Exhaustion pulled at her. Hopefully she’d sleep more tonight than she had last night. And not draw.
Out of habit Paige checked the locks on the doors, then headed upstairs towards her bedroom. Exhaustion nearly overwhelmed her. She knew she should eat something —the few bites of toast she had with Brett hadn’t provided much nourishment— but couldn’t be bothered. She would get something to eat tomorrow. Sleep was the priority now, especially given how little she had gotten the night before.
The thought made her pause as she changed into the over-sized shirt she always wore to bed.
Would she wake up tomorrow having drawn another face? Another unknown woman covered in painful bruises? Or even worse, someone looking back from the canvas with the blank stare of death?
Paige crawled into bed. Sleep suddenly never seemed further away.
Chapter Six
His job was tedious, inconsequential, compared to his principal work. But it allowed him to pay the bills.
And to pay her.
Rage rose like a savage black wave at the thought, but he forced it back. There was nothing he could do to her, all the things he desired would lead too quickly back to him. All he could do was save other men from the same fate.
As he had again a few hours ago. He thought of the woman’s screams, how she’d begged him to stop. But he knew he couldn’t trust her pathetic cries.
Betray. Abandon. Steal.
She would never do it to another man. As he’d strangled her with the rope he’d bought weeks ago in a different city far from here, he’d known he was doing some future man a great service. When he’d arranged her dead body on that dingy hotel bed, he’d stared down at her, memorizing that moment. Her dark hair, battered face.
A mental snapshot.
He longed to take a real snapshot with his camera, but couldn’t. It was too risky. The photos of his prey while they were alive that he kept would be suspicious enough, if found, but at least partially explainable due to his job.
A job that allowed him to travel where he needed without anyone’s notice. To select and track his prey where he was sure there would be nothing connecting them. Nothing leading back to him. But otherwise the job was just a means to an end. An annoyance.
Yet he would gladly continue, despite its tedium, until his pattern was complete.
The following week Brett had finally made some headway in familiarizing himself with the cold cases he’d been dealt, along with making progress in current ones. Captain Ameling still wasn’t a fan but at least he wasn’t actively trying to make Brett’s life a living hell.
But right now Brett was standing over a dead woman and what Captain Ameling thought of him didn’t matter. Brett and Alex Olivier, a ten-year homicide detective who’d joined just after Brett had left the area, stood in a motel room in a rather quiet, suburban area of Portland. Healy Heights had never been a particularly dangerous area unless something had changed while Brett had been gone.
“You get a lot of homicides in this section of town?” Brett asked Alex as they began looking around. The scene, which had been called in by the hotel manager after a member of housekeeping found the body, had already been processed by the crime lab techs.
The techs hadn’t been very hopeful of getting much information based on what they’d found. The scene had been pretty clean; the body had obviously just been dumped here. The killing had taken place somewhere else.
“No, not at all,” Alex responded as he knelt down next to the woman’s body laid out on the bed. “You might get a couple of B&E’s, maybe some domestic disputes, but that’s about it. People here are not going to like a dead body coming so close to their suburban lifestyles.”
Brett crouched down next to Alex. The medical examiner would give them an official cause of death, but Brett was willing to go out on a limb and say the woman died from strangulation with the heavy rope still wrapped around her neck. Just as disturbing was the state of her face. Both eyes swollen shut, extensive bruising all over her face.
It reminded him of what had happened to Paige.
He shouldn’t be surprised that he was thinking of her again. After all, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her all weekend. Or any of the days since.
He had enough work to do, and Randal and Terri constantly trying to set him up with someone, that Paige shouldn’t be forefront in his thoughts. But the quiet artist had wedged her way, good and solid, into his head.
This was a murder case and Paige’s was just assault and battery. Just. What had happened to Paige couldn’t be described as “just” anything, but at least she was still alive, thank God. Unlike the woman here.
“Beating her that way then strangling her seems a bit over-dramatic, doesn’t it?” Alex stood back up.
