“Nice,” Nikki muttered.
“When they no longer satisfied his creativity, he would strangle them and leave them with copies of Poe’s stories on their chests and a bottle of cognac next to their bodies,” Carmen continued, deliberately blocking the memories of the women she’d seen in police photos. She still had nightmares.
Nikki’s fingers tightened on her pen, revealing she hadn’t been completely hardened by her job. She still reacted to the horror humans could inflict on one another. Then she gave a motion of her hand, indicating that she wanted Carmen to continue.
“Number three?”
“The Morning Star,” Carmen said, referring to him by the name she’d given him in the book. “Harlan Lord. He would hunt for his victims up and down the West Coast. He usually chose older women who reminded him of his mother.”
Nikki glanced up, her expression curious. “How old?”
Carmen understood the woman’s surprise. Most people assumed that serial killers always hunted young, beautiful women, or men, who could fulfill their sexual fantasies.
“Between forty and sixty,” Carmen said. “His mother was some sort of religious fanatic who brutalized him when he was young. He showed me scars on the bottom of his feet where she tried to burn out the demon in him.” She paused. It’d been difficult during her interview not to feel sympathy for what he’d endured. At least until she’d read the autopsy reports. He’d been a vicious killer. “So in turn, he would burn his victims on the beach at sunrise to cleanse his sins.”
Nikki jotted down more notes. “Go on.”
Carmen released a sharp sigh. She was trying to be patient. She truly was. But rehashing the crimes of men who were either dead or locked in jail didn’t seem the best use of their time.
“Wouldn’t it just be easier to read the book?” she demanded.
Nikki lifted her head, her expression impossible to interpret. “Right now I just want a brief idea of the killers and their victims.”
Carmen muttered a curse beneath her breath. She’d always thought that she was stubborn, but next to Special Agent Voros she was an amateur.
“Number four was Rob Merill, who was known as the Clown, although he wasn’t one.” Her voice was clipped. “He actually was the owner of a small carnival that traveled through the South. He never sexually assaulted the women he kidnapped, but he always shaved their heads before he would drown them in the dunking booth and dump them at a local junkyard.” She held the agent’s gaze. “He told me he wanted to humiliate them like they used to humiliate him.”
Nikki gave a small nod. “And the last?”
“Mike Clayborn, Mr. Clean,” Carmen said. “He was a rancher in Montana who would lure male lovers to his remote home and dispose of them in barrels of bleach. Most of his victims were undocumented workers who no one would ever report as missing.”
Nikki was silent as she studied her pad, which was covered with hasty notes. Then she lifted her head and stabbed Carmen with a suspicious glare.
“They don’t appear to have anything in common beyond the fact that they were all ruthless killers.” She leaned forward. “And in your book.”
Griff abruptly wrapped an arm around Carmen’s shoulders, even as his free hand landed on top of the table with a sharp bang.
“Okay, Nikki,” he growled. “What the hell is going on?”
Chapter Eighteen
December 26, Chicago, IL
Griff glared at his friend with a smoldering impatience.
He’d met Nikki in college. She’d been a fellow computer geek, and equally uninterested in the typical activities that consumed most of their fellow students. Parties. Spring break. More parties.
They’d bonded over writing computer code, and once she’d told him that she intended to head to Quantico after she graduated, he’d realized that they were soul mates.
Or at least they should have been.
She was perfect for him. The only problem was that they were too much alike. Both quiet, introverted, obstinate. And there was the fact that there hadn’t been a physical spark between them.
They’d ended up more like brother and sister than lovers.
Which was why their relationship had lasted even after they’d graduated and moved on to their separate careers.
At this moment, however, he wasn’t feeling very friendly. In fact, he was wishing that he’d demanded to know exactly why Nikki had insisted they come to Chicago.
If it was just to harass Carmen, he intended to walk out the door.
As if sensing she’d been even more insensitive than usual, Nikki dropped her pen and sat back in her seat with a rueful grimace.
“After you sent me the envelope with the pictures, I put out the word I was interested in any women who’d been killed by a blow to their right temple.”
Griff felt Carmen stiffen beneath his arm. “You got a call?” she asked.
Nikki gave a nod. “Christmas morning a young man in rural Kansas was enjoying a ride on his new four-wheeler when he stopped at an old farmhouse to get out of a sudden snowstorm.”
Griff studied Nikki’s pale, perfect face. He’d always thought it ironic that she was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever known, but she cared the least about attracting the attention of the opposite sex. Right now, he was more concerned with the tension etched on her delicate features.
A bad feeling settled in the pit of his stomach.
He’d gone to a great effort to convince himself the Polaroids that had been sent to Carmen were some sort of elaborate hoax.
It fit the evidence, right? The name on the invoice for the flowers in Kansas City. The rumor that there was a missing three-million-dollar insurance payout. The safe that had been stolen from her grandparents’ home.
And, if he was being honest with himself, he would have to admit that he’d latched onto the suspicion with more haste than common sense.
He understood how to battle against a greedy businessman.
A few hours with his computer and he could prove that Lawrence was a thief. From there it would be a simple matter to pressure the man into admitting he’d been harassing Carmen. And to force a promise he would never trouble his niece again.
Simple.
But a serial killer. Griff shook his head. He had software that had been specifically created to help the authorities track the patterns of a killer, and where he might strike next. But it could take months, or even years, to actually capture the lunatic.
How the hell could he keep Carmen safe?
But as much as he wanted to cling to his hope that this was all a hoax, he wasn’t stubborn enough to stick his head in the sand. If Carmen was being stalked by a killer, he had to take action to protect her.
“How many?”
Nikki’s lips tightened. “All five.”
Griff ’s breath hissed through his clenched teeth. “Have you compared the photos to the bodies?”
“I got the images faxed to me this morning from the medical examiner’s office,” Nikki told him. “It’s not official, but they looked like a match to me.”
Carmen made a small sound of distress, her fingers lifting to press against her lips.
“So they were real,” she breathed.
Nikki nodded. “Yeah.”
“God.” Carmen shook her head, her face pale and her eyes wide. “I’d just convinced myself that the pictures had been faked.”
Griff tightened his arm around her shoulders. He needed to feel the delicate warmth of her body. To reassure himself that she was safe.
At least for now.
“That was my mistake,” he admitted.
Nikki glanced from Carmen to Griff, easily sensing the tension that prickled in the air.
“What mistake?”
“I traced the invoice from the flower delivery,” he told his friend.
She held up a hand. “Again, don’t tell me how.”
Griff didn’t need the warning. He had no intention of revealing that he’d hacked into the accounts of the flower shop.