“Thank you,” she said to the officer. “You’ve been a great help.”

  The young woman beamed at the compliment. It was obvious to the Shayla that the officer’s ego could use a little bolstering.

  Gabriel looked as if he was straining at the bit and walked into the building ahead of her.

  The area was wide-open and airy, perhaps just slightly smaller than she recalled. Shayla could remember getting lost here a number of times in her first year at the university. Now it all seemed so familiar—and it had been violated by the Moonlight Killer, she thought angrily. He had taken what had once been such a safe space to her and turned it into a place of unimaginable horror.

  She had to struggle to keep herself from being overwhelmed with waves of anger. Striding toward the stairs leading into the stacks, Shayla glanced over her shoulder to make sure she hadn’t lost Gabriel.

  He was still looking around, methodically taking everything in. She could tell by his expression that Gabriel was viewing it all through the victim’s eyes. Shayla could only guess what was going through her partner’s mind, but she felt for him.

  “This way,” she told her partner, leading the way to a stairwell off to the side.

  Gabriel’s pace quickened until he had caught up with her. Shayla was moving down the stairs quickly, her heels clicking almost rhythmically against the metal.

  Gabriel was right behind her.

  There wasn’t really enough room for two people to go down together. The stairway, he noted, had a rather dated appearance, like it had been initially put in when the university had been built, some forty-odd years ago.

  Despite the fluorescent lights illuminating the stairs and beyond, there was a somber darkness to the area that only grew more so the farther down they went.

  By the time they reached the bottom of the second stairway, she could make out the sound of voices, talking.

  “I guess we’re the last to get here,” Shayla commented to her partner. Gabriel merely grunted in response.

  Shayla saw that her uncle had come out to review the scene with his team again. Usually, he varied his involvement, sending someone else to head the team if he had come out the day before. But here he was, leading his team again. Apparently, her uncle had made catching the serial killer a personal priority, just the way Gabriel and she had.

  Sean Cavanaugh raised his eyes when he saw the two detectives approaching him. “We’ve got to stop meeting this way,” he commented sadly.

  “Tell me about it,” Shayla said.

  Rather than answer her, Sean looked toward his niece’s partner. “You’re the expert here, Cortland. Is this the Moonlight Killer’s usual mode of operation, to practically follow up one killing with another, or is this something new for him?”

  Gabriel had walked by the CSI team, who were cataloging the various data that had been found at the crime scene, even though that data proved to be scarce.

  Gabriel seemed intent on absorbing everything. Finally, he turned toward Sean.

  “This is something new,” he admitted. He had really hoped that the Moonlight Killer would have reduced his pace and that he would be caught before he killed again.

  No such luck, Gabriel decided.

  “Well, maybe since the Moonlight Killer has stepped up his game, he’ll get sloppy and that’ll give us more of a fighting chance,” Sean theorized.

  Gabriel allowed himself to savor that thought, although he had some grave doubts.

  “Maybe,” Shayla’s partner said without any real conviction.

  So far, Shayla thought, turning back to the victim, who had been roped and tied up in the same unnerving fashion as her predecessors, there seemed to be no connection between the young women, other than the fact that they were all in a certain age range.

  Beyond that, there was no similarity in looks, nationality or what they did for a living. And, from what she had managed to learn, the women had nothing in common. The victims had been employed in a wide range of work.

  Gabriel’s wife, she recalled reading, had taken a leave of absence three months into her pregnancy because she had felt too tired to be able to do a good job. She had been fighting a constant battle against fatigue.

  Maybe if the woman had remained working, she wouldn’t have been in the wrong place at the wrong time and caught the killer’s eye.

  Gabriel bent down, getting as close to the victim as he could. As he shone the small, powerful flashlight he always had in his possession along her body, he didn’t detect any defensive wounds on her hands.

  “What are you looking for?” Sean asked as he turned around to see Gabriel conducting what appeared to be a methodical search of the victim’s body.

  Shayla began to answer for her partner, then pressed her lips together. This was Cortland’s show. It was up to him to answer her uncle.

  “Whether or not the woman has any defensive wounds on her,” Gabriel answered, “and if there’s any evidence of a drug being administered.”

  As Shayla and her uncle watched, her partner slowly went over every square inch of the victim’s upper body—until he finally found what he was looking for.

  Chapter 14

  “There it is,” Gabriel declared, moving to the extreme right so that the head of the crime scene investigative team could see what he had managed to locate.

  Gabriel pointed to the area where the needle had gone in to inject the paralyzing agent into the victim.

  The injection had created a minuscule pinprick at the very back of her neck. The injection had turned that small area into a rather angry shade of pink.

  Obviously, Gabriel concluded, the victim had been allergic to the paralytic agent that had been used on her.

  “I thought that was an insect bite. I was going to ask the coroner if I was right or if that was caused by something other than a bug,” Sean said to the two detectives. He looked at his niece’s partner. “Nice catch.”

  Gabriel shrugged off the compliment. To him a “nice catch” would have been applicable if he had managed to capture the serial killer.

