Cautiously backing away, she kept her gaze locked on the table. As if the pile of pictures were a rattlesnake that might decide to strike. At the same time, she stuck out her arm, blindly searching for the cell phone she’d left on the kitchen counter.
She knocked off an empty plate and tipped over a vase of flowers. Minor casualties. Then her fingers at last clenched around her phone.
Lifting it to a position where she could glance at the screen while still maintaining a close watch on the Polaroids, she hit the third button in her speed dial.
There was the sound of a buzzing as the connection was made, then a prerecorded voice floated through the air, warning Carmen that the offices were closed until after the New Year and that she was to leave a message so they could get back to her as soon as possible.
Oh, and then a bubbly wish for her to have a happy holiday season.
Perfect.
She ended the connection and scrolled through her contacts to find the personal number of her PR person. Lucy Cordova was ten years older than Carmen, with the sleek beauty of a supermodel and the soul of a great white shark.
It was no accident she was the top in her field. She ate her competitors and spit them out.
“Pick up, pick up, pick up,” Carmen muttered as the phone buzzed and then went straight to voice mail. “Dammit.”
She hit redial. Same result. She hit it again.
On the point of trying a fourth time, her phone buzzed with an incoming call.
Lucy.
Thank God.
“Okay, Carmen,” a voice croaked. Obviously, Lucy had decided to sleep in this morning. “What’s the emergency?”
Carmen was forced to clear the lump from her voice before she could speak.
“The package that landed on my doorstep this morning.”
“What package?” Lucy demanded, and then there was the rustle of covers as if the woman was crawling out of bed. “Oh, wait. I remember sending an envelope to you.”
Carmen licked her lips. Why were they so dry?
“Where did you get it from?” she demanded.
“It came by messenger three days ago,” Lucy told her.
“From where?”
“It was from the office of the public defenders who’d handled the Scott case,” Lucy explained, her voice echoing as if she’d put the phone on speaker.
No doubt the woman was pouring her morning coffee. She was a caffeine fiend who was never without her insulated cup in her hand.
“Was there a letter with it?” Carmen asked.
There was a slurping sound, then a soft breath of relief. Lucy had just had her fix.
A second later she spoke, her voice stronger as the caffeine kicked in.
“No, there was no letter. Just a handwritten note that said they’d been forwarded all of Neal Scott’s possessions after his execution and that they were just now sorting through the box.”
Scott had been executed three months ago. “Why would they send it to your office?” Carmen demanded.
“The note said that they’d found the envelope and tried to deliver it to your condo. When there was no one home, they sent it to our office.”
Carmen’s gaze moved toward the nearby window. The snow continued to fall at a leisurely pace. As if it couldn’t decide if it intended to pick up speed or just call it quits for the day.
I should be drinking my coffee and enjoying the winter wonderland, she thought. Instead, her peace had been shattered by visions of death.
Not the sort of Christmas anyone wanted.
“And you decided to send it here?” she demanded.
“I thought it might contain some new information from the killer,” Lucy told her. “You know, something you could add to the paperback version that would spice up sales.”
Carmen made a choked sound of distress. Having the Polaroids in her home—actually touching them—somehow made them far more disturbing than the black-and-white-copies she’d used in her books.
These were more personal. Almost intimate.
“The deaths of those young women are a tragedy, not a spice,” she snapped.
There was an awkward silence before Lucy cleared her throat. “You know what I mean.”
Carmen forced a strained laugh. She didn’t know why she was angry with Lucy. The older woman had merely forwarded the envelope. She hadn’t known what was inside.
“Yeah, I guess I do,” she said.
“What’s going on, Carmen?” Lucy abruptly asked.
Carmen’s gaze returned to the table, her stomach clenching.
“There were pictures inside the envelope.”
“What kind of pictures?”
“Polaroids of dead women. Five of them.”
“Christ, I’m sorry, Carmen,” Lucy breathed. “I assume they were from the trial?”
Carmen shook her head even though Lucy couldn’t see her.
“No. I’ve never seen these before.”
“Wait.” The word sounded like it was wrenched from Lucy. She wasn’t a lady who was often shocked. “Are you saying there are pictures of dead women that haven’t been released to the public?”
Carmen shuddered. She was three feet away from the table, but she felt as if the unknown women were staring at her. Pleading for something she couldn’t give them.
Justice.
“I’m saying I’ve never seen them. And you know the research I did,” Carmen said. “I think it’s possible that I’m the only one besides Scott to know they exist.”
There was a sudden clatter through the phone, as if Lucy had dropped her coffee cup.
“God Almighty, this is fantastic!” the woman said, not bothering to hide her burst of glee. “Do you know what will happen to your book sales if you can add in pictures from new victims?” There was a pause, and Carmen imagined she could hear the calculator in Lucy’s mind clicking away, adding up each new sale. “Hell, you could write a whole new book.”
Carmen grimaced. She would be a hypocrite to act shocked by Lucy’s response. The reason Carmen had hired her was because the woman was a ruthless master at taking advantage of any situation.
Even a situation that included dead women.
“These need to go to the authorities,” she said in firm tones.
“Fine, but first we need to make copies,” Lucy insisted. “It could be months or years before the cops will give back the originals.”
“Let’s worry about figuring out who these poor women are before we start cashing in, okay?” she said dryly.
As if sensing that Carmen wasn’t in the mood to discuss business, Lucy did her best to squash her excitement.
“What do you want from me?”
Carmen took a minute. She was still rattled and it was unnervingly difficult to think. Like her brain cells were wading through syrup.
“I want you to call the lawyers and find out everything you can about the envelope,” she eventually demanded.
Might as well start at the beginning.
“You got it,” Lucy said, the crisp determination easing a portion of Carmen’s unease. “I’ll get back to you.”
Carmen hung up the phone and forced herself to turn and head to the back of the cabin. She felt in dire need of a hot shower. It couldn’t erase the images from her mind, but it might wash away the feeling that she’d been contaminated.
Entering the small bathroom, she dropped her robe and stepped beneath the spray of water. She shivered as she waited for the hot water to kick in, not for the first time wondering if she’d made a mistake in writing The Heart of a Predator.
It wasn’t like she’d started off her journalism career with the dream of spending her days in dank prisons interviewing monsters. And they were monsters—each of the five men she’d profiled had killed at least ten women, and most of them much more than that. But when her college professor had warned her that the articles she was writing for the school paper were too mundane to earn her any notice by any reputable newspaper or magazine, she’d forced herself to examine what she could offer that was different from every other wannabe journalist.
What truly made her unique?
The answer was simple.
Murder.
She was intimately acquainted with death. And the sort of man who could kill an innocent woman without mercy.
She’d reached out to Neal Scott, not believing for a minute that he’d respond to her request for an interview. He’d been on death-row for seventeen years and had never once spoken about his crimes. But her letter had been answered by Scott’s lawyers within the week.