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Praise for J.T. Ellison’s debut novel
ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS

“A terrific lead character, terrific suspense, terrific twists…a completely convincing debut.”

—Author Lee Child

“Creepy thrills from start to finish.”

—Author James O. Born

“[All the Pretty Girls] has the attention to detail, unexpected twists and puzzles that are vital to topflight crime fiction.”

Nashville City Paper

“Relentlessly paced and intricately plotted—and it features a villain who will have readers looking over their shoulders, even in the daylight.”

Romantic Times BOOKreviews (four stars)

“With this debut thriller, Ellison puts her mentoring by Lee Child to good use.”

—Library Journal

“Complex and sharp-tongued, Taylor Jackson is destined to become an icon in crime fiction.”

—Author Kristy Kiernan

“The book is taut, tense and suspenseful.

The best part of All the Pretty Girls, though, is its breathless pace.”

—The Tennessean

“A turbocharged thrill ride of a debut.”

—Author Julia Spencer-Fleming

“Ellison hits the ground running with an electrifying debut.”

—Author J.A. Konrath

“Southern readers will find All the Pretty Girls a thrilling ride through a well-known locale, and the rest of the country will get a closer view—and a different perspective—of Music City.”

—BookPage

“Fast-paced and creepily believable.”

—Author M. J. Rose

“A spine-tingling thriller you will not want to miss.”

—Romance Reviews Today

“Ellison’s talent is evident not only in her ability to create nail-biting suspense, but also in her vivid characters.”

—Author Tasha Alexander

“J.T. Ellison’s fast-moving debut is as smooth as fine Kentucky bourbon.”

—Romance Reader at Heart

“Ellison’s characters—whether major players or quiet students—will stay with you long after you close the book.”

—Author Pari Noskin Taichert

JUDAS KISS

Also by J.T. Ellison

14

ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS

JUDAS KISS
J.T. ELLISON

To Del Tinsley,

without whom none of these books would see the light of day.

And for my Randy,

without whom I would be lost.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

While the execution of the words belongs to the author, we can’t make the books come alive without our research, our cheering sections and our inspirations. Thanking people is truly one of the most exciting steps in writing these books. So please indulge me while I wax poetic about my team.

My incredible agent Scott Miller, of Trident Media Group, who always knows exactly what to say and when to say it, and Stephanie Sun, who makes every exchange a pleasure.

My extraordinary editor Linda McFall, the woman who makes these manuscripts into coherent books. I couldn’t do it without you. And a special thanks to assistant editor Adam Wilson, who makes the business end so much fun. Between the two of them, they turn my words into magic, for which I will be forever grateful.

The entire MIRA Books team, especially Heather Foy, Don Lucey, Michelle Renaud, Adrienne Macintosh, Megan Lorius, Marianna Ricciuto, Tracey Langmuir, Kathy Lodge, Emily Ohanjanians, Alex Osuszek, Margaret Marbury, Dianne Moggy and the brilliant artists who create these fabulous covers: Tara Kelly and Gigi Lau.

My independent publicist Tom Robinson, who is truly a master at finding just the right spot to place me. Thank you for everything!

The librarians across the country who’ve seen fit to order my books—it warms my heart every time someone says they found me in their local library!

Detective David Achord of the Metro Nashville Homicide Department, my go-to, my first resource, my friend. He helps Taylor come to life in ways I never could.

Dr. Vince Tranchida, Manhattan Medical Examiner, who makes sure Sam does everything right.

Duane Swierczynski, for not knowing Polish.

Elizabeth Fox, who stunned me with an e-mail—“I’m Taylor!”—and has since become a cherished friend.

My amazing critique group, the Bodacious Music City Wordsmiths—Del Tinsley, Janet McKeown, Mary Richards, Rai Lyn Woods, Cecelia Tichi, Peggy O’Neal Peden and J.B. Thompson, who don’t ever hesitate to tell me when I’ve mucked it up, and are the first to cheer when I get it right. I love you guys!

And an especial thanks to J.B., who always helps me get these pages ready for New York’s eyes.

Laura and Linda, my goddesses at Borders—Cool Springs, who welcomed a new local author with open arms, and staff recommendations! Thanks, ladies!

First reader Joan Huston needs a special thanks this time as well, for making me worry about my opening in this book. It’s stronger because of her concerns.

My dear Tasha Alexander, the only woman who can actually keep me on the phone instead of at the keyboard, though many times we can do both at once. I love you, honey!

My esteemed fellow authors Brett Battles, Rob Gregory-Browne, Bill Cameron and Dave White, for the IMs; Toni Causey, Gregg Olsen, Kristy Kiernan for constantly cheering me on and making me laugh, and all my Killer Year mates for being such amazing influences on me.

My fellow Murderati bloggers, who inspire me daily, especially Pari Noskin Taichert, the best sounding board out there.

Lee Child and John Connolly, for making me think about every word, and John Sandford, who needs thanks for inspiring me every time.

My parents are the most enthusiastic cheerleaders for my novels, and need to be paid a commission on their book sales. Their love and support is phenomenal. My wonderful brother Jay, and Kendall, Jason and Dillon, for putting up with their wayward aunt. My other wonderful brother Jeff, who always, always makes me laugh.

And where would I be without my darling husband to keep me grounded? Thank you, baby, for not letting me float away. You make all of this worthwhile.

Nashville is a wonderful city to write about. Though I try my best to keep things accurate, poetic license is sometimes needed. All mistakes, exaggerations, opinions and interpretations are mine alone.

Contents

Prologue

Monday

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Tuesday

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Wednesday

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Thursday

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Friday

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Saturday

Chapter Forty-One

Prologue

Blood.

