Page 9 of Protecting Chaos

Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. Ashton wasn’t supposed to be in these pictures. He wasn’t supposed to be in this game of cat and mouse that she’d been playing with the other paintings. It was only a matter of time before the police figured out that she’d been the one calling in the anonymous tips over the last couple of years.

She shook her head. This secret was hers and hers alone to carry. Crossing the room, she grabbed the canvas that mattered, a faceless monster standing over a woman’s lifeless body, and covered it with a sheet. She went to work removing all the sheets and re-examined each, looking for any hint of clues and people she might have missed.

5

Ashton

I flashed my badge to the uniformed cop working at the Clayton Police Department. Seconds later, the waiting room door buzzed and a man appeared holding out his hand.

“I’m Detective Tom Morrison.”

“I’m Special Agent Bennett.” I shook his hand. “Thanks for taking the time to meet with me.”

Morrison gestured down the hall. “Not a problem. I am curious how you came about the case, though.”

A ton of thoughts bombarded my mind like acupuncture needles all at once, reminding me to block and shield and concentrate on the only mind in this building that might have the answers I sought. I let out a calming breath, shoving thoughts away like wading through a pool with too many floats until just one float, one voice, filled my mind.

He couldn’t know everything that we know unless we have a leak.

A leak? Apparently, I was missing something. “Ms. Michaels is a childhood friend, and I heard she was having issues.”

“Yeah, we thought it was a standard case of a random break-in. Ms. Michaels claimed nothing was taken, but after some of the evidence collected at the scene was processed, the situation became more focused.” Detective Morrison pushed open a door into a meeting room, and my breath caught.

Pictures of women were taped to one of the walls. Most had dark wavy hair and resembled Stella. Next to them were pictures of various crime scenes. What the hell had Stella gotten herself into?

“Let me catch you up to speed.”

“Please do.” Somebody needed to. It was quickly becoming apparent that Grant didn’t know about any of this and Campbell’s contact at the police department hadn’t entirely filled him in.

I moved down the wall of evidence. With each step I took, the acid in my stomach churned and rolled as the muscles in my neck tightened. I’d seen enough pictures and worked enough cases to know Stella was in deeper trouble than even she might know.

“A few days ago, we got a call about a break-in. Ms. Michaels came home late one night after working to find her door slightly ajar. The lightbulb outside was shattered. She’d stepped on the glass before she even noticed the door. She was smart and didn’t go inside. Instead, she called the cops and waited in her car.”

“She is smart.”

“More than that. Her instincts probably saved her life.” Morrison continued, “We dusted the door for prints, not expecting to find anything useful. In this day and age, perps normally wear gloves, so you can imagine our surprise when we found some prints that weren’t hers.”

“He’s an amateur or it was a crime of opportunity.”

“You might think,” Morrison continued. “The same prints were all over her house with a concentration inside her bedroom, specifically her drawers.”

I moved to the end of the pictures where Morrison was standing.

“The prints matched three other crimes in the county.”

“You got the perp’s name?”

“Not yet. We’ve run them through every database available. That’s how we determined that her break-in was connected to these other crimes.”

“Tell me about these other cases,” I said, trying to hide the anger from my voice.

“Three abducted women disappeared into thin air. The only evidence left at the crime scene were fingerprints.”

I rubbed at my chin. “You think she was about to become the fourth victim?”

It’s possible. A pretty girl, living alone, would have been an easy mark.

I came to the same conclusion.

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