sipping on drinks or snacking on food. It had been five hours since she’d had a break, so she walked down to where Ben was flirting with some college girls. Angel hoped he hadn’t given away too many free drinks. Pops, the owner, was cracking down on him. One more bad night and he was gone.
“I’m gonna take ten if you can watch my well?”
“Sure, baby doll.” He turned those sky-blue eyes on her, a look meant to make her melt. It did jack for her, which irritated him to no end. She’d only fallen for a look like that once a long time ago. It wasn’t a mistake she’d ever make again.
“Check to see if spikey-hair over there wants food. He’s been looking at the menu for at least twenty minutes.” She turned away without waiting for a response and went through the back to the kitchen. Pete, the new cook, waved to her on her way out the back door.
Jessie, one of the servers, leaned against the wall, smoking. She’d be a pretty girl if she didn’t wear so much makeup.
“Hey, Angel. You finally get loose?” Her voice was rough even though she couldn’t be that much older than Angel, who was only twenty-six. Smoker’s voice.
“Yeah, Ben’s in charge.”
They both snickered at the thought. Ben concentrated on flirting more than he did bartending. He brought lots of girls in, though, and that was the only reason Pops kept him around.
“What are you doing out here by yourself, anyway?” Angel rolled her shoulders, trying to relieve some of the pressure. “Haven’t you been watching the news?”
“I needed a smoke.” The girl waved her cigarette. “Why are you out here by yourself?”
“Touché.” Neither of them should be out here alone. The latest Boston serial killer hadn’t been caught yet. He kept getting closer and closer to the Boston University campus. Police warned women to go nowhere alone, and even on campus they were telling the girls to travel in pairs or packs. It was that bad. So far, there had been a total of eight women murdered.
“Maybe they’ll catch him soon.” Jessie took another drag from her cigarette. “I heard they called in the FBI.”
“It’s about time. They need to get all Criminal Minds on his ass.”
“Pops hired more security. He doesn’t want us walking to our cars alone.” Jessie tossed the butt of her cigarette and ground it out beneath her heel. “Pops takes care of us. You want me to stay until you’re ready to go back in? Diane will understand.”
“No, I’m only going to be a few more minutes. I’ll be fine.”
Jessie shot her a crooked grin and wobbled back inside. At least behind the bar, Angel could wear tennis shoes. The servers didn’t have as much luck. They wore heels. By the end of the shift, they could barely walk, some nights.
Angel arched her back. Standing for the last five hours had taken its toll on her too, despite her tennis shoes. After three years of bartending, she should be used to it. One more semester of college, and she’d have her degree in psychology. She wanted to work with battered women to try to help them see they were actually worth a damn.
Raising her arms, she stretched one last time. Ben on his own spelled disaster, and Pops, the owner, would have her hide if the man caused any sort of trouble. With the women who mobbed him, there could be all kinds of problems. Just last week they’d started fighting about who he’d winked at, and Ben ate it up. Angel shook her head at the entire situation.
She picked up some papers that littered the back alley then opened the dumpster to toss them in. Curling her nose in disgust at the scent, she glanced over when she heard a car door slam. A man in a dark blue hoodie got out of the driver’s side, whistling a soft tune. He walked to the back of the sedan to the open trunk he’d popped before getting out of the car.
Angel frowned. Why was he opening the trunk here? He leaned in, disappearing from view for a moment. When he stood back up, Angel’s eyes widened. She saw a foot hanging limply from where it had slipped out of the blanket. Was he dumping a body? Here? He was dumping a body here? She needed to hide before he saw her.
He moved toward her, and not thinking, she took several steps back, the raised dumpster lid falling from her hand, the clattering sound loud in the silence of the night. She looked up to see him staring at her, surprised as much as she was.
She tried her best to memorize what she could while he studied her, the body in his arms forgotten. Not good, Angel girl. Don’t stand here like an idiot while the potential serial killer stares you down! She tried to move, but her feet refused to work. Fear flooded her when a slow grin spread across his face. He shifted his burden and took a step in her direction. She backed up.
Instead of following her, he turned and set his burden down, her back against the brick wall of the shop next door. The street lamp lit the alley enough for Angel to get a good look at him. Dark gloves covered his hands, and the hoodie hid his arms well. He turned back to Angel, his hood sliding back slightly, enough for her to see the five o’clock shadow of a beard. He must trim it daily to make it look like that.
