Speak No Evil_ A Novel - Allison Brennan [69]
“More,” she whispered in his ear.
The phone jolted her from her erotic dream and Carina moaned.
“I hate my job,” she muttered as she reached for the receiver next to her bed. “Kincaid.”
As she listened to dispatch she sat up, now fully alert. “La Jolla Main Library? I can get there in forty minutes.”
Carina flipped the switch on her coffeepot, took a two-minute icy shower, and with two travel mugs of hot coffee drove the two short blocks to her parents’ house and knocked on Nick’s door. It was four in the morning. He opened it almost immediately, wearing boxers and nothing else.
Wow! Nick in person was even better than her interrupted dream. In an instant she took in his broad chest, flat stomach, narrow hips . . . and scars on both knees.
No time for questions about old injuries, no time to enjoy his near-nakedness. “We have another one.”
“Who?”
Carina handed him one of the travel mugs of black coffee. “We don’t have a positive ID. A body, female, approximately eighteen years of age, was found in the middle of the parking lot of La Jolla Public Library. A patrol found her, thought it was either a drunk or hit and run. Until he approached.”
“Same MO?” Nick zipped up his jeans and pulled a black T-shirt over his head. Threaded his holster through his belt, secured his gun.
“Her head was covered by a garbage bag.”
“Her head? Where’s the rest of her body?”
She blinked, at first not understanding what he meant, then realizing he thought just her head was found. “It’s all there, but her body was wrapped in plastic wrap.”
“Mouth?”
“Don’t know. The responding officer didn’t remove the bag from her head. He checked her pulse and she was dead. He secured the scene, called it in. The crime techs are meeting us there.”
Nick slid his feet into boots and picked up the coffee Carina had brought, took a sip. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“I don’t know about you,” she said as she headed down the stairs to her car, “but three hours of sleep doesn’t cut it for me anymore.”
Since it was the middle of the night with no traffic, it took less than twenty minutes to reach the library. The crime scene van was already there, but they were still unpacking their equipment. Carina introduced Nick to Jim Gage and his assistant, Blair Duncan, who was fresh out of college. Jim pulled the case when he heard it might be related to the Vance homicide; Blair pulled the case because she had the misfortune of being the lowest man—or woman—on the totem pole and drew the graveyard shift.
Another car drove up and Jim said, “Did you know Dillon was coming?”
Carina glanced behind her. Dillon got out of his Lexus and walked over. “Yeah. He’s been consulting informally, though now . . . ” she didn’t need to finish. Chief Causey had put together a small task force for Angie’s funeral; Carina would demand that they expand it after this. Two girls brutally murdered in less than a week. Carina was certain she’d win the argument this time.
“I called Missing Persons on my way in,” Dillon said. “A seventeen-year-old intern has been missing since Wednesday evening. She left the library at eight but never arrived home. Her car was found here, in this lot, the next morning.”
“Do you have a name?” Carina asked.
“Becca Harrison.”
Gage approached the victim first while his assistant photographed the scene. When she was done visually cataloging the body and immediate surroundings, she walked in a circle outward while Gage inspected the body.
“Carina, look at this,” he said.
She approached. A plastic garbage bag had been tied with white nylon rope around the victim’s neck. Her body had been wrapped with plastic wrap. Her hands were bound together by rope.
“Could it be a copycat?” she asked, her voice unusually quiet.