When the pizza went into the oven, Keegan set the timer and accepted Sept’s hand as she sat next to her. As the timer went off so did Sept’s phone, and Keegan took the dish out and started slicing to give Sept the chance to answer.

  “Savoie.” Sept pulled her notebook out to write something down as she listened. “Who found it?”

  Keegan reached for plates but waited before she put anything on them. “You’re blowing me off already?” she asked when Sept finished.

  “If you think I’d trade you and that for something else,” Sept pointed to the pizza, “then we need to spend more time together so you’ll learn differently. I do need to go, though.”

  “It won’t take two days to hear from you again, right?” Keegan got out a disposable container and filled it with pizza.

  “If this doesn’t take all night, I’ll call you as soon as I’m done. Maybe I can give you a ride home.”

  “I’m kidding. Go to work. Usually the worst thing I worry about is bad eggs, but with you, I don’t want to think about it.” Keegan held the container as she walked Sept to the door. “Be careful, and don’t forget to eat this.”

  “I’d say my mother’s really going to like you, but you’ve got a leg up on that end already.” Sept kissed her again, and Keegan felt like she was being cheated out of the day. “Take care yourself, and I’m sorry we have to cut this short.”

  Whatever the call had been, Sept must’ve thought it was an emergency since she slapped a blue light on the roof of the car and sped away. Keegan stood at the door even after Sept was no longer in sight and thought about what had just happened. No one in her family or circle of friends had ever dated a cop, so she didn’t know what to expect. But she figured it was a lot like being with a doctor.

  The phone tied such people to a world she wasn’t familiar with, but if you wanted the chance to be with them you had to learn to share your time with what defined them. And Sept was one of those people who poured her heart into what she did. Someone could probably try to change that, but such a relationship wouldn’t last, and it shouldn’t.

  “Only surgeons and such aren’t ducking killers and bullets while they’re at work,” she said as she closed the door.

  “Was it the pants that finally scared her off?” Jacqueline asked, her mouth full of pizza, when Keegan made it back to the kitchen.

  “Why are you here?”

  “I live here, and I don’t have anything until two. But don’t worry. I didn’t plan to interrupt the kissing.” Jacqueline picked off a mushroom and ate it separately.

  “How do you know we were kissing?”

  “I just finished saying I wouldn’t interrupt, but I mentioned nothing about spying on you.” When Keegan laughed, Jacqueline bumped hips with her. “You sure about this one?”

  “I’m never sure about anything except how much salt to put in a dish, but she seems like a good bet.”

  Jacqueline took another slice and headed for the stairs. “I’m sorry to hear you say that.”

  “Why?” Jacqueline began to talk over her shoulder, clearly trying to get a head start.

  “I still think she could help me get over Adam.” She was running by the time she said his name.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sept took another bite of the still-warm pizza as she entered the Lakeview neighborhood in search of the address Nathan had given her over the phone. No one had started rebuilding on this block, and there wasn’t one FEMA trailer around. Even though the storm had been almost four months earlier, this wasn’t uncommon. Sept attributed it to a widespread form of lethargy caused by the enormity of the cleanup.

  As she reached the edge of police units parked in front of the house she’d been called to, she took one last bite and closed the box to save the rest. The two cops throwing up across the street provided her first clue that it would be a long day.

  “I tried to keep everyone out,” Nathan said as she walked up.

  “But?”

  “But some of them outranked me and told me to jerk off.”

  Sept glanced across the street. “Would that be the two geniuses who told you that?”

  “Yeah, but I can’t blame them for their reaction. It’s rough in there. I’m not sure who can do something like this and live with himself, but he has no soul.”

  “Who found her?” Sept saw the news trucks coming up from the opposite side and cursed under her breath. “Hold up,” she told Nathan.

  “Who’s in charge?” she asked the uniformed police who stood in the yard. An overweight man with curly blond hair stepped forward and stuck his thumbs in his utility belt. From his expression Sept knew he was about to lay down some attitude.

  “What can I do for you, little lady?”

  Since she was at least four inches taller than him Sept wanted to crack up, but behind him the cameras were rolling. “If anyone’s in my crime scene, hustle them out before they destroy any more evidence,” she growled. “Once that’s done, then back them up,” she nodded toward the media, “about a block. And in case you weren’t briefed, keep your mouth shut, big boy. Now move.”

  The guy had to pull his pants up as he hustled toward the house, and Nathan pressed his fingers to his mouth to keep from laughing. A minute later five other officers came out of the house and headed toward the growing number of unofficial onlookers.

  “Jesus Christ,” Sept said in disgust. “By the time we finish going through there, we’ll be able to prove they all did it. Weren’t they trained better?”

  “I doubt even you’ve seen a crime scene like this, so you can’t blame them,” Nathan said.

  “Let’s go see what’s so unique about it.”

  The uniform in charge left one officer inside the door, and unlike the curious group who’d just left, this guy kept his eyes on the street. “You okay?” Sept asked when she saw how he was breathing.

  “The smell’s kind of overwhelming, but my partner and I’ll take it in shifts, so I’ll be fine.”

