Kate blinked.She tried to convince herself it was a bad idea, but she couldn’t quite get there.“You could stay with—”
His phone rang just before she said the critical words.Thedamningwords.She looked away, cheeks burning even brighter.“Cheryl?”
“No, Winters.”He answered.“Yeah.Yeah, it’s over.Open and shut.Woman caught her husband cheating and took a knife to him.Not related to Cox.”
The pause that followed that sentence was longer.The sigh that followed that pause was almost as long.“Right.Okay.We’re on our way.”
He hung up and looked at Kate.“There’s been another murder.Chicago.This one looks a lot more promising.”
Kate sighed and dumped her coffee in the sink on her way out.She didn’t need it anymore.
If this case was connected to Cox, it meant another crazed disciple manipulate by the great criminal mastermind of their generation, but as Marcus drove them to the airport, it wasn’t Cox she feared.
Rosalyn Pierce might have been afflicted with temporary rage when she stabbed her husband thirteen times with a kitchen knife, but she’d been of clear enough mind to write one of the ten commandments on the wall of their kitchen with his blood.She hadn’t said so, but it was clear to Kate what, or rather who, had inspired that.
Perhaps Cox’s true power wasn’t the sway he held over those in his direct control but the ability his actions had to sway many others.A scorned wife here, a grieving loved one there, a fanatical churchgoer elsewhere… Before they knew it, there could be dozens, hundreds of these murders popping up all over the nation.
Maybe that was Cox’s endgame.Not to complete a ritual but to start a revolution.
CHAPTER SIX
“Looks like this guy lived a little larger than Mr.Pierce,” Marcus observed as the police cruiser pulled in front of a massive, three-story house in Chicago’s prestigious Gold Coast neighborhood.
“Lakefront property, Bentley parked in the garage, full-time maid?Forget about it.”
Detective Whitaker’s last sentence came outFuhgeddaboutit.The Chicago PD officer assigned to work with them was a seven-year veteran of the force, but he’d grown up in Brooklyn, and his accent remained staunchly New York.Kate noticed the instant camaraderie between Marcus and the lanky Brooklyn transplant and hoped that would cheer her partner up a little.He’d spent the flight over in moody silence that Kate was too afraid to break.
“Funny thing is, this guy fell on hard times in recent years,” Whitaker informed them.
Kate raised an eyebrow.“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.Guy managed to get off for murder, but who wants to do business with someone who has that kind of court case hanging over their head?”
Now Kate wasveryinterested.“Tell me about that.”
“He was accused of murdering his partner three years ago.That wasn’t my case, so I don’t have a lot of details, but it was big news in Chicago.They found the guy—Gene Parker—dead in a hotel bathroom with a gun in his hand.Looked like a suicide at first, but the more we looked into it, it was clear he’d been killed and staged to look like he’d killed himself.”
“I definitely want to know more about that,” Kate said, “but let’s check the scene out first since we’re here.”
“Sure thing.”
Whitaker led them into the house, just as opulent inside as it was outside, with marble tile floors, granite countertops, and expensive black leather furniture.Still, there were signs of the financial stress Whitaker references.The furniture was expensive but lean.No coffee table, no rug, only a small table with four chairs.The walls were bare of artwork, and when Marcus opened the fridge—a habit of his ever since he'd found a severed hand in the refrigerator in one of his earliest cases with the Bureau—he found it empty save for a few takeout boxes and a half-full carton of milk.
“Body’s upstairs,” Whitaker informed them.“Maid discovered him after hearing a noise.Probably walked into the room right after the murderer escaped.Found the window open.I closed that, by the way.I used gloves so I didn’t mess up the scene, but I figured you didn’t want dust and leaves blowing in.I hope that was all right.”
“That’s fine,” Kate said.“Where is she now?”
“She went home.She was incoherent on the phone.Couldn’t get a straight story out of her until we arrived on scene.She was sitting on the porch holding a kitchen knife.I talked her down and figured out what happened, then sent her home.”
“And you’re sure she isn’t a suspect?”Kate asked.
“Reasonably sure.She didn’t have any blood on her.When you see the body, you’ll know why that matters.”
“Where exactly was he found?”
“In his study.”
He pushed open a door, and Kate stepped into the scene.She knew immediately that this was different from Blake Pierce's crime scene.Despite Whitaker's point about blood, there was no widespread blood around the study.In fact, Kate saw no blood at all save for the blood soaking the lower half of the man slumped in a high-backed chair behind a dark maple desk at the back of the room.
