Jill Sorenson - Crash Into Me

The second victim was Sarah Knox, a free-loving, earth-saving blonde. She’d been a dedicated student and amateur drug dealer, cultivating hydroponic marijuana and a 4.0 GPA at SDSU. She was found nude, facedown on the beach near La Jolla Cove. Like April Ramirez, she’d been raped, and strangled with some type of cord.

Their killer knew better than to leave behind DNA, but there had been enough trace evidence at both scenes, namely wetsuit fibers, to link the murders together.

Was there also a connection to Olivia Fortune’s death?

Sonny had obtained a copy of Olivia’s file from the local police department, and there were many dissimilarities between Olivia’s murder and the more recent attacks. Ben’s wife had been killed in her own home, and this scenario suggested some degree of forethought or familiarity. There was also no indication of rape; the only genetic material present belonged to Ben.

There were more discrepancies in execution. Olivia had been strangled by a length of electrical cord, of the same size and circumference as the implement used in the later murders, but the marks on her neck looked very different from the marks on the other victims. They were multiple, for one, and tentative, for another. They were the kind of marks a fledgling killer would make, as though he wasn’t sure how much pressure to apply.

Or as if he was entertaining second thoughts.

Troubled by the idea, Sonny shuffled through the file folder, looking for more information about Darrius O’Shea.

A decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, O’Shea had suffered a head injury during his final tour of duty. His marriage had dissolved soon after his return to San Diego, and in the following years he had few personal ties and no permanent address.

If not for the disability check he’d collected in person each month, one would have never known he was alive.

Less than forty-eight hours after Olivia Fortune’s body was found, the police arrested O’Shea for vagrancy. Upon finding a monogrammed towel with Mrs. Fortune’s initials stitched in gold thread, along with the infamous murder weapon, mixed in with his personal effects, two homicide detectives interrogated him.

O’Shea confessed to the crime eventually. Tests on the items in his possession left no room for error. And yet, he had no motive, no history of violent attacks. In addition to the towel, only a small piece of jewelry had gone missing from the Fortune household. Olivia’s wedding ring, which boasted a sizable rock, hadn’t been touched, and Ben’s money clip had been in plain sight, not far from the point of the attack.

O’Shea had been mentally evaluated and declared competent. The homeless vet was a man of few words, apparently, but his statement of guilt had been unequivocal. He spent the next three years in a maximum security prison. News of his death had been widely reported, although the specific details hadn’t been made public.

Sonny reorganized the files and pushed them aside, lying back on the bed and staring up at the ceiling, collecting her thoughts. For the first time in her life, she was having difficulty separating her emotions from the case.

It wasn’t like she’d never handled a rape/murder before. With her personal history, they were the most difficult, but she refused to let the past overwhelm her.

At least, not at work.

Tomorrow, instead of drooling over Ben Fortune, she would visit the prison where O’Shea had spent his last days. In order to move forward with the investigation, she had to delve deeper into the mind of the man who may or may not have killed Ben’s wife.

Once her dad fell asleep, Carly snuck away from the house, needing ultimate privacy for the ritual she was about to perform. He’d removed all the locks to her room, even the one to her bathroom, so there was no longer a place at home where she felt safe from discovery.

Now she was hidden amidst a cluster of rocks at the northern tip of Windansea Beach. It was dark, and late, and she was alone. This time she made sure no one followed her.

She sat down on the damp sand with her back against a flat rock, casting one last look around before she removed the washcloth from the pocket of her jeans. She unfolded it gingerly, careful not to cut her fingers on the razor blade it concealed, and pulled her shirt over her head. Placing the washcloth against the lacy cup of her bra so blood wouldn’t seep into the pristine white fabric, she lifted her elbow slightly, poised to draw the edge of the blade across a patch of smooth, unblemished flesh.

She inhaled sharply, savoring the moment, anticipating the quick flash of pain, the slick red trickle, and most important, the exquisite emotional release, as sweet and tender as a sigh.

Carly didn’t have an eating disorder, but it was easier to pretend she did at the group therapy sessions her dad made her attend. Several months ago, he’d caught her hunched over the toilet, vomiting her guts out after her first attempt at cutting. Lots of the girls at her school were bulimic or anorexic; like drug and alcohol addiction, it was a designer disorder. Nobody sweated you for puking in the john after lunch-the only trouble was elbowing past the other Barbie dolls to get your turn.

She couldn’t blame them, now that she’d seen their faces in group, had heard their stories, their confessions. Purging was the same as cutting, in a way. A fast tension reliever, an easy, purely physical liberation, a quick release of blood or food, in the place of emotions that were too strong or awful or dirty to be dealt with.

Carly understood the other girls, and commiserated with them.

She did feel bad about deceiving her dad. In group, the counselors droned on and on about honesty and open lines of communication, until the refrain repeated in her head like a drill.

But hadn’t he let her down a thousand times?

Fuck group, she decided viciously, willing her hand to let the blade descend upon her flesh. Every time she went to therapy and hung with those losers, it got harder to make the first cut, and after she came down from the high it gave her, she felt twice as guilty.

“Don’t do it.” The low voice came from the rocky outcrop above her.

Carly let out a strangled squeak, almost slashing herself accidentally as she jumped. With horror, she realized that the voice was male, so she dropped the blade into the sand and brought her shirt up to cover her chest.

When he leaned forward, out of the shadows and into the moonlight, she took an unsteady breath. He was just a boy, her age, and therefore unthreatening.

“It’s none of my business, of course, but it seems a shame to put scars on such beautiful skin.” He leapt off the rock he was crouched on and dropped down to sit beside her.

Clutching her shirt to her chest, she began to scoot backward, reassessing him as a possible menace. She was tall, but he was taller, certainly heavier, and he moved quick. Plus, he’d been skulking around in the dark, watching her.

He plucked the razor from the sand and held it up to catch the meager light, showing her his intentions before he stashed it. “As a man, I’d say a mark or two doesn’t hurt. But I’ve never known a woman who wanted to ugly herself up. Especially at such a pretty place.”

In spite of herself, she smiled. He was probably just a smooth-talking juvenile delinquent, but she liked being thought of as a woman. “You’re not a man,” she said.

“Sure I am. Enough so that I was enjoying the peep show.”

“Then why’d you stop me?”

“And let you mar perfection? Not a chance.”

“I’ve done it before,” she bragged, flattered by his compliments.

“I know. I’ve seen you.”