Читать книгу Secret Sanctuary - Amanda Stevens - Страница 14

“Who found the body?”

The curt question broke into Elizabeth’s chaotic thoughts as she stood outside the solarium with the Pierces. She looked up, expecting to see one of the uniformed officers who’d arrived on the scene a few minutes after William Pierce had called the police, or perhaps even the police chief himself. Instead, her gaze collided with Cullen Ryan’s.

And her heart almost stopped.

She hadn’t seen him this close since he’d moved back to Moriah’s Landing several months ago. Elizabeth thought she’d conquered her old feelings for him once and for all, but then he’d gone and done the unexpected. The unthinkable. He’d gone and made himself respectable.

And now she was all confused again. She stared up at him helplessly.

His short, dark hair glistened with raindrops, and his eyes—gray, like a winter sky—were cool and assessing. He wasn’t overly tall, probably around six feet, but he carried himself in that edgy, confident manner which had always made him seem taller. He was dressed darkly in a heavy long coat over a black V-neck sweater and black jeans, and Elizabeth couldn’t take her eyes off him. He was so good-looking!

And a young woman was so dead.

Elizabeth would do well to remember why Cullen was there. She tried to convince herself that her reaction to him was due to her lingering shock, not just in finding the body but in discovering the victim’s identity. And it had been a shock.

Once she’d turned on the light in the solarium, she’d recognized almost at once the pale face, the dark, flowing hair. The delicate features that remained winsome even in death.

And with recognition had come the shakes. Elizabeth had started to tremble violently, and she hadn’t been able to stop. Someone had fetched her velvet cloak earlier, and she clutched it now like a lifeline. She opened her mouth to answer Cullen, but her teeth were chattering so badly she couldn’t speak.

William came to her rescue. “Elizabeth found the poor girl. It’s been quite traumatic for all of us, as you can imagine.”

When Elizabeth had first informed William and Drew of her grisly discovery, they’d tried to leave the ballroom discreetly, so as not to alarm or panic their guests. Luckily, Mayor Thane had already departed the ball. Otherwise he would have undoubtedly insinuated himself into the situation in such a way as to garner as much press for himself as possible—and conversely, as much unfavourable publicity for his potential rival as he could generate. Bad enough that Zachary, Drew’s younger brother, noting the grim expression on his father’s face, had followed them to the solarium and a few minutes later, Geoffrey Pierce, William’s brother, had shown up as well. Now that the police were on the scene, word would spread soon enough among the guests, if it hadn’t already.

William stepped forward now and offered his hand to Cullen. “I’m William Pierce, by the way.”

“Yes, I know who you are,” Cullen said without expression as he shook hands with the man. “I’m Detective Ryan.”

William glanced over Cullen’s shoulder. “Where’s Chief Redfern? Shouldn’t he be here?”

“He’s out of town, but he’s been notified. The roads in and out of Moriah’s Landing are a mess from the storm. It may be hours before he can make it through.”

William frowned. “Shouldn’t we wait for him?”

“I’m afraid we can’t wait. Deterioration of the body could break down any DNA evidence that might be present. We’ll need to collect samples as soon as Dr. Vogel arrives,” Cullen said, referring to the medical examiner.

“What about the state police?”

“This is our jurisdiction.”

“I see.” William still didn’t look convinced. “That all sounds well and good, young man, but you haven’t been with the police department all that long, have you? Are you sure you have the experience for this sort of investigation?”

Annoyance flitted across Cullen’s brow. “I appreciate your concern, Mr. Pierce, but I assure you I’m a trained investigator.”

“Yes, well, I’m sorry to be so blunt, but you seem a little young to me to be a detective.”

He was twenty-four, Elizabeth thought, and age was relative. She knew that better than anyone.

If Cullen had remained with the Boston Police Department, chances were he probably wouldn’t have made detective for another few years. But in Moriah’s Landing, any big-city police-force experience automatically propelled an officer to the head of the pack. Most of the other law-enforcement personnel, Chief Redfern included, had only spotty experience and the minimum amount of training required by the Commonwealth. Whether William Pierce realized it or not, the town was lucky to have Cullen.

“I know what I’m doing,” he said coolly.

“I hope you do.” There was an indefinable edge in William’s voice. Was his concern really due to Cullen’s age, or because of Cullen’s background? Before he’d left town, Cullen had had more than one brush with the local authorities. The charges were never anything too serious—vandalism, joy-riding, crimes of that nature, and because they could never be proven, the complaints were invariably dropped. But people had never had any doubt about Cullen’s guilt, and they always suspected those petty misdemeanors were a prelude to something more serious, something potentially more deadly.

