Page 41 of 1st Shock
"Not yet," JJ says. "She was wearing a denim skirt and long-sleeved T-shirt. We estimate her age to be late teens-early twenties."
"Same manner of death as the others?"
"Yes."
I don't press him. If she died in the same way, I don't need the nitty-gritty details of a woman being nearly decapitated one day after I interviewed a possible suspect.
Could I have...? Oh, no.
"You don't know it's him," Charlie says.
Devante. That's who we're talking about. We both know it. The kid—man, really, because he's no adolescent studying serial killers and using academia as an excuse. Research, my ass.
I poke my finger at Charlie. "Don't tell me what I don't know. He was a no-show at our office yesterday and hasn't returned any of my calls. We have no idea where he is."
"It doesn't make him a killer," JJ says.
Well, thank you so much, Emperor of Cold Cases. "It doesn'tnotmake him one."
JJ concedes the point with a sideways tilt of his head.
Still in my yoga pants and shirt, I angle around my sister and head to my bedroom where I slide into flip flops and grab a brush to run through my hair.
Charlie watches me, knowing full well whatever I'm about to do, she can't stop me. "Slow down, sis."
"I'm going to the morgue."
"It's seven in the morning."
As if that matters? "So? Someone will be there." I point at JJ. "He'll get me in." I open the front door, wave one arm for them to hurry the hell up. "Out."
JJ takes one step but is stopped by Charlie's hand latching onto his forearm. "You're not going there, Meg."
My sister is rarely wrong. Today, she is. Dead wrong.
"Iam. With or without you. I need to see her."
"Why?"
Why?I open my mouth to enlighten her, to tell her she can shove her lecture straight up her protective ass because I'm done listening. There's a maniac running around killing beautiful young women and we can't find him.
Except...nothing.
The only sound comes from the bushes outside my front window. A cricket who clearly hasn't realized he should shut up. I stare at the gray, morning sky. Moisture that comes with a whopper of an impending storm surrounds me.
Rain.
Thank God we found her before it hit. I think about her, cold and alone, tossed like garbage on the side of the road. I can't stand it, that vision that invades my mind—her throat carved open, arteries savagely severed, blood everywhere. My arms tremble and I lock my teeth together.Please, please, please. I can't fall apart right now. Not in front of Charlie and JJ. What right do I have? Everyone I love is safe.
"Meg, there's nothing—"
I whirl on my sister. "Don't," I say through my gritted teeth. "Don't tell me there's nothing I can do. Someone has to dosomething. It might as well be me. I'm going to the morgue. You can either leave with me or lock up. I really don't care. You're not stopping me though."
"What's the—"
JJ breaks free of Charlie's grasp, gives her hand a squeeze and steps closer to me. "No fighting. We've got shit to do." He leaves, breezing by me in that broad-shouldered, I-will-fix-this way that is so much a part of him. "Let's go, Meg. I'll get you into the morgue. Then we need to find out who this woman is."
I march after him leaving Charlie standing in my foyer. "Who shewas," I say with plenty of snark, "because some son of a bitch left her butchered."