It was everywhere. The floor, the walls, the body. All over the jeans and T-shirt too. Damn, how was that going to come out? With a grimace, the killer set down the weapon and stood over the now inert body. No more arguments. No more screaming about failure, lost promise, disappointments. The wail of a child built in the distance, drowned out by the fury humming in the killer’s ears. A smile broke.

“You horrendous bitch. This is exactly what you deserve.”

Ten hours later

“Mama?

“Mama, Mama. Hungy. Cookie, Mama. Cookie.

“Wake up, Mama, wake up.

“Went potty, Mama. Good girl.

“Mama?

“Mama owie? Owie? Boo-boo? Mama fall down?

“Bankie, Mama.

“Bankie. Teddy.

“Mama! Mamaaaaaaaaaaa.

“Night-night, Mama. Bye-bye.”

Monday

One

Michelle Harris sat at the stoplight on Old Hickory and Highway 100, grinding her teeth. She was late. Corinne hated when she was late. She wouldn’t bitch at her, wouldn’t chastise her, would just glance at the clock on the stove, the digital readout that always, always ran three minutes ahead of time so Corinne could have a cushion, and a little line would appear between her perfectly groomed eyebrows.

Their match was in an hour. They had plenty of time, but Corinne would need to drop Hayden at the nursery and have a protein smoothie before stretching in preparation for their game. Michelle and Corinne had been partners in tennis doubles for ages, and they were two matches from taking it all. Their yearly run at the Richland club championship was almost a foregone conclusion; they’d won seven years in a row.

Tapping the fingers of her right hand on the wheel, she used her left to pull her ponytail around the curve of her neck, a comfort gesture she’d adopted in childhood. Corinne hadn’t needed any comfort. She was always the strong one. Even as a young child, when Michelle pulled that ponytail around her neck, the unruly curls winding around her ear, Corinne would get that little line between her brows to show her displeasure at her elder sister’s weakness.

Remembering, Michelle flipped the hair back over her shoulder with disgust. The light turned green and she gunned it, foot hard on the pedal. She hated being late for Corinne.

Michelle took the turn off Jocelyn Hollow Road and followed the sedate, meandering asphalt into her sister’s cul-de-sac. The dogwood tree in the Wolffs’ front yard was just beginning to bud. Michelle smiled. Spring was coming. Nashville had been in the grip of a difficult winter for months, but at last the frigid clutch showed signs of breaking. New life stirred at the edges of the forests, calves were dropping in the fields. The chirping of the wrens and cardinals had taken on a higher pitch, avian mommies and daddies awaiting the arrival of their young. Corinne herself was ripe with a new life, seven months into an easy pregnancy—barely looking four months along. Her activity level kept the usual baby weight off, and she was determined to play tennis up to the birth, just like she’d done with Hayden.

Not fair. Michelle didn’t have any children, didn’t have a husband for that matter. She just hadn’t met the right guy. The consolation was Hayden. With a niece as adorable and precocious as hers, she didn’t need her own child. Not just yet.

She pulled into the Wolffs’ maple-lined driveway and cut the engine on her Volvo. Corinne’s black BMW 535i sat in front of the garage door. The wrought iron lantern lights that flanked the front doors were on. Michelle frowned. It wasn’t like Corinne to forget to turn those lights off. She remembered the argument Corinne and Todd, her husband, had gotten into about them. Todd wanted the kind that came on at dark and went off in the morning automatically. Corinne insisted they could turn the switch themselves with no problem. They’d gone back and forth, Todd arguing for the security, Corinne insisting that the look of the dusk-to-dawns were cheesy and wouldn’t fit their home. She’d won, in the end. She always did.

Corinne always turned off the lights first thing in the morning. Like clockwork.

The hair rose on the back of Michelle’s neck. This wasn’t right.

She stepped out of the Volvo, didn’t shut the door all the way behind her. The path to her sister’s front door was a brick loggia pattern, the nooks and crannies filled with sand to anchor the Chilhowies. Ridiculously expensive designer brick from a tiny centuries-old sandpit in Virginia, if Michelle remembered correctly. She followed the path and came to the front porch. The door was unlocked, but that was typical. Michelle told Corinne time and again to keep that door locked at night. But Corinne always felt safe, didn’t see the need. Michelle eased the door open.

Oh, my God.

Michelle ran back to her car and retrieved her cell phone. As she dialed 911, she rushed back to the porch and burst through the front door.

The phone was ringing in her ear now, ringing, ringing. She registered the footprints, did a quick lap around the bottom floor and seeing no one, took the steps two at a time. She was breathing hard when she hit the top, took a left and went down the hall.

A voice rang in her ear, and she tried to comprehend the simple language as she took in the scene before her.

“911, what is your emergency?”

She couldn’t answer. Oh God, Corinne. On the floor, face down. Blood, everywhere.

“911, what is your emergency?”

The tears came freely. The words left her mouth before she realized they’d been spoken aloud.

“I think my sister is dead. Oh, my God.”

“Can you repeat that, ma’am?”

Could she? Could she actually bring her larynx to life without throwing up on her dead sister’s body? She touched her fingers to Corinne’s neck. Remarkable how chilled the dead flesh felt. Oh, God, the poor baby. She ran out of the room, frenzied. Hayden, where was Hayden? Michelle turned in a tight circle, seeing more footprints. No sign of the little girl. She was yelling again, heard the words fly from her mouth as if they came from another’s tongue.

“There’s blood, oh, my God, there’s blood everywhere. And there are footprints…Hayden?” Michelle was screaming, frantic. She tore back into the bedroom. Something in her mind snapped, she couldn’t seem to get it together.

The 911 operator was yelling in her ear, but she didn’t respond, couldn’t respond. “Ma’am? Ma’am? Who is dead?”

