The Immortals

Six

Nashville

8:00 p.m.

Taylor shut the door on the Norwoods and leaned back against the frame. She needed to see the last two crime scenes—the second double especially—but she needed a break. She wondered where Baldwin had gone.

She had just flipped open her cell phone to call him when he rounded the corner of the house, hands in his hair. The ends were sticking up in the back. She stepped off the porch and met him in the yard. He was white, obviously furious.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He look startled for a moment, then shook his head. “Nothing. I’ve just got to go back up to Quantico. Garrett needs me on a case.”

There was something in his voice, a note of doubt that she immediately seized on. He wasn’t telling her the whole truth. She reached out and touched his chin, turning his face to hers.

“A case?”

He gave her a halfhearted grin. “An old case. They need some testimony about it. I’m so sorry to have to run out on you.”

“We’ll be fine. Are you leaving in the morning?”

“Now, actually. Garrett sent the plane. I’ll have to review my notes and the hearing starts at 7:00.”

She could feel his distraction, decided not to force it. One thing she’d learned about Baldwin, he would eventually tell her what was going on. Pushing him when he was still working things out wouldn’t get her anywhere. And she had enough on her hands here.

“Do you need a ride? I can get a patrol to take you to the airport.”

He nodded. “That would be great. Thank you.”

He kissed her, letting his hand linger for a moment around the back of her neck. He felt so…sad. It was coming off him in waves. She wished she could help, knew he’d come to her when he was ready for actual consolation.

“Honey, can I help?” she asked softly.

His answering smile was grim. “I wish you could, Taylor. But I have to handle this myself.”

Taylor watched the patrol car drive away, wondering again what in the world could drag Baldwin to Quantico at this hour. She didn’t have time to worry about it; she had too much work to do. The chill was setting in, the air crisp with cold. She shivered, started to go back inside the Vanderwoods’ when her cell rang.

It was Marcus, distraught and short.

“We have another body,” he said. “Female teen, four streets over from Estes, Warfield Lane. Completely off the original path.”

Jesus. She thought they were in the clear. There’d been no new reports for over an hour. The house-to-house canvass had calmed, people were off the streets and barricaded in their homes. The media was frustrated, being kept away from the crime scenes. Too bad. They’d be able to dine out on this news for weeks anyway.

“I’ll be right there,” she said.

Taylor bolted out the front door, ran directly into Sam. She grabbed Sam’s arm for balance, narrowly avoided falling down the front steps.

“Good grief, cookie, who lit your hair on fire?”

“Sorry about that, Sam. I’ve got another. Want to hit it with me?”

“Another? Good God. That makes, what?”

“Eight. Can we go now? Marcus just called and he’s obviously crushed.”

“Yeah. I’ll come back and declare this one afterward. Where’s Baldwin?”

“He got called back to Quantico, some sort of emergency.”

“Like this isn’t one.”

“No kidding.”

They wound their way under the crime-scene tape strung across the road and drove down a few streets to Warfield Lane. This house wasn’t as fancy as those on Estes—just a single-story cottage, but still spacious with a lovely, well-groomed yard. A pumpkin sat on the steps, not yet carved.

Marcus met them at the door, face pale.

“She’s in the back room. And just so you know, that’s not the only part of the pattern that’s broken. She’s not a Hillsboro student, she goes to St. Cecilia’s.”

Taylor took that in. “Hmm. She wasn’t in her bedroom, either?”

“No, a den. Looks like she was doing her homework. She’s on the floor behind the desk. Her mom said she likes to work in the window seat. The dog is lying next to her. He won’t leave her side.”

His voice was thick with sorrow. Taylor empathized. They were all going to be taking turns with the department shrink after this was over. Now they were up to eight. Eight teenagers in a single day. The only way it could get worse was if it had happened at school, with more children witnessing the deaths of their classmates.

A narrow hallway, voices from the kitchen. She caught a glimpse of color—a red blouse, the mother sobbing at the kitchen table—then they were at the entrance to the den. The room was paneled in walnut, small and cozy, with bookshelves lining the walls and a big bay window. Taylor and Sam stepped behind the desk.

A chocolate lab growled at them, the whites of his eyes showing. He dropped his head on his paws and whined, the hackles raised on the back of his neck.

“Down, boy. It’s okay.” She turned to Marcus. “What’s his name?”

