Girl Blue (A Brown and de Luca Novel Book 7) Read online

  “So first, you should know, I don’t usually do this. Meet one-on-one with readers like this.”

  “Yeah, I–I know.”

  “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  “Your books, they say things happen to you because you think about them.”

  I nodded slowly. “That’s a very simplified explanation. You attract the essence of what you think about, believe in, and expect.”

  “Isn’t that what I said?”

  “Not exactly. Say you think about dogs all the time. That doesn’t mean a dog’s gonna show up. It all depends on how you feel about dogs when you’re thinking about them. If you’re afraid of dogs, and you think about dogs all the time, other things you’re afraid of will start showing up. Could be a dog, could be a stalker.”

  Did you just say stalker? To a fan who walked here from Binghamton to meet you? Freudian slip much?

  “You understand?” I asked, to drown out the rightness of Inner Bitch’s comment.

  “I don’t have a problem with dogs. I like dogs.”

  A swing and a miss!

  “What do you have a problem with, Gary?”

  “Bad stuff.” Storm clouds darkened his eyes.

  “Bad stuff,” I repeated, and I sent Mason a yellow alert sort of look. He was standing under a river birch six feet away. He could make it to me in two long strides. But the kid could probably stab me faster.

  We should've searched him, Inner Bitch said.

  Now you think of it. “What kind of bad stuff?”

  Honest to God, I didn’t feel any threat coming from him. Hatred and anger wafted off him, but it wasn't directed at me. I usually felt that sort of thing like prickles on my skin, only not on my skin, exactly.

  Gary looked away, tipping his chin down just the way my brother Tommy used to do. There was something about him. I wanted to bring him inside and clean him up and fix his life.

  Like you tried to do with Tommy.

  Yeah, IB. Just like that.

  “What kinds of bad things, Gary?”

  And he flipped just like that, jumped out of the chair and glared at me, and then Mason was in between us, hands on the kid’s shoulders, saying, “Okay, now. Everything’s cool here, right? We’re okay here, aren’t we, Gary?”

  I stayed behind Mason’s body like the Cowardly Lion, thinking yep, he could get to me fast enough, after all. Gary’s eyes had turned fiery, and he thrust out an arm, pointing at me. “You’re wrong, Rachel de Luca! I don’t think bad thoughts, but they come anyway. They come anyway and I can’t make them stop!”

  Mason’s voice was much harsher when he said, “All right, Gary, it’s time for you to go now. You crossed a line coming here, and it better not happen again. You understand me? It’s not okay, coming here like this.”

  And just like that, the fire was doused. Puppy dog eyes blinked at me through the lingering smoke. “It’s not okay I came here?”

  “It would be better if you asked first. That’s all,” I said.

  Are you out of your fucking mind?

  Mason’s eyes asked me the very same question.

  “I’d rather be blind than to feel the way you do right now,” I told Gary. “I’m really sorry you’re going through this.” I meant it.

  He relaxed, like a full-body sigh. “Do you know what it is, Rachel? What’s making the bad thoughts come?”

  “I know people who would. People who fix this kind of thing for a living.”

  He got my meaning. First time today. “I don’t like doctors.”

  “That’s okay, don’t get all knotted up over it. Look, Gary, if your car’s out of gas, you go to a gas station. It doesn’t matter if you like gas stations or not, you go. You go because it’s where the gas is.”

  “I don’t even have a car.”

  Note to self. No metaphors with Gary.

  “Come on. I’m gonna have Mason give you a ride to someplace you can stay tonight. Okay?”

  He lowered his head, like he’d lost the battle. “Okay.”

  “His car’s over there. The black one.”

  “That’s a cool car,” Gary said, and he walked across the dirt road, and the lawn to the driveway and Mason’s car, which we all called The Beast.

  When he was out of earshot, I said, “Mason–”

  “No.”

  “You don’t get to tell me no.”

  “This time I do.”

  “He reminds me of my brother.”

  “He reminds me of my brother.”

  His brother had killed my brother, if you’re keeping track.

