She wasn’t so sure that he had been.
“He has one on his lip, Chloe,” Joel stated flatly. “But you saw that last night, didn’t you?”
Yes, she had. And that slice had set off alarm bells for her. “No defensive wounds,” she noted, instead of answering him. “Just like the stepdaughter. No bruising at all that I see.” Some bruising could still show up much later. She doubted it, though. “The killer walked right up to him. Stabbed him in the heart.”
“Uh, Chloe…” Ruben began.
“It was the first stab that disabled him. Glenn was a big man. Six-foot-three. Much taller than she was. That’s why she had to jab up with the first attack.” She didn’t touch the body. Just waved her fingers very carefully toward the wound over Glenn’s heart. “The point of entry is different. He was still standing when this wound occurred. But with this one…” She moved her hand a bit to the right. “The entry angle has changed.” She indicated another deep wound. “Here, too. I think she was crouched above him at this point. The wounds are harder. It was easier for her to drive deep when she was above him instead of when he was standing up and he was taller than she was.” Her hand came back to her side. Fisted. “Then the shallow slices occurred either as he struggled to live or when he’d already died.” Her gaze flickered to Ruben. “I’ll let you determine that.”
“You know who the killer is?” His eyes had gone wide. “Already?”
She lifted a brow. Why did he sound so surprised?
“No.” Ruben shook his head.
“Yes. You suspect it, too. That’s why you made a notation in the file about the attacker being of smaller statue than Glenn Towers—”
His gaze darted to the right. To the covered body that waited on the nearby exam table.
“It’s why her shoes were left in his blood.” This part made her uncomfortable. “I think she danced in his blood, and she left that message there for everyone to find. She enjoyed his death.” The part that puzzled Chloe…
After Lucia killed Glenn, why had the dancer then wound up dead herself?
“That is messed up,” Ruben noted. “Dancing in someone’s blood is twisted shit.”
“You have powdered sugar on your cheek.” She turned back to Joel. Found him staring at her.
Her hands wanted to flutter in the air. A strange, useless gesture that she didn’t need to make. Chloe kept her hands at her sides as she faced him.
“Is it a coincidence?” Joel finally asked.
She knew exactly what he meant. “It could be.” Though she’d rarely found a true coincidence in her line of work. So she would not lie. Not about this. “But I doubt it. Given the number of wounds and the fact that Lucia was killed where your mother once worked…I’d say we need to be very cautious with this one.”
She could feel Ruben’s stare darting between them. “What am I missing? ‘Cause I’m missing something. I can feel it. I don’t like the feeling. I want to be in the know. I’m part of the gang, too.”
“One hundred and four,” Joel growled.
Chloe nodded.
“Yes, that’s how many wounds he had,” Ruben agreed. “But what does—”
“That’s how many times the bastard sliced me,” Joel returned in a voice that was dark and gritty. “Exactly one hundred and four times. I know because I laid on that table—strapped down and unable to move—and I counted every single time that he cut me.”
***
“What in the hell is going on?” Joel caught Chloe’s arm as soon as they left the lab. He spun her around to face him. “And why didn’t you tell me about Ruben’s text?”
“Because he could have been wrong. I needed him to be thorough, so I asked him to count again.” Her chin notched up. Her voice remained perfectly calm as she added, “You were already having a difficult night. Why should I burden you more if it turned out to be nothing?”
“Burden me. Burden me any fucking time. Especially if it’s about a psycho murderer, okay? Put that down as a rule for me or something. I want to be burdened.” His heart was jackhammering in his chest. When he’d looked at the body of Glenn Towers—seen him with all the blood cleaned away and Joel had studied all of those cuts on his body…
Like I was looking into a twisted mirror.
“All of the wounds weren’t in the same positions.” He sucked in one breath. Another. Pulled her scent in to him—strawberries when the rest of the place reeked of antiseptic—and tried to get his focus back. “I got the scar on my lip from the shovel. Not the knife. So that was wrong. I mean, shit, technically, I guess that would make mark one hundred and five for me so—”
Chloe’s gaze slid from his. “I don’t think the lip wound counts for you. It was from a different—a different weapon. We’re looking specifically at wounds from a knife. You had one hundred and four knife wounds. Glenn also had one hundred and four. Only for him, one of those wounds was the slice to his lip.”
He shook his head. This was so messed up. “The slices on his arms were all in roughly the same place as mine. But the ones on the chest—they…” He broke off.
“Close, but not quite the same.” She nodded. Watched him carefully. “Almost as if someone was following a model. A guide. Trying to put the marks in the same spot, but it’s hard to stay controlled enough to do that when your victim is bleeding out and you’re riding a high from taking him down. You want to dance and twirl, but you aren’t supposed to do that. You are just supposed to follow the map.”
His lips pressed together. Bam. Bam. Bam. His heartbeat was too fast. “Who the hell sent the text requesting you? Do you already know?”
She shook her head. “I only know the text was sent to the mayor from the phone of Glenn Towers. Cedric updated me on that.”
“Why?” he rumbled. “Why is this happening? Stabbed and sliced like I was, then you’re called in to investigate. Is this some other fucker who wants his fifteen minutes of fame by deliberately trying to mimic the shit that happened to me? A copycat?”
“Copycat,” she repeated consideringly. “That’s certainly what the police will think. But we can’t overlook the fact that someone else killed Lucia. And her method of death certainly wasn’t a copy of what happened to you.” She cocked her head and studied him. “If you want someone to—literally—stop a person from talking, do you know what you need to do?”
Yeah, he had an idea. “Cutting her throat works wonders.” You couldn’t talk when someone had sliced through your vocal cords.
A door opened down the hallway. A woman in a white lab coat stared at Joel with wide eyes.
Wonderful. Of course, she would have heard that throat cutting line from him. “I’m not…I’m not threatening to cut her throat.” He motioned toward Chloe.
The woman backed up a step.
“We should leave,” Chloe advised. “A new shift starts soon. More people will be coming in.”
“I didn’t threaten her,” Joel muttered to the woman who was still gaping at him.