Blue Baby Read online

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  POLICE PROCEDURALS RESPECTED BY LAW ENFORCEMENT.™

  “Carolyn Arnold provides entertainment and accuracy.”

  —Michael D. Scott, Patrolman (Ret.), Castroville, Texas

  “Carolyn Arnold writes realistic and entertaining police procedurals with characters so real, I lose myself in her books.”

  —Deputy Rebecca Hendrix, LeFlore County Sheriff’s Department, Poteau, Oklahoma

  “For Police procedurals that are painstakingly researched and accurately portrayed look no further than Carolyn Arnold’s works. The only way it gets more real than this is to leave the genre completely.”

  —Zach Fortier, Police Officer (Ret.), Colorado, United States

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  Blue Baby (Book 4 in the Brandon Fisher FBI series)

  Copyright © 2015 by Carolyn Arnold

  Excerpt from Ties that Bind (Book 1 in the Detective Madison Knight series) copyright © 2011 by Carolyn Arnold

  www.carolynarnold.net

  2015 Hibbert & Stiles Publishing Inc. Edition

  All rights reserved. The scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the author constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN (e-book): 978-0-9878400-9-7

  ISBN (print): 978-1-988064-24-6

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  Prologue

  THE WHITE SILK WAS DRAPED over the porcelain of the tub like angel wings. She was beautiful, radiant. Her face was flushed, and her eyes were open and staring at him.

  He took the set of fake lashes from his pocket and applied them. He coated her eyeball with glue before delicately using both hands to pull her eyes closed. The extensions fanned against her flesh.

  He applied the eye shadow and stepped back to appreciate the hues of brown and gold.

  Next. Lipstick.

  He smeared the tube across her lips. The bright red was an exquisite touch of color against her fair skin. He put the veil in place and wisped back the nylon until it framed her face and ensconced her shoulders. He stood back to admire his work thus far.

  Divine.

  The blonde sat with her back against the end of the tub, her dress spilling down her frame and over the ledge. Her hair was a bed of curls beneath her veil. Her makeup appeared professional, and he was pleased with his hard work. He wasn’t nearly as perfect with the first one.

  Her mouth carried a hint of peace. Of happiness.

  The Big Event was under way.

  “Almost.”

  His gaze went to her left hand resting in her lap.

  How could he have been so foolish? Was he rushing things? He moved swiftly through her apartment and found what he sought on her dresser.

  “There you go, beautiful.” He slipped the wedding ring on her finger, leaving him with one final task.

  He took the cigar cutter from his pocket, slipped her ring finger into it, and squeezed. As he had the first time, he marveled at the ease of it, how such small blades were able to cut through bone. He let the severed finger fall against her ivory dress.

  Stepping back, he took in her beauty.

  She was pleased. It was in the way her lips were set.

  He smiled. “Now, you can just be happy.”

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  Chapter 1

  HER SNORING HAD KEPT ME up for most of the night, but I wasn’t cruel enough to wake her. While I had considered pinching her nose to quiet her, I mustered the restraint not to. I didn’t really want to deal with a sleep-deprived and pissed-off woman.

  The solution wasn’t in getting sleep myself—it was already five AM—it would be in downing a pot of coffee. I’d need that much to function today. But thanks to technology, I’d have to repeat the coffee-brewing process twelve times since I’d upgraded to one of those single-serve makers. I put in the pod, and after some protest in the form of moaning and gurgling, the machine sputtered out the black nectar into my waiting cup. While the brew finished, I rested my eyes. I’d have to be alert soon enough.

  The text message had come in overnight, bathing the bedroom in a white glow. I had read it, careful not to tug the sheets and wake my female companion. The gist was that another sicko had decided to use the world as his demented playground. I didn’t know the details yet, but the summation was always a variation of that fact, and my presence had been requested in the briefing room first thing.

  I breathed in, eyes closed, my nose appreciating the robust aroma that filled the air while my mind drifted to last night. It might have been a bad idea inviting her over, but it had been fun. I’d have to wake her soon, but I’d put it off for as long as possible.

  The puttering of the coffeemaker came to an end, and I added two lumps of sugar and some milk to my cup.

  “Brandon? What are you doing up so early?”

  She was in one my shirts, her hair tousled over her shoulders. The way she was winding one strand around her finger would drive any man mad.

  Forget the coffee. Forget the snoring. There were some sacrifices worth making.

  “There’s a case.” God, she looked good, but I dared not touch her.

  She slipped her arms around my waist, and I continued to fight the impulse to scoop her up and take her back to my bed. “But you had the day booked off. We had plans.”

  “I know, but sometimes these things happen.” Maybe a little embrace wouldn’t hurt anything. I wrapped my arms around her and slapped her butt.

