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

“J.T. Ellison’s debut novel rocks.

Darkly compelling and thoroughly chilling, with rich

characterisation and a well-layered plot, All the Pretty

Girls is everything a great crime thriller should be.”

—Allison Brennann,

New York Times best selling author of Fear No Evil

“Taylor Jackson is a fresh portrayal of a cop with a serial

killer to catch. Creepy thrills from start to finish.”

—James O. Born, author of Burn Zone

“An impressive debut that is rich not just in suspense but

in the details. It’s all gritty, grisly and a great read.”

—M.J. Rose, international bestselling author of

The Reincarnationist

“All the Pretty Girls is a spellbinding suspense novel and

Tennessee has a new dark poet. J.T. Ellison’s fast-paced,

clever plotting yields a page-turner par excellence.

A turbocharged thrill ride of a debut.”

Julia Spencer-Fleming, Edgar Award finalist

and author of All Mortal Flesh

“Ellison hits the ground running with an electrifying

debut. All the Pretty Girls is a masterful thriller, shockingly

authentic and unputdownable. Fans of Sandford,

Cornwell and Reichs will relish every page.”

—J.A. Konrath, author of Dirty Martini

All The Pretty Girls
J.T. Ellison

www.mirabooks.co.uk

J.T. ELLISON is a thriller writer based in Nashville, Tennessee. Her short stories have appeared in Demolition magazine, Flashing in the Gutters, Mouth Full of Bullets and Spinetingler magazine. All the Pretty Girls is her first novel in the Taylor Jackson series. She is a weekly columnist at Murderati.com and is a founding member of Killer Year. Visit JTEllison.com for more information.

Upcoming novels in the

Taylor Jackson series

14

JUDAS KISS

For Randy and my parents. Love you more.

Acknowledgements

The process of writing All the Pretty Girls was without a doubt a group effort. There are many people who graciously gave their time and expertise to help me get the details straight. I would like to send my deepest thanks to the following:

My extraordinary editor, Linda McFall of MIRA Books, and all of the MIRA team, especially Margaret Marbury and Dianne Moggy. A very special thank-you to Tara Kelly for designing the perfect cover.

My incredible agent Scott Miller, of Trident Media Group, for taking a chance on a unknown, and Holly Henderson Root, for all her help and editorial advice.

Detective David Achord of the Metro Nashville Homicide Department was an invaluable resource for the law enforcement details in the book. Not only did he allow me to ride along with him, he read, edited, gave ideas and information, encouraged me to keep on track and was always there for a question, chat or dinner. In the process, he’s become a great friend and I am very thankful to have him on my side.

Officer Carl Stocks of the Metro Nashville Police Department took me on a midnight-shift ride-along that changed my life. He showed me that the horrors we write and read about are very real and I have great respect for his abilities and dedication to getting it right.

The Metro Nashville Homicide Department gave me complete support and continues to handle even the most mundane questions. Detective Mike Mann helped me understand the mind-set a homicide detective must have to keep sane and shared in ghost stories. Dr Michael Tabor, the Forensic Dentist for the state of Tennessee, was a font of detail and information and my respect and awe for his efforts following the September 11 attacks is everlasting. Kris Rinearson of Forensic Medical and the Medical Examiner’s Officer for Tennessee provided long-standing insights.

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

The support and encouragement of friends and family were vital for both motivation and sanity. Many thanks to the Bodacious Music City Wordsmiths – Janet, Mary, Rai, Cecelia, Peggy, my Dutch uncle Del Tinsley and my wonderful critique partner, J.B. Thompson. This story couldn’t have been told without your input! Joan Huston caught all the little errors and a couple of big ones. Linda Whaley is there for me always.

John Sandford inspired me to write and Stuart Woods gave me the rules. John Connolly taught me about faith, grace and pitch-prefect prose. Lee Childs, my ITW mentor, is just one big class act and M.J. Rose is always ready with a quip or a shoulder. Fellow authors Tasha Alexander, Brett Battles, Jason Pinter, Rob Gregory-Browne, Toni Causey, Kristy Kiernan and all the Killer Year folks have created a support net that is indispensable. My fellow Murderati bloggers keep me honest.

All my buddies at the Bellevue Post Office, who constantly cheer me on and treat every package with care.

My amazing parents, who constantly remind me that I can do whatever I set my mind to, and my brothers, who’ve always stood behind me. Jade the cat listened attentively whenever I needed a sounding board and amazed me with her ability to park her butt on each page of the manuscript as it printed.

Finally, to Randy. Your love, fortitude, patience, indulgence, sacrifice and faith in me keep me going. You are the keeper of my soul.

Chapter One

“No. Please don’t.” She whispered the words, a divine prayer. “No. Please don’t.” There they were again, bubbles forming at her lips, the words slipping out as if greased from her tongue.

Even in death, Jessica Ann Porter was unfailingly polite. She wasn’t struggling, wasn’t crying, just pleading with those luminescent chocolate eyes, as eager to please as a puppy. He tried to shake off the thought. He’d had a puppy once. It had licked his hand and gleefully scampered about his feet, begging to be played with. It wasn’t his fault that the thing’s bones were so fragile, that the roughhousing meant for a boy and his dog forced a sliver of rib into the little creature’s heart. The light shone, then faded in the puppy’s eyes as it died in the grass in his backyard. That same light in Jessica’s eyes, her life leaching slowly from their cinnamon depths, died at this very moment.

