Speak No Evil_ A Novel - Allison Brennan [14]
Half the college girls had navel rings, but Angie’s was unique. A gold hoop with three hanging charms—a seashell, a leaf, and a rose.
The same as the picture.
But if that wasn’t enough to convince him that he knew his fantasy girl, she also sported the same rose tattoo on her breast, revealed by her bikini.
Angie was the slut.
He went home, read Angie’s online diary again. His fantasies, which had been only that, untouchable, were now in clear focus.
She was meant to be his. It was as if some god had thrown all the pieces to the puzzle in his lap and he’d finally put it together.
Angie was a whore, a slut. Cut from the same cloth as the whore who’d lied about his father. On the surface, Angie was nice, sweet, polite. Almost demure. But in private she revealed her true self, talking about her sexual relations with nearly a dozen men over the last six months.
Fucking hypocrite whore.
And she walked right into his trap. It was obviously meant to be, everything. His plan worked, from setup to execution.
She had walked right up to him, smiled. “I came as soon as I could.”
He’d driven to his place. She hadn’t even thought to question it. The lie he’d told her was so believable she didn’t doubt his sincerity for a minute.
It wasn’t until they were inside that he saw a brief look of panic. He gave her a Coke.
Twenty minutes later she was unconscious. When she woke up, she was tied to his bed, her mouth glued shut, naked. His penis grew hard from the vision of Angie so vulnerable, shivering and trying to scream.
He shook his head, clearing the memories. He was going to be late for class. He locked up his treasures and rushed out.
He’d let himself fully remember Angie and his methodical breaking of her spirit later. Tonight. When he could enjoy it.
FIVE
WILL AND CARINA were fifteen minutes late for Angie Vance’s autopsy, and Chen had gone ahead and prepped the body.
“What did we miss?” Carina pulled on a smock and latex gloves, though she had no intention of touching the body.
“The next of kin left thirty minutes ago, so you haven’t missed much. I just started.”
“That was fast,” Carina said to Will. “She must have come down right after we left her.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Will asked her.
Carina hated facing death, but she would want to know with every certainty. She’d need to see the truth with her own eyes.
Chen motioned for them to approach the table. “Something interesting I noticed as soon as I started the visual examination. Someone washed her body before she died.” Chen stood at Angie’s feet, a laser pen in hand.
“Why?”
“That’s your job, not mine. There was soap residue under her arms and in her hair. I sent samples to the lab. But the body was cleaned, no doubt in my mind. From the moisture in her skin I’d say she was wrapped in the bags shortly after the bath.”
“Why would he clean the body?” Carina asked, almost to herself. “To get rid of evidence?”
“Very likely,” Will said, though Carina’s question had been more rhetorical.
“Creepy,” she said. “And planned. He held her captive, raped her, kept her under his control for forty-eight hours, then he releases her to wash her before killing? Why not kill her, then wash her body? It would be easier. She wouldn’t be able to fight back.”
“She may have been too weak to fight,” Will offered, “or drugged.”
Chen said, “We’ve sent blood samples to the lab and will collect tissue and stomach contents during the exam.” He pointed the laser pen at her ankles and then her wrists. “She was restrained with rope, you can see the rope burns on her limbs. I was able to find a couple fibers embedded in her skin that hadn’t been washed away. Probably nylon or a cotton fiber, not hemp.”
Carina had been avoiding Angie’s face, but now that Chen had turned his attention to her mouth, she had to look.
The bandanna had been removed, though threads of it still clung to her lips, which were grotesque, purple and red pulp. Her neck was bruised as well, though it didn’t look like hand or finger marks, which