BEVERLY BARTON - The Chosen

“I’m flying up to Williamstown later this morning,” Griff said. “I’ll keep you posted on Ms. Cain’s condition. And if Judd is acting like himself enough actually to give a shit about Ms. Cain, then don’t try to stop him from coming to see her. As a matter of fact, drive him straight to the hospital yourself.”

Chapter 2

Last night’s snow had turned into a cold, relentless rain. The windshield wipers on Lindsay’s two-year-old Trailblazer LT swished back and forth at high speed, barely able to keep one step ahead of the heavy downpour. She was at the halfway point between Griff’s home in Knox County and the old hunting lodge in Marion County that had belonged to the Walker family for several generations. She had headed out at nine-thirty this morning, shortly after dropping Griff off at the private airstrip where he kept his personal jet. Actually, it was the company’s jet—Powell Private Security and Investigation Agency—but since Griff was the sole owner, it was a moot point. In good weather, she could easily make the trip in a little over two hours, but with visibility practically nil, she’d be lucky to arrive at her destination in three hours.

Griff had known she didn’t want to see Judd again, yet he’d sent her off on this assignment anyway. She could have questioned him about his decision or even refused, but she’d known Griff long enough to realize he never did anything without a reason.

And that reason would be? she questioned herself.

Maybe it was because Griff knew that if this new Beauty Queen Killer case didn’t snap Judd back to life, from out of that no-man’s-land where he existed, then nothing ever would. Now, with a victim who had actually survived, this was the first real break they’d gotten in tracking down Jennifer Mobley Walker’s killer. If Gale Ann Cain could identify her attacker…

If … if … i f…

What if she couldn’t identify the madman who had chopped off both her feet? What if she never came out of the coma? What if she died? Was it fair to build up Judd’s hopes, to make him believe they actually had a shot at finding out who had killed his wife?

As the windshield wipers’ mesmerizing song hummed in rhythm to the drumming raindrops, and the miles along Highway 28 zipped by, Lindsay’s thoughts wandered backward to a day she would never forget—her first case as a brand new homicide detective for the Chattanooga Police Department. She had been partnered with Lt. Dan Blake, a veteran cop who had been her dad’s partner ten years earlier, before her father had been shot down by an escaping felon. Dan had taken her under his wing, guided her through her rise in the CPD, from rookie to detective, and had become like a second father to her.

They had arrived at the house shortly after midnight and took over from the uniformed officers—Marshall and Landers— who’d been first on the scene.

“The call came in from Ms. Walker’s boss, the owner of Archer/Hert Realty. It seems Mr. Walker became concerned when his wife was late coming home and he couldn’t reach her on her cell phone, so he called her boss. Mr. Archer was also unable to contact Ms. Walker on her cell, so he drove out to the house she’d been showing and found—” Officer Landers swallowed hard. “I’ve never seen anything like it and I hope I never—”

“That bad, huh,” Dan said as he passed by Landers and entered the sprawling seventies ranch house. Lindsay followed, pausing in the foyer when Dan stopped to take a look around. Officer Marshall stood in the foyer talking quietly to a small, gray-haired man who looked as if he’d been crying.

The minute Officer Marshall heard the door open, he turned to face Dan. “Lieutenant, this is Mr. Archer. He’s the one who found Mrs. Walker’s body.” The officer nodded the direction. “In there, in the kitchen.”

“It’s the most god-awful thing I’ve ever seen.” Archer’s voice quivered with emotion. “How could anyone have done something so terrible to Jennifer?”

“Take Mr. Archer outside and let him get some fresh air,” Dan said. “And let me know the minute the CSI boys arrive.” He turned to Lindsay. “Are you ready for this?”

She nodded.

“If you get sick, don’t worry about it,” he told her. “It’s happened to all of us at least once.”

“I’ll be okay.” She felt quite confident that she could handle whatever they found. After all, she had watched several autopsies and hadn’t experienced more than momentary nausea, hadn’t she? And she had viewed pictures of countless corpses in various stages of decomposition and hadn’t even flinched.

Dan slipped on his disposable gloves and headed through the house, inspecting one room at a time. Without a moment’s hesitation, Lindsay mimicked his actions. When Dan stopped abruptly in the kitchen doorway, Lindsay almost skidded into his back. She managed to sidestep him and wound up to his right, which enabled her to glance around him and into the kitchen.

Barely restraining a shocked gasp, Lindsay stared in disbelief at the slender young woman sitting on the floor, her head bowed, as if praying, her mane of long, dark hair cascading over her shoulders. Thin nylon rope crisscrossed her ankles, binding her feet together. Her arms, pulled up above her head, were bound with the same type of rope and were attached to two open cabinet doors.

“Sweet Jesus,” Dan said.

The woman’s hands, severed at the wrists, lay on either side of her hips, only a few inches from her thighs. Two large pools of rich, drying blood permeated the kitchen, emitting a distinct metallic scent and creating ebony-red stains where the victim’s life’s blood had drained from her body.

“The son of a bitch chopped off her hands.” Dan glared at the discarded meat cleaver lying at the dead woman’s feet.

Lindsay didn’t know what to say, had no idea how to respond to her partner’s comments. She wasn’t sure Dan expected her to reply.

As she surveyed the dead woman from head to toe, Lindsay noted one small item that seemed totally out of place in the gory scene. “There’s a flower in her lap.”

“A red rose,” Dan said. “Probably our killer’s calling card.”

Lindsay made a mental check of red rose connotations she’d heard during her lifetime. The one that came to mind first was that a red rose means I love you . Nope, that couldn’t be it, could it? Then the lyrics to an old song hummed through her head. It was called “Red roses for a blue lady” she seemed to remember.

“Let’s just back out of here and wait for our CSI team. If we’re lucky our guy left more than a red rose behind.” Dan closed his eyes, grunted and shook his head in disgust. “Why do some of them have to resort to slicing-and-dicing their victims?”

She was certain that comment had been rhetorical, so she kept quiet and took several steps backward, giving Dan room to turn around. But before Dan could close the kitchen door, a ruckus of some sort broke out from the foyer. The sound of Officer Landers’s voice rang out loud and clear.

“Sir, you can’t go back there,” Landers said.

“The hell I can’t,” the agitated baritone replied.

Feet stomping. Grunts. Curses. A thud.

“Mr. Walker, come back here,” Landers cried. “Stop now!”

Judd Walker, former Chattanooga District Attorney and presently a successful lawyer who was expected to run for office in the next gubernatorial race, came storming toward Dan and Lindsay.

“Where is she?” Judd demanded.

“Mr. Walker …” Dan approached the victim’s husband.

Lindsay eased backward, placing herself in front of the closed kitchen door.

Judd glared at Lindsay. “Get out of my way. I want to see my wife.”