He noted the signs of death dispassionately. Blue lips, cyanotic. The hemorrhaging in the sclera of the eyes, pinpoint pricks of crimson. The body seemed to cool immediately, though he knew it would take some time for the heat to fully dissipate. The vivacious yet shy eighteen-year-old was now nothing more than a piece of meat, soon to be consigned back to the earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Blowfly to maggot. The life cycle complete once again.

He shook off the reverie. It was time to get to work. Glancing around, he spied his tool kit. He didn’t remember kicking it over, perhaps his memory was failing him. Had the girl actually struggled? He didn’t think so, but confusion sets in at the most important moments. He would have to consider that later, when he could give it his undivided thought. Only the radiant glow of her eyes at the moment of expiration remained for him now. He palmed the handsaw and lifted her limp hand.

No, please don’t. Three little words, innocuous in their definitions. No great allegories, no ethical dilemmas. No, please don’t. The words echoed through his brain as he sawed, their rhythm spurring his own. No, please don’t. No, please don’t. Back and forth, back and forth.

No, please don’t. Hear these words, and dream of hell.

Chapter Two

Nashville was holding its collective breath on this warm summer night. After four stays of execution, the death watch had started again. Homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson watched as the order was announced that the governor would not be issuing another stay, then snapped off the television and walked to the window of her tiny office in the Criminal Justice Center. The Nashville skyline spread before her in all its glory, continuously lit by blazing flashes of color. The high-end pyrotechnic delights were one of the largest displays in the nation. It was the Fourth of July. The quintessential American holiday. Hordes of people gathered in Riverfront Park to hear the Nashville Symphony Orchestra perform in concert with the brilliant flares of light. Things were drawing to a close now. Taylor could hear the strains of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, a Russian theme to celebrate America’s independence. She jumped slightly with every cannon blast, perfectly coinciding with launched rockets.

The cheers depressed her. The whole holiday depressed her. As a child, she’d been wild for the fireworks, for the cotton-candy fun of youth and mindless celebration. As she grew older, she mourned that lost child, trying desperately to reach far within herself to recapture that innocence. She failed.

The sky was dark now. She could see the throngs of people heading back to whatever parking spots they had found, children skipping between tired parents, fluorescent bracelets and glow sticks arcing through the night. They would spirit these innocents home to bed with joy, soothed by the knowledge that they had satisfied their little ones, at least for the moment. Taylor wouldn’t be that lucky. Any minute now, she’d be answering the phone, getting the call. Chance told her somewhere in her city a shooter was escaping into the night. Fireworks were perfect cover for gunfire. That’s what she told herself, but there was another reason she’d stayed in her office this holiday night. Protecting her city was a mental ruse. She was waiting.

A memory rose, unbidden, unwanted. Trite in its way, yet the truth of the statement hit her to the core. “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” Or became a woman. Her days of purity were behind her now.

Taking one last glance at the quickening night, she closed the blinds and sat heavily in her chair. Sighed. Ran her fingers through her long blond hair. Wondered why she was hanging out in the Homicide office when she could be enjoying the revelry. Why she was still committed to the job. Laid her head on her desk and waited for the phone to ring. Got back up and flipped the switch to the television.

The crowds were a pulsing mass at the Riverbend Maximum Security Prison. Police had cordoned off sections of the yard of the prison, one for the pro–death penalty activists, another comprised the usual peaceful subjects, a third penned in reporters. ACLU banners screamed injustice, the people holding them shouting obscenities at their fellow groupies. All the trappings necessary for an execution. No one was put to death without an attendant crowd, each jostling to have their opinion heard.

The young reporter from Channel Two was breathless, eyes flushed with excitement. There were no more options. The governor had denied the last stay two hours earlier. Tonight, at long last, Richard Curtis would pay the ultimate price for his crime.

As she watched, her eyes flicked to the wall clock, industrial numbers glowing on a white face: 11:59 p.m. An eerie silence overcame the crowd. It was time.

Taylor took a deep breath as the minute hand swept with a click into the 12:00 position. She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until the hand snapped to 12:01 a.m. That was it, then. The drugs would have been administered. Richard Curtis would have a peaceful sleep, his heart’s last beat recorded into the annals of history. It was too gentle a death, in Taylor’s opinion. He should have been drawn and quartered, his entrails pulled from his body and burned on his stomach. That, perhaps, would give some justice. Not this carefully choreographed combination of drugs, slipping him serenely into the Grim Reaper’s arms. There, the announcement was made. Curtis was pronounced at 12:06 a.m., July 5. Dead and gone.

Taylor turned the television off. Perhaps now she would get the call to arms. Waiting patiently, she laid her head down on her desk and thought of a sunny child named Martha, the victim of a brutal kidnapping, rape and murder when she was only seven years old. It was Taylor’s first case as a homicide detective. They’d found Martha within twenty-four hours of her disappearance, broken and battered in a sandy lot in North Nashville. Richard Curtis was captured several hours later. Martha’s doll was on the bench seat of his truck. Her tears were lifted from the door handle. A long strand of her honey-blond hair was affixed to Curtis’s boot. It was a slam-dunk case, Taylor’s first taste of success, her first opportunity to prove herself. She had acquitted herself well. Now Curtis was dead as a result of all her hard work. She felt complete.