Where was that precious little girl? A strawberry-blond head appeared from around the edge of the king-sized sleigh bed. It took a moment to register—Hayden, with red hair? She was a towhead, so blond it was almost white, no, that wasn’t right.

“Hayden, oh, dear sweet Jesus, you’re covered in blood. Come here. How did you get out of your crib?” She gathered the little girl in her arms. Hayden was frozen, immobile, unable or unwilling to move for the longest moment, then she wrapped her arms around her aunt’s shoulders with an empty embrace of inevitability. Pieces of the toddler’s hair, stiff and hard with blood, poked into her neck. Michelle felt a piece of her core shift.

“Ma’am? Ma’am, what is your location?”

The operator’s voice forced her to look away from Corinne’s broken form. She raised herself, holding tight to Hayden. Get her out of here. She can’t see this anymore.

“Yes, I’m here. It’s 4589 Jocelyn Hollow Court. My sister…” They were on the stairs now, moving down, and Michelle could see the whispers of blood trailing up and down the carpet.

The operator was still trying to sort through the details. “Hayden is your sister?”

“Hayden is her daughter. Oh, God.”

As Michelle reached the bottom of the stairs, the child shifted on her shoulder, reaching a hand behind her, looking up toward the second floor.

“Mama hurt,” she said in a voice that made her sound like a broken-down forty-year-old, not a coy, eighteen-month-old sprite. Mama hurt. She doesn’t anymore, darlin’.

They were out the front door and on the porch now, Michelle drawing in huge gulps of air, Hayden crying silently into her shoulder, a hand still pointing back toward the house.

“Who is dead, ma’am?” the operator asked, more kindly now.

“My sister, Corinne Wolff. Oh, Corinne. She’s…she’s cold.”

Michelle couldn’t hold it in anymore. She heard the operator say they were sending the police. She walked down those damnable bricks and set Hayden in the front seat of the Volvo.

Then she turned and lost her battle with the nausea, vomiting out her very soul at the base of the delicate budding dogwood.

Two

A morning off.

Instead of lounging in bed, luxuriating in the crisp sheets and getting irritated with the Tennessean, Metro Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson was squinting at the ceiling in her living room, a small flutter of panic moving through her chest.

“Baldwin?” she called, stepping closer to the fireplace. “Baldwin!”

“What?” A voice floated down the stairs, tinged with impatience.

“You need to see this. I think the ceiling is wet.”

The clatter of footsteps on the stairs assured Taylor that her fiancé was making the trek from their bedroom on the second floor down to her, in the room directly below, posthaste. He appeared at her side, joined her in craning his head toward the living room ceiling. A dark gray stain was moving across the joint, treading a thin line of damp. As they stared, a small drop of water beaded up from the end of the discoloration. Neither of them moved as it grew, larger and larger, then broke off and fell with a muffled plop onto Baldwin’s shoulder.

They sprang into action, no words needed. Baldwin sprinted back upstairs toward the bathroom to turn off the water. Taylor went to the kitchen and came back with a spaghetti pot. She stood under the dribble, catching droplets of water as they rushed through the surface of the drywall and fell to earth.

God, what next?

Baldwin came back to the living room with a step-ladder. “This house is built on an Indian burial ground, Taylor. I swear it. I turned the water off. We can set the pot on this. It might help keep the carpet dry.” He positioned the ladder under the leak and took the container from Taylor, setting it on the top. A happy plink rewarded his efforts.

They shared an exasperated laugh. In the month they’d been home from their pseudo-honeymoon, everything that could go wrong with their relatively new house had. A fitting metaphor for their life. No matter what they planned, how they tried, they couldn’t seem to get onto the right page and make it official. Taylor was content to remain unmarried. Baldwin was starting to come around to her way of thinking.

“Who do you want me to call? The home warranty place?” He started for the kitchen.

“Yeah. The number is in the folder in the server. They’re going to have to send out a plumber now, we can’t wait.”

He opened the drawer and pulled out an overstuffed file folder. “Okay, I’ll make the call. But I’ve got to finish packing. My flight leaves at ten-thirty.”

Taylor gave the ceiling a last hard stare, then joined Baldwin.

“Here, give me that. I’ll call. You go on and finish packing. Besides, the plane leaves when you tell it to. Director.”

He shot her a look. “I’m not the Director. I’m the Acting Director while Garrett has this stupid surgery. That just means I get to push his pencils around his desk and pretend to look important for two weeks. Seriously, I’d rather stay here, fight with the plumber.”

Garrett Woods, director of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit and Baldwin’s boss, had called the previous evening. He’d gone for his routine yearly physical and ended up hospitalized, scheduled for a triple bypass. He needed someone he trusted to hold down the fort. Baldwin was the obvious choice. Taylor hoped it wasn’t a play to get him to come back and run the BSU permanently. There’d been quite a shake-up while Taylor and Baldwin were in Italy, celebrating what should have been their honeymoon. The man who’d been leading the BSU, Stuart Evans, had been summarily fired after a personnel issue made headlines. The Bureau wasn’t a big fan of having their personal laundry aired in the media. Garrett Woods took the position again, leaving his number three in the bureau spot. He hadn’t been happy working at that level anyway, was thrilled to return to the BSU and make things right with his investigative divisions and behavioral analysis unit profilers.

“You need to go tend to Garrett’s cases. And make sure he listens to the doctors. I can’t believe he’s so sick.”

“Me neither. He seems so indestructible to me, always has. So you think you can handle this?”

She kissed him, then pulled back and raised an eyebrow. “Uh, yeah. It’s just a little leak.”

