Dark Wings Descending (2 page)

Dr. Alan slapped her gently on her shoulder. “Finish up your job, son, and I’ll get this lady taken away from here.”

Ashley nodded distractedly as she heard more cars pulling up. Taking this as her cue, she faked looking at her camera in dismay. “Oh Christ, Doc, I’m sorry. I’ve been running on empty. The damn camera has no memory card in it.” She stepped back from the body. “What a stupid amateur mistake. The boss will have my head if he finds out. I’ll be back in just a second. I need to go get one from my case.” She watched from the corner of her eye as Dr. Alan just sighed and stared back up at the stars.

Ashley left the crime scene and dodged under the tape. There was a growing crowd of officers all huddled together keeping the fast-arriving press and interested onlookers back from the alley. She spotted Detective Stephanie Powell gathering people together. Ashley let her eyes linger just a second longer than usual.
Please tell me you’re not in charge now that a third murder makes this a serial case and headline news at ten every night
. She saw another detective rush past Powell, a man who appeared to be in his late thirties, quite tall and boyishly handsome. He seemed to be making a path for the detective who was following him with a much slower gait. Ashley’s curiosity got the better of her and she stopped to see who this other detective was. It was a woman, at least five feet eight, making her easily as tall as her male counterpart. She was slender but broad-shouldered. Ashley was surprised to note she looked oddly frail as she walked past. Her handsome face was also strangely mottled under the moon’s waning light. A woolen beanie hat embroidered with a police shield was pulled down over her head, hiding any clue to her hair color. Ashley grinned as the male reached out a hand to the woman only to receive a withering glare in response.

“Just show me the damn body, Dean, and quit with the nursemaid attitude.”

Ashley liked the deep quality to her voice, even colored by the exasperation audible in it. She wondered at the story behind his solicitude. Aware she needed to leave, Ashley disappeared into the crowd, cradling her camera protectively to her as she passed Crime Scene Photographer Jim Pope as he headed toward the scene. She heard Officer Atkinson remark, “How many more pictures are you taking tonight?” but never heard his reply as he set about doing his job. Ashley slipped through the cars that lined the alley and crossed the road.

Out of sight of prying eyes she
shifted
; a glimmering, sparkling, golden tone colored her world for a moment and then dissipated. Ashley watched her reflection in a small window as she lost the appearance of a young man with short cropped hair and a height of at least six feet dressed in his CSI uniform. Left behind was a much shorter woman, sporting tousled blond hair and wearing a long black jacket over her black shirt and jeans. She stared at the reflection looking back at her. “Still a neat trick,” she told herself and headed for home.

*

Entering her apartment building, Ashley chuckled quietly at the boy who sat sprawled in his chair, supposedly keeping watch. His head was back, his mouth wide open as he slept.

“Nice to know you’re keeping the building safe, Jeffrey,” Ashley whispered, electing to take the stairs to her second-floor apartment so as not to disturb him with the elevator’s noisy arrival. The building was silent. Everyone else was apparently asleep as she walked down the corridor to her door. She opened it and reached in to switch the lights on. She studiously ignored the drabness of her hastily rented apartment, trying once again to quell the desire for a home of her own. She didn’t even flinch when a voice spoke from her living room.

“Was it the same pattern as the others?”

Ashley locked the door behind her and just stared at the man in the room. He was incredibly tall and impossibly slender, his hair a blond that was almost gold. His attention was fixed squarely on the photos attached to a board resting on an easel.

“Good morning to you too, Eli. Please, do make yourself at home.” Ashley tossed her keys onto the small table by the door and wandered into the room. She had to physically nudge Eli out of her way to switch her laptop on. “You need to scoot over, Eli. You’re in my way. Stop hogging the death board.” He stepped back absently, his attention never wavering as she puttered around him. Ashley watched with satisfaction as the laptop booted up. “If you see anything, any kind of signature to what this guy is doing, please don’t hesitate to speak up. I could do with the help.” She removed the memory card from her camera and popped it into her laptop’s SD slot. Eli crowded in behind her and peered over her shoulder. “What the hell has gotten into you? You’re quieter than usual, which isn’t saying much, I know, but you’re beginning to creep me out!”

Eli stepped back but his eyes flicked between the laptop screen and the board. “There is something very wrong about these deaths.”

Pulling up the new photos on her screen, Ashley cut Eli an incredulous look. “They are incredibly violent, gruesome, bloody deaths.” She straightened to look at him. “Wrong doesn’t even begin to cover it.” She set the photographs to run as a slideshow. She and Eli watched the tableau of shots flash by one after another as the scene was captured in its vile testament to evil. Ashley watched each photo with a growing sense of unease.

“Eli, I don’t think this guy is going to stop any time soon.” She was barely able to suppress a shudder as a photo flashed up of the woman’s terrified face, twisted and contorted in her final moments.

Eli craned his neck for a look at one particularly graphic close-up. “I’d say he’s just gotten started.” He straightened again, then turned his attention to the easel behind him. “You’re going to need a bigger board,” he pointed out drolly.

Ashley couldn’t help but laugh at Eli’s comment, glad for the slight lightening of the mood. She headed for the small kitchen just off the main room, opened up the fridge, and removed a bottle of beer. She twisted off the lid and drank deeply. “I think it’s time I go find out what the police investigation has managed to find out about these women.”

“Yes, now that
you’re
here…”

“Yes, now that I am here I can go do my magic trick and walk into the Chicago Police Department. I can gather intel and walk right back out again.” Ashley took another long drink from her bottle, not thirsty anymore but needing the bitter taste to sharpen her senses. “I got here in time to see body number two.” She gestured to the board littered with the photographs of the second victim. “And tonight I’ve got body number three to add to the wall. I need to gather information on the first woman killed and see if their autopsy reports have something we just can’t see by looking at the body via Kodak.”