Taylor had stood vigil for seven years, awaiting this moment. In her mind, Martha was frozen in time, a seven-year-old little girl who would never grow up. She would be fourteen now. Justice had finally been served.

As if in deference to the death of one of their own, Nashville’s criminals were silent on this night, finding better things to do than shoot one another for Taylor’s benefit. She drifted between sleep and wakefulness, thinking about her life, and was relieved when the phone finally rang at 1:00 a.m.

A deep, gruff voice greeted her. “Meet me?” he asked.

“Give me an hour,” she said, looking at her watch. She hung up and smiled for the first time all night.

Chapter Three

“I sure am glad we don’t live in California.”

Detectives Pete Fitzgerald, Lincoln Ross and Marcus Wade were killing time. Nashville’s criminal element seemed to be taking a vacation. They hadn’t had a murder to investigate in nearly two weeks. The city had been strangely quiet. Even the Fourth of July holiday had procured no deaths for their investigative skills. No one was scheduled for court, and their open cases were either resolved or held up by the crime lab. They had hit dead time.

The three men were crammed in their boss’s office, watching TV. A perfectly acceptable pastime, especially since the department had inked a deal with the cable company. Ostensibly, the televisions were to be tuned to twenty-four-hour news networks, but the channels invariably got changed. Usually to accommodate the guilty habit of daytime soaps to which many of the detectives were addicted.

Today though, a car chase through the mean streets of Los Angeles had captured the three detectives’ attention. Exciting, splashy. A kidnapping, a semiautomatic weapon at the ready, even a stolen red Jaguar. The car rolled through the various highways, rarely going under seventy miles an hour, captivating the news announcers that speculated breathlessly about whether the kidnap victim was in the vehicle or not. The homicide team cheered on their brothers in blue.

Fitz swept a beefy arm up and looked at his watch. The chase had been going on for nearly two hours now. “They put that spike strip down about five minutes ago. Wheels should start coming off here soon.”

“There you go.” Marcus pointed to the screen, where a large piece of tire had flown from the back wheel of the Jag, narrowly missing the pursuit car. His brown eyes were shining, excited. Fitz gave him a grin, the kid was just so young.

“You ever done a chase, Marcus?” he asked, leaning back, arms over his prodigious belly.

“No, but I have done all the training for it. I can drive, man, I can drive.”

“Remind me not to give you the keys. It’s over now.” Lincoln Ross stood and stretched, brushing invisible wrinkles from his charcoal-gray Armani suit. “He starts running on rims, they can do a Pitt Maneuver and knock him out. See, there it is.”

The pursuit car slipped up on the Jag like a black-and-white snake, then gently bumped the back right fender. In a textbook reaction, the driver of the Jag spun out, slamming into a guardrail, losing a fender, and came to rest facing traffic. In an instant, vehicles surrounded him, cops with long guns and sidearms pointed at him. No escape.

The TV anchors congratulated themselves on a story well covered, predicting it would be anywhere from five minutes to five hours before the standoff would be over. Promising not to break away from the coverage until there was a resolution, they brought in the experts, a former police officer and a hostage negotiator, for the requisite public speculation of the criminal’s past. A producer somewhere in New York turned off the five-second delay a moment too soon, and the detectives stared as the door to the Jaguar opened. The suspect jumped out, dragging a woman out of the driver’s-side door by the hair.

There was frantic movement on the ground, a quick tightening of the cordon around the kidnapper. The suspect looked up in the air, making sure the overhead helicopter had a moment to focus its long lens on his grinning face. He pulled the woman upright, lifted his arm and shot her in the head. He was gunned down before she hit the ground, the pandemonium obvious. The network went black for a heartbeat, then focused on the face of the shocked anchor. He looked green.

“Like I said, damn glad we don’t live in California,” Fitz grumbled.

The phone rang and he answered, listening carefully while jotting a few notes. “We’re on it.”

“What’s up?” Marcus had leaned so far back in his chair that he threatened to tip over on his back.

“Body out in Bellevue. I’ll go. I’ll call Taylor from the car.”

Lincoln and Marcus were up immediately. “We’re coming, too,” Marcus said. “I know I don’t want to sit around here anymore. Do you, Lincoln?”

“Hell, no.”

They marched dutifully from the office, gathering suit jackets and keys on the way out. Lincoln grinned, happy at last for an excursion. “At least there won’t be a car chase.”

The day was stifling, humidity in the high nineties, a threat of rain on the horizon. Though it was full light, the sun was not shining. A thick miasma of haze blanketed the sky, turning the blue to gray. Nashville in the summer.

The crime scene was populated with sweating men and women. Their movements were sluggish, practiced, not at all urgent. Several wore masks to shelter their fragile sinuses from the smell. A decomposing body in ninety-degree heat could fell even the strongest professional.

They were assembled in a grassy field at the Highway 70 and Highway 70 South split, near the westernmost edge of Davidson County. The area was known as Bellevue, only fifteen minutes from downtown. Another couple of miles and Cheatham County would have the job. It was Metro Homicide who had gotten the call instead. Taylor had felt the same sense of boredom her detectives were experiencing, and was happy for the diversion.

She stood over the body, drinking in the scene. Her blond hair was pulled into a messy ponytail, her long body casting grotesque muted shadows in the high grass. She wore no mask, her nostrils pinched and white, her mouth open so she could breathe without inhaling death. A Jane Doe, young, brown hair massed beneath her swollen body. Brown eyes glinted dully from cracked eyelids. The bugs had done their duty, ingesting, laying eggs, repopulating their masses. A struggling white larva spilled from the girl’s mouth.

