Shades of Temptation (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

One month later

W
ITH
THE
WOMAN
’
S
BODY
still fully clothed, Dr. Odell
Bowers placed two fingers on the carotid artery, then out of habit started to
check for clouded-over corneas and rigor mortis. When he realized what he was
doing, Bowers smiled, shook his head, picked up his shears and began to hum
along to the strains of Mozart’s “Requiem Mass in D minor” that floated around
him.

“I’ve always loved this one. How about you?” He frowned down at
the still-silent body. “I’ll bring you around. Mozart was a visionary.”

Carefully, he cut the woman’s clothes off, then placed a
modesty cloth over her genitalia. With slow, practiced movements, he washed her
with disinfectant and germicidal solution, massaging the limbs the way his
mother had often done for him. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

After settling eye caps over the woman’s eyelids, Bowers began
the slow, painstaking process of the preservation. Occasionally, he paused to
wipe away the tears that trailed down the woman’s face, then sighed when they
flowed more freely and the woman’s limbs began to twitch.

Even with her life force almost drained, the woman struggled to
gain consciousness.

Bowers tightened the restraints as a precautionary measure.
Then he picked up the syringe of Novocain and repeatedly plunged the needle into
the woman’s lips and cheeks. She quieted. He made a few minor adjustments until
the woman’s expression looked relaxed and natural. Soon, her features were
set.

“I’ve picked out the prettiest clothes for you. And the makeup
will complement your coloring. You’ll be picture-perfect by the time I’m
done.”

Bowers resumed massaging the body’s limbs as the mechanical
pump injected embalming fluid into its blood vessels. A low groan, like an
animal in pain, exploded from the woman’s closed lips. Her limbs spasmed, and
her fingers clenched before her whole body relaxed. The woman’s final breath
barely registered.

“Shh. That’s right. That’s perfect,” Bowers whispered.

Bowers smoothed back the woman’s damp hair, then finished the
most complicated part of the procedure. Afterward, he rewashed and dried the
woman’s body, applied a moisturizing cream to her face then used his palette of
cosmetics to camouflage her pale features. He smoothed on a very light pink
lipstick, pleased with the realistic, translucent color called
Baby’s Breath.
Next, he removed the eye caps and
dabbed brown shadow on the eyelids for depth. Then a darker red along the
cheeks, chin and knuckles to depict flowing blood. Finally, baby oil in the
hair.

Bowers placed the clothing he’d selected on the woman’s body,
then stood back and studied his work. He shifted the arms that were crossed
against the woman’s chest back to her sides. Then he smoothed a stray hair down
against her temple.

Finally satisfied, he picked up a scalpel.

Very slowly and very carefully, Bowers sliced off the woman’s
eyelids, then put them in a small box with the rest of his collection.

Over the next few hours, he completed his remaining tasks. He
took some final pictures. Next, he wheeled the woman’s body to her final resting
place, but not before he pulled several teeth, and hair fibers from her and set
them aside. Later, he’d send the ashes along with the photos, teeth and hair to
the police. As he cleaned up his workroom, he actually giggled as he imagined
the police scrambling to find her.

Ever since he was a kid, he’d loved planning scavenger hunts,
giving the participants just enough challenging clues to make their task
possible but by no means easy. With the cops, he’d virtually draw them a map so
they could identify her, but that was because finding the victims wasn’t the
game. Finding
him
was. Of course, no one had ever
been smart enough to do that. No one ever would.

After looking around and making sure things had been tidied up
to the best of his ability, Bowers climbed the stairs that would take him from
his basement to his elegant living quarters just blocks from the Golden Gate
Bridge. He loved the juxtaposition of his different lives. How the upper floors
of his home depicted his wealth and success, while the lower part evidenced his
darker, private side. It never ceased to amaze him how the first so easily
disguised the second. As if people truly didn’t think they could coexist.
Humming, he gathered his things, then double-checked his calendar on his
smartphone.