“Okay, then. I’m going to finish packing.” With a pat on her rear, he left the kitchen. She smiled after him. God, what a goof she’d become. Fools in love…

And their love nest was falling in around their ears. This would be the fourth time she’d had to call for service since they’d moved in two months ago. There had been contractors crawling all over the place for silly little issues—a broken fan blade on the heater, a squirrel who’d nested in the crawlspace and chewed through some electrical wiring, a faulty thermostat on the freezer. Now a leak in the master bath. They were making their bones with the warranty company. She got the plumber’s name and number, left them a message, then went upstairs, determined to make Acting Director Dr. John Baldwin regret that he was leaving for two weeks and prove her point. The Gulf-stream couldn’t exactly leave without him.

The phone rang as she hit the second stair. What now? She backtracked, went to the kitchen and saw the number on the caller ID.

“Hi, Fitz,” she answered.

Sergeant Peter Fitzgerald, her second in command, greeted her brusquely. “I know it’s your day off, but you need to come in. We’ve got a murder that’s going to have fleas.”

“Who?”

“Some sweet little mother out in Hillwood. I’m hearing words like Laci and Peterson.”

Taylor shuffled her fingers through a notepad that sat next to the phone, ready for an urgent message. No, thank you. I’m not in the mood for a murder. I think I’ll pass. But she couldn’t. She was the homicide lieutenant, and if her team needed her, that meant she would show.

“Fine. Give me twenty minutes and I’ll be on the road.”

“The fed gone yet?”

“He’s finishing packing.”

“Well, go kiss his pretty little face goodbye and get your ass down here. We need you.”

She hung up and the phone rang again. The plumbers. They greeted her warmly. Of course they would, she’d be sending their children through college if this was more than a simple leak. They said their technician would be out in an hour. She told them where she’d hide a key, then ran up the stairs. Baldwin was zipping his suitcase.

“You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

“Good, come on. I’ll drop you off. I have to go in.”

“Who died?”

Ah, the bliss of living with a fellow law enforcement officer. He just got it.

“Fitz says it’s a young mother. It must be catching on fire for him to drag me in on my day off.” She pulled a black sweater over her gray T-shirt and went into the offending bathroom. She brushed out her hair and gathered it into a ponytail, frowned at the toilet, where she assumed the leak had generated, then went to her closet and grabbed a pair of boots. Hitching up the legs of her jeans, she slipped into the Tony Lamas without sitting down and jumped up once, landing softly to set her heels and drop the pant legs. Ready.

Baldwin was standing in the doorway to the master, watching with a bemused smile on his face. “Thirty seconds flat. Not bad. You look stunning.”

Taylor rolled her eyes at him. “Let’s go, lover boy. The sooner you get to Quantico, the sooner you can come home.”

Three

Taylor met Fitz in the parking lot of the Criminal Justice Center. Clouds scudded across the graying sky. Despite the beauty of spring in Nashville, the weather was wholly schizophrenic. Sunny one minute, stormy the next. She took off her sunglasses and slipped one temple into her sweater collar.

“Yo,” Fitz called, pointing to a white Chevy Impala, his official department issued ride. “I gotta run back to the office for a second. Want a drink?”

Taylor nodded her head and started for the car. She took the passenger’s side, pushing the seat back to accommodate her long legs. Fitz disappeared into the bowels of the CJC and returned a few minutes later with two Diet Cokes. He slid into the driver’s seat, handed over the soda. She cracked the lid and sipped, then put the can between her thighs.

The sun popped out for a brief second, enough to blind her, so she put on her new Ray-Bans, a purchase she made in the duty-free in Milan’s Malpensa airport. They were wide and black and made her feel glamorous, a tiny homage to her new European sentiments. Traveling in a foreign country with a native speaker of the language had the tendency to make you feel more. She’d been on several trips overseas before, but had never experienced them the way she’d experienced the three weeks touring Italy with Baldwin.

She was having trouble acclimating. She missed the slow easiness of Italian life—the languid drives, the frequent stops for food and wine, the symmetrical beauty of the olive groves and vineyards and cypress-lined drives, the feeling that she was very, very young. And if she were being absolutely truthful, it had been damn nice to have three whole weeks without a single dead body.

The clouds smothered the burgeoning sunlight again, but she left the glasses on. Annoying, that’s what these transitional months were. She wanted it to be one or the other, warm or cold, sunny or cloudy.

Fitz pulled out of the parking lot.

“How ya doing?” he asked.

“I have a leak in my bathroom,” she pouted.

“I told you not to buy a new house. If you’d gotten one constructed like they should be, something solid, like those great old Victorians in East Nashville, you wouldn’t be having these problems.”

“No, Fitz, I’d just have termites and gang-bangers. No thanks. Gentrification just isn’t my thing.”

“Spoiled.”

“Not. We just wanted something…airy.”

Fitz laughed. “Airy my ass. You wanted something big enough for that damn pool table and a passel of kids.”

Taylor turned to him, suspicious. “What in the world makes you say that?”

He looked at her with one eyebrow cocked. It made his face look crooked, like Popeye full of ruddy wrinkles. “You don’t?”

“Don’t what?”

“Want to have a pack of brats with the fed.” He said it so calmly she went on immediate alert.

“Where are you hearing this stuff? I’ve never said anything about having a baby. We can’t even manage to get married, so I’m hardly gunning for offspring. I don’t know if that’s something I ever want to do.” She looked out the window, watched the edge of downtown Nashville slip away like a veil was lifted. Brick and cement became foliage. They were on West End, heading out to Hillwood. A bucolic drive through the suburbs. Was that prompting Fitz’s question?

“Okay, girlie, I’m convinced. But I’m hearing this crime scene might be a bit off-putting. If you were fixing to get yourself knocked up, I might encourage you to skip this one, look the other way.”

“Jesus Christ, Fitz, tell me what’s at the scene.”

“Parks is there. Hey, there’s a picture in the visor. Grab that, wouldja?”