Taylor nearly came undone, imagining that worm in her own mouth, and mistakenly took in a deep breath through her nose. She winced and turned away for a moment, watching the activity around her. Usually the death greeters would swarm like their own type of insect, but no one was in much of a hurry today. Fitz was ambling back toward the crime scene control area, he’d taken a cursory look at the body, covered his mouth and politely excused himself. She could see Marcus and Lincoln conferring in the distance, waves of heat shimmering around their bodies. Crime scene techs carried brown paper bags to their vehicles, patrol officers kept their backs to the body. The scene stirred, listless, the entire group indolent in the heat.

Except the man striding effortlessly toward her. He was a big man, dark haired, graceful. He wasn’t one of hers.

He stopped in front of one of the patrol officers, flipped open a small leather identification case, speaking loud enough for Taylor to hear. “Special Agent John Baldwin. FBI.”

The officer stepped aside to let Baldwin continue his trek toward Taylor. He slipped the case into his breast pocket, then came to her with his right hand outstretched. He winked as he took her hand. She felt the warm pad of flesh press her own for a brief instant. A concussive touch, she felt it all the way to her toes. She stood straighter. At nearly six feet, she generally towered over men. This one was taller by nearly five inches, and she had to look up to meet his eyes. They were the oddest shade of green, deeper than jade, lighter than emeralds. Cat eyes, she thought.

Her heart beat a little faster. Taylor’s right hand went to her neck, an unconscious gesture. The four-inch scar was barely healed; she still looked as if she’d been garroted. A knife slash, compliments of a crazed suspect. A permanent souvenir from her last case. Gathering herself, she flipped her ponytail off her shoulder and gave Baldwin a brief but warm smile.

“What are you doing here? I didn’t ask for FBI backup. It’s just a murder.” She paused for a moment, concerned by the expression on his angular face. She knew the look. “Please tell me it’s just a murder?”

“I wish I could.”

“Why the posturing?” Taylor looked over Baldwin’s shoulder. There were few people on the scene who weren’t familiar with John Baldwin. Her team—Fitz, Marcus and Lincoln—had worked with him before.

“I needed this to be an official consultation. I think I know who she is.” He gestured almost carelessly at the body prostrate at their feet.

“Ah. Out of state, I’d guess. We haven’t had any missing persons reported in the right time frame for this.”

“Out of state. Right. Mississippi.” The statement was absent, an afterthought. Baldwin was circling the body, taking in all the details. The bruises around the girl’s neck were visible despite the decomposition. He made another circle, smiling to himself with a bizarre look of triumph. The body had no hands.

“I think this may be the work of our boy.”

“Your boy?” Taylor’s eyebrow went up an inch. “You know who did this?”

He ignored the question for a moment. “Is it okay to touch her?”

“Yes. The crime scene techs have finished with her for now, and we’re waiting for the medical examiner to haul her out of here. I was just giving her one last look.”

Baldwin reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of thin white latex gloves. He squatted next to the body and reached for the girl’s right stump, knocking a few maggots off in the process.

Taylor prompted him again. “Your boy, you say?”

“Mmm, hmm. I don’t know his name, of course, but I recognize his work.”

Taylor went down on one knee beside him. “He’s done this before?” She spoke quietly. No personnel were within earshot, but just in case, she didn’t want the leaks to start before she had a grip on what was happening. Habit.

“Twice, that I know of. Though he hasn’t hit for a month. We’ve dubbed him the Southern Strangler, for lack of a better name. You know us feds, not an original thought between us.” He tried for a smile, but it came out as a leer.

“Why haven’t I heard of this…strangler?”

“You have. Remember the Alabama case a few months ago, in April? Pretty little college nursing student, disappeared from the U of A campus. We found her in—”

“Louisiana. I remember.”

“Right. The second was last month, from Baton Rouge. Found her in Mississippi.”

Taylor searched her memory for the details of the case. It had been all over the national news networks, with correspondents broadcasting live from Baton Rouge, lamenting and glorifying the kidnapping. But no one had put the two together, as far as she knew. She told Baldwin that.

“The time frame was lengthy enough that the media didn’t jump on the connection. And we kept a few things back. The hands, for one.”

“Why, for God’s sake? Aren’t you guys supposed to get the word out so we small-town law enforcement types know we’ve got someone on the loose?” Her sarcasm missed its mark. Baldwin only nodded.

“The lubricant, too. We think there is consensual sex, he uses a lubricated condom. Whichever M.E. catches it should look for that.”

Taylor shook her head, putting aside the strange reality that had marred her beautiful southern town. A serial killer, passing through her turf. Great. It wasn’t something she was prepared to keep quiet.

“I already called Sam, she’ll take good care of her.” Dr. Samantha Owens Loughley was the chief medical examiner for the mid-state of Tennessee, and a friend. “You said you know who she is.” She indicated the body with a jerk of her chin, eyes accusing.

“Her name is Jessica. Jessica Ann Porter. Jackson, Mississippi. She’s only been gone three days.”

Taylor looked down again. Three days? The decomp was more advanced than that. Baldwin read her thoughts.

“You know how this works. Heat’s speeding up the process. Two weeks in this mess would be all it took to get her down to the bones. We’re lucky we found her so quickly. Another week and it would have been hell to ID her in the field.”

