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Cara had glanced at the clock, about to say no, then saw the hopeful look on her daughter’s face.
“Yes, please,” she’d replied, and went to join her family in the kitchen, grabbing a few minutes of normality and innocence before the horror of her day began.
* * *
She pulls her attention back to the incident room, where Griffin has clicked the button again.
“Manson,” he says, then pauses. “The stabbing and shooting of five people on Monday night.” Cara hears gasps from the room. “Including one pregnant woman.”
“But Manson wasn’t a serial killer,” Shenton whispers next to her. “It was Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, and Pat Krenwinkel who carried out the Tate murders.”
Cara glances across to him. “Let’s not get caught up in semantics now, Toby,” she replies. “Five people were killed. I’m not sure how much rational thought can be applied to what’s going on.”
Deakin leans forward. “I think you should tell him,” he mutters, nodding toward Griffin.
But Cara stops Shenton just as he’s going to speak. She glares at Noah.
“Don’t wind him up, Deaks,” she hisses. “This is hard enough as it is.”
Cara knows there is no love lost between her brother and her partner. Both are passionate, stubborn individuals, but while Griffin does what he wants and to hell with the consequences, Deakin likes rules, procedures, and processes. And she knows Noah is pissed off with Griffin taking the lead on this briefing. At the heart of it, she thinks Noah is probably annoyed for not noticing the connections himself.
To add insult to injury, Griffin has moved on and is talking about Ed Kemper.
“In 1972, he picked up female hitchhikers, taking them to isolated areas where he would stab and strangle them, then dismember and dispose of the bodies. He was caught after killing his mother and fucking her head in 1973.”
Cara winces at his language. She’s going to have to have another word with him.
“Like Kemper, our killer used a Ford Galaxy. Like the word pig written on the wall and the American flag for the Manson murders, even down to the fish tank and the DVDs in the Dahmer apartment, he uses details similar to the real murders.”
“So he’s taunting us?” one detective asks. “Showing off?”
Griffin looks back at the projector. “He’s certainly trying to say something.”
Cara sees Griffin turn away from the room and take a deep breath. She knows what’s coming next. He clicks the button and an image appears on the screen. She feels her muscles tense.
The room is silent.
Griffin clears his throat. “Other victims. Other murders we believe are connected.”
It’s a photo of Mia. Her sister-in-law. But here she’s barely recognizable. Her body, half naked, is lying on the floor, her hands tied. Her long brown hair is over her face, and there is blood—blood everywhere.
It’s a crime scene photo from just over a year ago. Cara remembers the day.
She’d been deployed to a knifing at a shopping center, staring at the CCTV when the call came over the radio. She hadn’t seen Nate that morning, but that wasn’t unusual; they were on different teams. Deakin had put his hand on her shoulder.
“It’s Griffin,” he’d said, his face dark.
They’d raced to the hospital, stood at the window to the ICU, looking at his unconscious, beaten body. Doctors spoke to her, but she hadn’t taken it in. Until she’d turned to them and said, “Where’s Mia?”
She’d liked Mia from the moment she’d met her. The first time: a weekend away at their lodge with Roo and the kids. Their retreat in the countryside, away from the bustle of Roo’s kitchen and the grim nature of her police work. Griffin had arrived, late as usual, and he’d seemed jumpy. Her cocky younger brother, nervous? But all was explained when he introduced the beautiful woman at his side. Cara had realized that this one was different for Griffin. This one was going to stay.
Mia was dark, with a smile that lit up her bottle-green eyes. She’d held Tilly, a baby at the time, and talked about children in her future, giving a quiet smile to Griffin. Mia brought out a side of Griffin that Cara adored. He was calmer around her. Happier. He was in love. For once in her life, Cara didn’t need to worry about her brother.
Until that day.
And now, here he was a year later. Standing in front of a brutal image of the body of his wife.
Griffin pauses. Everyone is quiet. Cara knows the majority of the detectives will make the connection between the bloody image on the screen and the man standing in front of it. He clicks the button again, and an image of Griffin’s old living room appears, the room trashed, blood on the walls and floor. “This was the attack on a married couple last year, raping the wife and bludgeoning her to death. The husband was beaten but survived.”
