sank into a chair, groaning. “No, no, no! I can’t be. Not yet, not now. I refuse. The twins just had their first birthday. Oh, shit. Simon is going to murder me.”
Taylor laughed at her best friend. “I think he might be thrilled. How far along do you think you are?”
“Hold on, I’m trying to count.” She grew silent for a moment, then said, “I can’t…oh, yeah.” She exhaled a laugh and blushed, then looked at Taylor. “I can’t be more than six weeks. Simon had that forensics conference in Denver, and I went with him. We got a suite and a sitter and had ourselves a little night out. I’ve been so freakin’ busy I didn’t even realize I missed my period.”
Taylor kneeled by the chair, swept her into a hug. “Honey, this is the most wonderful news. I’m thrilled for you.”
Sam hugged her back briefly. “Don’t tell anyone, for God’s sake. I need to warn Simon, and get to the OB. Shit, shit, shit.” But she was smiling, and the dark circles under her eyes looked a little less threatening.
Taylor gestured toward the den door. “When you warn him, let him know I may need his services. I seriously doubt you’re going to be able to handle tox and trace for all these crime scenes, and the TBI is backed up for months. We could probably ask Baldwin to send some of the samples to his lab at Quantico, but I’d rather do this quickly and quietly. I’ll arrange for some extra funding to get Simon’s lab to help you out.”
Sam’s husband, Dr. Simon Loughley, ran a firm called Private Match, one of the leading forensic specialty labs in the country. DNA matches for paternity were their bread and butter, which allowed Simon to take on outside work that fascinated him. He was always there in a pinch when Metro needed an immediate turnaround; the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation lab was so far behind on rape and murder samples that sometimes it was necessary to take their labs to independent, private vendors. It would cost, but Taylor didn’t anticipate that would be a problem. My God, six crime scenes in one day’s event? Even their notoriously tightfisted chief would agree with the necessity.
She couldn’t wait for their new crime lab to open. The funding was in place, a site selected. Everything was moving forward. No more relying on the kindness of others to get their pressing forensic evidence processed.
The dog whined at the door, jerking Taylor from her reverie.
“Okay. On that happy note, we need to get back to work.” She looked at the blood that had soaked into the carpet where Brittany Carson had lain bleeding to death. “Wish we’d gotten here sooner. She might’ve had a better chance.”
“How were you supposed to know? Are you telepathic now?”
“No, but—”
Sam shook her head. “No buts about it. You’re not a mind reader. You’ve got a killer who’s obviously thought this through very, very carefully. I’m praying this is the last call we get tonight.”
A horrible thought dawned in Taylor’s mind. “Do you think he could have been watching, waiting for us to arrive, before he came down here and finished up with Brittany?”
“Watching? Sure. You know how these kooks love to watch. He could have been at one of the houses at the far end of the neighborhood while we were in one of the other residences.”
“Jesus. The media is going to have my head.”
Sam was back to being all professional. She and Sam hadn’t hung out in a few weeks, and Taylor missed her. “Taylor, you’ve done the best you can. Let’s get back, I still have two bodies to declare.”
“Okay. Let me tell Marcus, I’ll need to come back here later.”
She found him in the kitchen, staring hard out the back window into nothingness. His shoulders were slumped in defeat. She knew exactly what was going through his mind. Blame, guilt. Taylor decided to give him the same pep talk Sam had just given her.
“Hey,” she said softly. “It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.”
He met her eyes, bleak with despair. “She didn’t have a pulse earlier, Taylor. I swear it. The EMT who came couldn’t find one, either. Jesus, she’s been lying here dying while I chatted up her mom and figured a way to get the dog to leave her side.”
Ranger sat heavily on Marcus’s feet. He reached down and petted the dog absently.
“Did the mom have any idea what went down this afternoon?”
“No. She’s a single mother, a nurse. Name’s Elissa. She worked late, came home and found Brittany in the den. Brittany’s a scholarship student, I did find that out. Strait-laced, shy. Her mom says there’s no way she was doing drugs voluntarily.”
“There’s no sign of forced entry. Whoever tried to kill her, she let him in.”
“She’s younger than the others, too. I’ve got a patrol canvassing, but this house is set back so far that no one has come forward yet to say they saw anything out of the ordinary.”
“Then we need to start looking for the ordinary. A killer who can disappear into this neighborhood for hours unnoticed.”
“Caucasian, then. Dressed professionally, or in a Halloween costume. It could be anyone.”
“Could be a kid.”
“You think another kid did this?”
“I don’t know. But we need to take that into consideration.”
“If we’d just gotten to her earlier,” he repeated, voice hollow.
She got in his face, forced him to make eye contact.
“Marcus, let’s just focus on the now. Get me a report from the hospital, and let’s take it from there. If the girl lives, post a guard on her room. She’s the only witness we have to this afternoon’s events. I need to get back to Estes—there are still two bodies that Sam hasn’t declared. Take it easy on yourself. Get the patrols to secure this house and we’ll come back to it. This one goes in the win column. Okay?”
“Okay,” he mumbled, misery etched on his handsome features. He wasn’t fooling her. She’d need to talk him off the ledge some more, but right now she needed to attend to the rest of the dead.
“Here, I’ve got something that will distract you. I think our killer may be watching us, waiting to see our reactions. We need to talk to everyone within one hundred yards of these crime scenes that might have a video camera trained our way. Check with the media first. They know to get some crowd shots in the B-roll, and Keri McGee will, too. I’ve noticed some of these homes have a little extra security—they may have cameras that aren’t readily visible. Get through to the security firms in the area, see if any of them service houses near the crime scenes. Can you handle that for me?”
“Of course.” He nodded, putting away the upset, becoming all business again. His eyes shuttered and he snapped open his cell phone, started giving instructions. Taylor squeezed his shoulder and went to join Sam.
She closed the front door and stepped onto the small porch. She stopped for a moment, took a deep breath and blew it out. What a night. Eight kids. Eight.
She started down the steps and caught a flash out of the corner of her eye. She whipped to the side, flat up against the railing, her hand on her Glock. She heard a snap, then the rushing of feet through dry leaves. A mounted spotlight turned on in the backyard.
“Sam, get down,” she stage-whispered, then took off around the corner of the house, yelling, “Police, stop!” The house’s lights were on a motion detector, and the heavily wooded lot was lit up like a Christmas tree. Taylor stopped for a moment, let her eyes adjust to the light, listened to the steps running away from her, stumbling into the darkness.
“Marcus,” she yelled, but he was already next to her, gun drawn.
“I saw the lights go on. What’s up?”
“Someone