  “Mason, come on.” I put my hands on his chest and looked up at him. “He’s sick, not dangerous.”

  “Those two things are not mutually exclusive.”

  “Put him in the motel in town. Leave him some cash. I’ll get him in with a shrink tomorrow. He needs help. This is how I want to handle it, Mason.”

  He looked at me hard and there were so many arguments he could’ve made. Like what about the boys, and my sister, and her kids, and so on. But he didn’t. He blew air through clenched teeth, and said, “Fine. I’ll put him in the motel. One night, Rache. We get him hooked up with social services and mental health, and leave his ass back in the city. You can put him up at the Hilton if you want, but there. Not here. Okay?”

  “Okay. And thank you.”

  He looked like he wanted to say more, but he didn’t. He went and got in the car, started it up. It had this deep, loud rumble to it that testified to my man’s manliness as he drove the homeless, helpless, slightly scary Gary to a motel about a mile from our front door.

  Yeah, Mason was probably right. I might’ve made a bad call just then. I hoped not.

  “Gary Conklin, right? You have a middle name?” Mason asked.

  “Robert.”

  “Gary Robert Conklin. Nice. And you’re what, twenty-four, twenty-five?”

  “I turned twenty-three my last birthday.”

  “And when was that?”

  “July.”

  Close enough for a background check. “Where were you staying before the shelter, Gary?”

  He broke eye contact, stared out the window.

  Mason gave him several seconds, but when he didn’t answer, had to move on. It was a short drive to the motel. Too short, if you asked him. “You told Rachel you don’t like doctors. So you’ve seen doctors before, then?”

  “Everybody’s seen doctors before.”

  “Who was the last doctor you saw, Gary? Do you remember his name?”

  “Her name,” Gary said.

  Mason thought Rachel would have kicked him for exhibiting subconscious remnants of sexism. He was woke, he swore he was.

  “Dr. Guthrie. But she was wrong."

  “Do you take medicine, Gary?”

  "I shouldn't have gone to your house," he said.

  They pulled into the motel lot, and Mason headed into the office to get the kid a room. When he came back out, Gary was standing next to the car, arms full of leftovers in Tupperware.

  Mason held up the key. “Got you a room for the night,” he said, walking while he talked. It was only across the parking lot. He unlocked the door to room twelve and opened it wide, stepping inside with Gary right behind him.

  The fan unloaded his leftovers onto a small table, and Mason said, “There’s a little fridge over there to put the food in for the night, and here’s your key.”

  “Why do I have to stay?”

  “Because Rachel wants to help you make your life better.”

  “She thinks I’m crazy, doesn’t she? I’m not, you know. I just have bad thoughts.”

  “They make a pill for that.”

  Gary frowned hard, like he was working a jigsaw puzzle in his scrambled-up head. The poor guy. Mason sighed and tried to be kinder. “Nobody thinks you’re crazy. Sometimes you get sick, you take medicine, you get better. There’s nothing crazy about that, kid. That’s life, is what that is. That’s all. It happens to everybody from time to time.”


  “It does?”

  “It does. I’ll see you in the morning, okay Gary?”

  “Okay.”

  We relaxed on our balcony that night, Mason and me, in our comfy robes, with drinks in hand. There was a lopsided, almost full moon rising over the reservoir, and the little bit of vodka in my Coke was smoothing out all my rough edges.

  Jeremy and Misty had invited Josh and Christie to go to the newest Marvel movie with them. Christie had laughed and rolled her eyes. Josh lit up like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. So we had the place to ourselves–you know, aside from the two bulldogs snoring like bulldozers on our bed.

  “Alone at last,” I said, taking a nice big sip while regretting that it was two thirds of the way gone. “I hate to bring it up while we’re in such a beautiful moment–”

  “Then don’t.”

  I looked at him and smirked. “We have met, right?” He closed his eyes, resolved himself to the inevitable. “Tell me about the body today.”

  He sighed, but he talked. “White male, mid-fifties, once-red hair going gray. You know how that looks?”

