“I tried to warn you.”
Taylor caught the melodrama in his voice. A rabbit, scared and spooked, that’s what Just Renn was. She smiled at the younger man.
“That, my friend, is a man who got up on the wrong side of the lily pad. Forget about it. I’ve had worse. Let’s run this puppy.”
Speaking of which … she flipped her cell back open and speed-dialed Baldwin.
He answered with a happy, “Hey, gorgeous. My plane just landed. You on your way?”
“Unfortunately, no. I’m on a call, and I think you’ll want to see this.”
He groaned. “Where are you?”
“Tell the driver 1400 Love Circle. You won’t be able to miss it. And hey, stay away from a short man with a bad rug.”
“Do I even want to know?”
“No. I’ll see you shortly.”
She hung up, went back into the house. The victim was calling her, the scene, the case. She’d been drawn in, already fascinated. Dead girl pinned to a post, in someone else’s house. Classical music playing in the background. A message was being sent. By whom, and to whom? Taylor felt the intrigue slip in and grab her. She was going to be too busy to worry about all the changes, and that was a good thing.
Back in the living room, she circled the body again, looked closer at the filament that held the girl’s arms, legs, torso and head in position. It was tied in little knots on the backside of the column. The killer had taken the time to staple the translucent fishing line into the wood to give it extra holding power. This was well thought out, planned in advance. It had taken time to get the girl up on the post. Which meant whoever committed this murder knew that the house was going to be empty, that he’d have a fertile, undisturbed playground. Either that, or they had another body to find, one belonging to the owner.
Taylor stepped three feet back from the post, taking in the rest of the setting. The columns bisected the two rooms; there were crime-scene techs moving around, disturbing her view.
“Hey, can everyone hold up for a minute? I’d like to get some shots here.”
Long accustomed to Taylor being in charge, people moved out of her way.
She fished her digital camera out of her jacket pocket, took a couple of pictures. Something felt strange, and she couldn’t put her finger on it. Maybe later, once she’d had time for her mind to process the scene, she’d be able to see what was out of place. Or Baldwin would.
She turned the camera off. McKenzie appeared at her side, appropriately silenced by the gruesome visage in front of them. Paula took her flanking position and the three of them stood in a moment of peace, watching, reverent. The victim’s nudity was embarrassing McKenzie. Taylor could see him shifting his feet like a little boy out of the corner of her eye.
She ignored him, stared again at the knife pinning the girl to the column. Tim Davis joined them.
“We’re going to have a pissed-off home owner. I’m going to have to cut the post down, I think,” he said.
“Why?” McKenzie asked, puzzled.
“Because there’s no way to get that knife out of her without disturbing the wound tract.” Tim stepped closer to the body, put his thumb on the flat end of the knife handle, exerting pressure experimentally. It didn’t budge, didn’t shift slightly. “See, this thing is jammed all the way into the wood. We’ve gotta cut her down, take a whole section of column with us to the M.E.’s office. No other way to do it.”
“Oh. Yeah, absolutely. Gotta cut it.” McKenzie was nodding like he’d thought of that himself.
Taylor cracked her knuckles and circled the column again. “This thing must be ten feet tall. Think it’s load-bearing?” she asked Tim.
He shook his head. “No. See the line at the top? It’s just decorative, glued then nailed into place. If it were one of the other two,” he gestured to each side of the body, “we’d be in trouble. This one is detached, for the most part. Won’t be too bad to replace.”
“Okay, Tim, do what you need to do. Try to delay a few minutes for me, though. Baldwin is on his way. I’d like him to see this intact.”
He nodded at her. “I’ll go get the saw.”
Taylor stepped back and considered the victim again. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d seen this before. In addition to that, one very obvious incongruity screamed out at her.
She turned to the patrol officer on her left. “I have a question for you, Paula.”
“Shoot,” Paula said.
Taylor pointed at the dead girl. “Where’s the blood?”
Three
John Baldwin decamped from the taxi ten minutes later. Perfect timing.
Taylor glanced around but didn’t see Elm anywhere. She’d have to introduce him to Baldwin, and based on their brief exchange, she had no idea how he would feel about the FBI being at their scene. When she was the lieutenant, it was her call, and she was always willing to have a fresh set of eyes. Elm struck her as the type of cop who would get territorial. Well, she’d cross that bridge when she got to it.
Taylor watched Baldwin walk up the drive, vivid green eyes taking in everything until they settled on hers. She wondered what he saw there, sometimes. He was a veteran of crime scenes, had been the lead profiler on hundreds of cases. He knew the score. Knew what kind of monsters lurked in her head. They lurked in his, too.
Her mind was drawn away from the crime. She forgot how big he was when he was away. As tall as she was, she still had to look up at him. She loved that. In the dark, his black hair looked like midnight, his angled cheekbones highlighting his mouth with shadows. As he got closer, she could see he hadn’t shaved, the soft stubble growing back at an alarming rate. Hmm.
He didn’t kiss her, though she wanted him to. It wasn’t professional—she knew that—but she hadn’t seen him in two weeks and she missed the feeling of him next to her. He did caress her arm, just above her wrist, and it burned as she walked him to the sign-in sheet, then into the house.
“Make it quick,” she said quietly. “We need to get her body down so the techs can finish up in here. And the new lieutenant is around somewhere. He might kick up a fuss that you’ve come.”
Baldwin nodded. He still hadn’t spoken, was simply processing. That’s what she liked about him. There was no extraneous bullshit, no posturing. Just an incessant curiosity about what made people do bad things. That was something they shared, a core desire to figure out the why behind the crimes.
She escorted him over to the body, then stepped away and let him assess the scene.
His lips were set in a tight, thin line, and she could see the dark circles under his eyes. He was exhausted. Working a case always did that to him. His job as the head of the Behavioral Analysis Unit, BAU Two, was to guide the various profilers who worked for him, and to give the various law enforcement entities requesting help a thorough rundown of what they were dealing with. Taylor knew that it went deeper for him. He wanted to do more than look at crime-scene photos and pump out a report. He liked to get in the field, to smell the scene, see the crime in situ. Well, she was giving him his heart’s desire with this one.
Baldwin broke his verbal fast. “Where’s the blood?” he asked.
Taylor smiled. “I said the same thing. There’s something else totally bizarre. There was a classical piece from Dvořák playing on the house’s intercom system.”
“Really? Hmm.”
“The