Did William Pierce harbor doubts about Cullen’s transformation as so many others in town did?

Elizabeth didn’t. Not really. She’d always known there was a good side to Cullen. He’d just never allowed anyone to see it.

What was it Becca had said to her earlier? You use your aloofness and even your intelligence as a sanctuary, a safe place to hide away the real you so you won’t get hurt.

Had Cullen’s juvenile delinquency been his sanctuary? Elizabeth wondered.

He was staring down at her, watching her closely, and her breath caught painfully in her throat. Would she never get over this silly crush? This terrible yearning that caused every nerve ending in her stomach to quiver if he so much as glanced at her?

“You’re the one who found the body?” he asked her.

She nodded, buying herself a moment to collect her poise. “Yes, in the solarium. Her name is Bethany Peters.”

One dark brow lifted. “You knew her?”

“She was a student at Heathrow College. She was in my Theories of Criminal Behavior class last semester.” Elizabeth tried not to dwell on the irony.

“Was she a guest at the party?” He addressed this question to William Pierce.

“No, none of us had ever seen her before.”

Cullen turned back to Elizabeth. “What were you doing in the solarium?”

She hesitated. “The ballroom was very crowded. I just wanted a chance to catch my breath.” Would he think she’d been dancing all night instead of people-watching from a secluded corner? Instead of daydreaming about him?

One could only hope.

“Why the solarium?”

“It has this wonderful glass dome. I wanted to watch the storm a bit.” The intensity of his gaze made Elizabeth even more nervous. Her hand crept to her throat, and she found herself explaining, “It’s an air mass thunderstorm rather than an organized system, you see, and I wanted to observe the redevelopment of new convection along the outflow of the previous cells.” Shut up, shut up, shut up, she admonished herself, but she couldn’t seem to stop babbling. “The main cell, of course, was well into its dissipating stage by that time,” she finished lamely.

Cullen ran a hand through his short, spiky hair. “Uh, right. Do you have an idea what time you left the ballroom?”

“Midnight. I heard the clock in the foyer chime.” Elizabeth pressed her lips together to keep from blurting out any more irrelevant facts. She had the unfortunate habit of resorting to trivia when she got nervous, and she had always been nervous around Cullen.

“Did you see anyone else in the foyer? In the hallway outside the solarium? Anyone lurking outside?”

“No. Maybe. I’m not sure.” She drew an unsteady breath and told him about the open door in the solarium and the yellow flash she’d seen beyond the terrace. “It might have been nothing more than a reflection. I can’t be sure. I certainly can’t say beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was a person.”

“If it was, we’re not going to find any footprints in this weather,” he said grimly.

Elizabeth’s fingers tightened around the fastener on her cloak. “I don’t think it very likely, but I suppose it’s possible someone could have been inside the room when I first entered, and then left through that door. I didn’t turn on a light.”

“Why not?”

“As I said, I slipped away from the party to be alone for a few minutes. I didn’t want anyone to see me.”

Cullen’s glance sharpened. “Were you afraid someone would follow you into the solarium?”

As if. “No. I just thought someone might see the light and become curious. And, also, it was easier to observe the storm in the darkness.”

“I see. When you went back to close the door, that’s when you saw the body?”

She nodded. “I lost my balance on the wet floor and fell. For some reason, I looked up and I saw her hanging from one of the steel supports….” Elizabeth broke off, shuddering in spite of herself.

She wasn’t unfamiliar with death. In her Criminal Investigations courses at Heathrow, she taught her students how to dissect crime scenes analytically and view murder victims objectively. As a graduate student, she’d interned with the Worcester Police Department in order to research her doctoral thesis, and just a few months ago, she’d attended a series of seminars conducted by an FBI profiler. She knew crime. She lived and breathed crime.

But when the victim was someone you knew…someone so young…

“I’ll need statements from all of you,” Cullen said to the Pierces who stood clustered behind Elizabeth. “For now, I want everyone to remain out here. We need to keep the crime scene as virgin as possible.”

Elizabeth winced. “I’m afraid…that is, the solarium may already have been compromised.”

“Someone besides you has been in there?” Cullen asked sharply.

“We rushed in without thinking when Elizabeth told us what she’d found,” Drew explained. “She tried to keep us out, but we couldn’t know for certain the girl was dead. We thought we might be able to help her.”

Cullen glanced at Elizabeth. “How many went inside?”

“All of them,” she admitted gloomily.

He shook his head in frustration. “We’ll have to cross-check fingerprints then. I’ll also need a copy of the guest list.” He turned to the uniformed officer who stood directly behind him. “Make sure guards remain at all the exits. No one leaves, no one gets in without my say-so. I don’t care who it is,” he said pointedly at the Pierces. “I don’t care what excuses they give you.”

