Darlings of Paranormal Romance (Anthology) (76 page)

Kevin leaned back in surprise, his
hand stalled in midair. "Hey, easy. I didn't think anything she
said mattered."

"Fair
enough." Grappling for patience, Brandt threw himself down in the
chair. "What
did
she
say?"

"Fine." Kevin shifted to the side and
reached for his notebook. He flipped through the pages until he
found what he wanted. "She didn't say much," he said, frowning at
his notes. "She woke up twice 'inside' different women while they
were being murdered. She sees what the women see and when they die,
she snaps back into her own body."

Brandt frowned, puzzled. "Odd ability
to have. Where does the ring fit in?"

"She said that when staring out of
the women's eyes..." Kevin rolled his eyes at that. "She couldn't
see much of the attacker because he wore a full ski mask, like a
balaclava. You know the ones with only eye holes and a mouth hole.
She remembers his eyes being black and dead looking. And..." he
paused for effect.

Brandt glared at him in annoyance.
"Come on…come on. Stop the melodrama."

"Jeez, you're a pain in the ass
today. What gives?"

Brandt rolled his eyes. Camaraderie
was slowly developing with Kevin. Brandt had joined the East
Precinct four weeks ago, but on a temporary basis. His boss had
arranged for Brandt to have an office and access to all files,
current and cold, as he searched for information on a potential
serial killer, before heading up a task force if his findings
warranted one.

He'd come into contact with this
killer years ago and had run him to ground in Portland a year ago.
Then nothing. A year. He couldn't believe they still didn't have a
lead. This killer had become his nemesis. His Waterloo.

Most of the guys here had accepted
him. It would take time to develop more than that. Time he didn't
have.

"Fine then." Quirking one eyebrow,
Kevin continued to read. "She mentioned seeing a ring during the
one murder, and then she thought she recognized it again during the
second one," he said in an exaggerated voice.

"Did she describe it?"

Kevin nodded and glanced down at his
notes. "Some sort of four-leaf-clover pattern with a diamond in
each of the leaves. A snake, or something similar, coils between
them. According to her, one of the stones was missing."

Brandt sharpened his gaze. "Color?
Size? Gold? Silver?"

Kevin searched again through his
notes and shook his head. Casting an eye at Brandt, he said, "She
didn't say and...honestly, I didn't ask. I thought she was off her
rocker." He scrunched his shoulder. "Jesus, her cases aren't even
related, yet she says it 'feels' like the same killer. Something
about having the same energy signature. Whatever the hell that
means." He dropped his gaze, a frown furrowing his brow as he
doodled on the corner of his notepad. "I gather you're not
dismissing her story?"

Brandt considered that. He'd used
psychics before. In fact, he'd been friends with Stefan Kronos for
a long time. The reclusive psychic was a difficult person to get
close to. And even more difficult to be close with. The man was
painfully honest. Brandt knew what valuable information they could
give, but also knew using them could be a crapshoot.

"I don't know what to think. The
changing MO thing is unusual, but it happens. That's why I'm here,
after all. Still, if she had concrete information, it would have
been easy enough to check out against our cases. But she didn't
though, did she?"

Kevin shook his head. "Not really.
The last murder happened this morning, which could mean that we
haven't found the victim yet, or it happened in a different country
and we'll never hear anything about her. Oh yeah, this morning's
victim had a tiled ceiling with deep crown moldings and frilly pink
bedding. That is, if any of this can be counted on." He waited a
heartbeat. "Here. Go for it. I'll log it in, but you can have
this." He ripped off several pages from his notebook. "Personally,
I think it's all bullshit."

Brandt half nodded and walked back to
his office. Bullshit or not, he'd still check it out.

An hour later, Brandt slumped back in
his computer chair, stumped. Killers were normally predictable in
their methods. They stayed with what worked and few killers changed
that. Those that did had been in business for a long time. They'd
evolved. This made them incredibly difficult to hunt – as he well
knew.

He checked Kevin's notes again. With
only a comment or two on the women's hair and the way they'd died –
it would be hard to identify the victims. He had too many possibles
to sort through. In a busy metropolis like Portland, murder was an
everyday affair.

Speaking into empty air, he said,
"This is ridiculous. I need details, damn it."

He
needed a time frame or details of the victims themselves. How could
Kevin not have asked for more? Not that he could blame Kevin. The
city was overrun with nutcases. Who could tell them from
the
normal
people
these days?

He scratched down a couple more
questions before returning to his screen. This particular nut had a
name – Samantha Blair. He tried to fit the name to the image of the
skinny, panicked woman from the hallway.

Back at his screen, he brought up all
the information the database had to offer, which was scant at best.
She was twenty-eight years old with no priors, no outstanding
warrants, and no tickets or parking violations.

The phone rang, interrupting his
search.

"Hello."

"Hi, sweetie. How are you
today?"

Brandt leaned back with a grimace.
"Mom, I'm fine. I told you yesterday, the headache was gone when I
got home. Nothing to worry about."

"Yes, dear. I just wanted to call and
make sure you're feeling better."

"I am. How are you? Are you ready to
leave that place yet?" Brandt pivoted in his chair to stare out the
window. The sun had managed to streak through a few of the gray
rain clouds, lighting the sky with colored swaths.

His mom should be sitting out on her
little deck in the assisted living center a few miles out of town.
She'd been happy there – too happy. This was supposed to be a
temporary situation. Somehow, every time he mentioned her leaving,
her lung condition or diabetes acted up or she came up with some
other excuse to stay a little longer. The center didn't mind. They
were in the process of adding a new wing to accommodate more
seniors. His mom had money and paid her way. It was to be closer to
her that he'd requested the switch in location to this particular
station.