  “I know exactly how that looks.” Having seen it up close while I strangled him. “Cause of death?"

  “Don’t know yet. But there were ligature marks.”

  “What about the car?”

  “Yeah, you nailed that, too. Jaguar in the parking area at the trailhead. Car’s registered to a Dwayne Clark of Dilmun, a small lake town just past Ithaca.”

  “Shit.”

  He understood the thousand-and-one emotions conveyed by the single word. He was the only one who possibly could.

  “Any forensics?”

  “Wrapped in burlap.”

  “Burlap. Burlap. Burlap…” I snapped my fingers at him. “The Craig’s List Ripper!”

  “Hasn’t been active since the nineties.”

  “How can anyone say that for sure?”

  “No bodies found since twenty-eleven.”

  “He’s hiding them better.”

  “They were all women.”

  “All but one.”

  “Right, but that one was in drag,” Mason pointed out.

  “You think the burlap’s coincidence, then?” I bounded out of my chair.

  My drink sloshed dangerously, so I downed it and headed inside for my phone. Unlike Mason, I respected my no-devices-on-the-balcony rule. I grabbed it off the nightstand, started tapping, and found what looked like a decent report on the Craig’s List Ripper.

  I scrolled with my thumb, speed reading while Mason looked over my shoulder. “Look at this crime scene.” I tapped on a photo where one of the serial killer’s victims had been found.

  “It’s very similar,” Mason said, spreading the image larger, really studying it. “This might be better on the desktop.”

  “Way ahead of you.” We hurried through the house. My office was the 30’ by 30’ third floor in the peak of the house, with its own mini balcony. Its front was entirely glass and faced the reservoir. My desk was on the back wall, facing the front and all that glass, with a desktop and a laptop ready to roll.

  I sat, and he stood behind me, looking over my shoulder as I read aloud.

  “The Craig’s list Ripper, also known as the Long Island Killer, the Gilbo Beach Killer, blah blah blah. Yes. They were all strangled. Several bodies found near water.”

  “Not all in burlap, though. Not all in one piece, either.”

  “There’s no such thing as coincidence, Mason.”

  “We’re five hours away from his dumping ground.”

  “We’re five hours away from one of his dumping grounds. The only one we know of.” I looked up at him, daring him to argue.

  “What are you doing, babe?” He tucked my hair behind my ear. “Internet research? That’s not your forte. What does your NFP tell you?”

  I shrugged. “Nothing about this guy.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  I pushed away from the computer, got up from my chair and paced across the room, closing my eyes and trying to recall the dream or vision or whatever the hell it had been. “It felt like a woman. And there was…there was a needle,” I said snapping my fingers, because I’d just remembered it. “She drugged him first. We need to get to that body and check for a track mark in the crease under the left butt cheek.”

  “I’m meeting the new forensic pathologist in the morning. Come with me.”

  “To an autopsy?”

  “Autopsy’s already done. She texted me an hour ago.”

  “Okay, Mason. I’ll go with you. Right after we get Gary squared away.”

  “I left him fifty bucks,” he said. “He’s not gonna be there in the morning. He’s gonna go spend it to get high.”

  “If you felt the shit storm inside his head, you’d want to self-medicate, too.”

  “Not judging. Just saying.”

  “He came here because he wanted me to help him. He’s gotta stick around long enough to let me.”

  He hugged me close. He’d shucked his robe, and mine was open, so I got that warm, silky rub of skin against skin. I wrapped my arms around his waist and laid my cheek on his chest.

  3

  “Happy Labor Day weekend, right?” asked the twelve-year-old pixie, standing over the open chest of a dead guy in the basement of Our Lady of Lourdes Memorial Hospital.

  Mason had told me she looked like a Christmas elf, and he had nailed it.

  “Rachel, meet Billie Carmichael, forensic pathologist.”

  She beamed at me. “It’s a pleasure, Ms. de Luca. I’m excited to work with you.” Her eyes slid to Mason, who stood on my left, then quickly back to me. I got, did I do okay?

