Intimate Danger (Empire Blue) Page 7

  He snorted softly, and somehow it still came out refined and sexy as hell. “You’re lucky I stopped by to check on you.” He sounded smug. “Had I not, you could be sporting a stiff neck, a few creases in your face, maybe worse.”

  Her face flamed at the reminder of him finding her passed out on her small wooden kitchen table at one in the morning. “Yes, well, like I said, I was just resting. But thank you.”

  He grinned, a quick flash of teeth, and motioned toward the room. “Now you see why you were called. Any chance you think this could be related to your other cases?”

  She nodded, sure without a doubt. “I do. And we have a problem. This is getting weirder and weirder. First, the Peeping Tom, then the missing lingerie last week, and now a prelude to some sort of homemade fashion show. Let’s not mention that the feds have suddenly adopted a lethal desire to be in on this, too. Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

  He pursed his lips. “No, I don’t think so. At least, not in the village. Then again, is it any surprise, being so close to the City, that it has taken this long for some of the loonies to come over.”

  She pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes with a huge sigh, mulling over his words. Pushing her mind back to the Academy, through her detective’s exam, she tried to focus on what kind of individual they were dealing with. In all her years on the force, Nyack had yet to deal with a sexual deviant. Hell, at worse they had shoplifters, bad check writers, bank tellers tempted with goods of their trade. They were not a town who held murderers, rapists, capital offenders, sexual predators…

  She bit her lip. Could this escalate? If her Peeping Tom was related to these B&Es, then the logical conclusion would be yes, and the perp had already intensified. Trent’s words from last evening echoed silently in her head. But what was the link? There was always one, so where was it?

  She looked around again. They needed to control contamination. It was unknown how many people had access to this room, but she assumed it was just the couple. Collecting and preserving evidence could prove futile, but anything, whether it be blood, hairs, or fingerprints, tracing back to anyone other than those two would hopefully give them the lead they needed. From the looks of things, it didn’t seem as if much, if anything, had been taken. So that ruled out pawnshop visits, internet sales to check if anything was passed off. No, this entire scene had a different feel from theft.

  The checklist popped in her mind.

  Crime scene technicians. Forensics. Are they on scene? And if so, they need to process everything, ASAP. See if fingerprints, fibers, or hairs have been left behind. Check around the house for footprints or trash unknowingly left behind.

  Was she overdoing this? Would the chief even approve that kind of expense to bring in state forensics? Sending the examples to the state would take time, and cost a bit of money. Sure they had Trent’s backing on this, but was she still supposed to operate under her own policies, or did she go to Trent with this? What if they found a link using their high tech equipment? She wanted to have faith that they could do this without the feds’ help and, damn it, she wanted to prove herself. When compared to what they had in Nyack, their resources seemed medieval. What if she missed something?

  Get someone assigned for scene security. Start documenting who enters and exits the area.

  Document the evidence as it’s found.

  She shook her head. God, it was a B&E, not an armed robbery, but still, this was her shot to show she could do this.

  Calm your ass down, Charlie. Get a damn grip.

  Steps sounded behind her and Peter cleared his throat. “Charlie, you might want to take a look at this.”

  She glanced at what he held. A picture of a large shoe print, and if she had to predict, it would match the previous ones and be a size thirteen, Hush Puppy. The same damn thing forensics found last time. This scene was all too familiar.

  “Let me guess,” she grumbled.

  “Yup, an exact match. The team is pulling an impression now. But the size, type, and distinctive marks are a bull’s-eye.”

  Hope flared. Adrenaline surged. This was the reason she became a detective. Puzzles pumped her blood, and these crimes were just one gigantic puzzle begging to be put together.

  She walked around the bed with precise and watchful steps. The next parts of the checklist flowed in her mind. “All right, have the techs run the impression and search for fingerprints. If the scene is anything like the last one, and at first glance it looks that way, then there is the chance we will not find any. It doesn’t hurt to try, though. This entire room needs to be dusted and we’ll have to get a set from the homeowners to rule them out.” She paused and drew a cautious gulp of the bitter liquid.

