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“I need to go. There’s been another…” She couldn’t get herself to say murder as if it would taint the moment. She felt to blame in a roundabout way. If she hadn’t surrendered to believing she could take an entire weekend, then things might be different. This must be the universe inserting a course correction.
“You do what you need to do. Zoe and I understand, Mandy.” He made sure to match her gaze as he spoke, and it drove home the sincerity of his words.
“Thank you.”
“Can you eat before you go, or…?”
“Is there anything I can take for the road?”
He nodded. “I got some blueberry muffins.”
“Thank you. I’ll just say goodbye to Zoe.” She hugged and kissed Logan, then broke the news to Zoe she had to leave, that the job was calling again. And while Zoe seemed to show the same understanding as Logan, Amanda felt all sorts of guilt and regret. If only she hadn’t let herself get involved in the Felicity Kelley case to start with, then Malone would have pushed this new case to Hudson.
Before leaving, she plucked a coffee from the takeout tray and one of those muffins. As she drove to Central, she couldn’t help but recall some of her final words to Trent last night. She’d told him that by taking the weekend, they might realize there was another avenue to pursue. When she’d said that, she had no idea it would mean they’d be looking at another murder.
THIRTY-SIX
“Victim is Jane Burr, forty-two, found inside her home,” Malone informed Amanda and Trent once they arrived on scene.
Burr’s residence was in Woodbridge, and after Malone’s call, Amanda reached out to Trent. They met up at Central, grabbed a department car, and came over together.
Malone went on. “She was single, lived alone.”
“What did she do for work?” Trent asked.
“She was the office manager for Fine Furniture Limited in town.”
As much as Amanda wanted to forget Malone’s call had happened, that another life was lost while she and Trent misread the clues in Felicity Kelley’s case, the next step couldn’t be put off forever. “Where can we find her?”
“She’s in the primary bedroom,” Malone said. “Up the stairs to the right of the entry, room at the end of the hall, also on the right. Actually, I’ll just come up with you.”
Amanda put booties over her shoes and entered the home, raising her badge to the officer at the door. If that hadn’t been enough to clear her, Malone was right there telling the uniform to step aside.
CSIs were already on location, and she knew from Malone’s call that a medical examiner was on the way too. More than likely Hans Rideout, as that was who tended to be sent to their scenes.
There was a buzz in the air that accompanied police presence but also the sedate coolness of a place where there had been a murder. It was an impossible essence to ignore or overlook. For Amanda, as she took each step to the second level, her self-judgment weighed in. She and Trent had dropped the ball, made too many assumptions…
Amanda cleared the doorway for the primary bedroom—spacious floor plan, with a king-size bed, seating for two with a coffee table, and a flatscreen television was mounted to the wall above a gas fireplace. The seating arrangement faced the fireplace, and it was running.
A bottle of champagne and two flutes were on the coffee table.
Amanda laid a hand over her stomach. This was looking eerily familiar to the scene described in Felicity Kelley’s The Romeo Killer.
“She’s lying in front of the fireplace,” Malone told her, though this was unnecessary.
The killer had followed the script more closely with this murder.
Standing to the side of one chair was CSI Blair. She was taking photographs. Donnelly was setting down evidence markers next to the champagne bottle and flutes.
Amanda took her steps across the room slowly and deliberately. Her mind was preparing her for what she was about to see. And while there turned out to be no surprises, that didn’t make the sight any easier to assimilate.
The woman was dressed in a white robe, the collar opened to expose a black negligee. The handle of a knife stuck out from her chest. Blood had bloomed from the wound, saturated the robe, and pooled onto the floor.
“The Romeo Killer strikes again,” Trent said reverently and met Amanda’s gaze. She could read that he had regrets too. Had they given up on the theory of a serial killer imitating Felicity Kelley’s book too soon? But they had just followed the leads they had—none of which led them to make that conclusion.
“I knew this was going to be hard for you guys to see,” said Malone. “I know you were hung up on the differences between The Romeo Killer and Kelley’s murder. That’s why you were interested in Kelley’s latest project, why you signed that confidentiality agreement with her publisher. But how does this scene line up in comparison to the bestseller?”
“Pretty much perfectly from what I can tell, and from what I remember,” Amanda responded.
