She would show him the drawings eventually. But not today. Not this soon.
She just wanted to stay with him like this, for him to keep holding her, as long as possible.
“It’s just exhausting. Usually I wake up on the floor after I’ve drawn in my sleep.”
“Yeah, you might have done that last night, but I led you back to bed.”
“Thanks. That’s a lot more comfortable than in a heap on the ground.”
Brett pulled her back so he could look her in the eye. “Are you okay? It has to take a lot out of you to do that. Your poor arm was working non-stop for nearly two hours. I was exhausted just watching you. Your nose was bleeding.”
“Yeah, it’s not easy on my body.” And it had been getting worse over time. “I’m usually wiped out for the day after it happens. That’s why I wish it would stop.”
“Does it happen often?”
Paige shrugged “Five or six times a month.”
He led her over to the couch. “And you always draw people?”
She tucked her legs up under her as he sat next to her and pulled her close. She was grateful for his warmth. Even talking about this made her feel cold.
“Yeah, always women.” But not usually alive and relatively happy like the woman on easel. If that was the case, Paige would just chalk it up to more weirdness. But the death, the violence that she drew. Over and over. Always the same, just different women.
“I don’t really want to talk about it anymore, Detective.”
Because she knew where all these questions would lead: showing him the drawings.
Not today. Not this soon.
She moved from his side onto his lap so her legs were straddling his hips. She wrapped her arms loosely around the back of his neck, linking her fingers in with his hair.
“Isn’t there anything else we can talk about? Or maybe not talk at all?” she lowered her head and kissed him, nipping his bottom lip.
He was aware of her diversion technique, she could tell when she looked him in the eyes. But he was willing to let it go. “Anything else peculiar I should know about?”
Oh God.
She kissed him again. “Well, I do dance around naked during the full moon.”
Brett flipped her around so she was flat on the couch and he was lying on top of her.
“I might need a preview of that immediately to make sure it’s acceptable.”
Paige hooked her arms and legs around him and pulled him close. “Whatever you say, Detective.”
Chapter Fourteen
By mid-afternoon on Monday Brett wasn’t any closer to proving his serial killer theory even after focusing most of his attention on it the whole day. He didn’t want to admit it, but it was looking more like Captain Ameling was right: there wasn’t enough of a pattern tying the deaths of these women together to blindly attribute it to one killer.
He hadn’t been able to find any more deaths on “payday” dates in Oregon. He’d expanded his search to include the entire state, but had only found one more murder. That one had been six years ago, and although it did fit the right dates and a matching killing method as one of the other women, someone had already been arrested and found guilty of the murder.
Brett leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. Was he pushing? Looking too hard for a pattern that wasn’t really there?
His gut told him no. That there was something more. Something he was missing.
But his gut wasn’t going to get him anywhere with Captain Ameling. Brett needed something solid.
Maybe it would help if they could get more information about the woman from Friday’s crime scene. Brett walked over to Alex Olivier’s desk. Alex held the phone handset on one of his shoulders, but motioned to Brett to have a seat in the chair in front of his desk.
“What’s up?” Alex left the phone hanging on his shoulder. “I’m on hold waiting for some details about a homicide from a couple weeks ago.”
“Do we have any info from Friday’s scene? Confirmed cause of death? ID on the victim?”
Alex was the primary investigator on the case so all the info would go through him. Brett watched as the other man searched through some emails, phone still hanging off his shoulder.
“Let’s see. Here’s a tech report: in preliminary tests, nothing of any use found so far at the scene.” He scanned through more reports. “Victim ID? Nothing yet. Evidently there was some issue with the downtown coroner’s office and morgue this weekend. Water valve broke. Everything —including bodies and files— had to be relocated to secondary locations. It’s holding everything up.”
“Damn it.”
“Yeah, I want to find out who that lady is so we can notify her next of kin. Somebody’s got to be looking for her.”
“Thanks man, keep me posted.”
“I’ll do better. I’ll put your email on the list so you get any updates from the ME’s office or anything the crime techs find.”
Whoever Alex had been holding for picked up and Alex started talking. Brett waved and headed back to his desk. There was nothing he could do on this case until he knew a little more about the victim. Then he could see if she had anything in common with the other women besides gender and general age.
But Brett suspected that even when he could put a name to the victim he wouldn’t be able to tie her to any of the other women. The killer was too smart for that.
If there even was just one killer.
Paige walked into the downtown police station, the picture of the woman she’d drawn on Saturday night tucked in a file under her arm. It struck her as interesting that in the eight years she’d lived in Portland she’d only been here twice and both times were within forty-eight hours of each other.
When she’d been interviewed about her attack, the police officers had come to her, first in the hospital and then to her home. She’d been here on Saturday with Brett so they could call her security firm’s number. Although there had been people around then, it had been a weekend so anyone who wasn’t required to work hadn’t been around.
Now it was Monday and there were a lot of people here.
Her security team had given her a ride to the station and since they knew she was, ahem, friendly with Brett, they hadn’t given her grief when she told them she needed to go to the precinct.
But she wasn’t here to see Brett. As a matter of fact she was hoping she could get in and out of here without seeing him at all. She wasn’t visiting her boyfriend.
Because honestly, she wasn’t even sure if he could be called her boyfriend. They’d had a great night together Saturday night, and an even better morning yesterday morning —she could feel her core temperature rising just thinking about yesterday morning on the couch— but that didn’t mean she would call him her boyfriend.
But it didn’t matter because boyfriend or not she wasn’t here to see him. She had an appointment with a missing person detective named Schliesman because of what she had seen in the newspaper this morning.
A picture of a young woman. Not just any young woman, the exact one Paige had drawn Saturday night.
Her name was Teresa Cavasos.
There had been a missing person’s ad in the newspaper from the woman’s family. Evidently she had been missing since Thursday and the family and police were looking for any information.
Paige wasn’t stupid. She didn’t plan to tell the police that she had drawn the picture in her sleep. She already had a reputation as an attention-hungry kook around here. She would tell them she drew a lot and that she had drawn this picture of the woman in the last couple of days, and when she saw the woman’s picture in the paper thought it might help.
It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was better than admitting the truth.
It wasn’t the woman herself that Paige hoped the police would find helpful in the drawing. It was the details around the woman. She was obviously in a parking lot and there were buildings that were unique in their shape and size. Paige didn’t know where they were located, but she hoped someone working the case might.
For the first time Paige could put one of the faces she had drawn to an actual name, which both excited and terrified her. If somehow she could help the police find this missing woman, then Paige had to try. Maybe it would make all the nights she’d lost drawing those painful pictures worth it. Just helping one woman would do that.
The precinct was busy and pretty overwhelming, but at least she felt safe here. Of course, her sister Adrienne had once been kidnapped in the middle of an FBI building by a psychotic killer, so maybe Paige shouldn’t feel too safe. But she wouldn’t hang around. She’d just do what she needed to do and get out.
Unless maybe she happened to run into Brett. Her not-boyfriend.
She stepped up to an overworked uniformed officer who was attempting to single-handedly direct people who came through the door and also answer the phones. “Excuse me, I have an appointment with Detective Schliesman who is working Teresa Cavasos’ missing person case.”
The man handed her a visitor’s pass. “Take a seat right there.” He pointed to some hard plastic chairs by the door. “I’ll call for your escort.”
The colors surrounding all the people were varied and dramatic, to be expected in a place full of both the best and the worst society had to offer. Although Paige did notice that sometimes it wasn’t always just the criminals with the dark, muddy colors. People’s intent wasn’t always obvious by the clothes they wore — uniform or not.