The Killing Edge (20 page)

Victoria shrugged. “I’m over twenty-one. I can do what I please. Besides, you’re forgetting, I’m an actress. I know makeup and costuming.”

“But, Vic—”

“I’m going. With or without you.”

“Any sane person would try to stop us,” Chloe told her.

“Then,” Victoria said, “we shouldn’t tell anyone sane that we’re going. Come on. Cops will be all over the place like ants, with everything going on.”

She was right about that, Chloe had to admit. They would just have to keep quiet about what they were doing, because Luke would definitely try to stop them if he knew. And so would Uncle Leo.

But fate seemed to be intervening on their behalf, because just then her cell phone rang, and she knew from the caller ID that it was Luke. “Hello?”

“Hey, are you still at the house?” he asked her.

“Yes, of course. Where are you?”

“On my way to you, but I don’t have long. Meet me at the gate and we’ll go back to the carriage house, all right?”

“All right,” she said.

She told Victoria that Luke wanted to see her for a little while alone, and Victoria smiled and nodded. “I’m fine, so don’t rush because of me. In fact, if you come anywhere near me in the next few hours, I’ll hit you, I swear.”

“I don’t think he has that much time,” Chloe said, grinning despite herself.

Luke must have been close when he called, because it was just a matter of minutes before he appeared at the gate. She let him in, and was startled by the intensity in the way he looked at her, and touched by the strength in his arms when he wrapped them around her, and then looked into her eyes again, as if assuring himself that not a hair on her head had been harmed in any way.

“Where have you been?” she asked him.

“Up at the Broward sheriff’s office. I’ll explain. Let’s go in.”

She led him into the carriage house. They had barely gotten through the front door before he pulled her into his arms again, and once again it was as if he simply had to feel the beating of her heart, the heat of her existence.

He drew away finally and found her eyes again, and then her lips. His kiss was passionate and charged, but finally he broke the contact and said, “I’m sorry. I know you’re in a traumatic tangle at the moment and that—”

She rose on her toes and shut his mouth with her own, threading her fingers through his hair and darting her tongue into his mouth, pulling him closer and closer, then letting her fingers slide down his back to force him even more tightly against her. She was definitely eliciting a reaction; she could feel the rise of his erection against her abdomen, and her own arousal and need increased as if swept along by a tidal wave.

And yet he still tried to step back. “Chloe, I know—”

“No, you don’t know. Right now I want the…the reaffirmation of life. Something wild and wicked and beautiful, but why do I always have to be the aggressor?” she asked softly.

His slow smile was devastating. But the way he picked her up, as if she weighed nothing, and headed straight up the stairs, was even more devastating. He was talking, she realized, erotically but not with the words she might have expected. “Sofa…no, we’re too tall…kitchen table, looks sexy in films but kills the back…how about the bed? What a concept.”

He all but dropped her on the bed when they got there, then practically fell on top of her, clearly having decided to take the role of sexual aggressor to heart. Then he had her breathlessly laughing as they struggled to remove their clothing while still kissing, stroking, fighting not to lose touch with each other.

Even so, she could barely move against his onslaught. His lips, his tongue, his hands, were everywhere, his touch so tender and light and elusive, followed by the pressure of his lips and teeth and tongue in a way that seemed to demand everything. She trailed her fingers down the length of his spine, cradled the tight muscles of his buttocks, teased a finger back up his spine and then down again, all the while losing herself in the fever of his kisses and caresses.

He was an amazing lover. A man unafraid to show tenderness, adept at teasing, he could be gentle, and then, when he moved, it was with a force and passion that left her breathless and fulfilled, and yet somehow longing for more.

His mouth grazed the whole of her length, first avoiding her most erogenous zones, then focusing on them in a way that sent waves of lava and electricity shooting through her. She teased and taunted in return, relishing each word that
escaped his lips as she stroked, caressed, licked and teased, until the world was fire and so were they.

And then his eyes met hers and he moved inside her, and all her cares and fears were gone as they transcended heaven and earth, joined together in the most raw and physical way known to man, tangled in the sheets, dampened with sweat. Finally, wrapped around one another, rigid and alive, they climaxed nearly simultaneously, gasping and moaning as their hearts thundered, then slowed, and their breathing once again hit normal.

Chloe lay with her head on his chest, wondering if it would be possible to explain to anyone that despite being in the middle of an emotional nightmare, for the first time in her life, she had realized just what love could be.

She couldn’t explain how, but she knew that he cared about her. Just as she cared about him. But she could never force him. They were both damaged, both still learning to move past the damage.