He crossed his arms and stood there, feet braced apart, like he was preparing for a fight. He’d just dumped his latest victim. He needed someone new to take her place. Angel was that someone. She knew it in her bones. Why the hell wouldn’t her damn feet listen to her brain screaming to run for cover?
“Angel, it’s getting busy, and Pops…”
They both turned to see Jessie open the back door and walk outside, her mouth falling open mid-sentence when she saw him standing at the end of the alley. Her eyes swung to the corpse of the woman, the blanket having fallen off her white face, marred by dark bruises. Jessie screamed, long and loud, at the sight. What Angel should have done.
He didn’t run, just smiled. Tipping his head at her, he turned and got back into his car, driving away.
Angel faintly heard Jessie screaming behind her. Black spots danced in front of her, and her last coherent thought was she’d just stared into the face of a killer, and he knew her name.
***
Special Agent Kade Kincaid of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit downed another shot of whiskey. Case files lay open on every available surface, horrifying crime scene photos decorated the walls, while a half-eaten pizza sat on the only chair in the hotel room.
It had been over a month since his supervisor left him here in Boston to help the local police find and capture the madman currently terrorizing the city. He’d taken eight women, each time getting closer and closer to Boston University. Kade knew that was where this man’s ultimate goal lay, even if everyone else disagreed with him.
This case frustrated Kade more than any he’d been on in his career as first a police officer down in Miami-Dade, and then as an agent in the FBI. There was no rhyme or reason to the women who had been taken other than their age. They were all in their early twenties. They came from all races, religions, and walks of life. He’d taken a society princess and a girl who worked the streets. Nothing tied them together except their age. The only pattern Kade could see was the inevitable location outcome. Each kill brought him closer to the school. They’d done all they could to warn the local community colleges, as well as Boston University.
Kade paused to survey the murder board he’d put together. Each woman’s picture decorated it in the order of her death. Everything he knew about them was listed beneath their headshots. The map of Boston was pinned with each location of their disappearance and the dump site. He’d lost countless hours standing here staring at information that left him with more questions than answers. What was he missing?
The ringing of his cell phone shattered the quiet of the room. He picked it up from where he’d set it to charge and saw Detective Ron Bailey’s name flash across the screen. A knot started twisting in his stomach. There was only one reason he’d be calling this late.
He tapped the icon to answer the call. “Kincaid.”
“We got another body.”
“Are you sure it’s the same unsub?” He hoped he was wrong, but his gut kept right on twisting.
“He signed the body.”
It was the one detail they’d kept out of the press. The unsub, or unknown subject, as they called the perpetrator at the FBI, carved a specific design into each woman’s abdomen. At first, they’d assumed it was his initials, but upon closer inspection, the letters were interwoven with three small triangles clustered in the center of a sun. The letters also changed on each body, but the interwoven design did not. Truthfully, Kade was shocked it hadn’t been leaked to the public yet, but he’d take what breaks he could get.
“Text me the address, and I’ll be right over.”
Kade disconnected the call, grabbed his keys, pulled on his coat, and headed out. The address wasn’t one he needed to plug into the GPS. It was a bar about ten minutes from his hotel. His brother, Nikoli, had introduced him to it. He’d fished the boy out of the bar drunker than any man had a right to be. Over a woman. Kade shook his head as he started the SUV and backed up.
Not that Kade didn’t like Lily. She was a sweet girl and quite pretty, but the girl had his brother wrapped around her finger. Kade knew exactly what a pretty girl could do. His last girlfriend almost caused him and Nikoli to walk away from each other. She’d learned his little brother was a millionaire, thanks to his gaming business. She’d convinced Nikoli she loved him, and it caused a rift between him and his brother. It wasn’t until later Nikoli learned what a conniving bitch she was. He’d overheard her telling a friend about how she was using Nikoli for his money.
She’d almost cost them everything. They’d gotten past it, but it had taken time. What it taught them both, though, was to be careful of a beautiful woman. Chances were they only wanted one thing—what they could get. Since then, he and Nikoli both pretty much refused to date. They did one night stands, and the occasional girl who made it to a monthly booty call, but other than that, they stayed as far away from commitment as possible.
Until Lily. His brother gave up his one night stands and became a one-woman man. It baffled Kade, but Nikoli seemed happy, content, and Lily could make his face light up when he so much as spoke her name.
Lily seemed to be different. He’d spent a lot of time with her and Nikoli over the last few weeks. She hated when he bought her things; she never asked for anything. Nikoli usually had to argue with her when it came to paying the bill wherever they went. She wanted to pay her own way. She didn’t want anything Nikoli could provide her. She just wanted his brother.