Good, Taylor thought. Bob Parks was as level-headed a patrol officer as Metro employed. If there was something wild at a crime scene, he would know how to tamp it down so the press couldn’t get too insane. She unfolded the sun visor, expecting a crime scene photo. Instead, a picture of a boat dropped into her lap. She turned it around so it faced up. It was pretty, white with tall sails, sliding through impossibly blue water.

“Yes…?”

“Parks said it was a little gruesome out there, that’s all.”

“No, I mean, what’s with the boat?”

“Thinking of buying it.”

Taylor looked at the photo again. It was…well, it was a boat. That’s as far as she went with sailing. Not her forte.

“When are you planning to drive this boat?”

“Jeez, LT. It’s called sailing. And it’s for when I retire.”

Fitz clamped his mouth shut. Taylor recognized the action—he was finished talking about it. He’d warned her about the scene and lobbed a bombshell about the future; that was as far as he was willing to go. Great.

An ambulance whipped past them, coming from the opposite direction. Going to St. Thomas, she thought. She mentally crossed herself, as she did every time she heard a siren. After thirteen years on the force, five of them in Homicide, she wasn’t so jaded that she still couldn’t have some compassion for the strangers in this world who might need a little looking over.

She toyed with her new engagement ring. The post-engagement pre-marriage ring, actually. When he’d first proposed, Baldwin had given her a stunning two-carat Tiffany sparkler, with delicate baguettes parading around the platinum band. Gorgeous, but impractical. And since the wedding hadn’t gone off—no fault of her own, she’d been unceremoniously Tasered and flown unconscious to New York with poor Baldwin standing at the church waiting for her—the new ring was a representation of a second chance.

He’d arranged to slip away for a few moments in Florence, then shown up for dinner at a little place they’d fallen in love with called Mama Gina’s, a flush around the crinkles of his intense emerald eyes. To the delight of their regular waiter, Antonio, and the rest of the restaurant patrons, he’d dropped to one knee and presented her with a new ring. One that held an even deeper promise. The five Asscher cut diamonds twinkled from their platinum channel setting. Baldwin told her each diamond represented the next five years of their lives together, and he’d buy her another in twenty-five years.

Aside from the romantic notion of it, the practicality of the ring touched her. It was flat. It didn’t catch on things like the Tiffany. And it wouldn’t get in her way if she had to fire her weapon unexpectedly. The gesture was overwhelming, and she’d almost told him to find a church that very moment. He knew what she was thinking, and that had been enough. She hadn’t decided whether she was ready to try again.

She dragged herself back to reality when Fitz harrumphed at her. He was turning onto Jocelyn Hollow Road, and Taylor could see the parade of vehicles lined up at the end of the normally quiet street.

The attendance to an unnatural death often seemed a three-ring circus to the uninitiated. The entrance into the cul-de-sac was blocked by a confluence of vehicles. There were five Metro blue-and-white patrol cars. First responders had already left the scene. Whenever 911 dispatched the police, the closest fire engines and an ambulance were actually sent before the squad cars. Standard operating procedure. The clues were apparent; there was no hurriedness, no rush. There was nothing that could be done for this particular victim, so the next steps were being taken.

The why had begun.

Fitz stopped the vehicle three houses away and they exited the car, making their way to the command station at the base of the driveway. A sign on the black mailbox had the name WOLFF in curly letters. Taylor always wondered exactly why people would want to advertise their names on their domiciles. An address she could understand, but the name…it seemed silly. And a safety issue. The last thing in the world she would ever do is publicize where she lived. Of course, she wouldn’t know what name to put on the mailbox. Jackson? Baldwin? Jackson-Baldwin? That just sounded like a funeral home.

A crowd of people had gathered directly across the street, standing in the yellowish grass, waiting. Recognizing the authority in Taylor’s stride, they started yelling when she came close. One voice rose above them all.

“What happened? We have a right to know what’s going on at the Wolffs’.” Fear made the man’s voice tremble.

Taylor turned, took in the speaker. He was an older man, with black hair that looked suspiciously dyed. Unshaven, thick glasses, pajama bottoms, jean jacket over a dirty sleeveless undershirt. Her immediate thought was widower and she stopped, feeling sorry for him.

Realizing he’d caught her attention, he repeated the question. “What’s going on in there? Did something happen to Corinne or to Todd? Is Hayden okay? My God, you can’t protect us from anything, can you? You and that damn police chief, you’ve got this all locked up, don’t you?” He swiped a handkerchief across his nose.

“Sir,” Taylor began, but the rest of the crowd began in on her. The sentiments turned from fear to vitriol in a heartbeat.

“All you do is give speeding tickets!”

“The gangs are running this town!”

“We live out here in the suburbs and expect to be safe. This is a good neighborhood. I’m going to talk to Channel Five about this. Phil Williams should be checking you out!”

Taylor held up her hands for silence. “People, please. My name is Taylor Jackson, and I’m the lieutenant in charge of the homicide division. I haven’t even been briefed on this incident. Perhaps you’d like to give me some time to get acquainted with the scene and determine what’s happened before you tear me apart?”

They grumbled, but the logic shut them up.

“Thank you. Please know that we’ll be doing everything in our power to solve this case. I appreciate that you’re upset, and I can’t blame you. But let me get a sense of the scene, and I’ll come back and talk to each of you again. All right?”

She stepped away before the crowd could respond. She’d be talking to them. Interviewing them. Trying to ascertain if there was someone in that mix who’d had a hand in the murder she was about to dissect.

“Fitz, can you get their names? Just in case. I don’t want to miss anyone.”

“Sure,” he answered, pulling a notepad from his shirt pocket.

She crossed the street and met up with Bob Parks. He was twiddling his finger in the curled edge of his mustache, ruminating to a uniformed officer about the chances of the Tennessee Titans after a scandal-rocked combine.

