Speak No Evil Read Free Page A

Make it last. Much more satisfying. At least it
looked
more satisfying. He didn’t try it with the slut. He had
wanted
to, but it was safer his way. Keep a barrier between them. Minimize contact. The plastic wrap idea might work.
    He sprayed disinfectant around his room, scrubbed spots he could barely see, flipped his mattress. Put her clothes in the garbage bag along with the sheets.
    Safe.
What would happen if he’d left his DNA on the body? The police had no reason to take samples of his blood or hair. Didn’t they need evidence? Something to connect him? At least that’s what he picked up from television. If they had his DNA, it wouldn’t do them any good unless they had other evidence against him. Then they’d need a warrant and all that stuff. He’d never been arrested, so it’s not like a computer would flash his name and address.
    At first reality had been so much better than his imagination, but then . . . it didn’t feel right. He must have done something wrong: when she’d died, he didn’t feel the rush of power he was so certain he’d feel.
    What could he have done different?
    With that thought in mind, he drove thirty miles and looked for a neighborhood that had Monday trash pickup. A quiet neighborhood where no one was out. He found a perfect one, where the trash cans were in an alley. He threw the sheets and clothes and everything the slut might have touched into a half-full garbage bin.
    He had thirty minutes to get to class, and the garbage truck had just rounded the corner.
    Perfect timing.

TWO
    “G LUE.” Will shook his head. “I can’t believe the bastard glued her mouth shut, then did those things to her.”
    They’d parked near each other in the garage adjacent to the police station and walked inside together. It was close to eight, nearing shift change, and uniforms were coming in from patrol. Carina waved to a few of her friends, though when she’d made detective last year after ten years as a beat cop, some of the guys had given her the cold shoulder. Hell, not just the guys. The other women on the force were twice as bad.
    It was like starting from square one all over again.
    “He tortured her,” Carina said to Will. “Gluing her mouth shut, raping her, suffocating her. This guy is sick.”
    Will looked both ill and angry. “We need to run a search for similar crimes.” They sat down to start plugging information into the computer. Carina’s phone rang.
    “Kincaid,” she answered.
    “Dean Robertson here.” Dean was now in charge of Missing Persons, though when she first joined the force eleven years ago he’d been Carina’s training officer.
    “What’s up?”
    “Heard you found a Jane Doe this morning. She matches the description of a possible missing person.”
    “Possible?
    “I had a strange visit Saturday.”
    “Saturday? I thought the chief told you no more weekends.”
    He grunted. “You going to turn me in for working unclocked hours?”
    “Me? You said Friday, right?” Dean had been known to work off-the-clock almost as many hours as his regular shift. Never married, he’d told Carina once over beers that he couldn’t
not
work.
There are missing kids out there, Carina. Their parents deserve to know whether they’re dead or alive.
    Yeah. They did.
    Dean continued. “This guy comes in. Clean-cut, late thirties, maybe forty. Wanted to report a missing person. Female, eighteen. Matches the description of your Jane Doe. The desk sergeant took the information at first, then bumped it over to me when the guy got all huffy that we weren’t doing something right away.”
    “How long had she been missing?”
    “Less than twenty-four.”
    “His daughter?”
    “Nope.”
    “No?” She wrinkled her nose. “What’s his story?”
    “He claims they were friends. That he suspected someone was following her and had told her to watch herself. She hadn’t taken him seriously.”
    “Why’d he think she was missing?”
    “She didn’t go online