“Tell us what you didn’t tell Cedric,” Joel ordered. He knew she was holding out on them. “Because we’re going to make sure you don’t leave until we all know everything.”
“I think this is a mutiny,” Chloe decided. “I don’t like it.”
Marie didn’t appear concerned.
Reese had guilt written all over his face. Of the three of them, Reese was the one most likely to break and slip to Chloe’s side. Joel glared at him and mouthed, Keep your shit together, man!
If anything, Reese looked even more miserable. Wonderful.
“Just get on with it,” Joel urged Chloe. Reese could be miserable, but Joel didn’t feel bad at all. He’d called in the troops, hell, yes, because he wanted everyone on guard. He didn’t like where this case was headed. Liked even fucking less the idea of that SOB out there ever getting his hands on Chloe again.
“He knows me,” Chloe said.
“Well, sure…” Marie squinted at her. “If he’s read the papers or watched any news show, the bad guy will know who you—”
“No. He knows me…as in…he knows things about me that he shouldn’t.” Her hands pressed to the top of her thighs. “My mother was a dancer. Did I ever mention that?”
She hadn’t. At least not to Joel. Reese didn’t look particularly surprised. Marie had a so-what expression on her face.
“A ballet dancer, back in her youth. From all accounts, she was quite amazing. I remember once, I found her in our ballroom. She was spinning round and round. And…there was blood on her dress.”
First, the woman had had a friggin’ ballroom in her house?
And, second, jeez, Joel knew this story was going to have a messed-up ending. Chloe did not have any warm and fuzzy family memories.
“She was asking me to dance with her. She reached out her hand, but my brother…” Chloe’s gaze flickered to a watchful Reese. “He stopped me. He got really angry. Told me to never dance with her.”
“Oh, shit.” From Marie. She rocked back onto the balls of her feet. “Guessing he wasn’t really talking about dancing, was he?”
“I was worried that she’d hurt herself.” Chloe’s gaze fell to the floor. “But he told me the blood wasn’t hers.”
Marie took a step toward Chloe.
Joel beat her. He was already at Chloe’s side. His hand curled around her arm. “Baby…”
Her eyes lifted. “Years later, I learned that one of her friends had been stabbed that weekend. An intruder came into the house. Stabbed her five times and stole her diamond necklace. The intruder was never caught.” A pause. “After my mother died, I found a beautiful diamond necklace hidden in one of her drawers.”
Her voice was so calm. He knew she was blocking all emotion from her tone. Knew, too, the price it had to cost her.
“When we went to Lucia’s crime scene, I remembered my mother. I thought it was all just in my head…but when I looked at the mirror and I saw the blood trailing down…it was like I had blood on my hands.”
“You don’t,” Reese denied at once. “You don’t, Chloe.”
“He knew,” she admitted.
Joel didn’t let her go.
“When we were in the chapel, right before I sprayed my mace at him, he asked me…said, ‘Didn’t Lucia look just like her?’”
“Oh, damn.” Reese blanched. “Damn.”
Chloe nodded, as if she felt the same way. “Then he told me, ‘You were warned not to dance with mother…’” Her head turned so that she was looking at Joel. “I didn’t tell anyone about that. But he knew. He knows my darkest secrets. He knows things I have kept from the world. That makes him very, very dangerous.”
How the hell had that sonofabitch learned about those details?
“I don’t think you are his only experiment, Joel. I-I think I am one, too.”
***
“You nailed it, Joel.” Ruben inclined his head toward Joel as the two men stood on opposite sides of the body. “Kelly Addams was suffocated.” His gloved hand reached for one of her eyelids, and he pulled it up. “I noticed the splotches in her eyes right away. Dead giveaway that our vic didn’t just peacefully drift away. Then when I looked at her lungs, I found evidence of petechial hemorrhages that put the nail in the coffin for me.”
Joel leaned closer to stare in Kelly’s open eye.
Chloe watched them from a few feet away. Chill bumps had risen on her arms the moment they entered the lab. Ruben had been waiting for them, his body almost vibrating with excitement.
“I also recovered some small fibers from the vic’s tongue,” Ruben was saying. “I will bet a month’s salary they will match up with one of the pillows that Cedric and his team collected for evidence.” He let go of Kelly’s eyelid and glanced over at Joel. “Suffocation with a pillow. That’s something you see on TV shows like…all the time. But I have to confess this is my first actual incident of this type of murder.”
Well, that might explain his excitement. Chloe sat on the edge of his desk and flipped through his files.
“Oh, Chloe…you probably shouldn’t do that.” But despite his words, Ruben didn’t sound overly worried about what she was doing.
Curious, she glanced up. “Why not?”
“Because Agent Richardson already called this morning. He told me, quite specifically, that I was to not let you get your hands on my files.” He straightened. “Your hands appear to be on them.”
“Richardson.” A curl of disgust lifted Joel’s mouth. “Is he being pulled in on this case?”
“Unfortunately.” Ruben turned away from the vic and pulled off his gloves. “Let me tell you, Cedric will less than thrilled.” He sniffed as he threw the gloves into a nearby garbage can. “He doesn’t need that jackass heading in on his turf. You would have thought Richardson would have learned his lesson last time.”
“He doesn’t learn lessons easily,” Chloe pointed out as she put the open file onto Ruben’s desk. “That’s part of his problem.”
“Uh, Chloe, you’re still looking—”
“My hands are not on your files. I’m not touching them at all. My eyes are just scanning through your notes.” And what she saw interested her. “You noted some old fractures that Kelly Addams had on her body. On her hands.” She glanced over at Ruben. “They occurred about ten years ago?” Kelly would have been a teenager. Ten years ago…that would have also been right around the time that her father had died.
Chloe had started digging into Kelly’s past on the drive over. Joel had been her driver, so she had made use of her time in the vehicle.
“They were old, my estimate was ten years, but that could be off some. They hadn’t set properly, so I don’t think she ever saw a doctor about them.” His expression tightened. “I have seen those types of injuries before. Typically, they appear in child abuse victims. The kind of breaks and fractures you get when someone slams your hand in a door.”
Chloe absorbed that information. “Thank you.”
Both Kelly and Lucia had pasts that seemed to have been filled with abuse. And the two women had become killers.