LITMIR.BIZ

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      After recovering the evidence, they shipped it to the state crime lab, located just down the street from the Public Safety Building, or PSB, as they called the structure that housed not only the Rockford PD, but the sheriff’s department, city jail and the coroner’s office as well.

      The deputy chief of detectives had sent the entire ID Bureau to the scene. Kitt wasn’t surprised. Two dead children in six weeks was a very big deal in this family-first industrial town that averaged only fifteen murders in an entire calendar year—none of those typically blond, blue-eyed girls safely tucked into their beds.

      Kitt caught her partner’s eye and pointed toward the bed. He held up a finger, indicating she wait. She did; he concluded his conversation with the other detective and crossed to her.

      “This guy is really starting to piss me off,” he said.

      Brian was a big guy. One of those easygoing, teddy-bear types. In his case, a teddy bear with freckles and red hair. His cuddly good looks masked a damn impressive temper. If a bad guy crossed Brian, he invariably wished he hadn’t.

      She would love for Brian to get his hands on this bastard.

      “You been here long?” she asked.

      “Maybe fifteen minutes.” He glanced toward the victim, then back at her. “You think he’ll go for three?”

      “I hope to hell not,” she said. “He certainly won’t if we catch his ass.”

      He nodded, then touched her arm, leaned toward her. “How’s Sadie?”

      Dying. Her daughter, her only child. Kitt’s throat closed as emotion swamped her. Five years ago, Sadie had been diagnosed with acute lymphatic leukemia. She had rallied so many times in the past, from chemo and radiation treatments, from the bone marrow transplant that hadn’t been successful, but Kitt sensed she had given up. That she simply didn’t have the reserves to hold on much longer.

      Kitt couldn’t speak and shook her head. Brian squeezed her arm, understanding. “How about you?” he asked. “You hanging in there?”

      More like hanging on, by her fingernails. “Yeah,” she managed to say, the catch in her voice giving her away. “As best I can.”

      To his credit, Brian didn’t call her on it. He, more than anyone other than her husband, Joe, knew what she was going through.

      Brian gave her arm another gentle squeeze, then released it. They crossed to the victim. Kitt pushed all expectations of what she would see from her mind. Yes, it appeared the same unknown subject, or UNSUB, had killed both these children, but she needed to come to this scene, this murder, fresh. A good investigator always let the scene and its evidence tell the story. The minute a detective started doing the talking instead of the listening, objectivity—and credibility—went out the window.

      The first look at the dead girl hit her hard.

      Like the last one, she’d been pretty. Blond. Blue-eyed. Save for the gruesome indications of death—lividity, petechiae (blood vessels broken in the eyes and lips) and the advancing rigor mortis—she appeared to be sleeping.

       A sleeping angel. Just like the last one.

      Her blond hair fanned out around her head on the pillow, like a halo. Obviously, the killer had brushed and arranged it. Kitt leaned closer. The killer had applied lip color to her mouth, a sheer pink gloss.

      “Looks like she was suffocated,” Brian offered. “Just like the last one.”

      The absence of outward signs of violence and the petechiae supported suffocation, and Kitt nodded. “Which means the killer applied the lip gloss postmortem.” She glanced at her partner. “What about the gown?”

      “Same as the last. Mother says it’s not hers.”

      Kitt frowned. It was a beautiful gown, white with ruffles and tiny pink satin bows. “And her father?”

      “Nothing new. Neither of them touched the body. Mother came in to wake the girl up for school, took one look at her and screamed. Father came running. Called 911.”

      She would have found the fact they hadn’t touched their child weird, but with all the press about the previous murder, the mother would have only needed one look to know her daughter had been a victim of the same monster.

      “We have to check them out,” he said.

      Kitt nodded. Overwhelmingly, fewer children were murdered by strangers than by their own family, a statistic that seemed impossible to most but was a grim reality for cops.

      However, this time they both knew the chances of this being a domestic incident were slim. They had a serial child killer on their hands.

      “Like last time, it appears he came in through the window,” Brian said.

      Kitt glanced at her partner. “It was unlocked?”

      “Must have been. Glass is intact, no marks on the casing. Snowe says they’re going to take the entire window.”

      “Footprints on the other side?” Kitt asked, though since it hadn’t rained in a week, the earth below the window would be rock hard.

      “Nope. Screen was cut, nice and neat.”

      She brought a hand to the back of her neck. “What does it mean, Brian? What’s he telling us?”

      “That he’s a sick prick who deserves to be skinned alive?”

      “Besides that? Why the lip gloss? The fancy nightgowns? Why the little girls?”

      From the other room came a sudden, rending wail of grief. The sound struck Kitt way too close to home and she shuddered.

       How would she go on without Sadie?

      Brian looked at her, face tight with anger. “I have daughters. I could go to bed one night and the next morning find—” He flexed his fingers. “We need to nail this bastard.”

      “We will,” Kitt muttered fiercely. “If it’s the last thing I ever do, I’m bringing this son of a bitch down.”

part two

      3

       Rockford, Illinois Tuesday, March 7, 2006 8:10 a.m.

      The shrill scream of the phone awakened Kitt from a deep, pharmaceutically induced sleep. She fumbled for the phone, nearly dropping it twice before she got it to her ear. “H’lo.”

      “Kitt. It’s Brian. Get your ass up.”

      She cracked open her eyes. The sunlight streaming through the blinds stung. She shifted her gaze to the clock, saw the time and dragged herself to a sitting position.

       She must have killed the alarm.

      She glanced at Joe’s side of the bed, wondering why he hadn’t awakened her, then caught herself. Even after three years, she expected him to be there.

       No husband. No child. All alone now.

      Kitt coughed and sat up, working to shake out the cobwebs. “Calling so early, Lieutenant Spillare? Must be something pretty damn earth-shattering.”

      “The bastard’s back. Shattering enough?”

      She knew instinctively “the bastard” he referred to—the Sleeping Angel Killer. The case she never solved, though her obsession with it nearly destroyed both her life and career.

      “How—”

      “A dead little girl. I’m at the scene now.”

       Her worst nightmare.

       After a five-year hiatus, the SAK had killed again.

      “Who’s

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