  “Owens and the chief are interviewing the couple now,” Dwayne supplied.

  Her head snapped up. “The chief is here?” What in the hell is he doing?

  He nodded. “Yeah, I called him first. He was actually the one to pull you in. And Agent Rossi is on his way. Sorry, Charlie.”

  She clenched her jaw, and a muscle popped. If history repeated itself…

  “Charlie, don’t look at me like that.”

  She gave him a droll look. “Like what? Like my partner sold me out? This is my investigation. I don’t want to be removed…again.”

  “No one said you would be,” the chief rumbled from the doorway. He wore dark jeans, a white department polo, and tired eyes. “This is your case. All of them are being linked into one.” His gaze pinned her to the spot. “I won’t get in your way, but I expect to be kept abreast of what’s going on, at all times. And you need to keep Agent Rossi on board, too. I mean it.”

  Promises, promises. “Of course.”

  “Charlie, I’m not kidding. In all my years here, I have never seen anything like this. Really, lingerie fetish? I don’t get what this perverted fuck thinks he’s doing, but I want him stopped. Tread carefully, and stay aware at all times. I don’t have to remind you of your safety first. And I don’t want to have to remind you that you have a team of detectives and a federal agent that will back you on this and we’re all going to be giving our best to stop this guy.”

  She swallowed and kept her face a stone mask, hiding all her emotions, the excitement, the twinge of irritation at the talking down. She wasn’t a damn child. She was a grown woman, a detective, and trying to prove that seemed harder than she thought possible. “Yes, sir.”

  He stared at her for a moment, some battle playing across his features, then nodded and turned away, his steps echoing down the hall.

  “You were saying, Charlie?” Peter prompted.

  She refocused on the scene. “Right. We’ll eliminate the homeowner’s prints and run what’s left over through IAFIS to see if we can get a match.” Noticing a small cap sitting by her boot, she tugged on an extra glove she had hidden in her pocket and picked the cylinder piece up. She held the top to the light.

  “Whatcha got there?” Dwayne asked.

  “I don’t know.” She shifted the black plastic piece. It looked familiar, but with the digital age well worked into society, she had not seen one in years. “It looks like a lid to a film container.”

  He stepped next to her and reached for the fragment. “Yeah, it does actually. A 35mm film canister? Who uses film anymore nowadays? Huh …” Uh oh, here it comes. His eyes were a million miles away, lost in thought, when he continued, “Last time I used film was with the head cheerleader in high school. You know that scene from—”

  She stared and cut him off. “Really?”

  He shrugged, grinned unabashed. “What?”

  “Check with the homeowners. Let’s rule them out first before we start asking too many questions.”

  Charlie stuffed the glove in her pocket and scrubbed a hand down her weary face. She needed to lay everything out. Well first, she needed more caffeine, and then she had to get started on a board. Mapping everything out for visual inspection just might identify some link she missed. One had to be there. To
o much had the potential to be connected. The two cases of breaking and entering seemed linked, and the Peeping Tom cases from last month should be included as well.

  “All right, guys.” She let out a deep breath and turned to the window, stared out into the darkness. “You heard the chief, he wants this fucker stopped. It’s time to put our skills to work.”

  “Charlie,” a low voice called from the doorway of the room. She shivered as Trent’s frame filled the entryway and tightened her grip on her cup. Damn, but he looked sexy as hell wearing a tight, long-sleeve, black shirt that wrapped around his chest as if it were a second skin. Faded jeans sat low on his hips, cupping him in all the right places, worn with use in others. He had on a thick black belt with a silver buckle. At his hip was his firearm, and right next to that his badge. He oozed confidence, and his presence made her want to toss him down on the bed and have her wicked way with him.