“Tell me more.”

“There isn’t a lot more to go on. He likes brunettes. Young brunettes. All three girls have brown eyes, are late teens to early twenties, and we don’t have really good victimologies on them. None of them had risk behaviors, none of them had been seen with strangers, nothing. They just went poof. One day they were living their lives, the next, they were just gone. I’ve been working the periphery of the cases. I was kept informed but I didn’t do the investigation myself. Now that we may have three victims, I’m probably getting involved full-time.”

Taylor heard tires crunching on the gravel on the side of the road. The body, Jessica’s body, she corrected herself, was only about ten yards from the roadside. The news van would be able to get a clear shot. Too clear. She waved to Marcus standing by his car, motioned to the van. She didn’t need to say a word. He started signaling to them immediately, forcing them away from the scene. Taylor watched as he maneuvered them to a very discreet vantage point, one from which they wouldn’t be able to view the body. She smiled to herself. Screw the newsies.

Baldwin had taken a notebook out of his back pocket and was writing furiously, scribbling notes as quickly as his mind could feed them through his fingers to his pen.

“Have you found…?” Baldwin’s voice trailed off. A uniformed officer was waving frantically at Taylor. She eyed Baldwin for a moment, realizing he knew exactly what the fuss was about. He just shrugged and put out a hand in a “you first” gesture. She stared him down for a moment, then made her way to the gesticulating officer. The look of horror on his face was evident from twenty paces.

“You have something there, Officer?” Taylor didn’t recognize him, he must have been fresh out of the academy.

“Yes, Lieutenant,” he answered, Adam’s apple bobbing. Taylor reached him and followed his pointing finger. In the grass, lying quietly, was a hand.

Taylor reared back, but Baldwin leaned over the hand with interest. She tried for glib.

“Well, Special Agent, since she’s missing both hands, I’d say we should find another right around this area, shouldn’t we?” The sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach belied the bravado in her statement. She had the distinct feeling there was more to the case than he had told her. He confirmed it in the next moment, the way he gazed at the wayward hand was a dead giveaway that there was more to this than met the eye. She dismissed the patrol officer with a flick of her hand. He scrambled away, visibly relieved.

“No, we won’t.” He gazed up at her, his green eyes troubled. “You can search for it if you want, but it won’t be here.”

“What the hell? He’s taking the girl’s hands off, leaving one in the field and taking one with him? Some sort of trophy?”

Baldwin nodded. “Definitely a trophy. There’s just one problem.”

For the briefest moment, the reality of what a psycho could do with a severed hand crowded her mind. She shoved the thought away. “What’s the problem?”

“This isn’t Jessica’s hand.”

Chapter Four

Baldwin excused himself to call in to Quantico, and Taylor signaled for Fitz to join her. He tromped through the field like a general commanding troops, his oversize belly leading his feet.

“What’s the fed doin’ here?” he asked, tone neutral. Taylor glanced at him, trying to gauge if there was anything more to the inquiry, but Fitz’s face was closed, guarded. She decided it was just that, a question.

“Guess.” Taylor shaded her eyes, watching Baldwin slink through the crime scene, an overgrown cougar smelling fresh blood.

“He’s here to profile the killer because there’s a pattern,” Fitz answered, following Taylor’s gaze. There would only be one reason for a profiler to be playing in their sandbox.

“Two before her. We have a possible ID at least. Jessica Ann Porter. From Mississippi. Where’s Lincoln?”

“Back at the car with Marcus.”

“He needs to work his magic on the computer. Tell him I want to have all the information the feds have on these murders. The first was the girl fromAlabama, the coed that went missing and was found in Louisiana in April. The second one was taken from Baton Rouge in June and dumped in Mississippi. Have him pull all the particulars, and let’s see what we have to work with. The feds held back information on the cases, including the fact that the killer is transporting a hand from the previous victim to the new dump site. I’m sure Baldwin will share all that he knows, but I want to have our own file going on this guy.”

“You sure he’ll give you everything?”

Taylor winked and gave Fitz a full-watt smile, her gray eyes flashing in the white air. “I’m sure.”

Taylor was putting the finishing touches on a Bolognese sauce. She tasted, stirred in another spoonful of oregano, tasted again. Hmm. Garlic. Another clove went into the pot and she shut the lid, savoring the rich spiciness that wafted through the steam.

The light was failing outside, darkness rapidly approaching. She busied herself cutting up a fresh five-grain baguette, wrapping it in foil and setting it in the warming oven to toast. She took a sip of wine, a lovely Chianti from the Montepulciano region of Tuscany that she’d discovered with the help of the owner of her local wine store. She called the man Geppetto because of his resemblance to the cartoon version of Pinocchio’s father. He was a kindly man with a droopy gray mustache and excellent taste in Super Tuscans. He loved the nickname, but allowed no one but Taylor to bestow it upon him. She smiled and took a deeper drink.

With nothing to do but wait for the sauce to finish cooking, she sat at the kitchen table, sipping wine and watching the lightning bugs hover over her deck. Her home was simple, a log cabin she’d bought for herself years earlier, cozy, tucked in the rolling hills of the Tennessee central basin. She had deer and rabbits, and had seen a fox with her kits trailing behind earlier in the year. Privacy, quiet, all the things an overworked homicide detective needed.

Her thoughts drifted, inevitably, to the earlier crime scene.