His next appointment was at eleven. His patients rarely
expressed appropriate gratitude for what Bowers did for them, but they certainly
paid him well. Nonetheless, while he enjoyed the money he made, the perfection
of Bowers’s work was reward enough. Bowers took ugly things and made them
beautiful again, just as he did with his girls.

Others might fail to acknowledge his mastery at first, but not
for long. Bowers always opened their eyes to it eventually. All it took was
strategy, time and discipline.

That, and a steady hand with a scalpel, of course.

CHAPTER THREE

T
HE
SMALL
ONES
ALMOST
always ran.

They figured they had the advantage when
it came to speed, but few of them knew cops were trained to go the distance.
It might take them a while to catch up, but they almost always
did.

In this case, it also helped that Carrie
was even smaller than the perp she was chasing, and, because she wore plain
clothes, she wasn’t hindered by a fourteen-pound belt loaded with a patrol
officer’s accoutrements. Instead, all she carried was her gun, which was
securely holstered.

After all, despite what they showed on
television, it wouldn’t be smart to wave around a gun while chasing down a
suspect. Especially not on a Friday night when the empty street might
suddenly fill with people who’d just finished a movie, a late dinner or
drinks at the local bar. A bar like McGill’s. The bar where she’d left Jase
and his date, Regina, despite the fact he’d wanted to kiss Carrie again.
She’d turned him down and what had she gotten instead? A run-in with a petty
thief. A fast one.

She pushed forward in a burst of
adrenaline, wondering what the guy she’d caught burglarizing a local
hardware store had on his rap sheet that was worth evading the police. The
speed with which he’d bolted, when she’d only stopped to ask him a few
investigatory questions, told her he probably wasn’t a stranger to the
justice system.

She was starting to gain on him when he
veered toward a run-down-looking house off of Post Street and barreled
inside the front door. Staying outside, Carrie immediately established
cover, drew her weapon and called out, “Don’t make things worse. Come out
with your hands up.”

“Fuck off, bitch!”

But the guy’s words were slightly drowned
out by the sound of approaching sirens.

“You hear that?” she shouted. “San
Francisco P.D.’s on the way. Come out now.”

He didn’t immediately respond. To her
surprise, less than a minute later, he walked out of the house, a gun held
out in front of him.

He’d been in shadows when he’d started
running, and for the first time she got a clear view of his face. He was
just a kid. Surprise made her hesitate for a moment before she took a step
closer, her own gun braced in front of her. “Put down your—”

He caught sight of her and
aimed.

Danger! Protect yourself. Shoot to kill.

Her mind screamed at her to pull the
trigger, but she didn’t.

For one second, she hesitated to shoot
him.

He readjusted his aim.

“Drop—” she screamed.

He fired his gun a second before she
did.

Fire slammed into her leg, immediately
making it buckle. She dropped to the ground. Then he was on her, hitting her
and kicking her, knocking her weapon away. What followed was a blur of pain.
Most of all, however, she was shocked. Stunned.

She’d missed him. How? She
never
missed. But she’d been surprised by his
appearance....

He looked young. So young. How had he
become so ruthless? So strong?

But despite the pain and her muddled
thoughts, she continued to fight. To claw. To do her own damage. Until she
managed to get to her weapon. Just as he raised his own and pointed it at
her again.

Another gunshot.

Her attacker collapsed on her, crushing
the breath from her body before she pushed him off and scrambled
away.

She stared as a puddle of crimson
immediately oozed out from beneath him.

For a second, relief made her
dizzy.

Then relief turned into horror.

His still body twitched. Moved. Sat
up.

He looked at her.

Raised his gun and pointed it straight
between her eyes.

Grinned. And fired.

* * *

C
ARRIE
WOKE
AND
SAT
UP
in bed. Her heart
thudded in her chest, and her body was soaked with sweat. Her gaze skittered
around her, searching for signs of danger. She saw only her grandmother’s
antique dresser. Various watercolors. Framed photos on her nightstand.

The familiar sights did little to calm her.