  She let out a yelp. “Be careful what you’re starting.” She snuggled her face into my neck, her tongue teasing my flesh.

  “We’ll have to take a rain check,” I said, then cupped her face and tilted it upward until her mouth met mine. My jaw was tight, determined, and hungry. I took her without mercy. She reciprocated with as much as I gave. Slipping my hand under the shirt she wore, I found her breasts and teased her nipples with the pads of my thumbs. She let out a moan and arched her head back.

  God, I loved giving her pleasure as much as I loved receiving it. I parted from her only long enough to clear a space on the counter and then lifted her up.

  Her perfume filled my head, diluting all logic and intoxicating my senses. I trailed kisses from her neck down to her chest and slid a taut nipple between my teeth.

  Her deep breathing encouraged me, and the hardening of her nipple reciprocated what was happening in my pants.

  Forget work.

  As I parted her legs, my cell phone rang. “Son of a bitch!”

  “I had a feeling it was too good to be true.” She tapped a kiss on my cheek and hopped down from the counter.

  The caller ID flashed PAIGE DAWSON. I took a deep breath. No big deal. Paige was a beautiful redhead with electric-green eyes, who had me straying from my marriage while at the training academy. It was only by a strange twist of fate that I had wound up on the same team as her within the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI. When my divo
rce had been finalized in December, Paige and I had determined that a relationship between us wasn’t going to work. The age difference between us had never mattered. She was in her early forties, and I was twenty-nine. What had interfered were our careers.

  I answered with my gaze on the new woman in my life—Becky Tulson. We’d met last fall when I was working on a case in Dumfries, Virginia. The attraction had been instant and the conversation between us stimulating, but until recently, the situation had been complicated.

  “Brandon,” Paige said, “there’s been a change of plans.”

  A banging came from the front door immediately after, and Becky nodded to me before heading off to answer it.

  What the hell? The place was becoming Grand Central, and all I needed was another twenty minutes to fit in a quick one. Apparently I was asking for too much.

  “What’s going on?” I asked into the receiver.

  “Brandon,” Becky called to me, “Jack’s here.” She stood behind the opened door, shielding her body from Jack’s line of sight.

  “We’re outside,” Paige said.

  “It’s a little too late to tell me that.” I hung up, wondering how it was possible for this day to descend downhill any faster than it already was.

  I hurried to the front door, experiencing a moment of awkwardness. My boss and my lover, face-to-face. My lover wearing only a shirt. My shirt.

  “Don’t stand there, kid. We have a flight to catch. Grab your go bag.”

  “One second, Jack.” I closed the door on him and worked to get my house key off the ring. I handed it to Becky. “Leave when you’re ready.”

  She pouted but nodded. She understood. She also worked in law enforcement and could appreciate that if the job called, one had to respond.

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Heck, I’m not even sure where I’m headed.”

  “No worries.” She smiled and kissed my lips. I lingered. She pulled back. “You better get going. Jack doesn’t strike me as the patient type.”

  “You have no idea.” I grabbed the bag I kept by the front door—for the very purpose of last-minute trips like this—and opened the door. Jack was still standing there, and I jumped, having expected him to be in the car by now.

  “I thought we were meeting at—”

  Jack shook his head. “There’s a new development.”

  A “new development” meant the case we were going to discuss had become urgent. It meant someone else was dead. And our cases rarely involved run-of-the-mill shootings or passionate kills in the heat of the moment.

  We hunted psychotic unsubs.

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  Chapter 2

  WE WERE AT THIRTY THOUSAND feet being briefed on the case. The plane was taking us to Grand Forks, the third largest city in North Dakota. It was an hour away from Fargo and had a population of over fifty thousand.

  Nadia Webber was patched through on a video call from Quantico. There was no doubt that she was about to share information most people were better off not knowing. But this was what I had signed up for. Although I had originally seen myself in a counterterrorism unit, the first available opening was in the Behavioral Analysis Unit. But it provided me the opportunity to stop those responsible for grievous acts. The job also allowed me to tap into the minds of killers and discover what moved them to do what they did. While most people carried on unaware of the true evil in the world, I had never preferred naïveté. I favored knowledge, and second to that, action.

  Loading onto the jet first thing on a Monday morning was one way to get the week started quickly, if not abruptly.

  As another member of the team, Zachery joined us. He was a certified genius. Everything he read in a textbook during university was available for speedy recall. But his big brain never got in the way of his being a goof. He was eight years older than me.

  Paige, Zachery, and I sucked back on coffee. Jack was the only exception.

  I thought of Becky standing in my kitchen wearing nothing but my shirt. All I’d needed was another twenty minutes. God, I hated leaving her behind. We’d had plans to go out for a nice dinner, too. Even though it had been more her idea than mine. I never understood meals equating to entertainment. I was into nourishing my body and moving on.