She didn’t speak about what had just passed between them, not physically and not what came from the heart and soul. Instead, she ran a finger over his chest and asked him, “So…what’s going on? Why did you say you don’t have much time?”

“I was up in Fort Lauderdale this morning, and now I’m going to New Orleans.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

He had an arm crooked behind his head, and he looked at the ceiling for a moment before turning to look at her. “Stay in tonight, huh, just to indulge me and your uncle,” he said.

“Why are you going to New Orleans?” she asked again.

“Remember how I told you before that something just didn’t sit right with me about the past? Well, I decided to put out a call for information on the disappearance or murder of young women that had a religious aspect. I found a girl who’d been part of a strict religious sect for a while, then disappeared from one of the casinos in Broward about a year and a half ago, so I went up to investigate. That led me nowhere, but then I heard from the police in New Orleans. They had a young female murder victim with strange, possibly cult-related, carvings on her back and forehead. I have a flight this afternoon, and I may not be back until tomorrow sometime, so, please…don’t go out. Stuckey has a car watching the house. You’ll be safest here at home.”

He wasn’t telling her, she realized; he was asking her. “I won’t go out tonight,” she promised, meaning it.

She looked away from him for a moment, knowing she needed to tell him about Victoria’s determination to go to the potluck supper. In the end, she kept silent. The potluck was still a day away, and she’d only promised not to go out tonight.

Besides, she wouldn’t go to the Church of the Real People unarmed.

But she
would
go.

She laid her head against his chest again, and he wrapped an arm around her. “How much time do you have before your plane?” she asked huskily.

“A few hours,” he said.

“Well…”

She drew patterns on his chest, then crawled on top of
him, teasing his flesh with her hair, moving against the length of his body. In a few minutes they were making love again, and when they were spent, she fell against his side, glad just to be held by him.

In that comfortable state, and perhaps because she was still exhausted, she must have dozed.

When she opened her eyes, the room was filled with people.

She was paralyzed with terror for a moment, unable to move or scream, not even able to open her mouth.

Dead people were arranged all around her. Friends from long ago. No blood dripped from their necks, and they were dressed as they had been in their coffins all those years ago. David Grant, football hero, in his handsome, go-to-church suit, and Kit, his girlfriend, at his side, in the navy dress her mother had chosen for her funeral. And there was Jen, wearing the beige suit
her
mother had picked out… And Vince Mahaffey, Sue Whalen, Jack Axelrod…

They stood around her, looking at her sadly, both there and not there, as if they were made of the mist that accompanied a hot shower, except that she hadn’t been in the shower.

And there were others….

Girls she didn’t know, had never seen. Some of them…

Decomposed. Wet, or covered with earth, only scraps of clothing remaining.

Even mistier than the others, barely visible at all, were Myra…and Alana…and the seamstress.

Frozen, she couldn’t move. Did Luke see them? No, he was breathing evenly, asleep; she could feel his chest moving beneath her head. Bizarrely, she found herself thinking
that she was glad they had pulled the sheet up somewhere along the line.

Someone stepped from the crowd, moving closer.

Colleen Rodriguez.

She wore the same dripping white dress, and her hair was wet, as well. She looked worse than she had before. More desperate. Her lips were moving, but Chloe couldn’t catch her words. Yet at the same time, a single whisper seemed to fill her head.

Help us. Help us…and those who will come.

Chloe rediscovered the ability to move at last. She bolted up, but she didn’t scream, just snapped up to a sitting position. Beside her, Luke awoke, stretching, sitting up, too, and staring at her before swiftly taking her into his arms. “Chloe, what’s wrong?”

She was shaking, trembling. She tried to speak, couldn’t.

“You had a nightmare, didn’t you? I can’t leave you. The police can’t protect you from your dreams, and I know how bad they can be.”

She managed to pull away from him, to stop shaking. She kept her voice level and calm as she told him, “No. Luke, you have to go. There are more of them. Lots more of them.”

“What?” His hair was tousled, and she could see him struggling to understand what must have sounded crazy.

“Luke, I’m not dreaming. I’m not having nightmares. I—I’m really seeing ghosts.”