  “I see you have clothing other than suits, Agent Rossi,” she quipped, more than sarcastic in her words. She couldn’t help it. She didn’t like her reaction and she was still a quart low on coffee.

  His lips tightened and he looked to the side for a moment, shook his head and then looked back in her eyes. “Last time I’m telling you this, Charlie. It’s Trent. You used my name last night, so don’t tell me you don’t know it.”

  She sucked in a breath but he continued before she could speak. “And before you get your panties in a twist, I warned you. But that’s not important right now. I just got done talking with the owners, they have a surveillance system. Guy is getting a copy of it on a disc now, I think we may have caught a break.”

  Hope surged through her and the earlier irritation at his presence and his words sprouted just now in front of Peter and Dwayne—she was going to hear about that later—faded away. “Really?” she asked.

  Trent grinned and his eyes danced with humor. “No shit, Charlie. He’s got a few of them scattered across the house, hidden behind the air ducts. With everything going on in the town, he decided to take home security upon himself in the event it happened here.”

  “Holy crap,” she breathed, practically doing the jig in her boots.

  Trent and Dwayne chuckled and somewhere off to the side Peter snorted.

  “Once the disc is done, let’s go back and watch it at the station while forensics finishes up here. Chief is already getting a written statement from the homeowner and his wife. The scene will be taken care of,” Trent said, his tone brooking no argument. Not that she disagreed with his action plan, but still…

  How did she always find him taking things over? What was more of a question was, why didn’t she care? This was something she wanted, the chance to show the chief she could do this, so why wasn’t she getting angry at Trent, who was practically bossing her around at her scene? Must be due to the very real lead they could have. She nodded at Trent. “Sounds good, let me know when everything is ready and we’ll head out.”

  Trent nodded and looked over his shoulder. “It’s ready.” He held up a hand and showed the silver disc sitting inside of a clear plastic container. “Let’s roll,” he said with a nod down the hall.

  Charlie cast a quick glance at Dwayne and found him looking at her curiously, then glancing at Trent and giving him the same look. She frowned, brushed it off, and headed out of the room on Trent’s heels.

  Back at the station, she sat at her desk in the hushed room with Trent, his body slightly behind her, his head next to hers, both of them staring at the screen of her monitor.

  “Holy shit,” she breathed again as the darkened view popped up. The camera recorded in an eerie green haze, making the picture clearer in the darkness. It was high, so the details weren’t all that great, but it did cover the entire room. A shadow moved around and then a soft lamp muted the room. Charlie blinked to focus, the change of the lighting so abrupt she almost flinched.

  “Hell, he’s got a mask,” Trent murmured next to her ear, his breath puffing escaped tendrils of her hair from the tie at her neck.

  Charlie shivered. She leaned forward and sat her cup down, then purposefully leaned away from his body. A low chuckle from Trent assured her he hadn’t missed this. Focusing back on the screen, she studied everything about what was going on.

  The perp had a black mask over his face, black gloves on his hands, and wore a long sleeve black shirt and dark pants. Talk about cliché. He moved purposefully toward a dresser and Charlie sucked in a breath as he set out pieces of lingerie across the bed, handling the cloth with such care it almost seemed as if he should be handling the finest silk.

  Once that was done, he quickly undressed and she got another big clue to her case. He was Caucasian. She had to force her eyes to stay on the screen. There was something intimate, yet very disturbing about watching a man undress, even if he was a perverted sicko on the loose and terrorizing her small town. Seeing as she couldn’t even watch a good porno without blushing—and yes, she had tried—this seemed no different.

  Once he was fully nude, and she had to admit even this guy had a nice body, was in shape, fit, with tight rounded butt cheeks, he swayed next to the bed, looking down at his masterpiece. The mask still stayed on his face and she wondered if he had suspicions about the room being monitored.

  He leaned over and reached for the midnight blue corset. Charlie gasped as he brought the piece to his nose.

