LITMIR.BIZ

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smarts and toughness, Charlie Le Blanc had a heart, a heart that sometimes felt way too much. And her sister’s murder was like a wound with a bandage on it that had been pulled off too soon. It was painful. And it wouldn’t take much to reopen that wound again.

      “You going to answer me, Kossak?”

      “Come on, Le Blanc. We’ve got a female strangling victim. Give yourself a break. Let me handle this one.”

      “I can carry my end of the job, Kossak,” she informed him, her already husky voice dropping even lower.

      “Nobody said you couldn’t,” he said sharply and when he noted heads turn in their direction, Vince hustled her over near a window and out of earshot of the fingerprint team. Lowering his voice, he repeated, “I never said you couldn’t carry your end of the job. Hell, half the time you’d carry mine if I’d let you. But you are not personally responsible for solving every homicide in this city.”

      “I know that.”

      “Then act like it. Cut yourself some slack for once.”

      “I can’t,” she told him and looked away.

      “Why not?”

      “Because I can’t,” she insisted.

      “Why can’t you?” he pressed.

      She whipped her gaze back to him and spat out, “Because if I don’t stop him, he might kill another—” She paused, took a steadying breath. “He might kill someone else.”

      Vince said nothing. But he had no doubt that what she had been about to say was that he might kill another innocent girl like her sister.

      “I thought you said this one was high priority,” she said more calmly. “So are we going to process the scene or not?”

      Vince knew any further attempt on his part to dissuade her would be pointless. So he said, “Let’s do it.” He headed to the bedroom, knowing she was behind him. He paused at the door and donned gloves so as not to mar any evidence. “Ready?”

      “Ready,” she replied as she finished putting on her own gloves.

      They stepped into the room. It was huge, almost the size of his apartment, he noted as he surveyed the scene a second time. Only this room smelled of booze, perfume and sex. The virginal-white color scheme was only broken by the clothing that lay strewn on the carpet and the golden-blond hair of the woman who lay on the bed.

      “She’s beautiful.”

      “Yeah,” Vince replied. From a distance she did look beautiful, like something out of a painting, a siren draped in satin sheets. Her heart-shaped face looked as if it had been carved from ivory. It was smooth and perfect. The green eyes stared glassily up at the ceiling. The long, yellow-gold hair was spread out against the pillow and fell across pale shoulders. One hand rested near her face, the diamond ring on her finger catching the light. Only the marks across her throat marred the picture of beauty. He eyed Charlie, worried about the impact of the scene on her. But other than a momentary stiffening, she gave nothing away.

      “Judging by that rock on her finger, we either have ourselves a very dumb thief or robbery wasn’t the motive. The way she’s positioned on the sheets with her hair spread on the pillow and her hand near her face looks staged,” Charlie remarked. “Our killer is evidently into showmanship—which tells me this was no robbery turned homicide. And it was no act of passion either. It was planned.”

      He had reached the same conclusion himself. “Given the security in this place, I’d say our vic must have known her killer.”

      She glanced down at the discarded underwear. “I’d say she knew him well enough to go to bed with him,” Charlie added.

      “I figure they started off with drinks in the living room,” he began, mentally re-creating how the murder had gone down.

      “Then they decided to take the action into the bedroom,” she continued. She walked past the high heels that had been discarded a few feet from the door, then stopped in front of the black sequined dress that lay in a heap. “Pretty,” she said and stooped down to examine the dress. She checked the label and read, “Ricardo’s. I know this shop. It’s very expensive.”

      “Why, Le Blanc, I never would have guessed that you’d go in for this kind of number,” he said in an effort to distract her from what awaited.

      “Oh, I’d go for it all right. The problem is I’d never be able to conceal my gun in it or be able to afford it, which is exactly what I told my sister Anne when she dragged me into the place to see a skirt she’d been drooling over.”

      “Did she buy it?” The question was out before he’d been able to stop it and he could have kicked himself for the slip. Anne Le Blanc was little more than a kid, but for some reason she got under his skin.

      “No. I managed to talk her out of it,” she said and went back to examining the dress. “We should get the techs to dust the zipper for prints. There’s always the chance we’ll get lucky.”

      But it wasn’t likely, Vince thought. A killer who would take the time to pose the victim wouldn’t make the mistake of leaving his prints on the dress’s zipper or anyplace else.

      Charlie moved farther into the room and stopped again, this time to check out a spot on the carpet. She poked at the matted section of carpet with her gloved fingertip, then sniffed it.

      “My guess is it’s champagne,” he told her. “There was an empty bottle in the living room and a couple more bottles in the bar.”

      She nodded, rose and continued toward the bed. “So they get a little more frisky here. She loses the bra,” Charlie said, playing out the scene just as he had. She looked at the overturned glasses that rested on the night table, eyed the panties beside the bed. Then she spied the black silk stocking draped on the bed next to the victim. Suddenly her body stiffened.

      Vince was sure Charlie noted, as he had, that the stocking looked smooth, no visible snags, not even a crease, as though it had never been worn. Instead, it appeared to have been placed beside the victim for effect.

      Finally she looked up at him. “The other stocking isn’t here, is it?”

      “No,” he told her, knowing the conclusion she would draw. Her sister had been strangled, her body posed in the bed in a similar manner and a single black silk stocking found at the scene.

      “He took the other one as a trophy. Just like the last time,” she said and stared once more at the bed. “Just like when he killed Emily.”

      Two

      Cole Stratton studied the floor plans of the newest Logan Hotel for which he and his firm, CS Securities, had been contracted to provide a security system. Spreading out the blueprints on his desk, he made notations to those areas where additional cameras would be needed. Logan Hotels, which had begun with a few small, luxury hotels a decade ago had blossomed into an international chain whose “L” logo guaranteed excellence in accommodations and in service. Cole had set his sights on this account nearly a year ago. Getting the call from Josh Logan telling him the job was his had been the culmination of months and months of hard work. It had been a major coup for him. He should be thrilled. He should be out celebrating.

      Instead, he was sitting in his office on a Saturday afternoon trying to assuage his concern for his sister by concentrating on business. But it wasn’t working. Frustrated, Cole threw down his pen and rammed his fingers through his hair. If only he had been able to convince Francesca not to file charges against his sister, Holly. But despite his efforts, the woman had been determined to follow through on her threat and have Holly arrested for violating the restraining order. Even though he’d sent Holly out of town for the time being, it would only be a temporary fix. If Francesca had contacted the police this morning, as she’d sworn she was going to do, they would already be looking for Holly. For his sister’s sake, he hoped Margee Jardine’s skill as a lawyer would be able to override J.P.’s political influence. The last thing his sister

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