She could read it in his eyes. He cared about her, so he wasn’t going to call the men in the white coats to take her away. He answered slowly and carefully. “Chloe, you’re
amazing. You survived one massacre, and you just witnessed a second. It’s natural that you’re having a hard time accepting what’s happened. I’m going to cancel my flight and—”

She pulled away from him. “No, you are not. Luke, I’m a psychologist, remember? I know all the symptoms of every kind of crazy. But I’m not crazy, and I’m telling you, they’re trying to help me, help us. This isn’t in my mind, and it’s not a dream. I’ve been right all this time. I know it. Two of the killers are dead, but there was a third. And you know how they say serial killers don’t stop? Well, he hasn’t stopped. He’s been clever. He’s been moving around the country, covering his tracks and practicing his craft. I think he’s got some kind of agenda with the murders at the mansions, but…he likes killing, he needs to kill. You have to go to New Orleans and find out everything you can. I’m not afraid, and don’t go telling me that I should be. I’m not afraid of the ghosts. They’re trying to speak to me, to help us. You have to go and do what you do best—investigate. And I have to see what
I
can learn—here.”

She could see how concerned he was and gripped both his hands. “Luke, I’m all right. I feel that we’re on the right track, and that we have to keep moving forward. The dead deserve the truth—and a lot of living people may stay that way if we can discover what’s going on. Please, go. I’ll be waiting for you when you come back, and we’ll find Colleen. I’m certain she’s in the water somewhere. I told you, when I see her, she’s…wet. Hair and dress dripping.”

He ran his fingers through his hair. “Chloe—”

“I’ll sleep in the main house while you’re gone. And you said Stuckey has a patrol car guarding the place.”

“Let’s shower. Then I’ll decide what I’m doing,” he told her.

He got out of bed and started walking toward the bathroom, then paused suddenly, staring at her. He hunkered down then, frowning.

“What is it?” she asked, rising, as well.

He looked at her. “The carpet. It’s…wet.”

T
he flight to New Orleans was less than two hours, but it seemed like forever to Luke. He still wondered if he should have left or not.

Ghosts. He didn’t believe in them. He wasn’t an atheist, exactly; he just hadn’t decided yet if there really was a God, and if there was, what he expected out of people. He’d heard about the soul being energy, and energy never actually disappeared, had heard a dozen different takes on life and death, but in his experience, dead was dead—and it was for the living to find justice.

He was worried about Chloe. Yet he had never seen her more certain or more confident. Or more determined.

And then there had been the damp spot on the rug.

Easily explained. A leak in the roof—except that there was
an attic above the bedroom and no wetness there. Or someone had trailed water coming from the bathroom—except that no one had been in the bathroom.

It was baffling.

As the plane landed and taxied to the terminal, he told himself that he had to forget the possibility of ghosts and concentrate on what he could discover here in New Orleans.

As he walked down the concourse, he thought that it was good to have friends. Knowing and working with the right cops often got him where he wanted to go.

Making his way past baggage claim and toward the exit, he spotted the man in the jeans, T-shirt and baseball cap who was waiting for him. Detective Joseph Mulligan was somewhere around thirty-five. The cap kept his sandy hair off his forehead, and his eyes were a clear blue that was steady and sure. He was of medium height and medium build, maybe five inches shorter than Luke, but similarly strong.

It was apparent that Detective Mulligan worked out and took it seriously. But then, he was a cop. It was part of his work and nothing to do with vanity.

“Luke Cane, as I live and breathe,” Mulligan said, stepping forward, grinning, and offering his hand.

Luke offered his own in return. “Thanks so much for helping me out.”

“I’m thrilled as hell to see you. Sad to say, my case isn’t going anywhere. I’ll be glad to have you hustle up some more interest. Can I take your bag?”

“I look like a girl to you?” Luke cracked, smiling. “It’s
fifteen pounds, tops, and I’ve got it, thanks. Where are we heading?”

“My place. I pulled the files after you called. I’ll show you what I’ve got, then take you around to a couple of the sites.”

Joe Mulligan lived in an old Victorian a block off Esplanade with his wife, Clancy, and their two children, Ashley and Aislinn. Clancy and the kids greeted Luke, and Clancy offered the men a plate of sandwiches, along with coffee, while Joe handed over a stack of printouts and started pulling up Web pages.

Seated in his swivel chair, Joe turned to Luke and explained, “Some of this is official, and some is stuff I’ve come up with but haven’t gotten very far with. It’s no secret that we’ve had our problems here, that we’re still struggling to establish law and order after Katrina, but the pity is, so many folks here are just good, hardworking citizens, and they’re getting tarred along with the rotten apples.” He sighed.

“Here’s the thing, we’re talking a few years back now, but after Katrina, our missing persons list was longer than Santa’s.” He passed Luke a photo. “Like everywhere, when someone’s killed around here, we generally find the body. A lot of our violence is drug or gang related, and they don’t even bother to try to hide their victims. Too high, or sending a message. In the beginning, it looked like this girl just disappeared.”