  “It helps if you know what you’re looking for,” he told the head of the investigative team.

  Gabriel looked around on the floor, but found no syringe.

  “What are you looking for?” Sean asked, pausing to look on the library floor as well.

  “The last couple of times, the Moonlight Killer discarded the syringe with the paralyzing agent he used. This time it looks like he took the syringe with him—or threw it out someplace,” Gabriel theorized.

  Shayla had trouble looking away from the victim. The woman looked so young. She’d obviously had her whole life before her—until it had been brutally stolen from her.

  She turned toward her uncle. “Do we have a name for the victim yet?” Shayla asked.

  “Amanda Quinn. She was working on her master’s thesis in English literature. It was on the evolution of comedy,” Destiny Cavanaugh, Sean’s right-hand assistant as well as his daughter-in-law, volunteered the information. “I looked through her backpack, trying to find her name.”

  Gabriel gazed down at the victim’s face. “There are no defensive wounds,” he noted. Just like the last victim. This woman had apparently been dead a number of hours. “She never even saw this coming. Most likely, the killer has to wear soft-soled sneakers.” Rising, he turned toward Shayla. “We need to talk to that librarian who found the victim—and to anyone who might have been on duty late last night.”

  His eyes swept over the scene, taking it all in. This time, the Moonlight Killer had tied up the victim and hung her from one of the massive library shelves. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find someone who saw something.” Although he had to admit, he had his doubts. He turned to look at his partner again. “Students don’t have to sign in to use the library anymore, do they?”

  Shayla had heard that was once a thing, but not for a very long time. “Not for years and years,” she told him, then she looked at her cousin’s wife. “Are there any surveillance cameras around?”

  Destiny looked as disappointed as Shayla felt. She shook her head. “I already asked. The students said they felt as if the people in charge were spying on them, so the cameras were all taken down or disconnected.”

  Shayla’s eyes met her partner’s. It was hard to say which of them was more disappointed. “Too bad. A little bit of spying might have come in handy right about now,” she said. “It could have helped us get this guy instead of having him out there, hunting for more victims.”

  Sean Cavanaugh was taking photographs of the victim from several different angles. Gabriel waited until the man paused. “We’re going to need to see the autopsy report as soon as it’s available,” he told the CSI head, stressing, “I need the coroner to have the lab test Amanda’s blood for any and all neuromuscular blocking agents.”

  Sean looked very interested. “Is that what you think was used on the victim?”

  “Victims,” Gabriel corrected, stressing the plural. “To my knowledge, at least two of the last two victims before this one were injected with a paralytic agent, instantly rendering them unable to fight back. In all likelihood, there were more victims that were injected,” he added. “If that turns out to be the case, the information could help us narrow down the list of people to look into and investigate. A neuromuscular blocking agent isn’t something just anyone can get their hands on.”

  Sean turned toward his niece, smiling. “Looks like you got partnered up with a good one right out of the gate,” he told her, nodding his head with approval.

  * * *

  “What was your uncle talking about?” Gabriel asked as, armed with the name of the hospital the librarian had been taken to, he and Shayla made their way out of the library stacks.

  She realized that Cortland had probably forgotten this fact. She was fairly certain that she had told him this on their first day. “He was referring to the fact that you are my first partner since I passed my exam and got my detective’s shield,” she explained. She saw doubt enter his eyes and quickly said, “Don’t let the fact that I’m a newbie bother you. I grew up surrounded by detectives and absorbed an awful lot facts and procedures just through osmosis.”

  The grin she flashed at him was all but disarming. It took him a moment to tear his eyes away.

  “Yeah, right,” he muttered dismissively.

  “No, really,” Shayla insisted. “Every family gathering we ever had—and there have been an awful lot of them—the older generation always talked shop. That went on until we suddenly became the older generation.”

  He shrugged, trying to appear as if he was indifferent, even though he really wasn’t—and that did bother him. “Whatever. I guess I’m stuck with you for the time being.”

  She wondered if that meant that he was going to attempt to get another partner. She really doubted that he would—at least, not until they could bring down the Moonlight Killer. Cortland had too much of himself invested in this, and she was fairly certain that he knew she could be an asset, not a liability, in this pursuit.

  Once upstairs in the main library area, Shayla and Cortland went in search of the person in charge, a Mary Ann Elder, according to one of the officers. Miss Elder looked as if she could very well remember the days when students had to sign in before availing themselves of any of the books in the stacks. After showing the woman their shields and IDs, Shayla told the head librarian, “We need to find out who was working here on the late shift last night and if any of those people saw anything out of the ordinary at that time,” Shayla asked.

  The woman looked as if she would rather talk to Gabriel instead of his partner, but she forced herself to address Shayla’s question. “Josephine Juarez had the late shift last night,” she told the detectives.

  “Josephine,” Gabriel repeated. “Isn’t she the young woman who had the first shift here this morning?” he questioned.

