Leslie Parrish - Black at Heart

Wyatt extended his hand to the detective. "Thank you for contacting me about the case."

Schaefer, a middle-aged man with a strong grip and intelligent eyes that belied the crumpled suit and rumpled hair, nodded as they shook hands. "Not a problem."

"Have you learned anything more?"

The detective shook his head. "Just the basics I told you about on the phone. Guy went missing two evenings ago. Pennsylvania police were investigating. A local cruiser spotted his car in the parking lot late last night and ran the tag. When he noticed the smell coming from inside, he got the manager up and they found the vie like…" He waved an expansive hand. "Well, like you see."

Steeling himself against the smell of death, Wyatt stepped farther inside and scanned the room. "What do you know about him?"

"Not a lot. Missing persons report gave us the basics, but I'm sure we'll learn more about him as the day goes on." He shook his head and snapped his chewing gum. "One thing I do know-his funeral ain't gonna have an open casket."

"Indeed."

Wyatt already knew more about the victim than this detective did, including the fact that Fuller's wife was a thin blonde with a pixie haircut, freckles, and a childlike figure. He had a picture of her on his BlackBerry, as well as one of the pre-sliced-up dentist.

Handsome couple, although they'd looked more like father and daughter than man and wife. Which came as no great surprise.

As soon as he'd heard about the murder, he'd contacted the one person he could trust with this particular situation, IT Specialist Brandon Cole, and asked him to find out everything he could on the victim. The always-energetic young man had not wasted a second, working from home in the predawn hours. And he'd called him back forty minutes later, following up with an e-mail detailing what he'd found.

Brandon knew the stakes here. He knew what Wyatt was thinking about this case, about who could be killing these men and why. He didn't believe it. But he knew.

Actually, Wyatt didn't truly believe it, either. And yet here he was.

You know you have to consider the possibility.

Was it possible? Of course. Anything was.

But probable that someone he knew, someone he liked, someone he'd protected, could be responsible for this?

It seemed beyond belief. The evidence, however, could not be ignored.

"Sounded like you weren't too surprised by what we found here," said Schaefer.

Again surveying the room, the massacred victim, the dried blood, the lingering aura of violence, he shook his head. "No. Not surprised."

Then his gaze focused on one spot. On the item that had most drawn his attention when he'd learned of this particular murder. "A tiger lily," he murmured.

"That what it is?" Schaefer followed his stare. "I don't know shit about flowers."

"I'm fairly certain." Wyatt's even tone betrayed none of the intensity coursing through him all because of that one vivid tropical flower.

"Well, like I said on the phone, I saw the bulletin last week about brutal murders of men in small, out-of-the-way hotels. The flower thing sounded nutty. But once I saw this one, I figured this was exactly the kind of case you were watching for."

"It is. And I appreciate getting the call so quickly."

Drawn to that single blossom, Wyatt stepped to the bedside table, still cautious to avoid the remains and evidence markers littering the floor. Fortunately, the particular type of flower had no scent, unlike the one at the Virginia crime scene. Last time, it had been an Easter lily, the scent of which always made him think of funeral homes, caskets, and grief. The room had already reeked of death, just as this one did. The flower had just made it worse.

This one, though, did not. It was beautiful, its pale orange petals, though brownish and wilted around the edges, still curled closely together. It had obviously been cut just as it began to open and blossom, before it reached its full potential.

The roar of the tiger cut off with a sharp snick of the blade. A symbol for what had gone on in this room? For why it had gone on?

There was much to learn about Todd Fuller. Wyatt wanted to know whether there were any hush-hush rumors about him swirling in his community. Rumors that persisted despite his upstanding reputation as a good dentist, a family man, a generous contributor to children's charities. He wanted to understand the man's relationship with his little-girlish wife. And he most wanted to know exactly what he had been doing here, so far from home, in this dingy hotel.

If this case proved to be like the last two, he suspected the answer to all those questions would be found in the man's computer hard drive. His browsing history would show visits to secret, twisted Web sites that appealed to a certain type of sadistic individual. His e-mail file would contain communications between murder victim and killer. And they would invariably involve a child.

Yes, if Fuller was like the others, he had come to this hotel thinking he was meeting a father with a young son or daughter he was willing to exploit.

"So, what's the deal? Some florist get mad about the prices of roses around Valentine's Day and tumble off his rocker?"

Wyatt forced a faint smile. "Not exactly," he said, barely paying the detective any attention. He had questions for the man, but for now, his focus was on that lily. And on the single drop of blood that lay beside it, congealed and dark on the cheap Formica tabletop. Had it accidentally fallen from the killer's gloved fingertip as he lovingly left the calling card?

More imagery. The soft flower resting beside the ultimate symbol of violence-spilled blood-in a blatantly symbolic display of innocence shattered.

Not an accidental drop. Intentional

A crime scene investigator glanced over. "Place like this, we'll find tons of prints."

"Of course you will."

On the headboard, on the table. On the door, on the walls, on the television remote, on the cracked ice bucket. None of which would matter.

Because none of the fingerprints would match any of the hundreds found in the hotel room just outside Trenton, New Jersey, or the room in Dumfries, Virginia. Any prints, smears, or partials would be from the nameless travelers who had stopped here days, weeks, months ago.

A faint dusting of powder at the previous scenes and a tiny speck of rubber told them this unsub wore medical gloves. And if he took them off, he wiped clean anything he touched. The faucets in the other two cases had been immaculate-the only place without a single smear. Wyatt believed the unsub had touched them bare-handed, while washing the blood off his tools and himself.

He didn't doubt these crimes were the work of one killer. The signature was the same, the means, the locations, everything right down to the type of flower left at each scene. Lilies.

"There is a strange-looking bloodstain on the carpet, over there by the closet door. It's curved, like maybe from someone's heel."

Wyatt's brow shot up in interest.

"But I dunno; it could have been the handle of a weapon or something," the CSI said, sounding resigned. "It was pretty small to be from the man who must have done this."

Too small for a man. The investigator didn't even speculate on something that immediately entered Wyatt's head.

A woman. God.

The small-town CSI had never even considered it, obviously not thinking a woman would be capable of such ferocity, such viciousness.

Wyatt knew better. He knew full well what a woman was capable of. Had known since his very early childhood, the memories of which sometimes taunted him with all he'd lost and all the darkness that was possible in this world.

But this case? This woman?

No. He couldn't believe it. Not until there was not one bit of doubt.