Always a Thief - Kay Hooper [12]
From somewhere, she summoned an award-winning portrayal of calm reason. “Why don't we make an agreement. I'll do my best not to threaten your independence in any way, and you shelve Don Juan for the duration. Okay?”
Smiling, he nodded. “Okay.”
“Good. Now, I'm going to do something about lunch while you shave. And afterward, if you don't feel like resting, there are a host of alternatives, beginning with reading or television and ending with a card game.”
“You play cards?” His eyes gleamed at her. “Poker?”
“Any kind except strip,” she said gently.
“Oh, shoot,” he murmured, not Don Juan now but the mischievous boy who was nearly as seductive.
She shook her head at him and turned toward the door, but halted there when he spoke softly.
“Morgana? Thank you.”
Again she found her resolve threatened, and again she managed to shore it up. “Oh, you can pay me back easily, Alex. Just return the necklace you stole from me.”
He laughed at her as she left the room, completely unrepentant and utterly shameless.
Inspector Keane Tyler of the San Francisco Police Department scowled down at the virtually nude body of Jane Doe (#3 for this month) and said to no one in particular, “This is not my favorite way to spend a Saturday afternoon.”
“Don't imagine it's hers either.” Inspector Gillian Newman, new to San Francisco but clearly not to the job, spoke with the slightly wry detachment common to cops who saw too much of the darker side of life's streets. “Preliminary estimate says she's been dead awhile, but when's difficult to pin down.”
“Why?”
“Doc says she's spent some time in a freezer.”
Keane's scowl disappeared and his eyebrows lifted. “That's an unusual wrinkle. So somebody wants to mess with our heads.”
“Looks like. Could be somebody she knew, trying to make the time of death as vague as possible because he—or she—can't establish an alibi.”
“Any evidence the killer knew her?”
“Not so far.”
“Was she raped?”
“Doc says no.”
“Stripped to her panties but not raped. Maybe because her clothes could have given us an I.D.—or at least a place to start looking for an I.D.”
“Or maybe the killer is a boob man. Gets his rocks off looking or copping a feel, and took the clothes as a trophy.”
“Equally as likely,” Keane admitted. “At least until we have some solid evidence either way.”
“It's clear he didn't want her identified. The doc says her fingers were burned with a blowtorch.”
“That'll do it,” Keane said grimly. “Maybe forensics can get something resembling a print, but it'll take time if it's even possible at all.”
“In the meantime, back at the office they're checking her description against the missing-persons file,” Gillian reported briskly. “Nothing so far. We're doing the usual door-to-door, but so far nobody saw a thing. Not surprising, considering how remote this place is. Area's being searched, but I think we both know this is just where the body was dumped. Nothing else happened here.”
“Great,” Keane muttered. “So unless she turns up in our files as missing or we get wildly lucky and somebody recognizes a photo, we don't have a hope in hell of getting an I.D.”
“Well, there is one thing that might point us in a specific direction. Or at least point us where the killer wants us to go.”
“What do you mean?”
“During the preliminary exam, the doc found something. In her panties. It's a strip of paper torn from one of those guides you pick up when you visit a national landmark—or a museum. You know, information, a map. I sort of doubt it got in her underwear accidentally.”
Keane began to feel queasy for the first time. “Ah, don't tell me. Please don't tell me.”
“Sorry. It's the Museum of Historical Art.”
CHAPTER
THREE
“What I don't understand,” Storm Tremaine drawled somewhat absently as she typed commands into the computer, “is why you're still snapping at Jared. He's just doing his job.”
“What I don't understand is why you have to work on a Saturday. Max told you to take weekends off.” Resting a hip on the corner of her desk and wearing her little blond cat on his shoulder, Wolfe Nickerson, security