“Girls disappear every day,” Luke said quietly. “Thing is, most killers are careless, or even want their victims to be found. When people disappear into thin air, there’s a clever, organized killer at work. I think we’re dealing with
a psychopath back in Miami, someone—probably a man—who knows that what he’s doing is against the law but, for whatever reason, doesn’t, in his own mind, think it’s wrong. He feels no regret, no empathy, and sees himself as above everyone else, so special that he deserves his needs to be met, even if that means somebody else has to die. And I think some of those people have been dying in other places.”

“You asked about disappearances and unsolved murders that might have a religious aspect. Like I said, for a long time, we had a missing-persons case. Her name was Jill Montague, a local girl. She was coming into the Quarter to meet friends at a bar. She left her residence in the Garden District, planning on taking the streetcar down, and never showed up. We gave her picture to every driver, ran it in the paper. No one saw her. Or no one admitted to seeing her, anyway. She left her house and that was it. Gone, zero, vanished.”

“But you found her eventually?”

“Beside the Mississippi. With carvings in her flesh that could be religious stuff. Where I’m lost is, I don’t understand what all this has to do with a cult massacre,” Joe told him. “Or the murders that just occurred in Miami. I know that the old case had a cult connection, but from what I’ve heard, there was nothing like that with the murders that just occurred.”

“Ten years ago, two men were found dead in the Everglades alongside a written confession. But some people thought someone else had to be involved in the massacre. The big argument against that was that nothing even re
motely similar ever happened again, or not around Miami, anyway. And you know as well as I do that most profilers agree that a killer like that doesn’t just quit,” Luke said. “Either he dies—like the two killers they found in the Everglades—or he goes to prison on some other unrelated charge, or he moves on to someplace else. I think there was a third killer and he went somewhere else—until last night. What interests me about your case is the design carved into your dead girl’s back and forehead.”

“Did the killers write on their victims ten years ago?” Joe asked, puzzled. “Or just on the wall.”

“Just on the wall. In blood.”

“I forget. What did they write?”

“‘Death to defilers!’,” Luke said. “And they drew a design.” He leaned forward. “What was on your victim?”

“I don’t know. The body was in pretty bad shape when we found it, so there’s no way to tell for sure. All I can say for sure is that something was cut into her back and something else into her forehead. Maybe you can figure it out.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll take you out now and show you the lay of the land, Uptown, the Garden District, the French Quarter. Show you where the body was found, down by the river. Tomorrow we’ll head into the office and you can talk to some of the detectives. Your friend Stuckey sure knows the right people.”

He hesitated. “Have you ever heard of a man named Adam Harrison, or a group called Harrison Investigations?”

“No,” Luke said.

“Do you believe in…psychic help in solving cases?”

“No,” Luke said flatly. He knew that a lot of law-enforcement agencies had called in psychic investigators over the years, and that they claimed sometimes it helped. Personally, he doubted it. Looking at Joe, he frowned. “Do you?”

“Yes, actually. This is New Orleans, home of Marie Laveau, remember? Well, later on that. Anyway, the superintendent sent word down the ladder—you can come in and see the autopsy photos. I don’t bring things like that here. Kids, you know.” Joe picked up his coffee cup, drained it and set it back down. “
Laissez les bon temps roulez
, my friend. I’ll show you what I can.”

“Oh, my God!” Brad said to Victoria. “I had no idea you guys had anything to do with finding Myra!” He shuddered and gave his cousin a massive hug. “Poor Myra. And poor Alana, too. She was so young.” He and Jared had come over as soon as they’d heard what had happened.

“She wasn’t, actually. Don’t you read the papers? She was thirty,” Chloe told him, setting a tray of iced tea and sandwiches on the patio table.

“It’s so horrible, and so sad,” Jared said. “But here’s the point. There’s no reason for you two to hide out. Jeanne sure isn’t. Have you seen that interview she gave? She’s milking this for all it’s worth. She cries, she trembles, she looks so sad and scared. But it’s sure getting her a lot of press.” He shook his head, as if disgusted that anyone would use such a horror story for her own advancement.

“Smart of her,” Chloe commented, taking a seat. “She’ll get what she wants—fame.”

Brad looked at Victoria. “She’s out there turning herself into a major-league overnight sensation, and you’re hiding at Chloe’s. Chloe—you could be cashing in on this, too.”

“Brad, after everything we’ve been through, how can you even suggest that?” she protested, appalled.

“Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s horrible, too. And God knows, it could backfire on her. There’s a killer out there—and he might just decide she’s ripe for killing, as well.”

“Don’t even say that!” Victoria said with a shiver.

“I’m sorry—I’m just trying to make the two of you feel better, but I’m doing a terrible job of it,” Brad said apologetically.

