Do You Want To Play: A Detroit Police Procedural Romance (7 page)

WE DON’T FIND Jasmine in her usual spot near the Greektown Casino. We return to the police station and the FBI uses the station’s surveillance cameras to get a snapshot of Jasmine’s face. They transfer the snapshot onto their computer and it compares the image to driver’s licenses. We watch the laptop’s screen as it shuffles through thousands of photographs and assigns each one a percentage as to how close it matches Jasmine’s image.

I pace back and forth in the break room as Lauren chews on her lip.

“If it turns out that she’s the killer and we let her loose…” she says, voicing my own fears.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say, trying to reassure myself as well. “We have her now.”

The air in the room is stifling, but I don’t want to leave Lauren alone with her thoughts. I don’t want to be alone either. It’s like we have assimilated into one mind and share the same emotions. I feel her fear and confusion like a dagger, while she feels my anger and shame.

“I can’t breathe,” she says, standing up. I nod, glad that she said it before I did. We walk out of the building, our movements synchronized. As soon as we’re outside, Lauren kneels on the ground, no longer able to stand.

“I was kind to her, Tobias,” she says. “I gave her money. I felt bad for her. I thought…I thought she was a good person despite her circumstances. I got everything wrong about her.”

“You don’t know that yet,” I say. “There could be other explanations. I could be completely wrong.”

She shakes her head. “It’s Friday night. She would have been at her corner…but she’s not because she knew we were on to her. She knew we were closing in on her, so she ran.”

“She’s been a con artist for a long time, Lauren,” I say. “I’m sure she has convinced a lot of people that she was the victim.”

“I’m a detective,” she says. “And an expert at reading body language. I should have been able to tell when she was lying.”

“We will find her,” I say. “We will get her to confess whatever she knows…if she is even involved.”

“She won’t be where she’s living,” she says. “She’s probably out of the state by now.”

“The FBI will track her down then,” I say. “As much as I hate it, that’s their job. But we can get into her house and apartment, search it over…see if we can find anything that hints at where she went.”

Before Lauren can respond, an FBI agent rushes out toward us, waving a piece of paper.

“We have her address,” the agent says. “Her name is Nina Wayland.”

Lauren beats me to my car by a second. My heart beats hard in my chest and I can almost feel Lauren’s thrumming right beside it.

~~~~~

The FBI crashes through the apartment door first. I raise my gun and quickly scan the hallway. I see two FBI agents stop in the doorway of another room, their faces changing from confusion to disappointment and then to sadness. I make it to the doorway as the two of them walk into a bedroom.

I spin around and grab Lauren before she can see. I pull her back toward the entrance door.

“What?” she asks. “What’s going on? Did she save body parts of the victims or something? Are there photographs of me?”

“No,” I say. “Jasmine wasn’t the killer.”

“Nina,” she corrects. “Her real name is Nina Wayland. Jasmine was a way for her to disguise herself. What makes you so certain that she’s not the killer? Is the killer here?”

“No,” I repeat. I glance around us—it occurs to me now that I’m not sure if he’s here, but I need to have faith that the FBI is checking because I need to protect Lauren. Her fingers brush against my arm.

“What is it, Tobias?” she asks. “What happened? What’s in there?”

“It’s another body,” I say. Her forehead furrows for a second before realization hits her and grief overtakes her features.

“It’s Jasmine,” she says quietly. “The PVP killer murdered Jasmine.”

I nod. She tries to move past me, but I grab her and push her against the wall. She struggles against my grip.

“You don’t want to go in there, Lauren,” I say. “It’s bad.”

“Tobias, I have seen the other crime scene photos,” she says. “We are investigating this together. I need to see the body. We need to catch this bastard.”

In my grip, her body changes from hard muscle that’s straining against me to something that can barely keep itself standing. She falls against my chest, her nails digging into my arms, and her sobbing shaking her whole body. It’s the same as it had been at the police station—I can feel her grief, her distress, her pain like it’s my own. It weighs down my chest and I know it’s something I won’t ever be able to lift off.

I can hear her thoughts because they are the same thoughts I am having. We thought she was the killer. We put all of this blame on her and in the end…we are likely the ones that led the PVP killer to decide to murder her.

I can sense the FBI agents walking through the hall near us, but all I can take notice of is Lauren pressed against my body, the way her hair smells like cherry blossoms, and the steady beat of her heart against my chest. Her crying slows. My hand slides from her hair down to her arm. Even if she is the one that has been crying, I find the warmth of her body comforting.

“I want…to see her,” Lauren says, her voice balancing between fragile and steady.

“Okay,” I say because there is nothing else I can do. I keep my hand on the small of her back as I lead her to the bedroom. Jasmine is lying on her side on the bed as if she had fallen asleep. I keep my eyes on Lauren as she notices Jasmine’s two broken fingers, the blood trailing down from her nose, the crack in her skull, the blood spatter that’s scattered on the ceiling, and finally to the wide-open, ocean-blue eyes.

“Do you know what game this is from?” I ask her. She shakes her head.

“I don’t think it’s a game,” she says. “All of the other deaths were meticulous. This one seems…like a crime of passion. He was angry…crushed her skull…and then staged her body, so we would think that she was just another part in his serial killing. Do you smell that?”

I nod. “Bleach. I noticed it when we first walked in. He cleaned up.”

“Except he was in enough of a hurry that he forgot the ceiling. Which he has never done before,” she says. “Which means he was messy this time. I’m guessing he washed up everything, wiped his fingerprints off anything he touched…but this was still a big mistake for him.”

“It was,” I agree. “And he will live to regret it.”

She glances up at me. Her eyes are outlined in pink from crying, but there are no longer any tears in her eyes.

“This guy is an animal,” she says. “We need to put him down.”

I’ve always tried to keep my emotions out of my work because I don’t want my emotions to affect my actions, but now I feel a primal rage bubble inside me. I would put him down—for every victim, for every victim’s family, for causing Lauren one more loss in her life. I would pull the trigger for every one of them.

