Neck & Neck (41 page)

 

 

NATALIE STOOD IN THE CENTER OF THE PALATIAL ballroom of the palatial Hotchkiss estate and smiled with much satisfaction at a job well done. Not only had she amended the party to include another hundred guests, but she’d handed out her business card to a good two dozen people tonight. The costume theme, which she’d worried might present a problem when people had to come up with something mere days before the party, was proving to be a lot of fun, and she smiled at the inventiveness of some of the outfits.

And some of the strangeness, too. For instance, Dean Waterman was there with Finn’s friend Danetta, both sporting black leather and silver studs, making Natalie wonder if they were supposed to be members of Hell’s Angels or some kind of S and M, B and D couple. Surely, it must be the motorcycle motif they were going for. Surely. And Tootie Hightower, who Natalie had hoped to see dressed as a giant gourmet weenie, was instead dressed in a harem girl costume that made her ass look a mile wide. And—hah—she had come stag.

Russell, appropriately, had come as the little tycoon man from the Monopoly game, and Max looked as if he were in his element as a surfer dude. Their PR folks had sent out a fairly detailed press release the day of the
Investigator
story, and father and son had made a handful of television appearances and given a couple of interviews to major newspapers, all with the promise that they would make themselves more available the following week when they returned home to Seattle. Where, Russell had mentioned to Finn and Natalie, Ginny and Maisy and Hazel would be summering with them once school was out. And maybe more than summering, too, he’d further hinted, not so subtly, much to Finn’s amazement.

But not so much to Natalie’s. She understood how easy it was to fall once you met the right person.

She glanced around for Ginny and found her, not surprisingly, at Russell’s side. Dressed, interestingly, as a French maid. Funny, but that just didn’t seem like the sort of thing a wholesome, girl-next-door type like her would be. Then again, a lot of people used costume parties as an excuse to be something they normally never would. Natalie had gone with Marie Antoinette herself, symbolically thumbing her nose at the idea of being so tragic a figure earlier in the week.

She searched the room for Finn, who had promised not to go far, then smiled when she saw him striding toward her with a bottle of beer in one hand and a flute of champagne in the other. He’d claimed he was dressed as Jack Kerouac, but he just looked like some guy in blue jeans and a white shirt to her. A copy of
On the Road
tucked into one’s back pocket did not a costume make, as far as she was concerned, but she certainly wasn’t going to chastise one of the guests. Especially one who had decided to lengthen his stay in Louisville for a little while longer. To explore the great restaurant and arts scene, he’d said. To see if the people were really as friendly and the community as diverse as she claimed.

And then, making her heart soar a little, adding that he wanted to see just how “not too unbearable” the summers were. She’d advised him that the true test was August, and he’d said that wasn’t a problem, that he had a lot of vacation time coming, and Russell and Max would be on a speaking tour for the next few months, and he wasn’t a big fan of being on the road, Kerouac costume notwithstanding. He’d said some of the other guys on the security detail could handle it. With any luck, Natalie thought now, she could get him to stick around for a spectacular fall, too. Or maybe he could show her a Seattle autumn, and they could visit with Russell and Ginny and what was looking to become their blended family.

Natalie wasn’t picky. As long as she was with Finn, she didn’t care where they were. She knew Louisville like the back of her hand. She could plan events from anywhere, provided she came home for a while from time to time. And provided Finn came with her. And since he was head of security for Mulholland Games and could give himself time off pretty much whenever he wanted . . .

Oh, yeah. This was gonna work out just fiiine.

“I would have brought you some cake, too, Marie,” Finn said as he handed her the champagne, “but they’re running out.”

Natalie sipped the bubbly wine, then snapped the fingers of her free hand without concern. “Let them eat Bourbon balls.”

He laughed, looping an arm around her waist and pulling her close. Or, at least, he would have pulled her close, if it hadn’t been for all the hoops in her skirt. As it was, he pretty much just wrestled the garment into submission, gave Natalie a quick kiss on the lips, then let her go before the hoops bounced back and sent her orbiting into the celestial ballroom ceiling.