“Ranger.”

“Okay, Ranger. It’s okay.” She inched closer. The dog seemed to sense the inevitable. He bared his teeth and snapped at her, then slowly, as if his bones ached, got to his feet. His back legs hitched as he moved. Hip dysplasia, Taylor noted absently. Poor thing was old.

“You’ve done your job, Ranger. She’ll be safe with us.” As Taylor spoke, she gently eased her hand around the dog’s neck and got ahold of his collar. She could feel him shaking. “He’s exhausted. Okay, sweet boy. Time to go.”

The dog sighed, then allowed himself to be led away. Taylor scratched him behind the ears as she handed him off to Marcus, then turned back to the body.

The girl was petite, blond hair in a disheveled ponytail, strands sneaking out and falling in tendrils around her face. Her lips were blue. She was naked from the waist up, her budding breasts smeared with blood, the top button of her jeans undone. The pentacle carved in the long curves on her flat stomach was oozing blood. Her small body started to shake.

“Wait a minute,” Sam said. “Son of a bitch. She’s convulsing.” Taylor saw a small bubble of blood form on the girl’s lip. She stared in dull horror for a moment, then both women leaped to the girl’s side. Taylor pushed her fingers into the girl’s neck, felt a tiny, thready pulsing.

“Get the EMTs! She’s alive.”

The ambulance screamed away into the night, EMTs pumping hard on the girl’s chest, her mother crying, holding her free hand. Taylor stood in the doorway to Brittany Carson’s house. Ranger was cuddled against her legs.

Sam was behind her. She ripped off her gloves, snapped, “It’s been within the last hour. And it’s definitely drugs—her pupils were fixed and pinpoint. Whatever they’ve taken, it’s some kind of narcotic.”

Taylor turned back to her best friend. “Do you think that’s why the dog wouldn’t leave her side? Because he knew she was alive?”

Sam tucked a swoop of bang behind her right ear, then rubbed her hand across her eyes. She suddenly looked older, more harassed. She sighed, then said, “I don’t know. Maybe. It’s probably a moot point. She’s lost a lot of blood, and she was cyanotic. All the other bodies were carved up postmortem. Their hearts weren’t pumping blood. Hers was a steady, slow loss. Depending on what she took…regardless, it’s definitely more recent than the others.”

Taylor watched her sharply. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m just really tired. Can’t seem to catch up on my sleep these days.” Sam stepped away, started loading her gear back into her scene kit.

“Sam?”

“What?”

“You know the last time you looked tired like this?”

“No, when?”

Taylor smiled, crossed her arms. “I don’t know, think back. Maybe…twenty, twenty-one months ago?”

Sam stopped, still and frozen in time. Her eyes met Taylor’s. “No.”

“I think that’s the wrong answer, Mommy.”

Sam sank into a chair, groaning. “No, no, no! I can’t be. Not yet, not now. I refuse. The twins just had their first birthday. Oh, shit. Simon is going to murder me.”

Taylor laughed at her best friend. “I think he might be thrilled. How far along do you think you are?”

“Hold on, I’m trying to count.” She grew silent for a moment, then said, “I can’t…oh, yeah.” She exhaled a laugh and blushed, then looked at Taylor. “I can’t be more than six weeks. Simon had that forensics conference in Denver, and I went with him. We got a suite and a sitter and had ourselves a little night out. I’ve been so freakin’ busy I didn’t even realize I missed my period.”

Taylor kneeled by the chair, swept her into a hug. “Honey, this is the most wonderful news. I’m thrilled for you.”

Sam hugged her back briefly. “Don’t tell anyone, for God’s sake. I need to warn Simon, and get to the OB. Shit, shit, shit.” But she was smiling, and the dark circles under her eyes looked a little less threatening.

Taylor gestured toward the den door. “When you warn him, let him know I may need his services. I seriously doubt you’re going to be able to handle tox and trace for all these crime scenes, and the TBI is backed up for months. We could probably ask Baldwin to send some of the samples to his lab at Quantico, but I’d rather do this quickly and quietly. I’ll arrange for some extra funding to get Simon’s lab to help you out.”