  I got it. She was a fan and he’d advised her not to gush, but it was oozing from her pores. She was doing a good job trying to hide it, though.

  “Have you run toxicology?” I needed to get a look at the crease under his left butt cheek without her noticing, or she’d want to know how I knew. My NFP was a closely-guarded secret. Oh, there was gossip. I hated that there was, but there was. I'd been too close to too many gruesome murder investigations for there not to be. And you know, as far as the general public is concerned, woo-woo is woo-woo. If you're a self-help author you must also be a fortune teller, brandishing crystals and reading palms.

  “Toxicology is in process,” she said. “Everything else is done. Just gotta sew him up and release him to the funeral home. Widow’s called three times already.”

  Note to self, widow’s in a hurry. That probably wasn’t so unusual, though.

  “The cause of death was asphyxia by strangulation. Killer used twisted wire. Twice. From behind him, and from in front of him. We got a few shards of metal off the skin. You can see the pattern there in his neck.” She poked the skin on the dead guy’s neck with a gloved-forefinger.

  I grimaced like that bothered me, and I didn't have to fake too hard. The memory of choking the life out of this human being was vivid and sickening. Here he was, dead. A life extinguished. And it felt like I'd been the one to extinguish it. “I have to step out,” I said, holding one palm up. I hurried out of the room, and when Mason tried to follow, I said, “No, stay. I’ll be back, I just need a breath of death-free air.”

  I tried to tell him I was up to something with my eyes, and he probably read it, along with my disgust and remorse for something I hadn't even done. He was way better at reading me than I was at reading him, which is ironic when you think about it.

  I went out of the room into the hallway, and up one level to get a signal. Then I called the main desk. Someone answered, and I said, “Page Dr. Carmichael. It’s urgent.” They put me on hold.

  I ran back down the stairs. By the time I was at the cutting room doors, I was distracted from my guilt trip and also aware I needed to exercise once in a while. Billie Carmichael was hurrying out the double doors to answer the fake call on the nearest in-house phone. She breezed past me, saying, “Be right back.” Then she hit the stairs with effortless speed. Th
e nearest landline was right at the top.

  I rushed back into the room and over to Dwayne Clark on the table, and I slammed the door on my sickening feelings by focusing on the immediate need. “Get over here and help me roll him.”

  Mason grabbed a pair of gloves, struggled his big hands into them, and rolled the guy up onto his side. I grabbed a glove too, snapped it on and reached for his butt cheek. Mason looked horrified.

  I lifted the guy’s cheek, adjusting the overhead light with my free hand. “Look. Right there. That’s where I injected him in the dream or whatever.”

  Elf steps pitter-pattered just outside the door.

  “Put him back, put him back,” I whisper-shouted.

  Mason dropped the guy, yanked off his gloves, and stuffed them into a red bin. I remembered I was still wearing one and put that hand behind my back as Billie Carmichael came into the room.

  “No one on the phone,” she said. “Probably the widow again. Anyway, back to the victim. There are bruises on his back.” She tapped the tablet that was on a nearby stand, bringing up some photos of the corpse–a far more efficient method than rolling him over like we’d done. “You can clearly see the two round bruises on his back. Made before he died, but I’m damned if I know how.”

  “Looks like someone was kneeling on him,” Mason said.

  Her brows rose, and she looked at him like she’d just realized he was the one true Santa.

  I sent him a death-glare for taking credit for my shit while still trying to peel off the glove behind my back. I was not having any luck.

  “Let us know when you get the tox screen back,” Mason said.

  “I’ll text you,” she promised, looking at the body, then frowning, and looking at us again. He hadn’t landed in precisely the same position, and the light wasn’t pointing where it had been, either.

  The glove I’d been tugging on for a full minute came off my hand suddenly, and made a loud snap.

  “We have to run,” Mason said. “Thanks, Billie.” He grabbed me by the hand, and tugged me behind him out of the room.

  At the top of the stairs, he said, “The garotte. Kneeling on his back. The injection site. You got a lot of detail in that dream, Rache.” We stepped out into the late morning sunshine and fresh air.