in on the fringe, huh?”
“Married in. Okay, so what does my bedroom closet have to do with three murders? Obviously, you feel it’s relevant.”
He went with the simple answer, though he’d had to dig through several layers to uncover the link. “Your friends’ bedroom closets were all trashed prior to their deaths.”
Vanessa tipped her head. “Says lunatic with a big chip and a lot of emotional problems to me.”
The white sleeveless top she wore clung like a second skin. She was, as he’d noticed earlier, a remarkably beautiful woman. He’d been half hoping she would also be unpleasant. From the information he’d gathered on the dead women, the first two certainly had been.
“Lunatic, maybe.” He made what appeared to be an idle sweep of the brightly lit, extremely busy street. “And I’m sure we’ll find a chip on at least one of his shoulders. Emotional problems—well, hey, we all have those, right? But this killer calculates and executes, cleverly and cleanly. He doesn’t leave DNA, he doesn’t give his victims time to raise an alarm and he doesn’t hang around to gloat. Gloating is not uncommon,” he added, bringing his gaze back to hers.
Amused, Vanessa tapped his forehead with her index finger. “Homicide cop, Rick. I’ve bumped into one or two gloaters myself. Some people say Jack the Ripper was guilty of that. Don’t know why he springs to mind, but there you go. He left plenty of clues at the scenes of his maniacal murders, yet to this day no one really knows who he was. And don’t even get me started on Norman Bates.”
Rick chuckled. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as a movie buff.”
“I loved to be scared as a kid. I gave my aunt, Cinnamon—the one in Bodega Bay—a mynah bird for Christmas last year and named it Lydia Brenner, after the character in The Birds.”
“You should have called it Mrs. Bundy—the know-it-all ornithologist who said birds couldn’t and wouldn’t mass together.”
Appreciation softened her expression. “You’re okay for a Fed. Now talk to me about the closets.”
Drawing her out of the traffic flow in front of a Chinese emporium, Rick once again scanned the passing stream of late night humanity. He could have scanned Vanessa and enjoyed himself a great deal more, but with her long, red-brown hair, slitted pencil skirt, incredible legs and eyes the color of liquid honey, he knew better than to tempt fate.
“There’s not a lot to tell. Anywhere from a week to ten days before they died, each victim’s home was broken into and her bedroom closet trashed. None of them filed a report, so it took me more time than it should have to make the connection. Fortunately, while they didn’t lodge official complaints, they did talk to friends and family members.”
“Who eventually talked to you.” She lifted a shrewd brow. “What’s your technique, Maguire? Charm, straight up questioning, or does it vary depending on the questionee?”
“Whatever works.” He returned his eyes to her face, kept them deliberately neutral. “Your captain expects you to cooperate with me, Vanessa. I’ve worked a lot of serial murders. I can keep you alive.”
“Thanks, but I’ve put murderers behind bars before and will again. Whoever killed Deirdre, Sandy and Mara had an advantage over them. They didn’t realize he or she was out there. I do. I’m also a cop, fully trained. Scale tips slightly in my favor.”
Rick had run into similar resistance too many times in the past to be put off. “So that would be a no to cooperation, then.” When she merely stared at him, he offered her a vague smile. “Palmer’ll be pissed.”
“He’s my captain, not my father.”
He was a little more than that, however, Rick let it slide and instead offered a sage, “Would you have listened to your father?”
He spied the glimmer of sadness in her eyes before she looked away. “My father was a cop. Homicide. He died in the line of duty. He’d have understood how I feel, how any officer would feel. I’ll deal with Palmer and with anyone who comes after me. I can make connections, too, Rick.” She pointed through the Emporium window. “Do you see that pretty lady there?”
He followed her outstretched finger to a carved white figure. His lips twitched. “Are you going to tell me she’s fragile and you’re not?”
“She’s porcelain, like my—well, like many people, I suppose. I’m more elastic.”
Not from where Rick stood. She wasn’t flexing one bit on this matter.
He started to point that out, but the words never emerged. As she bent to inspect another figure, the window over Vanessa’s head exploded.
Chapter Two
Fragments of tempered glass flew everywhere. Inward, sideways, some of the larger ones actually ricocheted back onto the street. The white porcelain figure shattered. So did dozens of other ornaments.
Already low to the ground, Vanessa snatched her gun from her purse and swung around in a crouch. Rick had his Glock out and angled skyward.
The people closest to them gave a collective gasp, then began to scream. The store owner rushed out, shouting in Chinese.
“Get down,” Rick told him and anyone else who could hear.
“There.” Vanessa used her gun to indicate a gray Volvo with blacked out windows and a dent in the passenger side.
Rick assisted a woman who’d twisted her knee, but his eyes were on the Volvo. “Call for backup,” he said and took off before Vanessa could reply.
The store owner grabbed her arm, impeding her. She knew what he wanted—more or less—but couldn’t do anything except pry his fingers free and tell him to go back inside.
Spotting a patrol car, she ran toward it. The Volvo had vanished. So had Rick.
“What happened?” the sergeant at the wheel called out.
“Shot fired into the store. Look for a Volvo, late eighties, large dent in the passenger door. Driver’s heading north on Grant. No plates. The side windows are painted flat black.”
“You okay?”
“No problem.” Only hampered by her shoes and tight skirt. Not to mention the store owner’s fingers that were once again grinding into her forearm.
Even a police siren couldn’t drown out the pandemonium around her. Resigned, Vanessa located her badge and endeavored to calm the situation down before anyone got seriously hurt.
Thirty minutes passed. Two backup patrols arrived and took over crowd control. Vanessa was talking to her desk sergeant when Rick returned, winded and alone.
“I lost him on Jackson.”
She flipped her phone closed. “New Porsche lost aging Volvo? That’s gotta be a first.”
“New Porsche almost got sideswiped by a hippie mobile with bad brakes. I cut over to Stockton on foot, but the Volvo disappeared in the confusion. Did you get