  Sept nodded and took a deep breath herself when she glanced over his shoulder into the front room. She accepted a set of booties and gloves from Nathan, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the floor.

  “Let’s get started. Give me the whole story of who found her.”

  “The search teams were making their way down the street when one of them saw the candle through the window. He kept banging on the door, since he thought they were using candles and was afraid they’d burn the house down. As you know, unless you rewire, the power company won’t juice the place, and the guy went out back to check but didn’t see any sign of work at the box outside.”

  The warmer weather had sped up the decomposition, and the entrails appeared so inflated and bloated they would never again fit in her abdominal cavity. The body still appeared to be tethered to the floor because the killer hadn’t untied her, Sept concluded, until after she died. The woman was spread out like a bug in a display, and her complexion had become blotchy.

  “Was the door locked?” Sept asked.

  “He said no. After he knocked some more, he tried the knob and went in about three feet before he ran out screaming.”

  The candle had a thick layer of melted wax, so it had been burning for hours, but it was still flickering. It reminded her of the candles at the front of the statue of the Virgin Mary when she went to church as a child. This candle came in the same red container that they provided parishioners at St. Genevieve about a mile away, and it put out just enough light for Sept to discern the heart lying next to it.

  “Did you take a look?” Sept asked Nathan.

  “More like a brief glimpse. When I saw what was waiting, I didn’t want to fuck up the scene, so I waited for you.”

  “What the hell is this?” Sept asked when she moved closer, but she figured no one would answer.

  She walked slowly around the body, trying to find a place to start. Wherever she picked, it would be a long day.

  “Nathan, get on the radio and call the crime scene guys and tell them to bring a generator and some lights. This’ll take some time, and we’ll be here well after the sun sets.”

  Alone except for the guy at the door, Sept swept her flashlight to the pile of clothes neatly folded near the woman’s feet. At the top was a purse still shut, as if the dead woman had put it down to keep it from getting dirty. Sept opened it and found a small wallet with seven crisp one hundred dollar bills and a driver’s license. The name Tameka Bishop didn’t sound familiar, but her address did.

  “Fuck,” Sept said. The money made sense now, and she wasn’t looking forward to telling Brandi Parish the news.

  She took her flashlight back out and clicked it on. By Tameka’s feet were holes in the floor, and with a quick flick upward, Sept saw the same thing by her hands. The holes piqued her interest, but not as much as the numbers on her feet. They tickled something in her brain, and when she put Tameka’s purse down she almost threw up, but her reaction had nothing to do with the gore.

  On the soles of her feet the bastard had drawn the same lines they’d found on Robin Burns. “No fucking way.”

  “Do you need something, ma’am?” the young police officer asked.

  “Just talking to myself, don’t worry about it.”

  “I wasn’t gone long enough for you to go crazy,” Nathan said.

  Sept waved him over and pointed to what she was staring at. “This look familiar?”

  “Shit,” Nathan said as he squatted next to her. “It can’t be the same guy, can it?”

  “It’s the same guy, but he’s added some tricks to his game. He’s evolving, and this time he needed privacy to get all this done. He’s nuts, but not enough to attempt this somewhere like the park or Blanchard’s.”

  Sept moved the beam of her flashlight to Tameka’s ankles. “He must have tied her to something in the floor, and from the looks of it she struggled.” She moved closer to look for any details in the thin bruise circling her ankle.

  The wound pattern came next, and she glanced at Nathan to make sure he was okay. If an autopsy had made him ill, this was much worse, and she didn’t need him throwing up on the body. He nodded as if reading her thoughts. “I think he started here.” She pointed to the lower left side of her abdomen.

  “Why? Up to now, if this is the same guy, he’s done it with a stab through the heart.”

  “Her heart is lying over there like some kind of offering, so he didn’t follow his usual routine.” She took her pen and carefully lifted the open flap of skin in the spot she was talking about. There was too much blood to see if there were any nicks on the floor. “The way this cut tapers to nothing here,” she pointed to the underside of Tameka’s right breast, “means he cut in an upward angle, but we can’t be sure until Gavin checks it out.”

  “It’s not like he’ll have a lot to do once we get her out of here. This asshole more than gutted her.”

  Sept noted the rest of the injuries as she went along, but she held little hope of finding any other clues. With the quick, seemingly unplanned crimes this guy had left nothing behind, so with as much time as he wanted to get the blood thirst out of his system, there would be less than before.

  George arrived as Sept reached Tameka’s head, the candle still flickering right above it. Their silent guard at the door finally showed some life and stopped him from entering. “Nathan, make a note to find out how many religious-supply stores are still in business. If it’s anything like the grocery stores, it should be a short list.”

  “You got it, as soon as we get back to the office. What do you want to get from that?”

  “I want to find one of these.” She indicated the candle.

  “Sept, come on. The mosquitoes are starting to get bad out here,” George yelled from the door.

  “Let them in,” Sept said to the officer.

  “Fuck me.” George stopped at the edge of the clean part of the floor. “What the hell?”