“Surely you don’t expect everyone to wait around here indefinitely,” Geoffrey Pierce, Drew’s uncle, complained. “I have things to do.”

“At this hour?” Cullen gave him a speculative look. “What kind of things would they be?”

Geoffrey didn’t answer, just stood there looking unpleasant. A tall, slender man with thinning blond hair, he hadn’t managed the approach to middle age with quite the same grace as his older brother, William. And he didn’t seem to have William’s compassion. He was handsome, as all the Pierces were, but something about his expression, about the cruel set of his lips, made him seem at once sinister and weak.

Drew put a hand on the man’s arm. “Detective Ryan is right, Uncle Geoffrey. We screwed up. Let’s not make things worse.” To Cullen he said, “We’ll do everything we can to cooperate.”

“I’m counting on that.” Cullen took a pair of latex gloves from his overcoat pocket and snapped them on. He handed another pair to Elizabeth. “Show me the body, Elizabeth.”

THE FIRST THING Cullen noticed about the solarium was the temperature. The room was still frigid even though Elizabeth said she’d closed the outside door. He could feel the chill though his overcoat, but then, the heavy fabric was still damp from the rain.

He wondered now, as he followed Elizabeth toward the back of the solarium, if he might have been able to prevent the tragedy if he’d accepted the moonlighting job as a security guard for the Pierces. Probably not. So far, it appeared that the murderer had been able to slip in and out without being detected by any of the other guards or guests which suggested to Cullen that the suspect was someone familiar with the Pierce compound. Someone who had either come in the front gate as a guest, or through the back entrance with the hired help.

But that hardly narrowed the field. Party-goers had come from all over the state, and in Moriah’s Landing alone, half the population had either received invitations to the party or been hired to work in some capacity at the compound.

In short, the killer could be anyone, Cullen thought grimly as he tugged at the neckline of his sweater.

The solarium was crowded with plants. Some of the tree ferns grew all the way to the top of the dome while a maze of sinewy vines coiled around the rafters and crept downward, inching away from the sunlight. Hanging baskets trailed lacy fronds that brushed against Cullen’s shoulders, making him think of spiders. He found the atmosphere inside the solarium suffocating, as if the plants were sucking all the air from the room.

Elizabeth had stopped in front of him and was staring at him curiously. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” His tone was more clipped than he’d meant it to be.

She cocked her head, still regarding him. “It’s rather close in here, with all the plants. You’re not claustrophobic, are you?”

He glanced at her warily. “Claustrophobic?”

“An abnormal dread of being in closed or narrow spaces.”

“I know what it means,” Cullen said dryly. “But only you would put it that way.”

“What way?”

“Only you would use the exact dictionary definition. Word for word, I’ll bet.”

She lifted her chin. “What’s wrong with being precise?”

“Nothing.” She wouldn’t understand even if he explained it to her. People with a high IQ seemed to live in their own little world. “I don’t have claustrophobia,” he said with an impatient shrug. “I just don’t care for all these damn plants.”

“Well, maybe you have botanophobia. Fear of plants.”

“What I don’t have is time,” he snapped. “Let’s get on with this.”

“Of course.” She gave him a cool glance as she turned and walked to the back of the solarium without another word.

Cullen hoped he hadn’t hurt her feelings, but, damn, she could be so annoying. There seemed to be no end to the trivia she’d stuffed inside that head of hers. She’d always been way too smart—and far too superior—for her own good in Cullen’s opinion. That was one of the reasons she’d had so much trouble in school. Bad enough she was such an Einstein, but did she have to rub people’s noses in it?

It was a shame, too, because she wasn’t a bad-looking girl. Cullen supposed that some might even consider her attractive, in a sisterly sort of way. Nice hair. Nice eyes. Slight build.

She’d matured since he’d left town six years ago, but she was still very young. He had a hard time thinking of her as anything other than the bratty little kid he’d tried to protect from the bullies who’d ragged on her in school. Although, to this day, he couldn’t figure out why he’d bothered. She’d made it clear from the first she didn’t want or need help from the likes of him.

Fair enough, he supposed. She wasn’t only brilliant, she was rich to boot. She came from the ritzy part of town, and Cullen had grown up down by the docks. Her parents were scientists; his old man had been a drunk. They didn’t exactly travel in the same social circles, he and Elizabeth.

She’d stopped in front of him again, her head tilted skyward. Cullen glanced up. The body dangled about ten feet from the floor from a steel girder that helped support the glass dome.