He shook his head in disapproval. “What were you thinking when you got the costume with more clothes than for a Maine winter?”

“I was thinking how much fun it would be for you to help me take them all off later.”

He brightened at that. “Oh. Okay. I can see the attraction now.” He dropped his gaze pointedly at his watch. “How much longer do we have to stay?”

She laughed. “ ’Til the end, I’m afraid. I’m the event planner, you know. I’m the one in charge.”

He nodded. “For now. But at the event
I
have planned later, Miss Antoinette, you’re going to have to be a little more submissive.”

She smiled. “I thought that was Dean’s costume tonight.”

Finn smiled back. “If Danetta has her way, it’ll be his costume every night.”

Oh, Natalie did so like it when everything worked out the way it was supposed to.

She looked down at her watch, too, then at the crowd surrounding her. The buffets—all three of them—were well-stocked, the servers were weaving their way through the crowd to keep everyone’s refreshment, ah, refreshed, and Clementine was beside herself with Russell on her arm. Everything was exactly as it was supposed to be. Everything.

Finn moved as close as he could, then bent forward until his mouth was next to her ear. “You know, Natalie,” he said in a voice she’d come to recognize very well by now. He looked down at her skirt, then back at her. “That’s an awfully big skirt you have there. A man could get lost under a skirt like that.” He leaned in closer. “Unless he knew exactly what he was looking for.”

She glanced down, but her gaze halted at his waist instead of her own. “That’s an awfully big something you have, too,” she replied.

He grinned. “Maybe we wouldn’t have to take all those clothes off just yet. Maybe, if you could just sneak away for a little while, we’d only have to take off one or two pieces.”

“Just one,” she said.

“All the better. So what do you say, Marie? Are you with me?”

She wiggled her eyebrows playfully. “Let ’im eat cake.”

Turn the page for a preview of
the first book in the
Mindhunters trilogy by Kylie Brant
Waking Nightmare
Available September 2009 from
Berkley Sensation!

SUMMER GRIPPED SAVANNAH BY THE THROAT AND strangled it with a slow, vicious squeeze. Most faulted the heat and cursed the humidity, but Ryne knew the weather wasn’t totally to blame for the suffocating pall. Evil had settled over the city, a cloying, sweaty blanket, insidiously spreading its tentacles of misery like a silent cancer taking hold in an unsuspecting body.

But people weren’t going to remain unsuspecting for much longer. This latest victim was likely to change that, and then all hell was going to break loose.

Compared to Savannah, he figured hell had to be a dry heat.

The door to the conference room opened, and the task force members began filing in. Most held cups of steaming coffee that would only make the outdoor temperature seem more brutal. Ryne didn’t bother pointing that out. He was hardly in the position to lecture others about their addictions.

Their voices hadn’t yet subsided when he reached out to flip on the digital projector. “We’ve got another vic.”

A close-up picture was projected on the screen. There was a muttered “Jesus” from one of the detectives. After spending the last two hours going through the photos, Ryne could appreciate the sentiment.

“Barbara Billings. Age thirty-four. Divorced. Lives alone. She was raped two days ago in her home when she got off work.” He switched to the next set of pictures, those detailing her injuries. “He was inside her house, but we don’t know yet if he’d been hiding there or if he gained access after she arrived. She got home at six, and said it was shortly after that he grabbed her. She’s hazy on details, but the assault lasted hours.”

“Where’d he dump her, the sewer?” Even McElroy sounded a little squeamish. And considering that his muscle-bound body housed an unusually tactless mouth, that was saying something.

Ryne clicked the computer mouse. The screen showed a photo of a pier, partially dismantled, with the glint of metal beneath it. “A cage had been wired to the moorings beneath this dock on St. Andrew’s Sound. That’s where he transported her to afterwards.”

“Looks like the kennel I put my Lab in,” observed Wayne Cantrell.