Panic wound through her, gaining speed and strength until it
felt like a tornado. Black dots flashed in front of her, spinning around until
they blurred together, making her feel dizzy.

She closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing, on repeating
the self-talk she and Lana, a member of DOJ’s Behavioral Sciences and
Psychiatric Liaison Unit, had been working on.

She was safe. She was okay. It had just been a dream. She was
okay.

When that didn’t work, she imagined herself blowing into a
balloon. Filling it up with her pain. Until it floated away. Until she was
empty.

Finally, her heartbeat returned to normal. She leaned back,
pulled the blankets closer to her chin and stared out at the dark sky.

As sleep continued to elude her, Carrie threw off the blankets,
suddenly feeling suffocated and trapped. She threw out her limbs, stretching the
length and width of the mattress to counter the feeling.

Accepting that her chance for sleep had passed, she got out of
bed and went to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. As she waited for it to
brew, she leaned back against the counter and crossed her arms over her chest,
rubbing her hands over the chilled flesh that was prickled with goose bumps. She
wished she could crawl back into bed and hide under the warm covers, but she
couldn’t.

She looked at her refrigerator door and the piece of paper
she’d placed there. A child’s drawing, one made years ago by Kevin Porter and
one his grandmother had mailed her, along with a note cursing Carrie to hell for
killing the woman’s precious grandson. She should have logged it into evidence.
Instead, she looked at it each morning and each night before she went to
bed.

Carrie closed her eyes and rubbed her hands over her face. No
wonder she had nightmares. God, she was twisted.

She’d had no choice but to shoot Kevin Porter. She knew that.
He’d already shot her once, had continued to assault her, and he’d still had his
gun. But in the end, she’d taken a life. The life of a sixteen-year-old boy
who’d been jacked up on drugs. One whose grandmother swore was a good kid who’d
just happened to get involved with the wrong crowd at school.

She didn’t keep his picture to torture herself but to remind
herself that pain was often part of the job. Anyone could be a rapist or killer
or other type of dangerous criminal.

Anyone.

Male or female. Old or young. Ugly or good-looking. Sometimes
the ones she had to stop were just like Kevin Porter. Sometimes they had
goodness in them, too. Sometimes they could have taken another path or were
victims themselves. But it didn’t matter. When they turned dangerous, she had to
stop them in order to protect others. And, yes, to protect herself.

That’s why she kept the picture.

To remind herself why she did what she did. And so she wouldn’t
be surprised, wouldn’t hesitate to fire her gun again, simply because a perp
didn’t look the way she thought he would.

If guilt was a by-product, there wasn’t anything she could do
about it. Because guilt, too, was just another part of the job. And thankfully,
after being gone for almost a month, she’d finally been cleared to return to
SIG. Mac, SIG’s lead special agent, had worked hard to get her back in rotation.
He’d worked twice as hard to get her the assignment she’d requested. He’d
questioned whether the case would be too stressful given that she’d just be
returning to work, but ultimately he’d supported her, and she’d always be
grateful to him for that.

She’d missed the team—Jase, in particular, though she refused
to let her thoughts linger on him. Mostly, however, she’d missed the work. The
challenge. Sitting at home recuperating was enough to make her want to scream
with frustration. At least when she was working, she wasn’t haunted by memories,
both distant and recent, incapable of moving past them.

Having the job be challenging would be the least of her worries
now. No wonder she was having bad dreams and doubts about her ability to
perform. With the “welcome back” assignment that had prompted her to seek an
early return in the first place, she could only hope she’d rise to the
occasion.

She’d been passed over several times for serial-killer
assignments and had been chomping at the bit for one. She had no illusions about
how stressful they could be. How tough. But she wanted to prove once and for
all, just in case there was any doubt, that she could handle any case the DOJ
threw at her. Now, thanks to Mac, she had her chance.

