He checked his phone. The first text read: Homicide. The second was the address.
“I’ve got to go to work,” he said to Tessa.
She squeezed his hand. “Drop me at your place and I’ll grab my car.”
“Thanks for being here.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it.”
When Dakota dropped Tessa off at her car, she was sorry to let him go. It had been nice being with him, working beside him and being a part of his world.
She kissed him good-bye and savored the way he leaned into the kiss and cupped the side of her face with his hand. She could feel whatever indifference he’d been able to muster toward her was melting. She’d chipped away at his guard, but would it be enough for him to take a chance on them again? Being with him had exposed raw nerves of her own. She loved the man, and she didn’t want to consider they wouldn’t work out their marriage.
Before she could back out of her parking spot, a text from her office erased her good mood. Homicide. Jane Doe. You and Jerry are on point. She texted back: Sharp? And the response: Already notified.
She met up with Jerry in the office, and together they rode in the medical examiner’s van. They arrived at the crime scene in Richmond’s north side near an abandoned one-story office building. She tossed a quick glance to Jerry behind the steering wheel and slid out of the van. Neither had spoken a word on the drive, each lost in the worry that the killer Dakota was now calling the Dollmaker had claimed another victim.
A cool wind blew, and immediately her eyes swept the scene for Dakota.
She glanced toward the flap of yellow crime scene tape and spotted his broad shoulders as he knelt by the body. Despite the chill in the air, he’d taken off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves, exposing muscled forearms, his weapon, and his badge.
He leaned toward the victim, studying her face closely as if willing her to share her secrets. When he rose, he took a step back. He turned and his gaze captured hers, and he made no move to look away. Heat rose in her cheeks as she thought about last night with him. Tessa crossed the deserted lot toward him.
She stopped at the tape and looked toward Martin, who controlled the crime scene. “Dr. Tessa McGowan with the state medical examiner’s office.”
“You’re getting to be a regular,” Martin said.
Jerry moved beside her. “Let’s have a look at the body.”
She peered at the woman slumped by the green dumpster in the lot overgrown with trees. She wasn’t dressed in special doll clothes. Instead, she wore what looked like hospital scrubs. Her face was wrapped in bandages that were partly ripped and torn.
Tessa pulled on gloves and stepped under the tape. She knelt and studied the victim. Fearing she’d compromise evidence, she couldn’t peel back any of the bandages around the scalp and face. But she could see small patches of the woman’s red and discolored face. There were also dark-purple marks on her neck and wrists. This woman’s tattooing was in the healing stage.
Her head, eyebrows, and legs had also been shaved or waxed. In fact, like the other victim, the killer had removed all traces of hair from her body.
Tessa glanced at the victim’s thumb and saw the swollen joint. She turned the hand over and found no other signs of trauma. Her wrist had been scraped raw. “My guess is she found a way to dislocate her thumb and pull free from her restraints.” She looked at the other hand. “There are scrape marks on the other wrist as if she might have been clawing at the restraint. Somehow, she freed herself.”
She felt a little out of sorts in the face of this horrific violence, but as Dakota approached, her calm returned. He’d seen so much more violence than she ever dreamed possible.
“Why did he strangle her?” he asked more to himself.
She studied the fingerprint bruises ringing the woman’s neck. “The markings suggest he used his hands, not a wire or strap. Makes me think he wasn’t planning on killing her.”
“Not yet. Not this way.”
“This kill wasn’t controlled or planned.” She pointed to the thumb and torn bandages. “She got free, somehow saw her face, and scratched at the bandages. In the process, she ruined his artwork. That made him furious.” She pointed to the scratches on the victim’s face below the eyes.
“If she’s supposed to be a doll, she should be docile and quiet in his mind,” Dakota said, slipping into the psyche of the killer. “He killed her quickly and dumped her here because to him she was trash.”
“He took so much time posing the other one,” she said. “But this one didn’t deserve that kind of care.”
“Diane was his masterpiece. This one was a castoff. A broken toy.” Bitterness sharpened the words.
Tessa tilted up the victim’s face. For a moment she felt a twinge of familiarity as she tried to look beyond the trauma. “Have you or Agent Vargas found Elena Hayes?”
Dakota shoved out a sigh. “No, we haven’t. I’ve left her several voice-mail messages, and we’ve been by her apartment, where we did find a doll. I’ve had a BOLO out on her for a few days.”
She wanted to peel off the layers of bandaging right now and prove to herself this was not Elena. But she stifled the urge, knowing to do so would risk evidence contamination. But back at the lab, unmasking this victim would be her top priority. “I think you’ve found her.”
“You think this is Elena?” Dakota said.
“I’m not completely sure. It’s been twelve years since I’ve seen her, and this woman is so covered and disfigured. But it could be.”
“Run her prints as soon as you can,” he said.
She looked at him, realizing how all these years of never really accepting the cause of Kara’s death had not been off base. Knowing he’d carried this burden tore at her heart. “If this is Elena, she’s the second of Kara’s friends to die.”
The lines around his eyes and mouth furrowed deeper. “Think about the picture taken of the four of you at the party, Tessa. Kara was far left, next Diane, then Elena, and you’re on the end at the far right. If this is Elena, he’s working his way across the photo.”
The four of them were the target of a killer? Nearly impossible to grasp, but she trusted Dakota. “Jesus. Why us?”
“Hell if I know.” His words were clipped with anger and frustration. “I’m going to tell the uniform to stick to you like glue now.”
One thing to theorize but another to tie up patrol officers. “Most of my day is spent in the medical examiner’s office or surrounded by cops. It doesn’t feel right having some officer follow me around.”
“I’m not arguing this point.”
“I made it to Southeast Asia and survived the jungles without an issue. I can get by in Richmond.”
“Your team in Vietnam also had security attached to your detail twenty-four/seven.”
“How do you know?”
“I checked.”
“You checked? With who?”
“I still have contacts.”
He’d been checking up on her while she was away. “I’m touched.”