  I caught Paige glancing at me again, and I had a feeling she was well aware that I had moved on. It was even possible she saw Becky answer my door. She had met Becky on the same investigation I had.

  “This has got to be one of the saddest cases we’ve worked,” Nadia began.

  “Without the commentary adlib, Nadia,” Jack said, coaxing her along.

  He liked news presented without narrative flair. It was about getting the information and stopping the bad guy. Not much seemed to affect the man, but instead of envying him that, I pitied him for it.

  “Yes, Jack, of course,” Nadia went on. “We have two victims. The latest was discovered yesterday.”

  Pictures of a woman came on the screen to Nadia’s left: a pretty blonde with gray eyes. Her makeup was tastefully applied and a dusting of freckles graced the bridge of her nose. She wore silver hoops, and from the snapshot, I’d guess she had a love for fashion.

  “This is Tara Day,” Nadia continued. “She was twenty-five. Local police arrived on scene at nine AM yesterday. They found her in her apartment after a coworker, Glen Little, called it in. He said that he was there to pick her up for work. They were putting in overtime for a client.”

  “What did she do for a living?” Paige asked.

  “Tara was a clerk for a local accounting firm. The overtime still needs to be verified, but the coworker’s background check was clean.”

  Lack of a criminal record meant little at times. It could simply mean that he just hadn’t been caught in the past.

  Another picture of Tara appeared on the screen. This one was of her in a wedding gown in her bathtub. Her hands were folded over each other in her lap, sitting in a pool of blood.

  “Our unsub cuts off their ring fingers and leaves it in their laps,” Nadia said.

  “I find it strange he doesn’t take them as trophies.” Paige angled her cup and set it down when she seemed to realize it was empty.

  “As nice as that sounds, there’s no indication our guy takes a trophy. At least none we’ve discovered.”

  “You mentioned he’s done this before?” Zachery prodded.

  “Correct. One year ago to the day. Her name was Cheryl Bradley. Age twenty-four.”

  Zachery snapped the tab down on the lid of his cup. “So he kills on the summer solstice. Some religious connection? Must have some importance to our unsub. The women’s ages are close, too.”

  “What about sexual assault?” Paige asked.

  Nadia shook her head. “Nothing indicates either victim had sexual relations within twelve hours of death.”

  “And the cause of death?” Jack tapped an unlit cigarette against the table. I knew what his immediate plans were once he got off the plane.

  Nadia fanned her pen between two fingers. “Suffocation. He gets on top of his victims and places his knee in their solar plexus.”

  “Compressive asphyxiation,” Zachery jumped in, showing off his abundance of knowledge. “Not a nice way to go.”

  Nadia showed us a picture of a brunette with brown eyes. “This is Cheryl Bradley. She worked as a receptionist for a graphic design company. At first glance, the two victims seem to have two things in common besides cause of death: age range and location. They live within three blocks of each other.”

  The image morphed into one of Cheryl in a bathtub, and it was rather eerie the way it resembled that of Tara, despite the differences in their coloring.

  Zachery leaned forward. “He’s likely someone from the area, then.”

  I narrowed my eyes at the photo. Cheryl’s han
ds lay on top of each other as Tara’s did. “The way he poses them with care afterward speaks of a connection or bond with his victims,” I added. “He chooses them for a specific reason.”

  “The ring finger being cut off may show betrayal or heartache.” This was from Paige. “It’s also possible he could be striving to recreate an event.”

  “You’re alluding to a dead woman in a bathtub? It doesn’t sound like a common thing. But, if so, when and who?” The question slipped out. I knew it was essentially rhetorical at this point. There wasn’t an answer yet to provide. “Did our unsub witness someone carry out a murder like this or find a woman’s body? Were there victims before Cheryl?”

  “Nothing in the system comes back similar to these two cases,” Nadia said.

  “At the very least, he is selective and organized. He waits a year between victims. He doesn’t need to kill but is moved to do so.” Zachery expanded on the brainstorming. “He experienced a deep hurt at some point. Like Paige said, a woman may have betrayed him. He can’t move past the pain and that’s why he severs their fingers. These women could have hurt their fiancés. And June is the most popular month for weddings. All of this is best guess. The women might not have been engaged.”

  “Nadia, who did the police suspect for Cheryl’s murder?” Jack asked.

  “Their prime suspect was her ex-fiancé. Phil Payne broke it off.”

  “Did he say why?”

  “He said Cheryl was a flirt.”

  “And his alibi for the time of her murder?”

  “This is where you have to love the irony. He was with another woman. She swore under oath she spent the night with him.”

  “What about the latest victim, Tara Day? Was she engaged?” I asked. Maybe it was a stupid question based on the ring on her finger, but it was also possible the killer brought it and placed it there.