“He found the body,” Cam commented as he read through the information on the girlfriend’s death. The police report listed the case as open, but Cam knew what it really was—cold.
“Yes,” Rafe replied grimly. “He went to her place. Her parents weren’t home. He found her with her throat slit. He talks about it when he gets drunk. I think it’s why none of his marriages worked out. He can’t put another woman above her.”
“Doesn’t fit the MO.” The Marquis would never simply slit a throat. He liked to play with his victims. He spent hours and hours playing with them before he finally put them out of their misery.
“Could be the first one,” Rafe pointed out. “Serial killers perfect their techniques over long periods of time. MOs evolve. This one could be the inciting incident. A crime of passion that led him to more calculated murders.”
Cam looked up at his partner. “You’ve worked close to this guy for the last couple of years.”
Rafe’s eyes tightened, the lines around them becoming more pronounced. “I wouldn’t say close. I worked with him. I had beers with him on Fridays. It wasn’t a close friendship.”
“Still. You’ve spent at least eight hours a day with the man for the last couple of years. Did he give you any indication that something was off?”
“He’s an agent. He works crappy hours for government pay in one of the most stressed-out units in the FBI. Does he have problems?
Hell, yes.” Rafe ran a hand through his hair. “He drinks too much. He sleeps around. He’s got a bad temper.” Well, Cam couldn’t blame the guy for that. He had a bad temper himself. This was going nowhere. He could bring up all kinds of stuff from their past, but it wasn’t hard evidence. Hell, he’d have taken a little soft evidence. But it looked like everyone had some dark secrets.
“I don’t know what I thought I would find in here. I need a board. We need to skip the profiling crap and figure out who was where on the nights of the murders.”
That was something he could use.
Rafe stepped back and started to pace around the small motel room they had checked in to but never used. While Cam had been hacking into systems, Rafe had packed up the few things they had left here on the morning they had checked in. They wouldn’t be coming back here. They would move into Laura’s cabin.
Cam thought of all the things he was going to have to do to make the cabin livable. Locks. Lots of locks. An alarm system. Motion detectors. He might have to buy a guard dog.
God, his heart felt like it would stop every time he thought about the fact that this guy was after his woman. Until he was caught, how was Cam supposed to think about anything else?
“When do you get your gun?” Rafe asked, pulling him out of his dark thoughts.
That was a good question. “As soon as the paperwork is done, but I bet I could convince the sheriff to give me one now. And there can’t be a shortage of shotguns around here. You don’t need a license to carry a shotgun in Colorado. Hell, up here I bet people expect you to carry.”
He would feel better once he had a gun in his hand. For now, Cam felt completely impotent. He couldn’t defend his woman. He couldn’t even figure out who he should defend her against. What use was he?
The least he could do was hurry so she wasn’t alone. Cam trusted Nate. More importantly Laura trusted him, but Cam wouldn’t feel better until she was in his sight.
Cam looked down and made sure he had all the files he planned on taking. He could very cautiously review them at the police station.
Maybe he could piece together some dates from the information. He would hole up in Nate’s office, and Rafe would make sure he wasn’t disturbed while he tried to put together what he needed.
The last file he was waiting on, a police report, downloaded. On instinct, Cam opened it up just to make sure he’d gotten it all. He flipped through the report to the pictures the police had filed. A woman lay on her back, her unseeing eyes face up to the camera. It wasn’t anything Cam hadn’t seen before, but something about her lips triggered his memory. That color, a shiny mauve. It stuck out like a sore thumb.
Laura’s words came back to haunt him.
He put lipstick on me. It was the weirdest thing. It was like he was making me up to be someone else.
It was the one thing the killer had left on all of his victims. A high-end lipstick called Purple Passion. The same lipstick on the woman in the photo. Cam had just found the Marquis de Sade’s first victim. The one the killer had never planned on sharing.
Rafe opened the door letting the sunlight in. “Damn it, Cam, are you ready to go? It’s been an hour.”
Cam turned, his stomach in his throat. It was far worse than he’d ever expected. “I know who the Marquis de Sade is.”
Laura forced herself to get out of Nate’s Bronco. All she could think about was the fact that Jana was dead, and there was no denying the truth. The Marquis de Sade was here in Bliss, and he was someone she knew.
Someone she knew had tortured her. He’d drugged her and tied her down and cut her. He’d terrified her and caused her more pain than she’d imagined she could survive.
He’d taken pieces of her.
“Laura?” Nate stood in front of her. He reached out a hand. “Stay close to me. I won’t let anything happen. I promise. Your men will be here before you know it.”
Her men. She liked the sound of that and the way Nate and the rest of the men had welcomed them. Rafe and Cam wouldn’t find it hard to fit in here.
She knew they would hurry. Rafe had sounded miserable when she’d talked to him earlier, but the truth was, she wanted that information. Anything Cam could pull out of the system, legal or illegal, would be welcomed. She wanted to sit down and build a profile. It was there, she just knew it. It was all there in the background. Now that she had concrete suspects, all she had to do was fit the pieces of the puzzle together. The truth would be in their history, hidden in the small documents that made up a life.
She could catch him if she tried.
But first, she had to get through this.
“I’d like to see the letter he left for me.” She didn’t really want to see it, but she had to. It could give her insight.
Nate nodded. “They have it inside. They brought the physical evidence here, but the body was taken to the morgue. I can probably get you in there if you want to witness the autopsy.” She shook her head. Laura had attended many an autopsy, but never one on a person she’d known. She couldn’t imagine being forced to try to view Jana in clinical terms. Despite the trouble they had, they had been friends once. She just couldn’t see Jana that way.
This was precisely why cops didn’t investigate crimes against their families or loved ones. Joe should have taken Rafe and Cam off the case the minute he realized she was involved with them. “Just try to see if Caleb will get me a copy of his findings. I know it’s not protocol, but…”
“Since when do we stand on protocol? You’ll have a copy as soon as he’s done.” Nate settled his hat on his head and led her through the double doors.
The station was buzzing with activity.
“Sheriff.” Hope, Nate’s secretary, stood up and greeted him. She was in her twenties, but she dressed much older. Laura and Holly had talked about the admin’s odd wardrobe choices. Today she was dressed in a long, shapeless skirt and a button-down brown shirt. The ensemble made her look heavier than Laura thought she was. Her dark hair was pulled into a ponytail, as it was every day. Her scrubbed-clean face was hidden behind large glasses. “Logan went back out to the crime site. He said the special agent in charge came in and asked him to take out extra evidence bags. They’re apparently trying to be very thorough.”