Judas Kiss

To their right were three doors, all leading to bedrooms. To the left, the hall led away from the stairs. The scene was similar to below, but more intense. Distinctive tiny red footprints, defined smears along the walls. Macabre artistic skills from a young child surely affected more by confusion than anything else. The rooms each glowed with a different palate, and the hall bath was decorated in a nautical style, reminiscent of a beach hotel. It struck Taylor. The obvious Judas Kiss

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effort that had gone into decorating was apparent. And the trimmings weren’t bought at Target or Pottery Barn. The décor was top of the line, custom designed. A quick perusal showed a guest room, an office and a nursery. Blood smears and light footprints wound in and out. Taylor followed the path. The nursery was painted in various tones of pink and lilac, with a mural of a forest on the western wall. The furniture was bleached oak; there was a mobile hanging above the oversized crib. Sunlight poured through the windows, barely checked by a light pink sheer. There was a small half bath off the nursery. Taylor glanced into the space. The smell of feces and urine was strong—a miniature plastic toilet sat on the floor next to its life-sized companion. It was full of waste. The child was toilettrained, but without her mother to empty the basin, the little potty was full to the brim.

Nose wrinkled, Taylor walked the length of the hallway to the master bedroom. The door to the room was open wide, wedged against the wall with a small bronze mouse. Cori

The interior of the room was awash in incongruous colors. The blood had molted into a dark brown stain, except where it cast against the walls and a white shaded lamp in a deep burgundy.

They saw the feet first. The body was half hidden by the king-sized bed. They crossed the room with care. No one wanted to be responsible for mucking up 44

J.T. Ellison

any evidence they might find. The room was at least forty feet in width, the bed in the center of the back wall. There was approximately fifteen feet of space on each side. The body was in the south quadrant of the room. Taylor heard Tim scratching notes as they moved to the far side of the bedroom.

Cori

Taylor and Sam stepped closer. “Oh, man,” Sam whispered. “That poor thing.”

“Cori

“Both.”

Taylor wasn’t sure what bothered her more, the teddy bear tucked into Cori

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stuck to the top of her mother’s hand. Hayden had tried to fix her. And then she’d lain down next to her mother, covering herself in blood.

They got the necessary pictures and videotape, then Sam set to work. She pulled back the blanket and saw the pregnancy.

“Oh, jeez. I hate this.” She felt the body. “She’s cold and malleable. The blood pool has soaked into the carpet and is tacky to the touch. I won’t know an exact time of death until I run the temp during autopsy, but this should give you a time frame to start looking at. Rigor is completely gone. Livor mortis is set, the discoloration consistent with a body lying in one position since death. She’s been dead at least thirty-six hours. I’d say she was killed right here, fell in this position and didn’t move. How far along is she, do you know?

This looks like a four, maybe five-month bump.”

“I don’t know. Parks said she was pregnant, but he didn’t say when she was due. Thirty-six hours minimum? God, that little girl was here in this house with her dead mother all that time. Poor baby.”

Sam continued her examination. “With a mother who’d been violently bludgeoned to death. Blunt force trauma to the extremities, the head. Her jaw is certainly broken, she’s missing some teeth.” Sam was finishing her initial assessment, making notes in a small black reporter’s notebook. “This is a mess, T.”

“Tell me about it. I don’t see any weapon conveniently lying around, do you?”

“No. And this is too much damage to just have been someone’s fists. Tim, you hear that? You need to keep an eye out for a weapon.”

“Yes, Dr. Loughley.”

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J.T. Ellison

“Okay, folks. Let’s rock and roll.” Sam and Tim continued their duties, with Keri filming everything for posterity. Taylor went to the window. The creamcolored roman shades, covered with blood spatter, were at half-mast. She glanced out at the street below. The neighbors were still grouped on the opposite lawn, talking quietly amongst themselves. She didn’t see anything out of place, no one who stood out as having a more than neighborly fascination with the goings-on. Sam stood, leaning over the body, then turned to Taylor. “It’s going to be a long day. I need to run out to the van for a couple things. Are you ready for some air?”

“Yeah.”

With a last glance at the victim, Taylor led the way out of the master and down the stairs.

When they got back to the front door, Taylor asked the question that had been burning in her mind from the moment she laid eyes on the body of Cori

“Just where is this husband?”

Four

The Harris family had taken refuge with the Wolffs’

next-door neighbor.

Fitz nodded to her as she came in. There were five people in the room, sitting, staring, crying. Father Ross, the department chaplain, was holding a woman who looked to be in her early fifties, with reddish hair. The woman was sobbing, nestled into the chaplain’s shoulder. The mother. The room was deadly quiet outside of the woman’s choked tears.

A dark-haired young woman met Taylor’s eye. A mixture of revulsion and longing crossed the woman’s face, quickly replaced by a hardness, an implacable blankness. Taylor had seen that look before. People hated to see her; she was the harbinger of death. But she held the answers, the clues, the reason. They needed her. Taylor guessed the woman was twentyeight, maybe thirty. She could see the resemblance to the victim.

There was something else on this woman’s face, but Taylor pushed it away.

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J.T. Ellison

She was this woman’s polar opposite—where Taylor was tall, honey-blond, gray-eyed, full-lipped and broad-shouldered, this woman was five foot three or four, dark and quite athletic. Her body hummed with health and well-being; her face wasn’t exactly pretty, but what men who were being kind would call interesting. She gave Taylor another look, and this time the meaning was inescapable.

Taylor was unsettled. She never enjoyed being the object of another woman’s attention. This woman wasn’t exactly hitting on her, but she’d made her interest known. Lovely. What was up with that?