Syd Parker - The Killing Ground

When Jordan skidded to a stop in front of the crime scene, the place was already crawling with Chicago’s finest. This part of the city was eerily familiar to her. Her gym was right around the corner, and she shuddered involuntarily. She didn’t wait for Matty, instead locating Detectives Foxx and Jones just inside the yellow crime tape.

She had walked past this alley many times and wasn’t prepared for the site that awaited her. The victim, a woman in her early thirties, was lying on her back, her lifeless eyes staring out vacantly. Her body was covered with a thin sheet, but Jordan could see the blood on the ground near her face and around her midriff. She covered her mouth and swallowed bile.

Detective Foxx materialized beside her. “We covered her in case reporters showed up. I can have them remove the sheet.”

Jordan nodded weakly. She watched them pull the sheet back, and the first glance made her look away. She took several shallow breaths and turned around. The woman’s stomach had been sliced open, and the blood covered her body. “Fuck.”

“I’m sorry. I forgot you had only seen crime scene photos of the other victims, and Ms. Keppler got lucky. I should have prepared you.”

“Shit.” Matt slid to a stop behind them and pulled back quickly.

“Special Agent Riley.” Rebecca watched him over her shoulder. She felt sorry for him. She wasn’t sure how long he had been with the FBI, but something told her, he wasn’t used to the kind of cases she saw. She gestured to the M.E. “Cover her back up.”

“Pregnant?” The question was almost a whisper and Jordan cleared her throat. “Was she pregnant?”

Rebecca nodded. “We can’t be sure until the autopsy, but it’s a pretty good guess she was.”

“And he…he took the baby?” God bless him, Matt was trying. Seeing crime scene photos was one thing. Seeing it firsthand was a perspective he wasn’t exactly comfortable with. He saw the response in Rebecca’s face and stumbled backwards.

Rick put a protective hand on Matt’s shoulder. “Listen, Riley. Why don’t we check the area outside the alley? See if he got careless and dropped something. Maybe you can find someone that saw something.” Rick knew they would find nothing, but he could tell Matt needed a distraction.

Jordan watched him walk away, thankful for a reason to get out of the alley. “Take the sheet off.”

She knelt over the body. The smell of blood repelled her. She saw the remains of her torn pants and knew without being told that this woman had been violated sexually as well. She shook her head. “Do we have an ID?”

“Yeah.” Rebecca pulled a pad out of her pocket. “Purse was on the sidewalk outside the alley. That’s how they found her. Name’s Elizabeth Hudson.”

“Does Ms. Hudson have a husband?”

Rebecca shook her head. “We’re tracking him down. The only contact number in her purse is a cell, and he’s not answering.”

“Hell of a way to find out about your wife and kid.” Jordan ran her hand over her jaw. “I don’t mean to be an ass, but I’m thinking it’s time to lay everything out on the table. Whatever issues we have, catching this guy needs to come first.”

Rebecca narrowed her eyes. “I don’t need you to tell me how to do my job. I’m well aware of how important catching this guy is.”

“Whoa!” Jordan held up her hands defensively. She stepped closer and lowered her voice. “I realize I may have rattled you at the bar, but that’s no reason to make this investigation more difficult.”

“First off.” Rebecca held up her finger. “You did not, nor can you, ever rattle me, and second, don’t for a minute think that I would let whatever personal issues you have get in the way of an investigation. It may behoove you to remember that you came to me, Special Agent Gray, not the other way around. My continued allowance of your involvement is a personal favor to your boss, nothing more.”

Jordan’s mouth dropped in shock. Rebecca lived up to every stereotype about redheads and tempers. She toyed with putting the Detective in her place and decided against it. What she really wanted to do was laugh. It had been a long time since anyone had spoken to her like that, and truth be told, when Detective Foxx got all worked up, she was downright beautiful. “I’m going to check on Riley. Please let me know if there are any developments in the case.”

Jordan spun around and walked off in search of her partner. She had a name at least and figured that a little homework of her own might produce a lead. First thing she was going to do was a little research on the victim’s husband. It wasn’t so far-fetched to imagine that the husband had something to do with it. Some lunatic commits a string of murders to cover the one that mattered. It was a sick thought, but Jordan had met enough wackos that she would buy anything these days.

She caught up to Matt and grabbed his elbow. “Come on.”

He looked relieved. This case wasn’t sitting too well with him. He preferred the high tech cases, the ones that required chasing white-collar criminals. The ones like this almost sent him over the edge. He didn’t do blood and guts.

“So, what’s your take on this?” Jordan asked after a few moments of silence, broken only by the well-tuned hum of her 370Z.

Matt shook his head. “This guy’s a fucking nut job. I’ve never seen someone mess women up like this. You gonna ask Redmond?”

Julien Redmond was a criminal profiler and a genius at giving them something out of nothing. Asking him meant alerting someone else that she and Matt were working a case that wasn’t technically the FBIs to work. Normally, she would worry about that, especially since Assistant Director Mitchell had specifically said under the radar. The less she pinged on the radar, the better. “I thought about it. Detective Foxx hasn’t given me the go ahead, but something tells me we are going to have to do some investigating outside of what we share with the CDD.”

“Think that’s a good idea?” Matt asked quietly.

Jordan shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not.”

“Don’t tick her off, Jordie. In case you hadn’t noticed, she’s not exactly thrilled the FBI is sticking its nose in where it doesn’t belong.” Matt’s tone held a friendly warning, but buried beneath that was something else. Something Jordan couldn’t quite put her finger on, but it was something akin to admiration, maybe even like. “She’s given us more than I thought she would; now she’s even letting us into the crime scenes. That’s more than the CDD has let us do before, and I’m guessing if we fuck it up, the shit will hit the fan.”

He didn’t have to say Assistant Director Mitchell would have their heads on a silver platter. It wouldn’t matter anyway, if Jordan messed everything up, she would feel worse about it than her boss could ever make her feel. Besides, staring into those lifeless eyes tonight had triggered a primal need inside her, and she knew that whatever it took, she would catch him. She would make him pay. “You don’t have to tell me, alright? I was there. I saw her face. I know what this means to her, to Julie and now to Detective Foxx. It’s personal. Believe me, I don’t intend to mess this up.”

“Good.” She could see Matt’s appeased smile in the dashboard’s glow. “Listen, I gotta ask you about Detective Foxx. Do you think she would…well, you suppose…”

Jordan had a sneaking suspicion of what he was trying to say and rather than help him, she opted to remain silent and prolong his misery.

“Hell, after this is over, I want to ask her out. You think she would be interested in me?”

The look he gave her was so innocent and hopeful that she didn’t think she could crush his feelings now. She had only seen him interested in one other woman in the time they had been partners. That had ended badly, and if Jordan was even half way right, this one wasn’t starting out so good either.