Sam had directed the scene, gotten Jessica’s body ready for transport. The body, dehydrated and warm, had proved difficult to handle, and the transporter had lost his grip when they brought her up to the gurney. He dropped the head of the bag, and the flies had buzzed angrily. Taylor cursed the muggy weather—death wasn’t easier in the cold, but it was more bearable.

What kind of killer were they dealing with? Consensual sex, then strangulation and mutilation, like a bad date gone horribly wrong. Taylor knew Baldwin’s profile would fill in some of the answers.

Jessica Porter was being autopsied in the morning. Taylor would be there, a show of respect as well as an attempt to get ahead of Jessica’s killer. Clues were always available—even the most fastidious killer left something of himself behind. The fact that this could be his third murder was upsetting, to say the least.

The missing hands bothered her. Death as a rule was never pretty. Taking the girl’s hands was an obvious attempt to conceal her identity. Dropping her in a lonely field in ninety-degree heat would do the rest. But why in the world would he deliver the hand of the previous victim to the new crime scene?

Taylor was caught off guard when Baldwin explained the killer’s signature. She’d asked the obvious question. Where is the other hand?

He’d given her a mirthless laugh. “That’s the question we all want to figure out.”

They could have easily missed it. Hell, they’d gotten lucky. The Realtor who was listing the land for sale had dropped by to put a new number on his sign. He was overwhelmed by the smell of rotting flesh, and had called the police when he found the body. Fate had been on their side this day. If it weren’t for that they might have missed Jessica Porter for a few weeks, maybe more. Enough time for the heat and the bugs and the vermin to do their job, making it very difficult to identify the remains. The killer was no dummy.

But they’d found Jessica, and now they had a line on the killer. Taylor was wondering about the connection between Jackson, Mississippi and Nashville when she heard the front door open.

“How’s my favorite debutante?”

She shot a nasty look toward the owner of the boisterously deep voice, which made him grin. Covering the few yards to her in three quick strides, he grabbed her and pulled her into a rough embrace. She nestled her nose in the hollow above his collarbone and sighed. He smelled good, fresh. There was no scent of lingering death, just soap and cedar. She nuzzled him once more, then pushed him away, hard. He stumbled back, putting up a hand like he could stop the torrent that was about to come.

“Dammit, Baldwin, why didn’t you tell me?”

“We’re having pasta, I presume? It smells great.”

Her look was murderous and he gave her a sheepish shrug. “What did you want me to do, Taylor? How was I supposed to know he was going to come to Nashville? The Porter girl went missing three days ago, and I didn’t get the call right away. Next time I’ll be sure to roll over and casually mention that a girl has been kidnapped in Mississippi, you might want to be on the lookout for her body here in town. Hell, Taylor, give me a break. I didn’t have a clue where he’d be heading. I didn’t even know it was the Strangler until I looked at her body.”

He reached out as if to stroke her cheek, but she turned away and went to the stove. She busied herself stirring the sauce.

“C’mon, sweetie. If I thought I had a handle on this guy, I would have told you sooner. He hasn’t been active for a month. In the wind, totally. We have so little to go on, things are being held together with a wing and a prayer. He doesn’t give us a lot to work with. Missing hands and dead bodies.”

Taylor turned back to face him. His green eyes were clouded with worry, the salt-and-pepper hair standing on end. She knew that he’d been running his hands through it, trying to make his mind work harder.

“Missing hands and dead bodies seem like an awful lot to me.” She sounded peevish and felt idiotic. There was no reason to be mad at Baldwin, he was just doing his job. A job he wanted her to do with him. It looked as if they were going to have the chance to work together, just like he wanted.

“Are you setting up a task force?”

“It’s me at the moment. I knew I could work with you on it, so I’m freelancing. There’re two other guys working the old cases—Jerry Grimes and Thomas Petty, I’ll share information with them, they’ll share with me. You know how it is.”

Baldwin had been acting in a consultant capacity, on loan from the FBI to Metro Nashville Homicide, for three months now. His help had proved invaluable to her cases. Of course, sharing a bed with him wasn’t such a bad perk.

She gave him an appraising smile. “You work fast. Talked to Price, have you?”

He sat at the table, nodding. “Garrett Woods made the call.” Woods was Baldwin’s boss at the FBI, and friends with Mitchell Price, the head of the Criminal Investigations Division for Metro. Homicide was his responsibility.

Taylor turned back to the stove. “I’m hungry. We can talk about this later.”

Baldwin smiled at her. “Who says we’re going to talk?”

Taylor was in the shower when the call came. Baldwin knew better than to answer her phone. She was fiercely private and detested the idea of anyone confirming the fact that she and Baldwin were, well, involved would be the best way to put it. Very, very involved. It just wouldn’t do to have her detectives questioning her motives or intentions, and she preferred to let them wonder at the nature of their personal relationship. If they knew she was sleeping full-time with a fed, they’d look at her differently. At least, that’s what she told herself.

Her best friend was the only one she’d confided in. Sam Loughley thought she was crazy for trying to keep it hush-hush, tried to convince Taylor time and again that her team wouldn’t be harassed in the least by Taylor’s relationship with Baldwin, but Taylor liked to keep her work life and her private life separate.

She stepped out of the shower, toweled off and made her way to the answering machine. The message was brief. “Call in,” the voice said, immediately recognizable as Fitz. It was late, and she was tired, but she dialed Fitz’s cell and waited for him to answer.