Sam’s husband, Dr. Simon Loughley, ran a firm called Private Match, one of the leading forensic specialty labs in the country. DNA matches for paternity were their bread and butter, which allowed Simon to take on outside work that fascinated him. He was always there in a pinch when Metro needed an immediate turnaround; the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation lab was so far behind on rape and murder samples that sometimes it was necessary to take their labs to independent, private vendors. It would cost, but Taylor didn’t anticipate that would be a problem. My God, six crime scenes in one day’s event? Even their notoriously tightfisted chief would agree with the necessity.

She couldn’t wait for their new crime lab to open. The funding was in place, a site selected. Everything was moving forward. No more relying on the kindness of others to get their pressing forensic evidence processed.

The dog whined at the door, jerking Taylor from her reverie.

“Okay. On that happy note, we need to get back to work.” She looked at the blood that had soaked into the carpet where Brittany Carson had lain bleeding to death. “Wish we’d gotten here sooner. She might’ve had a better chance.”

“How were you supposed to know? Are you telepathic now?”

“No, but—”

Sam shook her head. “No buts about it. You’re not a mind reader. You’ve got a killer who’s obviously thought this through very, very carefully. I’m praying this is the last call we get tonight.”

A horrible thought dawned in Taylor’s mind. “Do you think he could have been watching, waiting for us to arrive, before he came down here and finished up with Brittany?”

“Watching? Sure. You know how these kooks love to watch. He could have been at one of the houses at the far end of the neighborhood while we were in one of the other residences.”

“Jesus. The media is going to have my head.”

Sam was back to being all professional. She and Sam hadn’t hung out in a few weeks, and Taylor missed her. “Taylor, you’ve done the best you can. Let’s get back, I still have two bodies to declare.”

“Okay. Let me tell Marcus, I’ll need to come back here later.”

She found him in the kitchen, staring hard out the back window into nothingness. His shoulders were slumped in defeat. She knew exactly what was going through his mind. Blame, guilt. Taylor decided to give him the same pep talk Sam had just given her.

“Hey,” she said softly. “It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.”

He met her eyes, bleak with despair. “She didn’t have a pulse earlier, Taylor. I swear it. The EMT who came couldn’t find one, either. Jesus, she’s been lying here dying while I chatted up her mom and figured a way to get the dog to leave her side.”

Ranger sat heavily on Marcus’s feet. He reached down and petted the dog absently.

“Did the mom have any idea what went down this afternoon?”

“No. She’s a single mother, a nurse. Name’s Elissa. She worked late, came home and found Brittany in the den. Brittany’s a scholarship student, I did find that out. Strait-laced, shy. Her mom says there’s no way she was doing drugs voluntarily.”

“There’s no sign of forced entry. Whoever tried to kill her, she let him in.”

“She’s younger than the others, too. I’ve got a patrol canvassing, but this house is set back so far that no one has come forward yet to say they saw anything out of the ordinary.”

“Then we need to start looking for the ordinary. A killer who can disappear into this neighborhood for hours unnoticed.”

“Caucasian, then. Dressed professionally, or in a Halloween costume. It could be anyone.”

“Could be a kid.”

“You think another kid did this?”

“I don’t know. But we need to take that into consideration.”

“If we’d just gotten to her earlier,” he repeated, voice hollow.

She got in his face, forced him to make eye contact.

“Marcus, let’s just focus on the now. Get me a report from the hospital, and let’s take it from there. If the girl lives, post a guard on her room. She’s the only witness we have to this afternoon’s events. I need to get back to Estes—there are still two bodies that Sam hasn’t declared. Take it easy on yourself. Get the patrols to secure this house and we’ll come back to it. This one goes in the win column. Okay?”

“Okay,” he mumbled, misery etched on his handsome features. He wasn’t fooling her. She’d need to talk him off the ledge some more, but right now she needed to attend to the rest of the dead.

“Here, I’ve got something that will distract you. I think our killer may be watching us, waiting to see our reactions. We need to talk to everyone within one hundred yards of these crime scenes that might have a video camera trained our way. Check with the media first. They know to get some crowd shots in the B-roll, and Keri McGee will, too. I’ve noticed some of these homes have a little extra security—they may have cameras that aren’t readily visible. Get through to the security firms in the area, see if any of them service houses near the crime scenes. Can you handle that for me?”

“Of course.” He nodded, putting away the upset, becoming all business again. His eyes shuttered and he snapped open his cell phone, started giving instructions. Taylor squeezed his shoulder and went to join Sam.