Cullen’s blood went cold with shock even though he’d had plenty of time to prepare himself. It didn’t matter how prepped he was or how many times he worked a crime scene, murder always got him in the gut.

Especially when the victim was very young.

She couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen. Someone’s daughter. Someone’s sister. Snuffed out by a cold-blooded murderer who’d left her hanging there like a piece of meat in a butcher-shop freezer.

“It’s not a suicide,” Elizabeth murmured.

No, it wasn’t a suicide, he thought grimly.

“I can’t see any wounds,” she added, “But I’m certain she was dead before she was hanged. Otherwise, there would be…visible signs.”

A protruding tongue, for one thing. “How the hell did he get her up there?” Cullen muttered.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Elizabeth shiver. She’d been the girl’s professor at Heathrow, but he was willing to bet there wasn’t more than a year or two difference in their ages. In spite of himself, he felt his protective instinct stirring again. She shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t have let her come back in here.

“This won’t take long,” he said. “I just need to ask you a few questions about finding the body. I want you to show me where everyone was standing when the Pierces came in here. Tell me about their reactions, what was said, anything like that you can remember. Then you can wait outside with everyone else.”

She turned to stare up at him, her expression earnest. “I’d really like to stay until Dr. Vogel examines the body.”

Cullen shook his head. “That’s out of the question.”

“Why?”

“Do I have to state the obvious? You found the body.”

“But what does—” She stopped abruptly, her eyes going wide. “Are you saying I’m a suspect?”

He shrugged. “Everyone here is a suspect. I’m not ruling anyone out at this point.”

“But—” She broke off again. “Of course. I understand. You have to take that approach. But I really think I can help you. I know about crime-scene investigation. I’m a professional, just like you.”

“Not exactly like me. You aren’t wearing a badge,” he said bluntly. “If you really want to help, just answer my questions. That’s all I need from you.”

She looked as if she wanted to protest, but decided against it. Pursing her lips, she turned her back on him.

He’d probably hurt her feelings again, but it couldn’t be helped. Ph.D. or not, Cullen wasn’t about to involve a civilian in his investigation. For one thing, bringing in an outside consultant was a tricky business. Egos could get in the way, and secondly, he had his reservations about Elizabeth’s competence.

Oh, she was plenty intelligent. No question about that. But it had been Cullen’s experience that no amount of classroom theory or book knowledge in the world could take the place of plain old-fashioned street smarts, the kind learned the hard way. And for all her education and degrees, Cullen doubted she’d ever really been put to the test. After she answered his questions, he’d send her packing.

“There’s a ladder against one of the walls,” she said.

He frowned. “What?”

“You asked how he’d gotten her up there. I saw a ladder in here earlier. Mr. Pierce said it’s used to cut away dead leaves from the vines and the larger plants, and to change the bulbs when the ultraviolet lights burn out.”

“Did anyone touch it that you saw?”

“No. Mr. Pierce suggested his sons use it to cut her down, but I discouraged that. I warned them we had to leave her as we’d found her.”

At least she’d done that right, he thought grudgingly. “We’ll dust the ladder for prints,” he said, ignoring the expectant look on Elizabeth’s face.

He studied the immediate area underneath the body. The floor was a mess with broken pottery scattered about and muddy water all over the flagstones near the French doors. Cullen could see at least one partial footprint in the sludge.

He motioned to the floor. “Was all this here when you came in?”

Elizabeth bit her lip. “The floor was wet, but I knocked over the pots when I fell.”

He’d been afraid of that. “Is that your footprint?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“We’ll have to check it out anyway. We may need your shoes for verification.”

“Of course.”

They both fell silent for a moment, then Elizabeth said softly, “You noticed, didn’t you?”

“Noticed what?”

“There’s no blood on the body or on the floor. And look at the color of her skin. She looks as if she’s been exposed to extreme temperature, but there’s no frostbite.”

Cullen had seen the same thing, but he’d kept his observation to himself. He’d learned a long time ago to make no assumptions.

“My guess is she was killed somewhere else and brought here,” Elizabeth said. “She could have been dead for several days. The killer probably kept her in a cooler or freezer somewhere until the time was right.”

“Meaning?” Cullen glanced at her curiously. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, something about the confident manner in which she spoke had his attention.

“Until he was ready for someone to find her.” Elizabeth’s gaze moved upward, where the body of Bethany Peters stirred gently in a slight draft from a heating vent. “He put her on display. She was left here, like this, for a reason. The killer is trying to tell us something.”

Cullen knew instantly what she meant. One-time crime-of-passion killers would only take the time to move the body of their victim in order to dump it in a remote location or to try and throw off the police. They wouldn’t flaunt it. Neither would a professional hit man. There was only one type of killer who would.

