“Don’t count on it, Special Agent Dow. Want to tell me what you know about this serial killer we’re after?”
All he knew was what he’d read in the paper. He’d done that with half an eye, never thinking he’d be assigned to this particular force. Now he wished he’d paid more attention, even though half of it was undoubtedly media hype.
“What I know about the serial killer,” she repeated. “I know that he’s a son of a bitch, no slur intended on female dogs everywhere. I know he rips families apart. That he probably watches his victims, getting their routines down pat before he strikes. I know I want to pin his hands and feet down and vivisect him.”
Something in her voice commanded his attention. “You sound like you really hate this guy.”
“I do. I should,” she added. “He killed my sister.”
CHAPTER FIVE
IT TOOK NICK a minute to process what she’d just said. He thought his new partner was either pulling his leg or speaking figuratively. But the woman’s profile was rigid. If she was kidding, Special Agent Charlotte Dow held the world’s record for a deadpan.
“You’re serious,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Hold it. Back up a minute,” he said. “Isn’t that considered a conflict of interest?”
On the team less than an hour and already the new guy was pointing out protocol to her. She couldn’t say she was exactly warming up to him. Charley spared him one cutting glance. “If it doesn’t bother the A.D., I don’t see why it should bother you.”
He’d just been put in his place. Nick felt his even temper become a little less even. His new partner obviously had a stick pushed up in regions that did not entertain the rays of the morning sun. But if what she’d just said about her sister was true, he supposed she could be afforded a little slack.
And, he reminded himself, he was the new kid on the block. That meant he had to go along with things, had to roll with the punches until he got the lay of the land and could block the blows.
“I only meant…” His voice trailed off.
Squeaking through a left turn and plowing through a particularly large puddle that shot plumes of water out on either side of the front of the vehicle, Charley sighed. She was being waspish. What was worse, she was taking it out on the new guy.
She spared him another glance. The man didn’t look any the worse for her sharp tongue, she’d give him that. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap your head off. I’m a little testy this morning.”
Brannigan pretended to wipe his brow. “Well, that’s certainly a relief. I’d hate to think you were like this every day.”
Nick knew he’d just taken a gamble. It was one of those lines that could go either way. It could make her laugh or climb up on her high horse and read him the riot act about affording her respect. He was hoping for the former and held his breath until there was some kind of response.
After a beat, a hint of a smile made an appearance on her lips.
“Fortunately for you, I’m a pussycat most of the time. And, to answer your question about conflict of interest—not that I have to,” she told him pointedly, “neither A.D. Kelly nor I realized that there was a tie-in until certain data was fed into the Bureau’s in-house database program. By that time I was already on the task force.” Her smile widened slightly. “And I’m not without my charm.”
“Where did you leave it today?”
The remark had just slipped out. He decided to leave it there. He’d never been comfortable pretending to be something he wasn’t and what he wasn’t was someone who allowed a person to walk all over him. As a kid, it had earned him more than one black eye and more than a few disciplinary sessions administered by his father, sometimes months after the fact because the Colonel was away so much.
Special Agent Dow’s expression was unfathomable. “Good one,” she said with no emotion. “You’re entitled to one zinger.”
“A day?”
A sea of red taillights lined up in front of her vehicle. By all indications, there’d been an accident up ahead. The police had shut off the stoplights and were directing traffic, none of which was presently moving. Stuck, Charley took the opportunity to turn toward the new man.
“Ever,” she informed him crisply. “And that was it. I’m afraid you’ve used up your three wishes, Aladdin.”
He wondered if that was an example of her sense of humor, or if he’d just been put on notice. Rather than make a guess, Nick decided to shift the conversation. “So what was it?”
They were moving again. Good thing. Her leg felt as if it was cramping up. “What was what?”
“The certain ‘thing’ which made you realize your sister—”
“Cris,” Charley supplied.
“Cris,” he repeated, “was the serial killer’s first victim?”
That was taking something for granted and she wasn’t altogether sure they could, given the nature of their killer. “Alleged first victim,” she corrected.
Nick stopped, slightly annoyed at the second interruption. “Don’t you let someone get a question out without interjecting footnotes?”
“If that someone gets it right, no,” she answered simply. And then, because she didn’t really feel like butting heads this morning, entertaining though it might be, she decided to explain why she’d just corrected him. “Call it a gut feeling, but I don’t think we have found all of the victims. It’s a big country, Special Agent Brannigan. There might be graves in places we haven’t even thought to look. As of now, we know of three states where the Sunday Killer has struck. They were all California natives, but he obviously targeted them and followed them out of state. Given that, there might be more victims that, for one reason or another, we don’t know about yet.” She frowned. “There’s no real common thread to link the women or give us a reason why he chose them and not some other women to kill.”
Traffic was picking up again, and she shifted in her seat. “The only thing the victims have in common is the way they died.”
Charley detailed the similarities that connected the deaths to one another. “He kills on a Sunday. Always. He doesn’t abuse them sexually. No penetration in any manner, no clothes even moved out of place. Every body is found in what could be described as a ladylike pose. The killer strangles them with his bare hands. That means, through the magic of science, we have an approximate idea of how big a man he is—”
“Unless he has freakishly large hands,” Nick interjected. When she shot him a look, he tagged on, “Sorry, the footnote thing is catching.”
Charley made no comment. She didn’t know if she’d been partnered with a wiseass or someone whose dry sense of humor she was going to like. For the time being, she continued. “The women are under forty and are all reasonably attractive. That is, they were before he branded them.”
This was the first he’d heard of any disfigurement. “Branded them?”
Charley moved the windshield wipers to the last position. They began to slide back and forth across the glass in double time, maintaining clear visibility for half a cycle.
“It might have something to do with Sundays,” she guessed. “Maybe the killer’s some kind of religious fanatic—we haven’t determined that yet. But he lightly carves a tiny cross in the middle of all his victims’ foreheads.”
“A cross,” he repeated. A vision of Rasputin from an old Russian history textbook materialized in his mind. A mad monk, or someone in that vein. Nick shrugged. “Maybe the killer thinks he’s saving them somehow.”
“Saving