She closed the front door and stepped onto the small porch. She stopped for a moment, took a deep breath and blew it out. What a night. Eight kids. Eight.

She started down the steps and caught a flash out of the corner of her eye. She whipped to the side, flat up against the railing, her hand on her Glock. She heard a snap, then the rushing of feet through dry leaves. A mounted spotlight turned on in the backyard.

“Sam, get down,” she stage-whispered, then took off around the corner of the house, yelling, “Police, stop!” The house’s lights were on a motion detector, and the heavily wooded lot was lit up like a Christmas tree. Taylor stopped for a moment, let her eyes adjust to the light, listened to the steps running away from her, stumbling into the darkness.

“Marcus,” she yelled, but he was already next to her, gun drawn.

“I saw the lights go on. What’s up?”

“Someone was on the side of the house, took off running. They’re headed west, deeper into these trees. What’s on the other side?”

“Hobbs Road. There’s nothing between us and there.”

“Okay, slow and steady. Watch out for yourself. You take the left perimeter, I’ll take the right. Let’s see if we can’t circle around and catch him before he hits the road.”

“You get a look at him?”

“No. Heavy footsteps though.” Taylor wasn’t an idiot—she wasn’t about to set off without backup. She grabbed her radio. “All units, this is Lieutenant Jackson, in pursuit of an unknown subject running west toward Hobbs Road. We’re at 2135 Warfield Lane. I need a K-9 unit on the scene, repeat, get Simari and Max out here ASAP.”

There were affirmatives, and she stowed the radio. They jogged off at slight right angles into the woods. The fog was heavier here, the leaves on the trees turned so their under-sides were showing, aglow in the feeble moonlight. The mist enveloped them—Taylor could hardly see Marcus, though he was running relatively parallel to her, within fifteen feet.

It got darker as they moved away from the Carsons’ backyard, and they slowed. This was no good. This was definitely no good. A small rain started up, spattering against her face. The loamy scent of rotting leaves grew stronger. She could still hear their suspect thrashing in the dark, probably fifty yards ahead of them. The thick haze and lack of light meant he’d slowed, too. That helped. She started off again, at a walk, weapon at her side.

A hard crack made her draw up short and dive behind the nearest tree. Her Glock was tight in her palm, her forefinger alongside the trigger. Her heart hammered in her throat—what was that? She listened, felt her chest rise and fall frantically, inhaling deeply through her nose so she could catch her breath. Another sharp snap went off, then another, a whole string of cherry bombs. A firecracker, definitely not a gun. Son of a bitch.

Something about the fact that the calendar denoted a holiday meant the fine people of Nashville felt it their duty to celebrate, and firecrackers, illegal in Davidson County, were their favorite pastime.

Her heart went back to a manageable pace and she whistled to Marcus, slow and quiet. He answered, a decent imitation of a whip-poor-will, trilling at the end, and they set off again, more cautiously this time.

She could see maybe five to ten feet in front of her. She held up again, heard the whoosh of tires on wet pavement. They were getting close to the road. Throaty, staccato barks bled in from the south. Simari had arrived, and Max, her canine companion, was on the hunt. It wouldn’t be long now. Max was nimble and quick, could take down a suspect in a fraction of the time of a human officer during a chase. It was amazing to watch, and Taylor was sorry the visibility was so bad.

It took about a minute before she heard cries to her left. She turned and saw a thin path, jogged up it into a small clearing. Max had done his job and landed the suspect, had his strong jaw clamped around the man’s leg. Officers converged from all sides, Maglites focused on their suspect, weapons drawn. Simari called Max off with a command in German. He whined, but released the suspect’s jeans from his mouth, trotted back to his master with a satisfied air. Simari always fed Max a bloody, raw steak when he had a successful takedown; the German shepherd would be rewarded fully tonight.

Their suspect was moaning, holding his leg like it had been amputated high across his thigh. Taylor approached him carefully, but quickly saw that he was, indeed, down for the count. Blood pooled beneath his torn jeans. Max had taken a decent chunk of flesh out of the man’s leg.

No, it wasn’t a man. The flashlights showed a smooth, round face. This was a boy, Caucasian, no more than thirteen or fourteen. Short for his age, it seemed.

The adrenaline was leaking away; everyone was giddy, joking and laughing. People began to disappear off into the night, back to their cars, back to the multiple crime scenes they’d been pulled away from.