Bride of the Tiger by Heather Graham (best large ereader .txt) 📗

The souvenir.

CHAPTER ONE

Kyra clutched her throat with one hand. “I don’t understand. The Copycat Player is dead. I was there. I saw Jordy Lee Cannon die. You found all the evidence you needed at his mother’s house. The jewelry, the box cutter, playing cards.”

“But no severed fingers.” The phone call announcing another homicide had already propelled Jake to his feet. “We got the right guy, Kyra. This is someone else. Slightly different MO.”

“Slightly different?” She scrambled to a crouching position, grabbing the handrail of the bridge that crossed the canal to Quinn's house for support to hoist herself up. “Then maybe it’s not a copycat of the…er…Copycat.”

Shaking his head, Jake grabbed her hand. He hated that she had to go through all this again. They’d just ended the horrific reign of a murderer who’d been mimicking the MO of a killer from twenty years ago—a killer who’d slaughtered Kyra’s mother and never been caught. Now she’d have to face the constant reminders from another sick bastard.

“A playing card in the woman’s mouth and a severed little finger. This guy’s following the same pattern, except he murdered the victim in her home and left her body there.”

Jake’s muscles tensed as he looked into Kyra’s eyes. Her mother had also been murdered in their home while Kyra slept in the bedroom.

Kyra squared her shoulders. “Then the crime scene should be rich with evidence and you’ll catch this guy before he does it again. Because he’ll do it again. Jordy managed four victims because he strangled them in his car and dumped their bodies. This guy has already made a big mistake.”

Blowing out a breath, he tugged on her hand. “I’m heading over there now. I’ll walk you back to Quinn’s. Can you get a ride home?”

“Of course, but you should come inside and tell Quinn yourself. I’m sure he’d rather hear this from you.”

They walked back across the wooden bridge over the canal where Abbot Kinney had tried to recreate Venice in the middle of a Southern California beach town. The charm of the location and evening was spoiled by the news of another homicide. No wonder he couldn’t get to second base with Kyra.

After a few bumps in the road, they’d gotten close working together on the case of the Copycat Player. Her position as victim’s advocate on that task force and her tragic ties to the original killer, dubbed The Player, had proved invaluable to the investigation.

Jake hesitated at retired detective Roger Quinn’s red door. Quinn, who had never solved The Player murders twenty years ago, had taken solace in the fact that they’d stopped The Player’s copycat. Now they had to go through it again, and Quinn would be asked to relive the case that still haunted him.

Kyra stepped through first, and Quinn glanced up from the flickering blue light of the TV. One look at their expressions, and the lines on Quinn’s craggy face seemed to deepen.

“What’s wrong with you two?”

Jake held up his phone. “You’re not going to believe this, but I just got a call about a homicide with the same MO as The Player—card between the lips and a missing finger.”

Quinn’s faded blue eyes narrowed. “Oh, I believe it. Seems like The Player has inspired a new generation of killers. It’s because I never caught him, never stopped him.”

Kyra rushed to Quinn’s side and crouched beside his chair. “He killed her in her home. He surely left something behind. They’ll get him, just like they got Jordy.”

Quinn placed his gnarled hand on Kyra’s head and met Jake’s eyes. “Hope you haven’t dismantled that task force, Detective.”

* * *

Jake pulled up to the crime scene, where the revolving lights of the emergency vehicles bathed the street in an eerie, familiar glow. He double-parked in front of the modest, well-kept house that would never be the same again and flung open the door of his sedan.

A young man sat on the back of the ambulance, wrapped in a blanket, his head down, legs swinging. Must’ve discovered the body.

Jake nodded at his partner, Billy Crouch, standing on the porch talking to a uniform. Their division didn’t cover this area of the San Fernando Valley, but he and Billy had led the Copycat Player task force and were the go-to guys now every time a playing card and severed finger figured in the crime scene. After Jordy Lee Cannon, he hadn’t thought there’d be another.

He took one big step over the yellow tape and strode toward the house. The cheery pot of flowers on top of the air-conditioning unit that jutted from the window made him falter, and he cursed under his breath at the injustice of a life cut short.

His glance took in Billy’s casual clothes that still looked runway ready, and he brushed a scuff of dirt from his own jeans. If he’d been home when he’d gotten the call, he would’ve put on a pair of slacks and an Oxford shirt, at least, but he’d gone casual himself for dinner with Quinn and Kyra. It was supposed to have been a dinner to celebrate the end of the Copycat Player, and now here they were again.

He joined Billy on the porch. “What do we have in there, partner?”

“Young African American woman strangled in her bed. Not much upset. He must’ve surprised her in her sleep.” Billy’s mouth flattened into a grimace. “Queen of hearts placed between her lips and left pinky finger removed.”

“Anything else taken? Jordy had been snatching pieces of jewelry from his victims. Anything like that?” Jake pulled a pair of gloves from the black bag over his shoulder and slipped them on.

Billy raised one shoulder. “Too early to tell. Andrea Miles was in bed, pajamas on, makeup off, no jewelry.”

Crossing the threshold of the house, Jake’s gaze darted around the neat room, framed pictures undisturbed, multicolored pillows propped up against the arms of the couch, a laptop computer charging on a table. “Lived alone?”

“Yeah, boyfriend moved out recently.