And as long as she thought like that, he was cool with her. She made his brother happy, and in the end, that was all that really mattered.
He blinked bleary eyes as he pulled to a stop outside the perimeter Boston PD had set up around O’Grady’s. He really shouldn’t have opened that bottle of whiskey. His head was already starting to pound, and he needed sleep in a bad way. The flashing blue lights of the patrol cars and the shouting of the media did nothing for his headache either. News vans blocked off an entire street. Kade had very little respect for news hounds. He’d made the mistake of trusting a reporter once. It would never happen again.
Keeping his head down, he pushed his way through the crowd and flashed his badge at the uniforms before ducking under the crime scene tape. He ignored the questions thrown at him by the press and asked one of the many officers on scene where the body was. They directed him behind the building.
It wasn’t hard to spot Bailey. The man was tall, gangly, and stood out in a crowd. He refused to wear a suit, saying he’d rather charm a witness than intimidate one. Instead, he wore jeans and a dark gray button down shirt under his heavy winter jacket. How he could stand there in the cold without the damn thing zipped up was beyond Kade. Bailey’s bright shock of red hair blended against the deep red of the brick behind him, a testament to his Irish heritage.
“Do we have an ID yet?” Kade wasted no time with niceties when he rolled to a stop beside the detective.
Bailey yawned, the silver of his fillings glinting under the streetlight. “We do. Missing persons pinged her as soon as we sent the photo. Caroline Mills. Twenty-one and a cashier at the grocery store over on Pilgrim Road. Her parents reported her missing when the owner called them to see if she was sick since she hadn’t been to work in over a week.”
“It took them a week to figure out she was missing?” Kade shook his head. His own mother would call in every authority she could think of if he didn’t check in at least every few days. Crazy Russian lady. She and his grandmother both, but looking at this poor girl on the ground, he found himself grateful he had such crazy women who loved him.
“I know. I keep thinking about my own sister. I used to call on Sundays, but since this started, I’ve found myself checking on her once a day. She lives out in St. Paul, thousands of miles away from this, but I need to assure myself she’s safe.” Bailey made a noise between a sigh and a growl and motioned to the body on the ground. “This girl is local. What with all the other victims and the media coverage, I just can’t understand how parents could go a week without checking on her.”
Kade was glad he didn’t have a sister. Given what he did for a living, he’d have driven her nuts keeping tabs on her over the years. He squatted and used his penlight to push her hair away from her face. She was pretty, like the other women. Early twenties. Her blonde hair was stringy, matted with blood. Her already pale face had gone gray and ashen. Several bruises marred her beauty. Deep black and purple ones, especially around her jawline, like he’d gripped her chin and forced her to…he broke off that train of thought. Best not to let himself think of that. It would only serve to feed his rage.
“Pauley!” He looked over his shoulder at the medical examiner technician. The man was speaking with one of the younger officers while he unloaded his gear from the ME van. When he heard his name, he looked up, and Kade waved him over. He had an idea.
“Agent Kincaid.” His high, nasally voice always irritated Kade, but he kept that to himself. No point in upsetting the guy over something he couldn’t help. “Something you need?”
“I was thinking. Do you think we can get prints off the body?”
“The first thing we do is check the body for physical evidence. Then it’s dusted for prints. This guy is meticulous. He showers them before he dumps them. We haven’t found a scrap of physical evidence aside from traces of soap that can be bought at millions of stores nationwide.”
“I do read the reports, Pauley.” He shone his penlight on the deep, deep bruises around her chin and mouth. “See here? It looks like finger marks. I was wondering, is it possible to lift fingerprint patterns off the indentions left in the bruises?”
Pauley frowned, his brown eyes narrowing, and he squatted beside Kade. “No. Fingerprints are basically a series of ridges that can be detected because of the oil on a person’s fingertips that allows a print to be left behind. A bruise is a contusion on the skin, which is supple due to blood flow. It doesn’t allow for that type of imprinting. Now, if they were inflicted after she were dead, it might be a possibility because the skin loses its elasticity and the blood doesn’t flow, allowing it to pool and retain indentions, possibly even as slight as a fingerprint indention.”
“But not here.”
“No, he’s too smart, Agent. There’s no reason to do something to cause a bruise after she’s dead.” Pauley stood, his expression almost pained. “I’ll do a deep tissue scan, though. It’s not something we typically do. If he gripped her too tight at any point after her death, it might have left an impression behind. Good call.”
