With a serial killer on the loose…
Secrets get you killed.
Detective Jake McAllister isn’t aware Kyra Chase is connected to a twenty-year-old unsolved murder. He sees his new case partner only as an unwelcome distraction. But with the body count rising, they’ll need to trust each other to help them catch a killer who seems to know more about Kyra than Jake does. From Harlequin Intrigue: Seek thrills. Solve crimes. Justice served. For more action-packed stories, check out the other books in the A Kyra and Jake Investigation series by Carol Ericson: Book 1: The Setup Heartfelt or thrilling, passionate or uplifting—our romances have it all. Visit TryHarlequin.com to sample FREE books from among 12 different series. It’s just a taste of the new books published each month—every story a journey guaranteed to leave you with That Harlequin Feeling.
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“Good thing
she was already dead when he took her finger.” Detective Jake McAllister lifted
the victim’s wrist and grimaced. He called over his shoulder, “Tire tracks at
the trailhead? We know this isn’t the kill site.”
“Too many to
identify just one.” His partner, Billy Crouch, impressive in a dark gray
tailored suit, purple pocket square, and wingtips, strode down the trail to
join Jake where he crouched beside the body. “No tire tracks, no cameras. I had
one of the officers check with the park rangers.”
“No cameras
at the other dumpsite, either. He’s being careful.” Jake rose to his feet,
inhaling the scent of pine from the trees and locking eyes with an ambitious
squirrel who’d been busy scurrying up and down the large oak that provided a
canopy over the body.
Griffith Park
was an oasis of rugged, untamed land in the middle of the urban sprawl of LA.
It housed the zoo, the observatory, a concert venue, a carousel, pony rides, and
acres of wilderness crisscrossed with hiking trails. It had also hosted several
dead bodies in its day, including the Hillside Strangler’s first victim.
Jake pointed
at the card inserted between the victim’s lips. “Queen of hearts, missing
finger—looks like we have a pattern here.”
Billy
whistled as he pushed his sunglasses to the end of his nose. “It’s The Player
all over again.”
“Copycat.”
Jake raised his hand to the crime scene investigators who had just arrived at
the park and waved. “The Player was working twenty years ago and abruptly
stopped. He’s gotta be dead or in prison.”
“Maybe he
just got paroled.” Billy picked an imaginary speck of lint from the arm of his
jacket. “He could’ve been twenty when he was operating before, spent twenty
years behind bars for armed robbery, as- sault, rape. Now he’s forty, tanned,
ready, and rested.”
“Could be.
They never got his DNA back then. Never left any—just like these two murders.”
Billy whipped
the handkerchief, which Jake had believed was just for show, out of his front
pocket and dashed it across the shiny tip of one of his shoes. “Damn, it’s
dirty out here.”
Jake rolled
his eyes. “It’s the great outdoors. Most people don’t take hikes in Italian
suits and shoes.”
Shaking his
head, Billy clicked his tongue. “Only the shoes are Italian, man. The suit’s
from England.”
“Excuse me,
Cool Breeze.” Jake bowed to his partner. He’d given Billy the nickname Cool
Breeze, and it had stuck. The man knew his fashion, his fine wines, and his
women.
Jake had
warned him about the women because Billy already had a fine woman, Simone, at
home. They needed only one divorce in the partnership, and Jake had that
covered—not that he had run around on his wife unless you counted the job as
the other woman...and a lot of cops’ wives did.
Someone
cleared his throat behind him. “Fingerprints?”
Jake jerked
his head toward Clive Stewart, their fingerprint guy in Forensics, his shaved
head already sporting a sheen. “Yeah, you can check, Clive. He didn’t leave the
knife or box cutter behind that he used to slice off the finger. You might try
the playing card, her neck. You know your job, man. I’ll let you and the others
do it.”
As CSI got to
work, Jake shuffled away from the body on the ground and eyed the crunch of
people beyond the yellow crime scene tape. Although still morning, the air
possessed that quiet, suffocating feel that heralded a heatwave, and the tape
hung limply, already conceding defeat.
Jake pulled
out his phone. Holding it up, he snapped some pictures of the looky-loos
leaning in, hoping to catch a glimpse of...what? What did they hope to see? Did
they want to ogle the lifeless body of this poor woman dumped on the ground?
Maybe one of
them was already familiar with the position of the victim. Killers had been
known to return to the scene of the crime and relive the thrill.
He swung his
phone to the right to take a few more pictures from the other side of the
trail. As he tipped up his sunglasses and peered into the viewfinder to zero in
on his subjects, he swore under his breath.
What the hell
was she doing here?
Billy stepped
into his line of fire. “He wanted someone to discover her quickly. She’s not
that far off the trail, but no purse or ID, so he doesn’t want us to identify
her right away.”
“You’re
blocking my view.” Jake nudged Billy’s shoulder and framed the crowd at the
edge of the tape again...but she was gone.
About the Author
Carol Ericson lives in southern California, home of state–of–the–art cosmetic surgery, wild freeway chases, and a million amazing stories. These stories, along with hordes of virile men and feisty women clamor for release from Carol’s head until she sets them free to fulfill their destinies and her readers’ fantasies. To find out more about Carol and her current books, please visit her website at www.carolericson.com, “where romance flirts with danger.”
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