“Call him in now. And as much as I hate to admit it, this scene is way bigger than the HPD can handle. We’re gonna need the Parish’s crime-scene unit for the biological and trace collection.”
She’d already come to the same conclusion. “You want to call?” she asked. “Or should I?”
“You do it,” he said. “I want a report as soon as you and Jake wrap up here.”
CHAPTER TWO
4:15 A.M.
Jake arrived moments after the crime-scene van. Miranda finished directing the evidence-collection techs and went to the door to meet him. “Billings,” she said. “Welcome to the party.”
He bent to fit on his booties. “I’d say thanks for the invite but I was in the middle of a pretty amazing dream.”
“Sorry I screwed up your good time.”
“Want to hear about it?” He glanced up at her, laughter in his eyes, “I’m happy to share. You may be surprised.”
“It’s a little early in the morning to plunder the depths of your perversions.”
He straightened. “Heart. Broken. You’re a cold-hearted woman, Rader. Just sayin’.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”
His warm brown eyes crinkled at the corners. “I’ll bet.”
“LaRoux said Chief Cadwell was here earlier.”
She motioned him to follow her. “Yup.”
“That’s weird.”
She looked over her shoulder at him. “Not so much. Victim’s Richard Stark.”
“You know him?”
“Nope. You?”
“Met him through my folks. Seemed like a good guy but not someone I’d hang with.”
“Why’s that?”
“Seemed like he was his favorite subject.”
“Gotcha.” She stopped at the door to Stark’s study. “We called in the parish techs to collect biological and trace evidence. They just got started.”
“I saw that. Doesn’t seem like a call you or the chief would make. What’s up?”
“Vic’s in the master. Take a peek, then ask me that question.”
She watched him head off, then turned to Stark’s cluttered desk. Organized chaos; obviously, Stark spent a considerable amount of time here. Open laptop. What looked to be a manuscript in process. Notes and notebooks, papers being graded. Half-full can of Red Bull.
She flipped through the stack of mail; nothing of note jumped out and she moved on to the computer. She tapped the return button; the device sprang to life. He’d been on Facebook. The page of a woman named Rhonda Peale. Miranda checked her profile: she was a fellow professor at the university.
Jake returned. “I could’ve lived my whole life without seeing that. For a moment I thought I was going to puke.”
She looked up at him. “You are a bit green.”
“Poor bastard.”
“Right. So why did our perp think he deserved that? That’s what I want to know. Come take a look at this.”
He crossed to stand behind her.
She indicated the monitor. “Time stamp suggests Stark was here at his desk, cruising around Facebook at midnight. Last thing he looked at was this profile.”
“Attractive woman.”
“Yes. And guess what—she’s a psychology professor here at ULH.”
“Abnormal psych, by any chance?”
“Funny.” Miranda clicked on Stark’s messages. “Bingo. He contacted her just before midnight. ‘Free tonight,’” she read, “‘Come on over.’ Looks like we’ve got ourselves a suspect.”
“Could be, but she didn’t reply. Wouldn’t she have?”
Miranda frowned in thought. “Maybe she saw the message and called him.”
“Maybe. What if she wasn’t the only woman he messaged last night?”
“Good point.” She scrolled through. Messages were almost all to—and from—women. Girls, a lot of them. University students—asking about a lesson, complimenting him on a lecture. Some obviously flirting, but to his credit he kept his responses professional.
“The guy was obviously a player,” she said, “but nope, the lovely professor’s the only one. Via Facebook, anyway.”
“It’s a start. Have you collected his phone?”
“Haven’t even seen it but haven’t searched. Bedroom is my guess.”
He made a face. “Lucky me. You going to finish with the desk?”
“Yeah,” she said, turning back to it, carefully sliding open the desk’s center drawer. “Keep me posted.”
Pens. A pack of teeth-whitening gum, two thumb drives, a pad of Post-it notes, and several receipts, all from favorite hot spots around town. She bagged and labeled the items she felt could prove useful, then moved to the side drawers.
The first contained hanging files, each neatly labeled. Class schedules. Research. Expenses. Taxes. She stopped on the last. Passwords. That would come in handy, she thought.
She went to the opposite drawers. The top contained a mishmash of office supplies and, tucked way into the far corner, a bag of weed and a pipe. Recreational, obviously, and nothing to be killed over.
She moved on to the bottom drawer. Used yellow legal tablets, a dozen of them. She slipped out the first, thumbed through it. Notes, research for the novel he was writing. Character outlines.
Miranda flipped forward, skimming, and stopped on a character profile.
Ava Strong. Math teacher by day. Dominatrix by night.
Interesting, considering the way Stark’s real-life story ended. She turned the pages. It seemed to be an intersecting story novel, each new character a client of Ava’s. She wondered at the story’s ending—would one of the clients end up dead?
“No phone.”
Miranda looked over her shoulder at Jake. “Perp must have taken it.” She indicated the legal pads. “Stark was writing a novel. Guess what the main character was? A dominatrix.”
“Interesting. In a really creepy way.”
She nodded. “I thought so, too.”
“Research gone bad, maybe?”
“It’s a possibility.” She turned back to the legal tablets. “I’m going to bag them all. If nothing else, it’ll be entertaining reading.”
As she lifted them out, a yellowed news clipping fluttered to the floor. She retrieved it and her heart stopped. It was a short piece, not even a half a column, from the Harmony Gazette. About a teenager who’d sent the police on a wild-goose chase in an attempt to divert the authorities from her own infractions—possession of an illegal substance and underage drinking. The sixteen-year-old was charged in juvenile court and sentenced to six months in juvenile detention.
Not sixteen, Miranda thought. They got that wrong. Fifteen and scared out of her wits.
“What’s up?”
Jake, she realized. Looking at her from across the room, eyebrows drawn together in question.
“Nothing.”
“You made a sound.”
Headlights slicing across the dark road. Pinning her.
He motioned toward the news page. “What’s that you’re reading?”
She glanced at it, then back up at him, meeting his gaze evenly. “An article about an out-of-control teenage girl. Someone I knew.”
CHAPTER THREE
That night in June
2002
A horrible sound. High and shrill. Then … nothing. A devastating silence, as if whatever had cried out for its life had been forcibly silenced.
Randi moaned, eyes fluttering open. A foreign landscape of towering shadows. Another sound, a rhythmic slap … slap … slap …