“No, what
Jeanne’s
doing is terrible,” Jared said, then sighed. “But she
is
a sensation. If you two were the sensation, we could get into any club—on the beach.” His eyes were teasing, though, and he took Victoria’s hand.

“I don’t want that kind of fame,” Victoria told him. “Sure, it would be nice to be a well-known model, but I’d rather be recognized for my acting. Anyway, let’s face it. Which one of us is ever really hurting for money? We’ve been lucky. Jeanne didn’t have such a great life. If she’s an instant celebrity, good for her.”

“I think we’re forgetting something here,” Chloe pointed out.

“What?” Brad asked.

“Three women were brutally murdered,” Chloe said.

“You’re right, and I’m ashamed,” Jared said. “It’s just that you can’t turn on the news without seeing Jeanne—or Lacy or one of the others. Not to mention the head
of the agency. He flew in this morning, apparently. I forget his name.”

“Harry Lee,” Victoria said. “The head of Bryson Worldwide.”

“Yes, him,” Jared agreed. “He’s all over the news with the rest of them.”

“We just feel like lying low for a bit,” Chloe said.

“Well, it’s going to be interesting to see how long you can stay off the radar,” Jared said.

“What are you talking about?” Victoria asked.

“Harry Lee announced that no psychopath is going to get the better of him. He promised a reward of a hundred thousand dollars to anyone who helped find the killer. And he said that the calendar shoot on Coco-belle Island will take place as planned.”

“I can’t believe it,” Victoria said.

Brad smoothed her hair comfortingly. “I don’t know what to feel, myself. In a way, it’s in incredibly poor taste to capitalize on a murder spree to sell calendars. But maybe Harry Lee’s right. Bowing down to a killer, letting him call the shots…That’s wrong, too.”

Jared said, “I think he’s right. The shoot needs to happen. With all kinds of security in place, of course.”

“Well, one way or another, Harry Lee means to make it happen,” Brad said. “He said he owed it to Myra, who had worked so hard for her girls.”

“I don’t suppose he mentioned Alana?” Chloe murmured.

“Or the poor seamstress,” Victoria said. “Do we even know her name yet?”

The mule-drawn carriages clip-clopped down the street.

Last night, crossing Bourbon Street had been an act of derring-do, dodging frat boys, tourists and happy drunks, all moving to a sound track made up of country-western competing with pop competing with heavy metal competing with some decent jazz, thanks to the many clubs lining the street.

But now it was daylight. The tourists who wanted to know the history of the city and admire its remarkable architecture were out in force, and the carriage drivers were talking loudly about the Louisiana Purchase, the reign of Marie Laveau, the voodoo queen, or the making of Anne Rice’s
Interview with a Vampire.

Luke had seen the home in the Garden District where Jill Montague had once lived. The street wasn’t busy; the house wasn’t hidden.

Canal Street was big and broad, to accommodate the streetcar that ran along it. The sidewalks were teeming with locals and tourists alike, and traffic was constant. There was nothing secretive about Canal Street—unless it took place in havens of vice that were hidden from the daily flow, which was certainly possible.

What seemed impossible to Luke was that a girl could have been attacked on Canal Street without being noticed.

They entered Joe Mulligan’s district office. They passed cops going about their business, streetwalkers, junkies and the occasional person who had apparently never been arrested before and looked as stunned as a doe in the headlights.

Luke met Mulligan’s superior, and then they went into his friend’s office. There, Mulligan took out the full file on Jill Montague. The police work had been thorough. Any and every lead had been followed. After she was found, she had been given a painstakingly exact autopsy, and when the medical examiner had exhausted any possible clues the body might give him, she had been returned to her family to be buried in Lafayette Cemetery in the Garden District.

Joe gave Luke a magnifying glass, and he studied the pictures slowly and carefully. It didn’t matter how long you worked with death—this kind of picture made your heart ache and your insides turn over. She had been a beautiful young girl. In life, she’d had a smile a mile wide. In death, her flesh was shrunken on her bones, her color had darkened and she looked both far too real and like a prop out of a horror movie.

Luke let himself acclimate to the appearance of the body, then began studying the carvings on the girl’s back and forehead.

At last he looked up and found Joe studying him.

“It looks like a—a hamza hand,” Luke said, for the first time realizing what the handlike drawing on the wall had been.

And that it was the same as this.

“What?”

“You can find it in jewelry or Judaica shops—it’s an ancient symbol.”

“Oh, great, don’t let that get out or—”

“No, it isn’t just a symbol in Judaism. Arab cultures—”