~~~~~

TOBIAS AND I buy enough alcohol at the liquor store that I’m sure the cashier would have thought we were supplying a fraternity, if Tobias hadn’t flashed his badge as he took out his wallet. We settle in his living room with vodka and whiskey. We line up shots like teenagers and drink like college students.

“So…who is your favorite serial killer?” he asks.

“Really?” I laugh. “You think I look at serial killers like young girls look at boy bands?”

“Yes, I do,” he says. I laugh again. I can’t help it. The alcohol is making everything seem so carefree.

“Well, the obvious answer would be Aileen Wuornos, Michigan-born serial killer who had a troubled past and killed the men who were paying her for sex,” I say. “But I want to impress you, so for lesser-known serial killers, I’ll go with Delfina and María de Jesús González. They were sisters who killed their prostitutes and their johns. Their kill count went up to ninety-one. What about you?”

“I always found the Zodiac Killer interesting,” he says. “Because he had the ciphers and the police never figured it out. I thought that it was intriguing that the killer seemed so completely unaffected by his murders, the fact that he killed even though he had a high IQ, and he saw his murders and ciphers as more of a way to taunt the whole world. But now that the PVP killer is doing the same thing, it just irritates me. If a person thinks they can take someone else’s life, they shouldn’t hide behind notes and secret messages.”

“It is terrible,” I agree. “How does a person justify killing strangers?”

“They don’t,” he says. “They don’t feel the need to answer to anybody. They just do it.”

He leans forward and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.

“Do you know what I thought when I first saw you?” he asks, the alcohol on our breath mixing as he stays leaning toward me.

“Who’s this annoying shrink that’s taking over my case?” I joke. He chuckles.

“Well, that was my second thought,” he says. “My first thought was coffee.”

“Coffee?” I ask.

“Lattes to be specific,” he says. He twirls a strand of my hair around his finger. “I thought it was your hair that made me think of that, but I think…it’s you. Sweet and warm…invigorating.”

“I think you’re a little drunk,” I tease.

“So are you.”

When his lips touch mine, all of my senses feel like they awaken. The whiskey tastes better in my mouth, his fingertips are rough and insistent on my waist, and his body heat seems to wrap around my skin and pull me on top of him.