“’Lo?”

“Fitz, it’s Taylor. What’s up?”

“Just thought you’d want a heads-up. We got a missing persons report about half an hour ago. Girl named Shauna Davidson, from Antioch. Don’t know if it’s anything, but she’s been missing since yesterday. Never came home last night, so her mother says. She has been trying to reach her, but Shauna isn’t answering her home or cell phone. The mother saw the news, heard the report about a dead girl in the field and thought it might be her girl. She completely freaked out. Problem is, the girl in the field isn’t Shauna Davidson, and Shauna doesn’t seem readily available.”

Taylor felt her stomach sinking. “Is she brunette?”

She heard Fitz flipping pages. “Yep. Brown on brown, five-six, hundred forty pounds. Eighteen.”

“Any more information on her? Where does she work? Maybe she showed up there?”

Fitz flipped another page. “Doesn’t say. Kid like that, I’d bet some clothing store or waitress job. She’s in Antioch, probably works at Hickory Hollow or something. I’ll chase it down. I’m headed to her place now. Shouldn’t be too hard to figure it out. There are officers on the scene, word over the radio is possible foul play. Could be the lock’s busted on her door, could be more.”

“Well, get out there and see what it looks like. Hopefully, she’s just out of pocket.”

“I’m on it. I’ll call you if we need you.”

“Thanks for letting me know. I’ll see you in the morning unless something happens tonight.”

She hung up the phone. The media would have a field day with this. It was one thing to keep murders and kidnappings from other states out of the news cycle. A murder and kidnapping in their own backyard, however, would be impossible to keep quiet. She checked her watch. Five to ten.

She grabbed a Diet Coke and went to the living room. Baldwin had fallen asleep on the couch, a thick case file clutched in his hands. She recognized the lettering—FBI Eyes Only. She stood looking at him for a moment, not wanting to wake him but knowing she should. He’d want to hear this. She shook his shoulder gently and he started.

“What’s the matter?” He sat up abruptly, the folder falling from his hand. It spilled onto the carpet. Taylor saw crime scene photos, horrific images of death. Helping him gather the photos, she wondered what the hell they were doing. Dealing in death day after day. It was a thought she’d been having more and more often lately.

“Fitz just called, there’s been a missing persons report filed on an eighteen-year-old girl named Shauna Davidson. He’s headed to her place right now, he’ll call if he needs me. I wanted to see if the newsies are carrying it.”

The look of dread on Baldwin’s face was enough to confirm her fears. It was likely that Shauna Davidson wouldn’t be coming home tonight.

Taylor turned on the television and curled her legs under her on the couch. The lead story was the body found in Bellevue. They had full-blown coverage of the day’s events in the field where they had discovered Jessica Porter’s body. Nashville did so love its crime.

Taylor flipped through the other local channels, all of which were tackling the story.

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.”

Baldwin gave her a weak smile. “Looks like the cat’s out of the bag.”

Taylor flipped back to Channel Five. Whitney Connolly, their lead reporter, was at the scene. It looked like a three-ring circus—what were they hoping to find? Metro had cleared the scene, there was nothing left for them to see. But the b-roll from earlier was gold. The cameras were angled perfectly to catch the landscape of the field, the highway full of flashing blue lights and metro cruisers. Taylor flinched when she realized Channel Five had captured the crime scene techs losing their grip on the body bag as they placed it on the stretcher, the body being jolted—the photographer had gotten a close-up of the bottlenose flies scattering like a cloud of dust. Lovely.

Taylor’s cell rang again—Fitz was requesting her presence at Shauna Davidson’s apartment. So much for a quiet night. She hung up and pulled on her cowboy boots. Whitney Connolly, who had no more dirt to dish, was asking for anyone who had information regarding the body that had been found in Bellevue to call Metro Police. Her report had been more thorough than the other channels’, her words lingering with delight. Taylor sometimes thought that Connolly enjoyed her job a little too much. Reporting on death and disaster suited her well.

“Whitney Connolly is as tenacious as a pit bull. She’s one of the few reporters that seem to enjoy taking on some of the local crime stories, wants to see them through.” Baldwin spoke absently, giving credence to Taylor’s silent opinion. She glanced at him, he was lost in thought, staring at the television screen.

“I went to school with her.”

That caught his attention, and he turned to her. “A fellow debutante from Father Ryan?” he teased.

“Jesus, Baldwin. Yes, I suppose she must have been, she and her twin sister, Quinn. They were a year behind Sam and me. They would have been freshmen when you were a senior. I know you came into school late your senior year, but don’t you remember them? That whole story…” She trailed off when Baldwin’s phone rang.

He answered it brusquely. “Yes…? Yes, I’ve heard…No, I don’t…I will…I agree…Okay…Tomorrow then.” He hung up, then started pacing the living room.

“That was Garrett, making sure I’d heard about the missing girl. I’m officially being tasked full-time on this now, not just as a consultant. Figured that was going to happen.”

Taylor gave him her sweetest smile as her own phone rang. She was already up, gun strapped to her side, ready to go. “Welcome to my nightmare. Let’s go.”

Taylor pulled up to the yellow tape that was strung across the parking lot to the Davidson girl’s apartment building. She smiled as a young officer lifted the tape so she could drive through. Leaning out the window, she pointed to the car behind her.