“Do you know who the lead detective is?”

“I couldn’t tell, but they had the press darling Stephanie Powell courting the news crews again.”

Eli looked less than impressed. “They need a better lead to run this case.”

“I think she’s just the camera fodder. Three deaths, all with their backs opened up and their spines on display. They’re going to need more than the hotshot poster girl for the Chicago Police Department to solve this.” Ashley remembered the leggy chief of detectives, her long black hair pulled back from her face, makeup skillfully applied. Her brand of femininity would settle best in front of the cameras to assure the public that there was nothing to fear in their fair city. Ashley grinned to herself.
Pretty, yes, but so not my kind of woman
. Her mind drifted to the other detectives she’d seen on scene. “I saw two other detectives there. I think they’re the ones on the case.”

“I hear they have assigned a secret task force,” Eli said as his long fingers flicked over the laptop keyboard to set the slideshow off again.

“And where did you hear that?” Ashley asked, knowing all too well.

“The same place that told me I needed to call you in on these cases.”

“You and your secret missions, Eli. It’s enough to turn a girl’s head.”

“It got you a trip to Chicago.”

Ashley stared around the shabby apartment she was now calling home. “Yeah, whoop dee freakin’ doo. Three women savagely killed. It’s not exactly something that you want in the tourist brochure for the Windy City, is it?” She carried her bottle away with her toward the bedroom at the rear of the apartment. “I’ll leave you to it. I’m going to try and sleep before I go face that task force you mentioned earlier.”

“The DDU,” Eli said.

“DDU? And what does that stand for?”

“Deviant Data Unit.”

“What?” Ashley made a face. “Catchy title, if a little weird. Do you have to be a deviant to join that squad?”

“Be sure to ask them,” he said.

“I might just do that. Maybe they’ll have a spot free for me.”

Detective Rafe Douglas rested back against the wall of the elevator as her partner, Detective Dean Jackson, pressed the button for their new floor. He turned to her with a big grin creasing his face.

“Geez, I’m off work for a little while and they’ve already moved my desk,” Rafe grumbled good-naturedly as the elevator took them up to the third floor instead of their regular first-floor office.

“We got moved to a bigger office more fitting for the DDU, Rafe. You’ll find the view much more pleasant from this height, I assure you.” Dean gestured for Rafe to precede him.

Rafe slowly walked down the corridor to her new office trying not to be obvious that she was favoring her left side. She’d been a part of the Deviant Data Unit for a few months now, and its importance among the other task forces was finally paying off. Other Deviant Data Units had been set up around the country for her to access and compare information. The data streaming in was vast, and every team assigned to the units was kept busy following leads and chasing down suspects. Rafe gritted her teeth as each step pulled at her still-healing side.
Guess I’ll be leaving the chasing to others for a while
, she mourned and watched as Dean hurried before her to open the door.

“I can still press elevator buttons and open doors all by myself, Detective.” She was frustrated by his need to look after her.

“Stop bitching and come see our new digs,” Dean said, ignoring her mood as always. He gestured to the door. “Welcome to the new DDU.”

Rafe dutifully noted the crisp lettering on the door announcing the unit and its officers. She waited until Dean opened the door for her and stopped abruptly with just one foot through. “Christ, they emptied the whole of Best Buy.”

“Detective Douglas, I’m so glad to see you back.” Officer Alona Wilson got to her feet and went to Rafe’s side. “We missed you here.” The young African-American officer’s eyes searched Rafe’s battered face as Rafe removed her beanie hat and revealed her seriously shorn hair. Rafe knew the stitches across her skull showed up starkly against the dark brown stubble left on her head. “Well, you’ve looked better.”

Rafe bit back a smile. “You should see the other guy.” She looked around the room at all the hardware lined up on desks and on the walls. “You’re our resident tech geek. How cool a haul is in this room?”

Alona’s answering grin said it all. “We have a tech geek’s wet dream here. I oversaw the installations myself, and everything has been up and running for a week without a glitch. I can go through the basics with you and you’ll be up to speed in no time.”

“Yeah, it’s that easy,” Dean said, rolling his eyes.

Alona cut him a look. “For those of us who know how to turn on our computers correctly, this is child’s play.” She gestured around the room. “We have various computers gathering data, all with easy access. The search engines are so simple even Detective Jackson here can’t mess it up.” She added under her breath, “Even though he’s tried, many times.” She pointed to a new widescreen monitor. “This is my baby.” She reverently ran her hand along the side of the huge screen that dominated the back wall. “Watch.” She tapped in a few keystrokes on her keyboard and brought up a picture. She then seemingly swiped the picture from her screen and Rafe watched as it appeared on the big screen behind her. Alona reached out and enlarged the photo with her hands, moving the picture across the screen as if she were physically handling something real and not just an image. “How cool is that?”

Rafe was impressed. “Seriously cool.”

Alona manipulated the photo again and then with a flick of her hand sent it back to the other computer. Rafe shared a conspiratorial look with Alona. “How long was this installed before Dean asked if he could bring his Xbox in?”

“Twenty-five minutes exactly,” Alona said. “I timed him.”

Dean spluttered behind them. “Hey! I resent that!”

Alona just laughed at him. “She knows you too well, Detective, as do I.”

Dean shrugged off their amusement. “So what if I feel a screen that large would be better served in a rousing gun battle online with my pals than it is in here used to display the deviants from which we get our unit name?”

Rafe couldn’t argue his point. “Just don’t even think of sneaking that console in here.” She barely registered the sound of him nudging his messenger bag further under his desk to hide it. She was too busy staring around the office in wonder at the screens sifting through endless streams of data. She caught one screen flashing up photographs of people. She cocked her head at Alona. “You know how all of these work?”