“Hey, how’s my favorite LT? You happy to be home from your grand tour?”

“Not really, Parks, but thanks for asking. I’d hop on a plane back in a heartbeat. Don’t give up on the Titans too soon, my friend. They’ll recover. In the meantime, go root for the Predators.”

He looked shocked. “Hockey? Are you kidding, LT? I’m a pigskin man, tried and true. I’m a Volunteer. I bleed orange.” He thumped his chest with a closed fist. Fervent was an understatement when it came to fans of the University of Tennessee football team.

“Well, our Volunteers need to take the SEC Championship this year or Phil Fulmer will wake up to a moving van in his driveway. Besides, being a good Tennessee fan, you should understand the importance of us having a well-rounded professional sports system to augment the college faithful. We need to sign the UT boys when they graduate, right?”

Fitz crossed the street to their position, waving the notebook. “Got ’em.”

“God, a woman talking football is a beautiful thing, eh, Fitz?”

Fitz just shook his head. Taylor spoke again, dispensing with the chatter this time.

“What do we have here?”

The smile left Parks’s face and he became all business.

“It’s not pretty, I’ll give you that. Decedent’s name is Corinne Wolff, female Caucasian, twenty-six, married and preggers. We’ve been really careful about who’s gone in the house, there’s a lot of latent blood around. I’ve got everything ready to put in my report, if you want the particulars now?”

“Just run it down for me. Highlights.”

“Okay. I got the call around 9:40 a.m., came straight here. Met the sister, who was being attended to for shock by the EMTs. House 37 got the call, they were here first with two trucks and the ambulance at…” He looked at his sheet. “9:38 a.m. Sister’s name is Michelle Harris. She was holding the decedent’s daughter, Hayden Wolff, who was covered in blood but seemed in stable condition. She relayed that her sister was dead inside the house, facedown on the floor in her bedroom. She didn’t recall touching anything, but we printed her for exclusion. First entry was made at 9:48 a.m. by me and EMT Steven Jones. We entered the home, cleared the downstairs, noted the amount of blood, made our way upstairs to check the victim.”

Parks had gotten ashen under his normally swarthy skin tone. “It’s stinky up there. Looks like she’s been dead for at least a day. Got smacked around pretty hard. Jones touched her wrist, just to confirm, and we agreed it was too late for his assistance. We retraced our footsteps and I started the evidentiary procedures. We had three more patrols on the scene at that point, so we got started setting up command and control while we waited for you. Despite the biologicals everywhere, the scene is pretty much contained to the master bedroom. That’s where the action took place. The rest is secondary transfer.”

“Fitz said there was a little girl. Did the transfer come from her or the killer?”

Parks nodded. “Looks like the kid. You’ll see when you get in there. I talked to the sister, got her story. Apparently they had a date to play tennis and she dropped by to pick the victim up. She entered the house, saw her sister, grabbed the kid, called 911 and skedaddled. She’s been questioned already, but I knew you’d want to talk to her. I’ve got to warn you, the victim’s parents are here. The sister called her mom after she finished with 911. Everyone is pretty shaken up.”

“Where’s the husband?” Taylor asked.

“On a business trip. Convenient, huh?”

“I’ll say. Can you find out where he is for me?”

“Already done. The mom called him, he was in Georgia and is on the road now, driving back. Should be in this afternoon.”

Taylor looked at Fitz, who was writing in his notebook. “Wouldn’t you fly home if it were you?”

“Yep,” Fitz said.

Parks gave her a wry grin. “I asked the same thing. No direct flights. It was quicker for him to drive. At least, that’s what the mom said.”

Parks handed over some of the items Taylor would need to enter the house—booties, latex gloves. He offered a blue paper mask, similar to one her dental hygienist wore, but she shook her head once, declining. No sense in that. No matter the precautions, the scent of death would sneak into her sinuses, settling for hours. She slipped her sunglasses into her front pocket; she wouldn’t need them inside.

“Is Father Ross here?”

The Metro police department’s chaplain was a kind, gentle man who Taylor had relied on more times than she could remember. It was hard enough to inform a family member that a loved one was dead. Having the minister along was not only helpful, it was mandated.

“He’s here. The whole group of them, parents, two sisters and the kid are in the next door neighbor’s house, huddled up, waiting for you.”

“Anyone know when the victim was seen last?” she asked.

“We’re working on nailing that down right now. The sister talked to her Friday. One of the neighbors might’ve seen her, or something.”

“Okay. When did the ME get called?”

“Same time as you, LT. Dr. Loughley is on duty this morning, she’s—”

“Right here,” a voice called out. Taylor turned to see her best friend, Samantha Loughley, walking up the drive, her kit slung over her right shoulder. Her dark brown hair was up in a ponytail, thick bangs swept across her forehead. The bangs were a new look, and Sam had been bemoaning the haircut for a week.

“Morning, sunshine,” she said as she reached Taylor. “What’s up, Parks? Fitz, you look well.”

Fitz grinned back in acknowledgement of the compliment. He’d been working hard on his weight and now had his formerly oversized belly down to a trim and manageable thirty-eight inches. The weight loss took ten years off his fifty-five-year-old frame, and Taylor knew he’d begun dating a woman he’d met at a barbeque cooking contest. Oh. Maybe that’s what the boat was all about. She shook the thought off. They needed to focus on the murder.

“Like the new look, Owens,” Fitz needled.

Sam rolled her eyes. “Are you ever going to start using my married name, Sergeant?”

“Naw. I like Owens. Loughley’s too hard to say.” He jostled her with his hip and smiled.

Sam dropped her bag on the folding card table that had been set up for the field command station. “Fine. Call me whatever you want. Just put that degree in. I spent too much money not to use the title.”

