LITMIR.BIZ

       chapter one

      Don’t be frightened, darling; lovers can say anything. Those words, out of place in colder moments, add fresh relish to the sweet mystery of love? You will soon say them, too, and understand their charm.

      Detective Jack Parker snapped on a pair of latex gloves and plucked the note off the satin-covered pillow. Neatly typed on pale pink paper, the writing seemed innocent enough. Hell, in another time, another place, the words could have been romantic, lovers sharing naughty endearments and euphemisms meant only for each other.

      Tonight, though, the words had been meant to terrify.

      Bastard.

      Their Casanova had struck twice before, and so far the police didn’t have one solid lead. The situation ate at his gut.

      Jack hated to lose.

      Closing his eyes, he counted backward from ten, letting the efficient bustle of the crime-scene investigators wash over him. The gentle whoosh of the vacuum collecting telltale fibers, the click-whir of the camera documenting the room. New York’s finest were on the job. They’d catch the creep.

      They had to.

      Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes and saw his partner, Tyler Donovan, waving him over from the doorway. Jack made his way across the sprawling bedroom, passing the note off on the way to be processed with the rest of the evidence.

      “Give me some good news.”

      “Dollar beer all week at Martini’s,” Donovan said with a shrug. “That’s about the best I can do. Here, we got nada.”

      “Not what I wanted to hear.”

      “No kidding. All I can tell you is that they don’t have a clue who’s doing this. But the wife’s pretty shook up.”

      “Can’t say I blame her.” Over Donovan’s shoulder, Jack could see Caroline Crawley sitting unnaturally straight on an upholstered bench in the living room. Her husband, anchorman Carson Crawley, stood stone-faced behind her, his hand resting on her shoulder. Both had the shell-shocked expression of the violated. It was a look Jack knew well. That haunted, injured look had marred his cousin Angela’s face many years ago.

      With only three months separating them in age and two blocks separating them in distance, he and Angie had been constant companions. At least until the summer of her sixteenth year.

      The monster hadn’t even waited until after dark. He’d pulled Angie off her bike right after school as she’d ridden by the local gas station, dragged her into the putrid men’s room, and left her there when he was done with her. The gas station owner had found her hours later, unconscious and battered, her beautiful face disfigured and both arms broken. Her face and arms had healed; the rest of her hadn’t.

      Sweet Angie took her own life exactly one year later.

      Jack may have joined the force because he was a third-generation cop. But he’d clawed

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