As I pull my pale pink dress over my head and Tobias looks at me with rapture, I know that this is the kind of thrill that serial killers look for their whole lives. They believe that they want to feel power and control, but what they are really missing is a person who makes them feel human.

~~~~~

WHEN I WAKE UP, my head feels too heavy to lift and my tongue feels like sandpaper. Lauren is asleep with her head on my chest and her thighs intertwined around one of my legs. She looks so beautiful that it doesn’t seem fair. I slide my leg out from under her as slowly as I can and carefully slide her onto the couch. She snuggles into the kitchen, mumbling about flour and dingoes.

I get to my bathroom and check myself in the mirror. Even at thirty-three years old, I’ve begun to feel old. The stress of being a cop in Detroit can add decades onto your life. But now, here with Lauren, I feel renewed. I feel like I am in my mid-twenties, except with all of the knowledge that life brings. This is what I’ve needed. I thought I didn’t need a woman to complicate my life, but Lauren has made everything simple. Protect her. Take care of her. Love her. Let her love me.

I close my eyes, remembering the feeling of her body on top of mine and her long legs smooth against my skin. It’s almost enough to make me feel short of breath again.

I grab my toothbrush and squirt some toothpaste onto it. As I begin to brush, I hear Lauren beginning to move in the other room. She wanders to the bathroom doorframe as I rinse my mouth. She smiles, hiding half of herself behind the wall.

“So…” she says. “Is this…something?”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I mean…were we both drunk…so did that happen because—”

I grab her by both sides of her face and kiss her. She still tastes sweet, with the faintest hint of alcohol. I lower my hands to her waist and take a step back.

“You need to stop analyzing everything,” I say. Her fingertips press against her lips. “Remember? You told me that it was hard for you to be happy because you’re always analyzing everything. Just be happy.”

“Maybe I should stop overthinking everything,” she says. She grabs a white towel off a hook near the door and wraps it around her body. She suddenly freezes.

“What?” I ask.

“Jasmine…did you notice at her house what she was wearing?” she asks.

“….Clothes?” I guess.

“She was wearing a man’s shirt,” she says. “It was way too big for her to be wearing and it didn’t have the right form to be for a woman.”

“Maybe she got it at a thrift shop,” I say. “Maybe it was donated to a church and she got it from there.”

“No,” she says. “Jasmine did well at selling herself, and everything else she owned was the best that money could buy—she was wearing Guess jeans. Do you know how expensive that is?”

“No,” I say.

“Guess is one of the most expensive brands in the world,” she says. “I think she was dating someone. And that someone was likely the one who killed her, which would mean…”

“She was dating the killer,” I finish. I shake my head. “So, she tells him that the police are asking questions, he gives her the box to give to us, and then…”

“He cracks her skull to silence her forever,” she says. We exchange a look.

“We have to get to the police station and figure out what they found in her apartment,” I say. “I guess Jasmine did manage to fool us.”

“She’s still a victim,” Lauren says. “I’m sure that she thought she was doing everything for love and…it didn’t work out.”

“Do you think she knew that he was the PVP killer?” I ask. “Or did he convince her of something else? He could have said he was being framed or that he only killed one person.”

“I don’t know,” she says. “I just know that she didn’t deserve to die.”

She wraps her arms around my waist and kisses the back of my shoulder.

“It looks like this guy is slipping up more and more,” she says. “We’ll get him.”

I kiss the top of her head. My concern over the PVP killer has surged to an alpine level. As I watch Lauren turn on the water in the shower, I realize it’s because, for the first time, I have something to lose.

~~~~~

“There’s no evidence in the house that she was dating anyone,” Jared Fowler, one of our forensic analysts says. “Not exactly.”

“What does
not exactly
mean?” I ask. Jared, Lauren, and I stand in Jared’s lab as he works on a home robbery case, where it appears that the thief broke the window of the house with a rock and ended up cutting his arm on the glass. The police had plenty of DNA evidence from that. I almost envy the robbery department.

“Well, as Miss Williams pointed out, there was no way that Nina Wayland could afford her lifestyle by herself,” Jared says. “But there was also something else in the house that seemed odd for a woman to own. Evidently, it’s not indisputable, but…”

He picks up a small, circular glass container that has nothing in it.

“What am I looking at?” I ask.

“A contact lens,” he says. I peer into the container closer and see the smallest bit of plastic in it.

“What does this have to do with Jasmine dating?”

“Well, I had a hunch because there were no other signs that Nina Wayland had vision problems,” he says. “So I checked with the eye doctor that she saw about six years ago. She had 20/20 vision during her last visit. It is possible that she received these from someone who isn’t a doctor…but I am highly skeptical that her vision changed that much, and there were no other contact lenses in the house or any cleaning solution. There wasn’t even a case to store the lenses. It’s not indisputable…someone could have been visiting and lost their contact lenses…but I wear contacts and the only time you take them out is—”

“Right before you go to sleep,” I finish. “Which means that whoever was wearing them stayed the night.”

“I guess we can rule out anyone who is wearing glasses,” Lauren says. “Unless they recently began wearing them because they lost their contact lens.”

“I don’t think so,” Jared says. “Nina Wayland had some defensive wounds on her arms and legs. I would surmise that she put up quite a fight. I would bet good money that if the killer was wearing glasses, they would have broken during the struggle.”

“So, no glasses,” I say. “Is there a way to figure out who that contact lens belonged to?”

“No, sorry,” Jared says. “All I can tell you is that the owner wore it a lot longer than he should have, because it’s worn out.”

“Great. Well, at least we can look into anyone who gets a contact lens prescription and cross out anyone who wears glasses,” I say.

“You might also want to be more discreet,” Jared says, peering into a microscope. Lauren and I exchange a look. Did he figure out that the messages from the killer were to Lauren?

“About what?” I ask.

“Your coitus,” he says. I groan.

“How can you tell?”

“Well, Lauren is wearing clothes that she must have worn yesterday and they were bunched up on the floor by the sheer number of wrinkles in them. She is also not wearing make-up, which is abnormal for her. This all points to the fact that she did not sleep in her own apartment and she undressed in a hurry,” he says. “And you…you’re wearing cologne and you combed your hair, which is abnormal for you. You also both look more relaxed than I have ever seen either of you. It weirds me out.”

“What are you? Sherlock Holmes?” I ask.

“No, I just pay attention,” he says. He removes a slide from under the microscope and replaces it with a different one. “Other people prefer to ignore all of the little details.”

“Well, I guess we don’t have to worry about being more discreet if other people aren’t going to notice,” I say. Even with his face hidden behind a microscope, I can see the corner of his lip turn up.

“I guess not,” he says.

~~~~~