  “Some sick fuck had a good time with her,” Sept said. The part of the floor that was still dirty did hold some marks this time, and she shone her light to the trail that led back to what used to be the kitchen. “You guys start in here, and if it takes another memory card for the camera, get every inch from every angle you can think of.”

  “What’s with the numbers on her feet?” George asked as he set up the spotlights.

  “If you find a note with an explanation, let me know.”

  Sept followed the smudges to the window, and she could visualize him climbing through, stepping on the broken glass. The light was fading so she went outside to check for footprints. In the yard she spotted a trail from the window to where the dead grass was still thick.

  She found a few good prints in the accumulated mud carried in by the flood, but something was odd about them. She crouched down to explain the ridge detail that would let them narrow down what kind of shoe it was, but saw only the general shape of the shoe. Whoever had walked through the yard seemed to have had wood slats tied to the bottom of his feet.

  “Anything?” Alex held up the camera with one hand and swatted away bugs with the other.

  “Call in another team for out here and tell them to bring plenty of plaster to make casts of these.”

  “Sure thing. It’ll give me a break from being in there.”

  Sept went back inside but this time carefully entered through the window. She used her flashlight in a sweeping motion, trying to find something out of the ordinary, which was almost funny when she thought about what the house looked like on the whole. “Maybe I should try to find something that’s actually in place,” she said to herself.

  “No prints so far,” George said. He was using a blue light to try to map the blood splatter and any other body fluid in the room. “Gavin’s office called, and I told him to hold off until you were ready.”

  “Besides Robin Burns, have you ever seen this?” Sept showed him the line drawn on the bottom of Tameka’s feet.

  “I’ve never seen it done before, but the crazies who sit up nights thinking about what to do next to fuck someone over are always coming up with new shit to freak us out.” George took a handheld spotlight and shone it on the pile of stuff up against the front window. “Doesn’t look like he touched any of that, but we’ll go over it just in case.”

  “You do realize that we’ll see this again until we catch this guy, right?”

  “Been around long enough to know that.”

  “I’m not questioning you, but I’m telling Dad to send the word down that as we find these to assign you. We’ll have better luck finding the differences if we’re working together.”

  George held the light as Sept walked the room. “You should call him now and show him what we’re up against.”

  “I’m planning to, but I want to contact someone else first.” Sept stared at the body as a whole and thought she was on the right track. The candle was the proof. “Are you done?”

  “No. I’ll go hit the bedrooms first, then head to the kitchen and go through that section you said he came through. Sometimes even the most careful person screws up where he thinks you won’t look.”

  Sept nodded as she flipped through her notebook searching for the number she needed. The sun was starting to set, but the sweat was dripping down her back. Nathan came back in when Sept started to dial, and he walked around the body again.

  “Dr. Munez,” Sept said, and the name made Nathan stop and face her.

  “Detective Savoie?”

  “I don’t mean to bother you so soon.”

  “I’m working on finding what you want, but I’ll need more than a day.”

  Sept laughed and shook her head. “I’m not calling about this morning. First, I want to know how squeamish you are.”

  “Depends. If it has anything to do with rotten seafood, count me out.”

  “I’m at a crime scene, and I want you to come out here and tell me if this one explains the symbol I showed you earlier. Before you agree, you need to know that this is rough.”

  “If you think I can help I’ll be happy to try. What’s the address?”

  Sept put her hand over the mouthpiece. “Nathan, go pick the doc up, and I’ll deal with my father until you get back.” Just then Julio called her name. “Sorry, you won’t need the address. My partner should be there in about twenty minutes, and he’ll get you through the police line.”

  “Your dad’s coming?” Nathan asked.

  “I’m sure he’ll still be here when you get back so you can get in some ass kissing, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “I only wanted to thank him for the chance to work with you—no need to be an asshole about it.”

  “I’m yanking your chain—no need to act so whiny. Go get Munez and fill him in on the generalities. I want him to keep his stomach contents in place, but I want him to tell us the first thing that comes to mind.” Sept aimed the spotlights toward the ceiling. Tameka had already been violated enough. “He might not know anything, but I still want that initial reaction.”

  “Be back as soon as I can. Call if you want anything else.”

  Sept could hear George talking to Alex and the other team that had arrived, but she didn’t move from her spot close to Tameka’s head. After Sept became a detective, she’d found that when she spent time alone with the bodies of the victims and the places they’d died, the answers came easier. Only Tameka stayed as silent as she was still, and Sept attributed it to the crime’s senselessness.

  When Sept’s father answered, she said, “Dad, I know you’re getting ready for dinner, but you need to get over here.” She gave him the address and closed her phone. She wanted to wait and tell Brandi in person. Sept knew how she felt about her girls and how hard she tried to keep them safe.

  “Was that what happened to you?” she asked, but it wasn’t that simple. Brandi chose her clients too carefully for the freak who did this to get past her.

  “Ma’am, Chief Savoie’s here,” the officer at the door said.

  “Jesus,” Sebastian said as soon as he laid eyes on Tameka. “How’d you catch this?”