Steven James - The Knight

I stared at Taylor’s headless, mutilated corpse. The case files mentioned that he’d been tortured, but I hadn’t realized how extensive the injuries had been until now.

Eric must have noticed me observing the wounds. “This man did not die quickly,” he said.

I was mentally reconstructing the way Sebastian Taylor had been attacked, when Eric pointed to the bone protruding from the corpse’s right forearm. “Look here. His ulna is fractured, but there were no contusions near the site of the break. His wrist was also fractured.”

“What does that mean?”

“I can’t tell for certain from a cursory external observation, but most likely the killer used his bare hands.” He pointed to the break in the forearm. “Based on the angle and severity of that open spiral fracture, the attacker would need to be unusually strong and has probably studied-”

“Martial arts, close quarters combat, or some type of hand to hand.”

“Yes.”

The killer found Taylor… disabled his surveillance cameras. .. possibly has skills in self-defense…

Military intelligence training?

Law enforcement experience?

“OK. Keep me up to speed.”

He nodded. “I will.”

I found Cheyenne standing beside the doorway to room 228, texting someone. She looked up as I approached. “Kelsey’s doing a lot better.”

“That’s great.”

“They have her on a warm saline IV to raise her core body temp.” She finished sending her text and slid her phone into her pocket. “An officer’s on his way over here to guard the room in case the killer finds out she survived and tries to return to finish what he started.”

“Good. Did Kelsey give you a description of her assailant?”

“She wouldn’t talk about it. When I asked her, she just closed her eyes and shook her head.”

Sometimes victims take weeks before developing enough emotional distance to talk about life-threatening events, so, after an experience as traumatic as getting locked in a morgue, Kelsey’s reaction didn’t surprise me. But it wasn’t going to make our job any easier.

“We’ll follow up,” Cheyenne said. “If she’s willing to talk, I’ll call for a sketch artist to come in. Oh, and Agent Vanderveld stopped by.”

“Great.”

“He seems like a man who is very sure of himself.”

“That’s one way to put it.” I didn’t really want to talk about Jake. “Hey, let’s have an officer review the hospital’s video surveillance cameras to find out when Kelsey arrived. Maybe there’s some footage of her attacker entering or leaving the hospital.”

“I’ll get someone on it.”

I quickly briefed Cheyenne on Kelsey’s husband. She nodded solemnly, then glanced at her watch. “I can’t even imagine what she’s going through. I’m going to stay here for a little while. Whether or not she decides to talk, she needs someone with her right now.”

“One more thing,” I said. “I need to get home and change. Can I borrow your car?”

“Anytime.”

I gave her Kelsey’s wet clothes, she handed me the keys, and I was on my way.

Since receiving the flowers nearly an hour ago, Amy Lynn Greer had been searching through every article she’d written in the last year, looking for connections to stories about people named John, Jonathan, or Johnson, and had found a few possibilities, but nothing that looked relevant.

After she’d eliminated the articles that she’d personally worked on, she’d expanded her search to include articles by other journalists.

Still nothing solid.

The phrase about telling of others’ tears made her vaguely uneasy, and as an investigative journalist, she didn’t like mysteries that she couldn’t solve.

A thought that had been nagging her was starting to become more and more intrusive.

Maybe it wasn’t just a coincidence that she mysteriously received the flowers while her husband and the rest of the crime scene unit were investigating one of the most gruesome crime sprees in Denver’s history.

She decided to give herself one more hour to see if she could uncover anything about the phrase “Must needs we tell of others’ tears?” and then, even though she wasn’t supposed to, she would call her husband to find out if this might be related to any of the cases he was working on.

All right, then. One more hour.

After talking with Patrick on the phone and torturing him about the pumpkin pie spice latte, Tessa had spent some time lounging in her room, listening to music and working on the Rubik’s Cube, but she couldn’t solve it. Even with her eyes open.

And that really annoyed her.

She had her iPod docked to her stereo, and when the playlist came to Vigilantes of Love’s Audible Sigh CD, she cranked the music to help her concentrate. A little retro, kind of an R.E. M college rock feel, not quite as edgy as most of the bands she was into, but sweet lyrics. Bill Mallonee was a genius with words.

When “Black Cloud O’er Me” came on, she couldn’t help but think of her conversation with Patrick. He’d really been into Lien-hua, and even though he was acting like it wasn’t a huge deal, he must have been hurting pretty badly after breaking up with her. Talk about a black cloud.

Tessa had started getting used to the idea of the two of them being together but had noticed their relationship disintegrating for the last couple of weeks, and it was probably better that they called it quits now, before either of them ended up getting hurt worse. She’d seen lots of kids at school drag things out way too long and then break up. It wasn’t pretty.

A carnage of hearts.

Sounded like something Bill Mallonee would write.

So, do what Pat asked. Pack. Cheer him up.

Obviously, since they were only going to be out East for three months, they weren’t taking everything, but most of the stuff in their bedrooms needed to go. They’d been clearing out his closet the other night. Maybe she could just finish that before he got home.

Going into his room had always felt a little weird to her, like some kind of invasion of his personal space, but the longer they lived together, the more OK it seemed to her. Part of being in a family. One of the good parts.

She stepped inside. Glanced around.

Rumpled bedsheets on his bed. A half-read copy of Pascal’s Pensees on the end table beside it, rock-climbing gear thrown on the floor under the window. Ansel Adams prints of Half Dome and El Capitan, two of the places he’d climbed, hung on the wall.

Two photos sat on his dresser. One of the family: Mom, Patrick, and her on the Staten Island Ferry-her mother bald from chemo. The other picture was of him in the Appalachian Mountains when he was a wilderness guide in college. He had a ponytail in the picture, and she’d gotten a ton of mileage out of that.

Scattered around the room were five heavy-duty cardboard moving boxes.

She popped open the one next to the closet and found it half full of dog-eared criminology textbooks and back issues of the Journal of Environmental Psychology and the Journal of Forensic Sciences, and a clutter of office supplies just thrown on top-pens, scissors, paper clips, pencil holders, USB cords, rubber bands-a pair of dress shoes, and some crumpled-up dress shirts. How he could be so meticulous in his FBI life and such a slob in his single-guy-at-home life had always been a mystery to her.

There was still room in the box, though, and she knew they didn’t have a ton of extra moving boxes around so she opened the closet and saw that, apart from a couple pairs of running shoes, and an old backpack, the floor was empty.

But there was a shelf near the ceiling and some camping stuff sticking over the edge.

She dragged a folding chair to the closet, stepped up, and yanked down a first aid kit and daypack.