"I'm not that good. My hip has mostly
healed, but it still feels weak." She sniffled slightly.

Brandt grinned. What her hip had to
do with a fake cold was anyone's guess, still she pulled out a
sniffle every time.

Her voice almost back to normal, she
asked, "Do you have time for lunch today?"

"No. Today's not good."

"Oh dear. Well, how about tomorrow
then?"

"Mom, I'd love to if it's just the
two of us. No more prospective girlfriends, okay?"

"Now honey, I wouldn't do that. You
explained how you felt about my 'interfering,' as you called it.
But, still," the raspy voice dropped to a sad whisper, "I do want
to see you settled before I die."

"Oh, hell," Brandt muttered. The
sweet long-suffering tones somehow managed to convey lost hopes and
dire endings soon to come. "Mom, you aren't dying. And I am in the
hands of a good woman. Many good women in fact." Her shocked gasp
made him grin.

"Don't say that. You need a wife, not
those...those," she spluttered.

He couldn't help but chuckle at her
outrage. She deserved it for her constant interfering in his
private life. Her persistence came closer to smothering than
loving.

Brandt groaned under his breath. He
straightened, stretching his back. "Enough about my girlfriends.
Mom is there anything else you need, because I've got work to
do."

"No, I'll save it for lunch tomorrow
at the Rock Cafe. Be there at one o'clock like you
promised."

Brandt's chair snapped forward, his
feet hitting the floor hard. "What? What's this?" She'd hung up on
him. "Damn it."

Irritated, he stared at the phone in
his hand. His mother's machinations were legendary, and though he
hated being outmaneuvered, it was his fault. He'd been letting her
get away with this for thirty-four years, so there'd be no changing
the status quo now.

Good humor restored, he turned back
to his computer screen. According to Kevin, Samantha lived in the
nearby community of Parksville where she worked at a local vet's
office part-time. The sparse facts didn't begin to explain the
haunted weariness that had so touched him. He'd seen a similar look
in the families of victims and those at the bottom of their
world.

He forced his attention back to
Kevin's notes. It appeared Samantha had said something about both
women having long hair. The one from several months ago had been a
blonde who'd been strangled. So, how many unsolved cases could he
find with long-haired murdered victims?

His fingers flew across the keyboard.
Three cases listed for the last year. One of them flagged as
possible prey of the Bastard, the serial killer he'd followed to
Portland. A killer that had been active for decades, possibly all
over the States, with no one connecting the dots – until
Brandt.

This killer's victims were always
young, beautiful women that were either happily married or in
strong, committed relationships. All had been raped. And that's
where the similarities ended. Some women were strangled in their
beds, some stabbed in their living rooms, others tortured for
hours. Portland was the geographical center of the most recent
attacks.

The police had an old DNA sample that
had degraded over the years and a couple of hairs from very early
cases – and no one to check them against. This asshole had started
his career before the labs became so sophisticated. He'd adapted
and learned well. To date, they had no fingerprints and no hits on
any databases.

That's why Brandt had trouble
convincing his boss that they had a serial killer. Hence his job,
pulling together everything he could find to get the backing for
the task force to hunt down this asshole.

A knock sounded on the door. "Move
it, Brandt. We've got another one."

Chapter 3

11:27 am

Sam sat in her dilapidated Nissan
truck at the stop light. Who was that man she'd mowed down in the
hallway? It might have been a fleeting contact, but he'd left a
hell of an impression. Strong, determined, surprised and even
concerned. Sam wrapped her arms around her chest. Not
likely.

A honk from behind catapulted her
forward. She drove down Main Street before pulling into the almost
empty parking lot at the vet's office, her insides finally
unfurling and relaxing after the tough morning. The animals always
helped. It's not that she didn't like people, because she did. But
the foster home mill hadn't given her much opportunity to
understand close relationships.

Whenever she'd tried to get close to
another child, either they or she'd ended up shipped out within a
few months. Sam had grown up watching the various dynamics around
her in bewilderment. From loving kindness, to sibling fighting, to
lovers breaking up and making up, everyone appeared to understand
some secret rules to making relationships work.

Everyone but her.

She'd tried several relationships,
even had several short-lived affairs. In the last few years, they'd
been nonexistent.

Sam locked her car and walked through
the rear door of the vet hospital – her kind of place. She had a
kinship with animals. They'd become her saving grace in an
increasingly dismal and lonely world. She stashed her purse in the
furthest back cupboard, peeled off her sweater, and tossed it on
top. Then she tucked in her t-shirt and got to work.

Moving through the cages, Sam grinned
at Casper, a tabby cat who'd lost his leg in a car accident. "Hey
buddy, how're you doing?" She opened the door and reached inside.
Instantly, the cat's heavy guttural engine kicked in. She pulled
the big softy out of the cage, careful for his new stump. The
bandage had stayed dry at least. That had to be a good sign. She
gave him a quick cuddle. "Okay, Casper, back you go. I'll get you
fresh water. And how about a clean blanket?"

Sam bustled about taking comfort in
the mundane and in the service of others – animal others. She
hummed along until she came to the last cage. Inside, a heavily
bandaged German shepherd glared at her. She halted at the hideous
warning growl.

She stretched out a hand to snag the
chart hanging from the front of the cage.

The growls increased in
volume.

Sam stepped back to give the injured
animal more space. She'd intruded in his comfort zone, something
she could respect. Bending to his level, she spoke in a soft voice.
Without his trust, taking care of him wouldn't be pleasant for
either of them. And this guy looked like he'd seen the worst
humanity had to offer.