  “Yes,” Mary Ann answered. “She was pulling a double shift. Josephine is getting married next year and asked me for extra work so she could save up as much money as she could.” The woman dropped her voice, as if she was about to impart some great secret. “If you ask me, the gown she’s buying is far too expensive, but then, nobody asked me.” The woman sighed, as if this had all happened just to annoy her. “Now I have no idea if she’s up to working at all, and I’ll need to find someone who can come in and sub for her.”

  “In other words, this Josephine person is the only one we can talk to about what went on here last night?” Gabriel asked.

  Mary Ann beamed at him. “You catch on quickly, Detective.”

  Shayla took out her card and placed it on the desk in front of the librarian. “If you or any of the other people who work here remember anything at all, please give me a call and let me know.” Turning away, she looked at Gabriel. “Let’s see if we can go talk to Josephine at the hospital,” she proposed.

  She felt that spending the extra minutes here had turned out to be a waste of time. Hopefully, the young woman in the ER could tell them something more helpful.

  As they began to walk out of the library, Shayla looked at her partner. “Do you know how to get to the hospital from here?”

  He hated to admit it, but he had no choice since he was the one who was driving. “No, not offhand.”

  “It’s not that far from here,” she told him. “I’ll give you directions.”

  He laughed shortly. “I figured you would,” he answered, hurrying down the stairs, away from the library.

  Gabriel lost no time in getting to the parking lot. When he didn’t hesitate but went directly to where he had parked his vehicle, Shayla had to admit that she was impressed. With three sides to the library parking lot, she had gotten lost finding her car the first few times when she had used the library.

  Gabriel, on the other hand, seemed to have unerring instincts when it came to finding the vehicle. Opening the doors, he got into his car and waited for her to do the same.

  As she settled in, he told her, “Okay, start giving me those directions.”

  She pretended to pout. “You’re taking all the fun out of it. Isn’t your manhood supposed to make you grumble about having to ask for directions?”

  “My manhood is very secure,” Gabriel informed her.

  “Good to hear,” she told him with a wide smile. Glancing at her, he got the impression that she actually meant it.

  Shayla watched as her partner put his key in the ignition. “You know, we could just trade places and I could drive us there.”

  “My manhood might be secure,” he told her, “but I haven’t taken leave of my senses. I’ll drive. Now, left or right?”

  “Neither,” she told him. “Just go straight until I tell you where to turn.”

  He slanted a look in Shayla’s direction. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  Her eyes were twinkling. “Maybe just a little.”

  She had to give her partner a few more directions, which incorporated several more turns, before they were finally able to pull up in the hospital parking lot.

  “You know, the streets here are a lot less busy than they are in Los Angeles,” he couldn’t help commenting. “In LA it feels like I’m practically driving around in circles. The streets in Aurora seem like they’re a lot more straightforward,” he said in quiet appreciation.

  In the parking lot, Gabriel found a parking space some distance away from the actual ER entrance.

  The moment he parked his car, he and Shayla immediately got out and hurried directly toward the emergency room entrance. The dark gray electronic doors sprang open the moment they came close to them.

  There was a middle-aged woman sitting behind the admissions desk. She seemed rather harried, and it wasn’t even nine in the morning yet. Shayla wondered if it had been very busy in the ER or if this was just the way the clerk normally looked—like a wilting flower.

  To save time, both Shayla and Gabriel had their IDs and shields out as they approached the woman behind the desk.

  “Did a Josephine Juarez come into the ER this morning? She would have been brought in by ambulance from the UC Aurora library,” Shayla explained, adding, “According to the police officers on the scene, she had been rather badly traumatized.”

  The description immediately struck a nerve. “Oh yes, she came in and she’s still here.” The woman looked at her monitor to confirm something before she disclosed the information. “It took Dr. Benjamin a long time to finally calm her down. She just wouldn’t stop wailing and crying.”

  “Where is she?” Shayla asked, immediately following that up with another question. “Can we see her?”

  The receptionist turned from her desk and called over to one of the nurses who was leaving with a tablet. The latter kept glancing at the screen, reading something on it even as she was walking away.

  “Donna,” the reception called to her, “can you take these two officers—”

  “Detectives,” Shayla corrected the receptionist before her partner could speak up. She was afraid that he might see the “demotion” as an insult for some reason.

  “—these two detectives,” the receptionist corrected, “to see that woman who was brought in from the UC Aurora library? Josephine Juarez,” the receptionist clarified. “I think they put her in bed number twelve in the ER.”

  The heavyset older woman nodded her head, her short-cropped dark hair bobbing around her face. Tucking the tablet under her arm, Donna told the pair that had been entrusted to her, “If you just come this way,” and then turned on her rubber-soled heel.

  “Do you know if Josephine said anything to anyone about what happened?” Shayla asked the older woman.

  Donna shook her head. “Far as I know, the poor thing was too busy screaming to say anything actually coherent,” Donna replied. “We don’t even know what happened to her.” She glanced over her shoulder at the two detectives. “The doctor couldn’t get her to stop screaming and crying long enough to tell anyone why she was having this breakdown. Would you know?”