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“Same MO on this one. But I think she gave me a clue Kiera didn’t.”
Archer’s beautiful green eyes flicker between mine. “Okay… what is it?”
“I can’t confirm yet, and I won’t be able to for a few more hours, but I suspect she was hit with a needle. I’ve found an almost microscopic puncture wound on her abdomen that makes me think so. When we get back to the George Stanley, I’ll pull Kiera out and look for the same. If I find one on her, too—”
“Then we have someone purposely poisoning these women,” Archer concludes on a snarl. “He’s hit two already. One more makes it a serial.”
“One more makes it a citywide panic,” I counter. “Tox came back for Kiera already, and they’re showing a cocktail of ups and downs that fried her system and sent her into complete organ failure. So far, it looks like our Jane is the same.”
I wait for him to process my words. Then to meet my eyes. “Do you have anything that’ll lead us to the killer yet?” I implore. “Because he’s slick, his drug is almost instant, and the needle puncture is so small, someone in a packed club probably doesn’t even know she’s been pricked till it’s too late.”
“We’re working on it. Guy over there,” Archer tilts his head toward the man Fletch and the uniform speak to, “thinks he saw something around dinnertime last night.”
“Hethinks?” I peer around Archer and scowl at the man taking cash when Fletcher hands it over. It’s only a twenty. Nothing massive, but it still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. “Why is Detective Fletcher paying him?”
“Because he’s hungry, and that’s usually how we get answers faster. The guy’s name is Percy, and he says he hangs out here most nights until it gets too cold. Then he makes his way to where he sleeps.”
“He’s homeless?”
“Yes. But he and a few buddies have a setup, so they’re shielded from the snow and wind at night. Percy says he saw someone around dinnertime, but he doesn’t have a watch, and doesn’t much care for the time. So that could be six o’clock, or it could be ten.”
“But he’s sure it was last night?”
“Yeah.”
When the media vans arrive in droves, somehow having gotten the location from some local snitch, Archer grabs my elbow and leads me away from the growing crowd and toward the water.
“He saw a couple walking along here last night. He didn’t give it a lot of thought, so he went about his evening, went back to his flop, slept a full night. Came back this morning, and this,” he gestures toward our newest case, “is what he found.”
“Who called it in?”
“A friend of a friend of a friend.” Archer releases my arm and drops his hands into his coat pockets, but he walks closest to the water and uses his body to shield me from the breeze. “Percy panicked and told a friend, the friend panicked and told another. They worked down the line until they got to a friend inside a deli about a mile from here. Deli owner called it in.”
“Is the deli owner clean?”
Grinning, Archer glances down at me and chuckles under his breath. “You sound like maybe you shoulda been a cop,Minnnka. But yeah, the deli owner is coming up clean. Fletch and I will swing by after we’re done here, but there are no red flags so far. Do you have anything I need to know before I continue?”
I bury my hands in my pockets and shiver when I find my phone in the left, and the uneaten granola bar in the right.Damn him.“Nothing yet. I’m confirming homicide. It’ll be in my official report. Kiera has either ingested, or was injected with, a cocktail of nasty drugs that trashed her organs and shut everything down. Official cause of death will likely be multi organ failure caused by those drugs. Whoever poisoned her did it on purpose, and likely knew it would kill her. The fact we have two confirms such.
“I’m not a psychologist or a criminal profiler,” I continue, “but I’d consider looking for a small-ish man. Someone with mommy issues, maybe. Or some other female-led trauma. I suspect he’ll be socially awkward. The quiet one in any gathering. Hunching in on himself, possibly talking to himself. He was either raised by a single mother, or his father was as weaselly as he. I suspect, when you find him, you’ll find a rap sheet that mentions domestic violence. Maybe a divorce or two. Maybe he has kids, maybe not… but if he does, he won’t have custody of them. If he does, then he probably killed their mother with his own hands.”
“As opposed to this new needle MO?” Archer asks.
“Yeah. His first kill was probably his mother or his wife. A crime of passion. She pushed him over the edge and deserved everything she got.”
I stop our stroll and turn to step in front of Archer. “The first will have been messy and loud. Opportunistic and unplanned. These are the opposite. He’s cowardly and weak, pricking them with a needle so small, they possibly don’t even feel it. He gives them something fast-acting so he gets to see them die, and it happens before they have time to protest—i.e., reject him. The payoff, to him, is watching them panic and suffer. I think if you line Kiera and our Jane side by side, compare their lives, you might find some crossovers. If we get a third, we close in on where he’s finding them.”
Frowning and thoughtful, Archer tilts his head to the side and studies me. “Did you take psych studies in college?”
I breathe out the oxygen I didn’t realize I was holding and wrap my fingers around the granola bar in my pocket. “No, but I like to puzzle these things out. And I think I’m gonna be on the money. When you get closer, can you show me what you’ve got?”
“For curiosity’s sake?”
Nodding, I glance down and take the snack from my pocket. My stomach rumbles, and my hands tremble. He’s right; my blood sugar is dropping. “I like the puzzle, and I can’t set these things aside in my mind until I have answers.”
“Come to dinner at my place tonight, and I’ll tell you everything I know.”
And there he goes, ruining everything.