“Anyway,” Taylor said, getting their attention back from their game. “Sam, we were about to make entry on the scene. I haven’t been inside yet. Parks says the victim is a female Caucasian, pregnant and toasting. So let’s get this over with, okay?”

Fitz looked over to the neighbor’s house. “I think I’m gonna go next door and have a chat. Y’all have fun up there.”

Taylor watched him go. Good. Two birds, one stone. “We set, Parks?”

Parks nodded. “Tim’s here too, ready to go.” Tim Davis was the lead criminalist for Metro Nashville police. He’d started in the Medical Examiner’s office as a death investigator, then moved over to Metro in anticipation of their eventual establishment of a crime lab. Taylor always enjoyed working with the young man. He was very serious about his craft.

“No time like the present.” Taylor started for the door, Sam right behind her. The videographer was on the narrow porch, camera on the boards between her feet, ready to document their walk through. Taylor didn’t recognize her. Tim Davis was waiting patiently, kit in hand.

“Hey, Tim,” Taylor said.

“Morning, LT. Dr. Loughley. Have you met Keri McGee yet? She’s going to be doing the video feed for us this morning.”

A sunny blonde stuck out a pudgy hand. “Good to meet you, Lieutenant. I just moved up here, used to be with New Orleans Metro. Really glad to be here.”

Taylor held her hand up. “It’s good to have you. I’d shake, but I’m already gloved. Welcome to Nashville. You just stick to my six and we’ll be fine. If you need to boot, try to get back outside and don’t screw up the scene, okay?”

“Sure thing, ma’am.”

Taylor fought the urge to snap. Jesus, girl, don’t call me ma’am. I’m not old enough to be your mother. Instead, she smiled and stepped into the house.

Rotten chicken. That’s what the first olfactory note identified. Just as quickly, the coppery scent of blood, the stink of putrefaction and decomposing flesh, and a sweet, almost perfumelike scent. Not air freshener. Hmm. Taylor’s eyes adjusted as her subconscious mind worked its way through the instinct to flee. It wasn’t a natural smell, and her heart raced for a moment. A normal first reaction, borne of self-preservation, would be to get the hell out of there. A couple million years of evolution warned her—there’s danger here. She’d felt it before, knew it would pass in a second. She let herself adjust, breathing through her mouth. Sam was by her side, doing the same thing. They were trained to make it go away.

Taylor let her eyes wander the room in front of her. She was standing in a marble-floored foyer. There was a table against the closest wall with pictures in silver gilt frames—happy, smiling newlyweds against a summer-wooded backdrop. The stairs were directly to her right, hardwood covered in an ivory Berber runner. Just past the banister was the entrance into the dining room, loaded with heavy dark oak furniture, silver and crystal, an oversized china cabinet. To the left, a brief hallway that opened into a great room. The floors in the dining room were burnished oak, the great room was carpeted in the same light Berber wool.

Every few inches there were tiny crimson footprints. Little heels here, little toes there. They looked like mouse trails, in and out, back and forth, leading up and down the stairs, into the great room, and Taylor could see they trailed into the kitchen on the far side of the dining room. They were everywhere; some light, barely pink enough to mar the carpet, some outlines or edges. Closer to the stairs, a few were dark, almost seeming they would be wet to the touch. Sam drew in a deep, sharp breath.

Taylor forced her brain to shut off that emotional center which would allow her to acknowledge the desperation the child must have felt to be wandering around the house, her mother’s blood on her bare feet.

“This is Homicide Lieutenant Taylor Jackson,” she said aloud for the benefit of the video camera. “I am the lead investigative officer at this crime scene, 4589 Jocelyn Hollow Court. I’m going to do one pass through the lower part of the structure.” Nodding at Sam, she went to the right, into the dining room, avoiding the blood. Sam picked her way after Taylor. Tim and Keri followed, the group moving as one, silently assessing.

The footprints wended their way through the dining room, under the table, and back into the kitchen. There was no rhyme or reason to the pattern, just a nomadic line of passage, typical of a youngster moving aimlessly about her home. Some areas were just faint impressions, blotches, and some were well formed. That made sense to Taylor. The blood would wear off after enough steps. With a child, her uneven toddling tread would account for the inconsistencies.

The dining room had a door that separated it from the kitchen, but it was propped open with a stuffed cat doorstop. The door was white, a six-paneled French style, covered with what looked like cherry juice finger-paints. Taylor knew what they really were; the little girl had swept her bloody hand along the door as she walked from room to room.

The kitchen was baby-proofed, with locking mechanisms on all the below counter cabinets. The smell of rot was more prevalent, and Taylor spied a Wild Oats bag with a package of chicken in the deep stainless steel sink. Well, that accounted for the stink downstairs. If the victim hadn’t talked to her sister for two days, and the chicken was coming back to life, then there was a good chance she’d been dead at least a day. Taylor only put chicken in the sink if she needed to defrost it and had the time to do so. That would give a convenient timeline—a day to thaw and a day to start smelling. Though it just as easily could be the victim came home from grocery shopping and didn’t get all the packages stored before her assailant appeared. They’d need a liver temp or a potassium level from the vitreous fluid for something more accurate, but it was a start. Never assume, that was her mantra.

Fruit in a basket on the granite countertop, an empty carton of organic fat-free milk, an empty yogurt container…if Taylor was going to guess, it looked like the victim had just finished eating breakfast before she vacated the room and got herself killed.

An answering machine hung on the wall, the red light indicating new messages blinking.

“Be sure someone gets those messages,” Taylor said to Tim.

Sam made a noise in the back of her throat. “I was planning on shish kebabs for dinner. Guess I’ll make a salad instead.”

The videographer didn’t comment, and Taylor shot her a glance. Keri wasn’t fazed, was simply documenting. Excellent. Taylor caught Sam’s eye and smiled. Always the jokester.