“Let him through. He’s with me.” The officer nodded, and she watched in her rearview mirror as Baldwin maneuvered his car under the tape. She pulled up to the bevy of vehicles, turned the engine off and stepped into the night. Baldwin followed suit. She waited for him to join her, then they made their way through the maze of blue-and-white vehicles toward the building.

Fitz met them halfway up the stairs. He looked to be on his way down. Instead, he let them pass, then turned and followed them up, divulging information as they climbed.

“First officer on the scene knocked on the door, didn’t hear or see any movement from inside. No signs of forced entry. The landlord gave him a copy of the key, so he proceeded to open the door. It was locked from the inside, but only the push button, not the dead bolt. The officer went in, looked around. Things didn’t look out of place until he hit the bedroom. The bed’s unmade, biologicals all over it. Crime scene kids are about finished with it. We’ve done a canvas, too, no one remembers seeing her last night or today. Doesn’t look too good.”

They’d reached the door to the apartment and ducked under more crime scene tape. There were only a few people left in the room. Taylor nodded to them as she assessed the scene.

Shauna Davidson lived well. The apartment was tastefully decorated with a modern flair. A flat-panel television took up one wall, surrounded by high-end stereo equipment. A tan leather sofa dominated the room, buttery soft fawn suede cushions piled high. A good place to relax. There were adjacent chairs in dark brown suede, and a slate coffee table that drew all the colors together. Not a thing was out of place, as far as Taylor could tell. Magazines were lined up with precision on the corner of the coffee table. There were no errant drinking glasses or cans, no used newspapers. Good taste and a neat freak. Interesting for a young girl.

To the right, Taylor could see a small kitchen and a short hallway that led off the living room. She followed the hall, seeing an unused guest room, an office and, finally, the master bedroom. Here, things were not so neat.

The bed’s comforter was lying on the floor, the sheets a tangle at the foot of the bed. Blood soaked the mattress. Taylor looked to the crime scene tech standing deferentially to the left side of the bed, waiting for her.

“Do you have any Polaroids that show exactly how you found it?”

“Yes, ma’am. We tried to take the samples without disturbing the scene too much.”

“You’ve put things back in order then? Matches the Polaroids?”

“Yes, ma’am, this is pretty close to how we found it. We came in, saw the blood, backed out and started taking pictures. Then we took all the samples. It’s not as much as it looks, and the biologicals were desiccated. Been there for at least a day. Dusted the bed and side table for prints, came up with a few. We’ll get it all into the system, let you know. Soon as you’re ready we’ll finish bagging and cart it out.”

Taylor nodded her thanks and the young man left the room. She turned to Baldwin and Fitz. “Well?” she asked.

Baldwin took in the room, the blood. Taylor could see the signs of recognition on his face. She waited him out. He crept around the room, making notes, taking a few of his own pictures.

Taylor watched Fitz out of the corner of her eye, he was getting impatient. She was, too. “Baldwin, talk to us. What’s up here?”

He closed his notebook, slung his camera over his shoulder. “It all looks familiar. This is similar to what I’ve seen in the other girls’ apartments. The unmade bed, the blood. I think he charms them, gets them to invite him home and into their beds, then strangles them and cuts off their hands. Transports the body to wherever he’s picked next.” He shook his head. “Shauna Davidson. I don’t know where we’ll find her, but she makes number four. He’s speeding things up.”

Baldwin paced around the room. “See, there’s no sign of forced entry. That’s consistent with the other three girls. I think he picks them up somewhere, a bar, a library, who knows. They invite him back to their place. Maybe things get out of hand, maybe the sex starts out consensual, but just as quickly, they’re dead. There’s no real signs of a struggle. We haven’t found any drugs in their system. I think he must tie them up.” He circled to the head of the bed. “Hey, get your crime scene guys back in here.”

Fitz disappeared and came back with one of the crime scene techs. Baldwin motioned the man over and pointed to the headboard on the wrought-iron bed. “You missed something,” he accused.

The tech turned red, realizing he had missed something. A pale fiber was attached to the frame of the headboard. He quickly collected it, apologizing. As he left, Baldwin clapped him on the back.

“Probably from a rope. We found it at the other scenes, as well. That’s why there isn’t much sign of a struggle. That he would tie them up fits. See, this kind of killer is excited by the helplessness. Anger, excitement, pleasure, they all come from the same place for this guy. He has a thing for their hands, which I haven’t figured out yet. The fetishistic elements are all there, I don’t think he’s doing it to hide their identities. He’s highly organized, plans in advance. The fact that he parts with any of his trophies is interesting. It’s a clue, a trail of bread crumbs that he’s leaving for us. He wants to sensationalize the killings. Taking the bodies over state lines, the mutilations, all were calculated efforts to make these crimes heinous and splashy. A surefire recipe to get the FBI involved. He wants us to know him. To be sure that it’s him. He won’t deviate from this pattern, it’s become his signature. Now we just have to figure out who he is. VICAP doesn’t have a match to this MO in their system. Other than the forensics, we don’t have any other information to go on. Witness statements are thin to nonexistent. He’s a real ghost, which is part of his plan.” The Violent Criminal Apprehension Program would guide them to corresponding murders if the system had a match. Baldwin had been watching for a hit, a fruitless endeavor thus far.

He stopped pacing, a gleam in his eyes. “It’s a challenge. He enjoys the fact that he has us stumped. We can’t predict where he’s headed next, it assures that we’re on our toes. Mark my words. He’s begging for us to try and find him.”