There went one idea out the window. Pauley looked too doubtful, and he’d know. He’d been at this for several years. The man might look like a twenty-year-old, but he had to be in his early thirties or thereabouts. Kade expressed doubts about someone so young handling some aspects of the case when they’d first met, but Bailey only grinned and informed him the lad had been with the ME’s office for over ten years.
“Has anyone informed her parents yet?” Pity mingled with his growing rage as he memorized every detail of her face. She did not deserve what happened to her, and it was because Kade couldn’t find a pattern. How many more would die because of his inability to see the missing link?
“Yes. The captain sent Rogers and his new partner over there.” Bailey approached slowly, his dark tennis shoes blending into the dirty concrete beside the dumpster. Rank odors tickled Kade’s nose, and he scrunched it slightly. “I thought we could give them tonight to get over the shock, and then go see them first thing in the morning.”
Kade would have preferred to do it tonight, but showing up on a grieving parent’s doorstep with liquor on his breath wouldn’t do them any favors. He needed them to trust him, and whiskey breath didn’t inspire confidence.
“Oh, there’s one other thing you should know. He left a witness behind.”
Kade’s head snapped around at the casual statement. “Witness?”
“Two, actually. He dumped the body while they were out here on a break.” Bailey couldn’t suppress his grin anymore. “We caught a break, Kincaid.”
Witnesses? He stood and took several deep breaths, refusing to let his expectations rise. Witnesses were notoriously unreliable. Even though they both might have seen the unsub, their descriptions could be vastly different. Still, Bailey was right. They’d finally caught a break.
“Where are they?” Whiskey breath or not, he needed to talk to them now. While their memories were fresh.
“Inside. One got a good look at our perp, and I’ve already sent down for a sketch artist to meet us here. I want to try to get an accurate sketch before she forgets or starts blurring her memories with what she’s seen or heard.”
“Let’s go have a chat with our witnesses.”
“You don’t want a preliminary from the ME first? I see him arriving now.”
“No. We’ll talk to him when we finish inside if he’s still here. Otherwise, we’ll swing by in the morning before we talk to the girl’s parents. Our priority right now is the witnesses.”
“We are a little concerned.” Bailey fell into step beside him as they walked toward the back entrance of the bar. “The one didn’t just see him. He saw her too. A good, long look at her. She’s scared.”
She had every right to be if he saw her and knew she worked here. “We’ll need to get her police protection.” He wasn’t about to lose another woman to this depraved madman.
“I’ve already got a call in to the captain about that.”
“We’ll need to check all the video surveillance we can find. Traffic cams, local stores and restaurants. Hell, we might as well check ATM cams too. If he left a witness, he might stick around in the crowd, waiting to follow her home.”
“I thought about that. I’ve already got uniforms out on the hunt for potential surveillance cams. Most of the tapes we won’t get until the owners or opening staff arrive in the morning. It’s after three a.m. now. Our tech department is pulling footage from the traffic cams as we speak.”
Kade rubbed a hand across his eyes as they entered the kitchen. The heat hit him in the face as soon as they stepped across the threshold. The place was busy. They served a full menu until closing, and while the kitchen was shut down and they were in the middle of cleaning up, the heat remained.
He followed Bailey into the bar, barely paying attention to his surroundings, his mind focused on one fact. Finally, the unsub had made a mistake. After all these months, he’d made a mistake and left a witness behind. Not that the unsub had much choice, but it was breaks like these that solved cases.
Bailey came to a stop in front of him, bringing his attention back to his surroundings. O’Grady’s was an Irish pub and it looked it with the rich mahogany wood and the back bar lit up to showcase the premium spirits. A man was presently wiping down the bar while another woman stocked glasses for the next shift. The patrons had been replaced with uniformed officers.
He listened as Bailey introduced him and got his first look at one of the two witnesses. She looked like she’d been crying. Her makeup was a runny mess, mascara making wet tracks down her cheeks. Given what she’d witnessed, it was no wonder she was upset.
Bailey stepped aside, and Kade’s gaze landed on the woman currently staring at him with homicide in her green eyes. They spat so much hatred at him, he took an automatic step back. It couldn’t be her. Not after all these years. It felt like he’d just been sucker punched in the gut and couldn’t breathe.
“Agent Kincaid, this is…”
“Angel.” The word tumbled off his lips in a hoarse whisper.
“You two know each other?” Bailey’s surprise paled in comparison to the shock Kade felt upon seeing the best and worst mistake of his life glaring at him.
He barely had time to brace himself before she launched herself out of the chair and straight at him.
“You murdering bastard!”