“Let’s head up.” Taylor walked slowly from the kitchen through the great room, back to the foyer, the group in her wake. The stair had a landing halfway up and turned to the left. There was blood smudged up and down the stair runner, not the same kind of hit and miss footprints they’d been seeing. Taylor asked Sam what she thought it was from.

“Baby that small can’t get up and down with a normal stepping motion. She’d have to drag herself up step by step, on her hands and knees, slide down on her bottom. If she was covered in blood…”

“Oh.” The image was vivid in Taylor’s mind.

Placing their feet in between the splashes of color, they made their way to the second floor.

“Baby gate isn’t up,” Sam noticed. “Get a shot of that, would you, Keri?”

“That explains how she was able to wander the house.” Taylor took in the setup.

To their right were three doors, all leading to bedrooms. To the left, the hall led away from the stairs. The scene was similar to below, but more intense. Distinctive tiny red footprints, defined smears along the walls. Macabre artistic skills from a young child surely affected more by confusion than anything else.

The rooms each glowed with a different palate, and the hall bath was decorated in a nautical style, reminiscent of a beach hotel. It struck Taylor. The obvious effort that had gone into decorating was apparent. And the trimmings weren’t bought at Target or Pottery Barn. The décor was top of the line, custom designed.

A quick perusal showed a guest room, an office and a nursery. Blood smears and light footprints wound in and out. Taylor followed the path. The nursery was painted in various tones of pink and lilac, with a mural of a forest on the western wall. The furniture was bleached oak; there was a mobile hanging above the oversized crib. Sunlight poured through the windows, barely checked by a light pink sheer. There was a small half bath off the nursery. Taylor glanced into the space. The smell of feces and urine was strong—a miniature plastic toilet sat on the floor next to its life-sized companion. It was full of waste. The child was toilet-trained, but without her mother to empty the basin, the little potty was full to the brim.

Nose wrinkled, Taylor walked the length of the hallway to the master bedroom. The door to the room was open wide, wedged against the wall with a small bronze mouse. Corinne Wolff liked her doors open, no question about that. The walls were painted a creamy sage, the furniture dark rattan and rosewood. Island style, a retreat for the owners. Taylor remembered seeing an ad for the same style of room in an upscale design catalogue.

The interior of the room was awash in incongruous colors. The blood had molted into a dark brown stain, except where it cast against the walls and a white shaded lamp in a deep burgundy.

They saw the feet first. The body was half hidden by the king-sized bed. They crossed the room with care. No one wanted to be responsible for mucking up any evidence they might find. The room was at least forty feet in width, the bed in the center of the back wall. There was approximately fifteen feet of space on each side. The body was in the south quadrant of the room. Taylor heard Tim scratching notes as they moved to the far side of the bedroom.

Corinne Wolff was barefoot, her legs drawn to her chest. She was half on her side and half on her stomach, facing them. Her chocolate-colored eyes were open but unseeing, the irises like gummy coffee. Her brown hair was matted with blood from an obvious gash across her forehead. Her jaw was broken, misaligned along the lower half of her face, jutting obscenely toward the ceiling. The body was crooked too; her arms stretched out as if she tried to break a fall then changed her mind. She was dressed in panties and a sports bra, a pink cashmere blanket draped over her midsection. A thick pool of blood approximately two feet in length and a foot wide surrounded her head and her torso, and a small plush toy was tucked into the crook of her arm. Footprints led around the body, away from the body, back to the body. Along Corinne’s side, the blood had been disturbed.

Taylor and Sam stepped closer. “Oh, man,” Sam whispered. “That poor thing.”

“Corinne or Hayden?”

“Both.”

Taylor wasn’t sure what bothered her more, the teddy bear tucked into Corinne’s arms, the blanket draped across her seminakedness, or the plush, stuffed Gund My Doctor kit that sat by her head. Her daughter, unable to understand what was happening, had tried to help. She’d managed to get a large pretend Band-Aid stuck to the top of her mother’s hand. Hayden had tried to fix her. And then she’d lain down next to her mother, covering herself in blood.

They got the necessary pictures and videotape, then Sam set to work. She pulled back the blanket and saw the pregnancy.

“Oh, jeez. I hate this.” She felt the body. “She’s cold and malleable. The blood pool has soaked into the carpet and is tacky to the touch. I won’t know an exact time of death until I run the temp during autopsy, but this should give you a time frame to start looking at. Rigor is completely gone. Livor mortis is set, the discoloration consistent with a body lying in one position since death. She’s been dead at least thirty-six hours. I’d say she was killed right here, fell in this position and didn’t move. How far along is she, do you know? This looks like a four, maybe five-month bump.”

“I don’t know. Parks said she was pregnant, but he didn’t say when she was due. Thirty-six hours minimum? God, that little girl was here in this house with her dead mother all that time. Poor baby.”

Sam continued her examination. “With a mother who’d been violently bludgeoned to death. Blunt force trauma to the extremities, the head. Her jaw is certainly broken, she’s missing some teeth.” Sam was finishing her initial assessment, making notes in a small black reporter’s notebook. “This is a mess, T.”

“Tell me about it. I don’t see any weapon conveniently lying around, do you?”

“No. And this is too much damage to just have been someone’s fists. Tim, you hear that? You need to keep an eye out for a weapon.”

“Yes, Dr. Loughley.”

“Okay, folks. Let’s rock and roll.” Sam and Tim continued their duties, with Keri filming everything for posterity. Taylor went to the window. The cream-colored roman shades, covered with blood spatter, were at half-mast. She glanced out at the street below. The neighbors were still grouped on the opposite lawn, talking quietly amongst themselves. She didn’t see anything out of place, no one who stood out as having a more than neighborly fascination with the goings-on.