Ryne flicked him a glance. As usual, the detective was sitting slouched in his seat, arms folded across his chest, his features showing only the impassive stoicism of his Choctaw heritage. “It is a dog kennel,” Ryne affirmed. The next picture showed a close-up of it. “Sturdy enough to hold a one-hundred-thirty-pound woman. The medical exam shows she was injected twice. It’ll be at least a week before we get the tox report back, but from her description of the tingling in her lips, heightened sensation, and foggy memory, this sounds like our guy.”

“Shit.”

Ryne heartily concurred with Cantrell’s quiet assessment. It also summed up what they had so far on the bastard responsible for the rapes.

The rest of the photos were shown in silence. When he got to the end of them, he crossed to the door and switched on the overhead lights. “Marine Patrol wasn’t able to get much information from her when they found her, so they processed the secondary scene. Her preliminary statement was taken at the hospital, before the case got tossed to us.”

“Where’s she at now?” This was from Isaac Holmes, the most seasoned detective on the case. With his droopy jowls and long, narrow face, he bore an uncanny resemblance to the old hound seen on reruns of
The Beverly Hillbillies
. But he had an enviable cleared-case percentage, a factor that had weighed heavily when Ryne had requested him for the task force.

“She was treated and released from St. Joseph/Candler. She’s staying with her mother. The address is in the file.”

“Where the hell is that other investigator Dixon promised?”

McElroy’s truculent question struck a chord with Ryne. He made sure it didn’t show. “Commander Dixon has assured me that he’s carefully looking at possible candidates to assign to the task force.” He ignored the muttered responses in the room. If another member weren’t assigned to the group by the end of the day, he would have it out with Dixon himself. Again.

“We need to process the primary scene and interview the victim. Cantrell, I want you and . . .” His words stopped as the door opened, and a slight young woman with short dark hair entered. Despite the double whammy of Savannah’s heat and humidity, she wore a long-sleeved white shirt over her black pants. He hadn’t seen her around before, but given the photo ID badge clipped to the pocket of her shirt and the thick folder she carried, he figured her for a clerical temp. And if that file contained copies of the complete Marine Patrol report, it was about damn time.

“I’m looking for Detective Robel.” She scanned the occupants in the room before shifting her focus to him.

“You found him.” He gestured to a table near the door. “Just set the folder there and close the door on your way out.”

Her attention snapped back to him, a hint of amusement showing in her expression. “I’m Abbie Phillips, your newest task force member.”

“Does the department get a cut rate on pocket-sized police officers?” There was an answering ripple of laughter in the room, quickly muffled. Ryne shot a warning look at McElroy, who shrugged and ran a hand through his already-disheveled brown hair. “C’mon, Robel, what is she, all of fourteen?”

“Welcome to the team, Phillips.” Ryne kept his voice neutral. “We can use a woman to help us interview the victims. We’ve been borrowing female officers from other units.”

“I hope to give you more assistance than that.” She handed him the file folder. “A summary of my background.”

The folder was too thick for a rookie, but it also wasn’t a SCMPD personnel file. He flicked a gaze over her again. No shield. No weapon. Tension knotted his gut as he took the folder she offered. He gestured to the primaries in the room in turn. “Detectives Cantrell, McElroy, and Holmes. We had another rape reported last night, and I was just catching everyone up.” To the group he said, “I’ll need all detectives and uniforms to the scene. Holmes, until I get there, you oversee the canvass. I’ll meet you later.”

There was a scraping of chairs as the officers rose and made their way to the door. Abbie turned, as if to follow them. His voice halted her. “Phillips, I’d like to talk to you first.”

She looked up at him. At her height, she’d look up to most men. She couldn’t be much more than five foot two. And her smoky gray eyes were as guileless as a ten-year-old’s.

“We could talk in the car. I’m anxious to get a look at the scene.”

“Later.” He went to the projector and shut it off. Pulling out two chairs beside it, he gestured toward one.

She came over, sat down. He sank into the other seat, set her file on the table in front of him, and flipped it open. He read only a few moments before disbelief flared, followed closely by anger.

“You’re not a cop.”

Abbie’s gaze was steady. “Independent consultant. Our agency contracts with law enforcement on problematic cases. If you’re worried about my qualifications, the file lists my experience. Commander Dixon seemed satisfied.”