  He slipped the material over his hands, drew the thin strap over his shoulder, and shuddered visibly as smooth, silky fabric settled against his skin. He leaned forward and slipped the opposite strap up. His shoulders drew back, and he fastened the eyehooks behind. He was unable to complete the task as the material strained against his wider torso, but apparently it was enough. He ran his hands along his sides and looked down at himself.

  Charlie fought the bile that ran up her throat. Never in all the weeks she been investigating this guy did she think his sicko level ran to this. What man wanted to put on lingerie? Who got off on something like that? And more, what in the hell were they going to do to catch him?

  He turned and sat on the bed, slid the matching lace thong up his legs before he stood and settled the cloth low on his hips. His erection jerked as he looked at his lingerie-clad body. Muscles strained against the smaller cloth. His body struggled to fit, bulged in places bulges weren’t meant to happen in such material.

  It was then he allowed his hand to rub over his sex, and she snapped her face away from the screen.

  “Oh, God,” she huffed. “What the fuck?”

  “Shit,” Trent said under his breath. “The dude is jacking off in some stranger’s lingerie.”

  Charlie forced her attention back to the screen, swallowed hard and watched as the perp’s hips pumped, joined in the seeking satisfaction, gyrating. He turned to the bed, his eager look worked to a frenzy as he took in the pieces displayed.

  He fell back on the thick comforter, surrounded by a dozen different pieces of cloth. So out of place, Charlie thought. His heels dug into the bed, and he pushed his hips into his hand.

  Suddenly his head snapped up and the perp looked just below the camera. From the angle Charlie guessed this camera was inside the air duct just above the entrance to the bedroom. The perp scrambled off the bed and dashed for his clothing, not bothering to take off the lingerie. He whipped around to grab his bag and hit the bedside lamp, sending it crashing to the floor.

  Just after the lamp fell, his head snapped back to the doorway again and he fumbled with a flashlight, shoving it into his bag as he ran for the bay window. He yanked the curtain open and cast one more furious look toward the door before he bounded from the window.

  Seconds later the two homeowners, the man and his wife came into view, dashing over to the window and screaming words only they knew, seeing as the video was video feed only, not audio.

  Charlie stood and walked away from her desk. She didn’t know what to think of it, didn’t know that people like that existed in the world.

  “Charlie,” Tren
t called from behind her, but she didn’t stop, didn’t acknowledge his call, didn’t do anything but walk at a quick pace to the door. She needed air and about a gallon of bleach to get rid of all that she had just seen.

  Pushing out of the room, she ran through the small lobby and stepped outside, gulping in deep breaths of air that promised a rise in temperature and humidity once the sun came up. As it was, light hinted over the horizon, tossing the dark blue of the sky into an array of pinks, purple, and yellow.

  Behind her she heard the door shut and felt Trent’s presence even before he spoke.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

  She shook her head, trying to reign in her emotions. She wasn’t one for losing control, nor was she one that thought the world was all hearts and rainbows, cheery waves and peace. No, she was a cop. She knew things happened and that’s why she chose this profession—to help make the world better. What she didn’t think about was just how depraved some people could be. And to think, that wasn’t even the worse of what she suspected would happen if they didn’t find this sicko soon. While before she thought she was in over her head, now she knew she was.

  Gentle hands settled on her shoulders and turned her around. She stared at the black of Trent’s shirt before he used his fingers to lift her face to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve already said that,” she replied, getting lost in his dark blue eyes. They matched the sky she had just been staring at.

  He brushed a tendril of her hair behind an ear and glanced over her shoulder, searching for words. His gaze came back. “I feel like I need to say it again. If I knew that’s what the video would have shown, I wouldn’t have made you watch it.”

  “I don’t need to be sheltered, Trent. I was just shocked, that’s all. It’s not every day you see some wacko get naked, put on lingerie, and jack off, you know? But hey, free porn, so I’m sure all I’ll need is a gallon of acid to scramble my brains and then I should sleep better tonight.”