She followed him happily.
· · · · ·
Two hours later, it was Rome’s phone that woke them up.
“Yeah. Carino.”
“Detective Carino. This is Officer Akito. We have another woman.”
He stood, his mind on the work to be done. “Location.”
After hanging up, he looked at Maria. “Another woman.”
She nodded. “I’ll wait here.”
Her hair was a mess, a tangle of curls dripping over her shoulders. She was naked. He sighed and gave her a quick kiss.
Traffic was light because of the early hour, so it took him no time to get to the scene. It was another alley, not too far from where he’d taken Maria to eat breakfast that first morning. Shit. There was already a crowd.
He stepped through the crowd, ignoring the questions from reporters. When he reached the alley, a young uniformed officer stepped up. “Carino.”
He nodded. “What do you have?”
“Woman, twenty-eight, strangled, ME thinks she was raped.”
“Do we know her identity?”
“Amy Walsh.”
His heart stopped for a second then dropped to the bottom of his stomach.
“What did you say?”
He gave Rome a strange look and repeated the name.
Amy.
“Are you sure?” he asked, trying to keep his emotions under control, but he could already feel his stomach roiling.
Officer nodded. “As much as we can be without a personal id.”
Rome nodded and walked forward. Each step felt heavier. He had recognized the women, all of them. But Amy was different.
He walked up to Tim and his CID crew.
“Same MO?”
Tim nodded. “Looks like. This one though, he left an id.”
He sighed as he looked down at Amy. He could still remember the joy on her face when she talked about her new man. She wasn’t stupid, that was for sure. There was no way she would go with someone she didn’t know in this part of town. Hell, he wasn’t sure she would have come with someone she knew well. Even him.
“We’ll get a positive ID.”
“It’s her,” he said.
Tim looked up, studying Rome. “You know her.”
“Knew. I knew her.”
He pulled back in his emotions, knowing that he couldn’t help her now. There was no saving Amy from whoever had done this. But he could make sure the bastard would pay.
With that last thought, he slipped on his gloves and started the job of looking for clues.
· · · · ·
A long three hours later, he was summoned to the captain’s office.
“Shut the door.”
He did as ordered and sat down and waited for the captain to sign something.
“You knew the victim.”
Rome nodded. “She hadn’t been at the club for the last few months. She’d met someone. He didn’t like playing at the club.”
His boss didn’t waste time getting down to the particulars. “Was she a member of Rough ‘n Ready?”
He nodded. “As I was telling Tim, she hadn’t been there recently.”
The captain studied him for a moment. “You were involved with her.”
He looked at the captain and nodded. “But we broke it off a few months ago. Amicably. She’d met someone outside of the club. A Dom, but not a member of the club.”
“I’m going to have to get personal here.”
“Go ahead.”
“For people of your persuasion, is it odd to meet someone outside of the club scene?”
He shook his head. “Not really. Easy enough to find people online. There are some dating sites that cater to just about anything.”
“Shit.”
“Which means, of course, that our suspect list just got longer.” He thought over the murders, how they were women he had interacted with, but this one spoke of frustration. “The ME said it was more violent, he’s escalating.”
“And he seems to be getting closer to you.”
He studied the captain’s face. “No. Don’t even think of taking me off the case.”
“I’m not. Okay, yeah, I thought about it, but I’m not going to take you off. You’re apparently working well with what’s-her-name.”
“Maria. Agent Callahan,” he corrected.
“Keep me up to date. Find out who she was seeing, too. Make sure that it isn’t another copycat.”
He nodded as he rose and walked out of the office.
“Hey, Rome.”
He was jolted out of his thoughts by Jack. “Hey, what are you doing here?”
“Final out processing. I had a few papers to sign.”
Rome nodded, already closing down his computer so he could leave.
“How’s Maria?”
“What?”
“The woman you introduced me to the other day. Maria.” Jack’s smile widened. “Let me guess. You’ve moved on all ready.”