Brett looked down at the woman’s face again. Nose was decidedly broken, maybe her jaw. It really did remind him of Paige’s wounds. “Yeah. Damn brutal, that’s for sure. And the killer had definite anger issues going on. This is up close and personal violence.”
“We had another case a little similar a few months ago. Still unsolved.”
“Beating, then strangled?”
“Beaten, yes. But then stabbed. White female, roughly the same age and description: mid-20s, slender, auburn hair instead of black.”
That pretty much ruled out the possibility of a serial killer. Serial killers, almost without fail, followed a pattern. Stabbing one victim, then strangling another? Would be very uncommon for one killer.
“That one was on my payday too, like today,” Alex continued. “I remember because I knew my bank account was full when I went to the bar with the guys that night. Drank a pretty large hole in it. My girlfriend was pissed.”
“We always get paid on the last day of the month, Alex?” Today was March 31st. Brett hadn’t been in Portland long enough to know the paycheck dates yet.
“Yep. The fifteenth and the last day of every month. I know for sure because my girlfriend keeps threatening to call Winston’s Bar and have my tab privileges revoked. A few of us are headed there tonight. You interested in coming?”
“Definitely interested. But not sure about tonight.”
“You got a wife? Girlfriend? Ah, you’re the famous QB, you probably have both. Bring them along if you like to live dangerously.”
Brett chuckled. “My mama didn’t raise a fool. And I don’t have a wife, at least not anymore. She didn’t like a cop’s hours.”
Alex nodded again. Brett didn’t need to say anything more. The life of a cop was hell on marriages. Brett’s wasn’t the first to fall apart because of all the time he’d had to leave his wife alone. The meals and occasions he’d missed. At first Heather had thought his life to be exciting, even with the abrupt departures he’d sometimes needed to make. But after two years she’d grown tired of it. Tired of them.
Brett hadn’t fought for her. By the time he’d realized how bad things had gotten, it had been too late anyway. Their divorce eighteen months ago had been about as uneventful as their two-year marriage. He’d dated on and off since, but no one had really caught his attention and interest.
Until he’d met a tiny golden brown-haired beauty last week with haunted blue eyes. Brett wasn’t sure anyone had ever caught his attention like Paige.
“Girlfriend then? Sounds like Randal’s wife is trying to get you set up.”
Brett barely held back a grimace. “Yeah, she’s trying to reintroduce me to some of the gals I knew in high school.”
Alex grinned. “Not interested in strolls down memory lane?”
Not with the people Terri had in mind.
Brett and Alex continued examining the room. If the body was anything to go by they weren’t going to find much evidence anywhere else in this standard hotel room. But they would still look.
“You were with Miami PD before here, right?” Alex asked him as the both looked over the bed for anything that might have been missed by the crime scene technicians.
“Yeah, nine years. First four as uniformed, last five as detective.”
“Sounds like you’ve got the experience needed for this job. I know the Captain is giving you a hard time, but he’ll come around.”
Brett used a pen-sized flashlight to look around the bedspread. “Let’s hope so. The evil-eye every time I come in the precinct is getting a little old.”
Alex smirked at that. “He’s a good guy. Give him a little time.”
Brett planned to leave no doubts in Ameling’s mind that Chief Pickett had made the right call in hiring him. “I will.”
“Offer still stands if you want to grab a beer.”
“Raincheck. I’m actually going to an art show tonight.”
Alex laughed. “Wouldn’t have figured you as part of the art crowd. Maybe I should’ve asked if you had a boyfriend. Not that that’s a problem.”
“Yeah, it’s not my normal thing. But thought I would check it out.”
The two men finished their search of the room in relative silence. Both hoped the lab technicians would have more to report because they sure as hell didn’t have anything.
Brett looked over at the dead woman one more time as the medical examiner began to prepare the body to take away. He was struck again at how much the bruises on her reminded him of what Paige looked like after her attack.