She finally responded: I’M FINE. NEED TO FIND THIS PSYCHOPATH NOW. REAL MONSTER QUALITY. DON’T KNOW HOW.
YOU WILL. ANYTHING I CAN DO?
She smiled and typed back: FROM CHINA?
AGAIN, THE WORLD IS A SMALL PLACE.
She sat down at her dining room table and replied: SOMETIMES IT FEELS VERY LARGE AND OVERWHELMING.
IF I HAD A DIME FOR EVERY TIME A WOMAN HAS SAID THAT ABOUT ME …
She snorted in spite of herself. Then she typed: CLASSY GUY. ARE YOU FOURTEEN?
SORRY. MOMENTARY LAPSE. ANYWAY, YOU’LL BE FINE. ANY LEADS IN YOUR CASE?
LIPSTICK.
LIPSTICK?
LONG STORY. DON’T KNOW WHAT IT MEANS. STILL WORKING ON IT.
GOTCHA. BE CAREFUL, KENDRA. IF YOU NEED HELP, I’M HERE.
She typed: IN CHINA.
AFRAID SO. FOR NOW.
GOOD NIGHT, LYNCH.
She put down her phone. Adam Lynch always knew what she needed even before she knew it herself. Guess what she needed now was a smart-ass to reach out to her from the other side of the world.
She pushed herself up and headed for the bedroom. Time to grab a few hours of sleep before work. And, thanks to those distracting, amusing, and intimate texts from Lynch, she might be able to put those three corpses out of her mind and get it.
*
ANISSA SCOTT CHECKED HER watch. 7:40 A.M. What in the hell was wrong with Todd?
She’d met their friends at the bar the night before, and the asshole hadn’t even bothered to call her back. She didn’t call him again on principle, but now she was wondering if he was with that blond slut who practically hung on him in their chem labs. She’d just noticed his car parked around the corner and knew he was home. What if that bitch was with him?
She didn’t give a shit. Better to know and rid herself of the prick.
Anissa climbed out of her car and cut through the narrow alley that ran alongside his yellow stucco apartment building. She walked to the exterior stairway and down the corridor to Todd’s apartment. She pulled out her key and took a deep breath, knowing she might be about to unravel the one thing that had made her life bearable these past few months.
Didn’t matter. It was better to know.
She pushed open the door. “Todd, it’s me.”
No answer.
“Todd?”
She knew he was home. His wallet, phone, and keys were on the table next to the door. She imagined him in his back bedroom desperately trying to hide his slut under the bed or maybe behind the shower curtain.
“Todd?” Dammit, it was like a replay of last night.
She stopped, frozen in place. On the floor in front of her there were five sheets of paper, each with a photograph printed on it.
She picked up the papers and studied them.
The photographs were of her.
What in the hell…?
She could see they were taken in Todd’s bedroom the night before; she was wearing her new blue sweater. But how…?
The pictures were taken from the closet, she realized, through the slightly-ajar door. She’d had no idea …
Had Todd been there the whole time, laughing as he hid and took pictures of her?
More pages in the hallway. More pictures of her.
She picked up the pages as she walked, following a trail that led into Todd’s bedroom.
Three more pages there.
She stepped inside and picked them up one by one, until she found herself in the center of the room. She looked at the last page.
The printed picture was the same as all the others, but this page had large letters scrawled on the lower half.
The letters read: LOOK BEHIND YOU.
She spun around.
She screamed.
CHAPTER
4
“NICE OF YOU TO JOIN US.”
Griffin gazed at Kendra with tired eyes as he stepped out of the apartment. He nodded toward the uniformed police officer, who lifted the police tape for her to duck under and walk toward the open door.
“I was in the middle of something.” Her phone hadn’t stopped vibrating during the second session in her studio. When she’d finally picked it up to look, there were sixteen voicemail messages and over forty texts, all concerning the murder victim in this apartment.
“Something that couldn’t wait?” Griffin asked sourly.
“No. Except to the people who needed me. They were interested in life, not death.” She looked beyond him toward the back of the apartment. “Are you sure this murder is related to the others?”
“Pretty sure. The knife wounds look similar to the others and the killer left souvenirs again.”
“Souvenirs?”
He motioned for her to walk with him toward the back bedroom where two forensics specialists were packing up their kits.
Griffin pointed toward the wall behind her. “There.”
Kendra turned. The closet door was wide open and the shirtless corpse of a young man was propped up against a pile of laundry. Blood had run from his torso and pooled on the floor around him.
Kendra winced. He looked like a kid, maybe even a teenager just starting out in life. “Who found him?”
“His girlfriend. She let herself in at about seven-thirty this morning, and this was how he greeted her.”
Kendra forced herself to move toward the corpse. “Where is she now?”
“Taking a walk with Carson and Metcalf. She was hyperventilating in here.”
Kendra knew how she felt. She had never even met this young man and yet she felt the total wrongness of a life stolen, wasted. It was all she could do to hold it together in the face of such evil, such horror.
Detach.
Concentrate.
She bent closer to the bloody corpse. “Name?”
“Todd Wesley. He was a student at San Diego State.”
On the floor in front of the corpse were three small items, neatly arranged in the closet doorway.
A class ring.
A sport watch.
A pair of ear plugs.
She turned back to Griffin. “Did you look at these?”
He nodded. “We were waiting to bag them until you had a chance to take a look. The class ring is from Stanford University. That’s an underwater watch, and the ear plugs are the type used by swimmers.”
Kendra looked at the items for a moment longer. “I know he played soccer, but was he a swimmer?”
“Not according to his girlfriend. How did you know he was a soccer player?”
She gestured behind him. “Adidas soccer cleats in the corner of the room with a pair of dirty long socks next to them. He practiced recently, maybe even yesterday.” She nodded back to the closet. “Plus, there’s a black and red uniform hanging in there. San Diego State Aztec colors.” She glanced around. “I can’t see that he played any other sport.”
“He didn’t.” The woman’s hoarse voice came from the hall.
Kendra looked up. The pretty young woman, obviously the victim’s girlfriend, stood in the doorway with Metcalf and Carson. Her face was puffy and red and her eyes were swollen.
Kendra stepped toward her. “I’m Kendra,” she said gently.