Elizabeth turned to Cullen, her eyes deeply troubled. “This is a very bad thing, Cullen.”

His gaze lifted to the body. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out.

THE MOMENT the medical examiner arrived, Elizabeth was expelled from the solarium.

“We’ll take it from here,” Cullen told her firmly.

“But I’d like to help—”

“If we need your help, we’ll ask for it.” He must have realized how harsh his words sounded because he almost at once altered his tone. “I appreciate everything you’ve done so far, but this is a police investigation. You need to wait outside with everyone else.”

When she still resisted, his grasp tightened on her elbow. “Come on, Elizabeth. Cut me a break here.”

“But you can’t seriously consider me a suspect,” she protested. “If you’d listen to your brain for a moment instead of your ego, you’d realize I could help you.” She winced. That hadn’t come out at all right. She hadn’t meant to goad him, but somehow, around Cullen, she always managed to say the wrong thing.

“You’ve done quite enough already,” he said coolly.

“If you’re referring to letting the Pierces come into the solarium, I had no authority to keep them out,” she defended. “I’m not a police officer.”

He arched a brow. “Precisely my point.”

“Just let me stay while Dr. Vogel examines the body. I want to hear what he says about cause of death.”

“Out.”

“Cullen—”

“Out.”

He opened the solarium door and gave her an unceremonious little push into the hallway. The door closed firmly behind her.

The Pierces were still in the hallway, and they gazed at her curiously.

“I take it your services are no longer required,” Drew commented.

“Cops can be so…infuriating.” The latex gloves snapped loudly as Elizabeth peeled them off.

“They do tend to have a one-track mind,” William sympathized. “But in this case, I have to agree with Detective Ryan. A murder scene is no place for a young lady.”

“But I teach criminology,” she protested. “I’m not unfamiliar with crime scenes.”

“You can’t be more than a day over twenty years old. Hardly more than a child. If Natasha were still alive, I certainly wouldn’t want her subjected to such a gruesome scene.” Pain flashed in William’s blue eyes, and whatever annoyance Elizabeth had been harboring toward him for his comments about her age vanished. Tasha’s death had affected them all, but especially her family. It was obvious that her father still grieved her passing. That was why he hadn’t been able to forgive David Bryson and probably never would.

But had Bryson been able to forgive himself? Elizabeth wondered. Or had his guilt driven him to do unspeakable evil, as some of the townspeople suspected?

Careful, she warned herself. Don’t let your imagination get the better of you.

They had absolutely no evidence thus far linking David Bryson to Bethany’s murder. Nothing except an innate distrust of the man, and Elizabeth knew she was prejudiced in that regard. Tasha had been her friend.

If she wasn’t careful, such a biased perspective would end up proving Cullen’s point—that she had no place in a murder investigation.

“They won’t find anything,” Geoffrey Pierce murmured in a strange, offhand manner, his gaze on the solarium door. “That girl was dead before she was hanged.”

Elizabeth had come to the same conclusion, but it wasn’t exactly admiration she felt for Geoffrey’s keen perception.

Earlier, when they’d all rushed into the solarium, the other Pierces had been deeply disturbed by the sight of the body, especially Zachary, who’d turned a bit green when his father suggested that he and Drew find a way to cut her down. The same look of horror and compassion had emanated from all the Pierces’ blue eyes—all except for Geoffrey’s.

In his eyes only a cool curiosity had gleamed.

Elizabeth had to wonder about a man, a nonprofessional, who could remain so stoic and unaffected in the face of such horror.

Her gaze on him narrowed. “Why do you think Cullen won’t find any evidence?”

He shrugged. “Because whoever did that knew what he was doing.”

“He?”

“Given your field of expertise, I’m sure you know as well as I do that crimes of this nature are almost always masterminded by white males. Serial killers seem to be a unique affliction to our race and gender.” He didn’t seem especially disturbed by his conclusion.

“Serial killer?” Elizabeth said, feigning surprise. “Who said anything about a serial killer?”

Geoffrey gave her an enigmatic smile. “Don’t tell me the same thought didn’t cross your mind when you saw her hanging there. The way the body was put on exhibition? What else could it be?”

“An act of rage,” Elizabeth said. “A crime of passion.”

He shook his head. “You don’t believe that. You know what we’re dealing with here as well as I do.”

Elizabeth had studied crimes such as this in both her undergraduate and graduate courses. She’d learned a long time ago what it meant when a murderer “signed” his kill.

But she couldn’t help wondering how Geoffrey Pierce knew.

And would another body soon follow that would prove his point?