She’d assured him she was fine, physically and emotionally.
That she needed the rigors of an assignment like this one to get back into the
game. Only she couldn’t deny that things had changed since she’d shot Kevin
Porter.
She
had changed. And she wasn’t sure what to
do about it.

Despite knowing Porter was armed, despite knowing it could mean
her life, she’d hesitated to shoot him. And when she had finally shot, she’d
missed. Granted, she hadn’t missed the second time around, but that did little
to reassure her.

It figured that it was only when she was at her least confident
and most shaken up that the brass finally gave her the lead on a serial-killer
case. They probably viewed the assignment as a damn medal of valor, not only a
reward for her impressive closure record over the past year but a consolation
prize for getting wounded on the job and having to make her first kill. She
didn’t want to get a choice assignment based on pity, but it didn’t matter. It
was hers.

So what if she’d hesitated to shoot a teenager? Even when she’d
been on SWAT, she’d never actually shot to kill before. Her hesitation had been
natural. Understandable. But she wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. This was
her chance to prove herself and move closer toward a management position with
DOJ.

She loved being a special agent. Loved working the streets. As
a female, however, she’d never have significant power there, no matter how good
a cop she was. As upper management, on the other hand, she’d be able to wield
the kind of power that would make a real difference when it came to making
people safe. And somehow, being a powerful woman in a political position wasn’t
viewed as negatively as being a powerful woman on the streets. Who knew? Maybe
she’d finally get some respect, as well as some downtime to concentrate on other
things.

Like a personal life.

She snorted and walked into the dining room, where files were
spread out across the surface. A personal life? Maybe someday, but right now she
needed to focus on the job.

She’d started going over the files last night and had exactly
one more day to get up to speed before she had to report to Commander Stevens
and tell him her thoughts. Only once she’d proven her familiarity with the case
and detailed her game plan would Stevens fully sign off on the assignment.

She glanced at the clock. It was barely eight in the morning.
She had plenty of time to continue her research. But Mac had asked her to stop
by McGill’s Bar at around 6:00 p.m. He and his girlfriend, Natalie Jones, had up
and eloped, and although Carrie had once had a crush on the intense SIG agent,
she was genuinely happy for them. Didn’t mean she wanted to celebrate their
marriage in a bar, however. Especially the same bar where she’d last seen Jase
Tyler and where he’d propositioned her despite the fact that his date was
inside. Work would be the perfect excuse to bow out.

Except she’d feel like a coward. Even more than she already
did.

It wasn’t only the Porter shooting that had her second-guessing
her gumption. Over the past year, she’d lost some of the passion for the job
that had always fueled her. She’d started to become weighed down by the
knowledge that no matter how hard she tried, there was always another victim
waiting in the wings for justice. More and more it seemed the good guys were
losing the battle. To make matters worse, she’d been distracted by more personal
concerns, simultaneously running from her developing feeling for Jase and
resenting that she even had to.

Would she let him kiss her, he’d asked her at McGill’s. She’d
wanted so badly to say yes, but there’d been too many reasons to say no.

Number one: they worked together.

Number two: Jase was a player. Even if she could compete with
the women he dated, which she couldn’t, she wasn’t sure, once she’d actually had
him, how she’d handle it when he chose to walk away.

Number three: she really couldn’t believe that he wanted her
for her, and not because of the challenge she presented or because he wanted to
bring her down a peg or two. So she’d been the one to walk away instead. Ten
minutes later, she’d caught Kevin Porter right in the middle of a B and E.

Full circle,
she thought. Her
back-to-back encounters with Jase and Porter telegraphed one thing—she might
hesitate, wish for things to be different, but in the end she could never
reconcile being a soft, desirable female with being a tough, ambitious cop. She
had to pick. She’d always had to pick.

And since she was so much better at being a cop than a woman?
Well, that’s what she’d continue to focus on.

Shaking her head and blowing her hair off her face, she sat
down at her dining-room table. Then the work took over. Hours went by. She took
a short break to do her PT exercises and grab a bite to eat, and then she
recommenced her review of The Embalmer’s most recent murder.