Free 14 BOOK 2 by J.T. Ellison Page A

wasn’t in the files.”
    She looked at Kimball then, a mean thought niggling her mind. She hated to think the worst, but it had happened before.
    “Kimball, is there something we’re missing? Are our files incomplete?”
    He raised an eyebrow. “I can’t answer that for you. That’s why I pulled these from the garage, just in case. You know how it is. Files get lost over time. The case is twenty years old. You’re welcome to these, if you want. Compare and contrast.”
    “I appreciate that.”
    Kimball circled the desk, sat in his leather chair. He pulled out a pipe and loaded it up. The scent reminded Taylor of her grandfather, a man she hadn’t known very well. When she looked in a mirror there was a likeness, and when she felt her temper rise, she knew it was his anger.
    “Anything else top your list?”
    Taylor smiled. The man was still as sharp as ever.
    “Tell me. Why did they name him Snow White?”
    Kimball smiled, then turned and went to the bookcase. He ran his fingers along the spines on the third shelf from the bottom, the wood just high enough that he didn’t need to bend over to read the titles. He made his selection, a tattered, beaten book that looked quite old. He turned back to them. “That was my fault, I’m afraid. My daughter, Stacy, Sabrina’s mother, was a little girl when the first murder happened. I was reading to her before I tucked her in, a ritual I tried to maintain even when I was working the B-shift on Homicide. I’d read, get her to sleep, then go to work.”
    He fingered the cover of the book. Taylor could see that the edges of the pages were gold.
    “Well, this was the story I’d read to her that night. It was snowing hard, and I got to work thinking we’d have a slow night. Instead, we got called to the lot behind the old Chute Complex, those gay bars out in Melrose. You know where I’m talking about, off Franklin Road? It’s all built up now.”
    Taylor nodded.
    “That was Tiffani Crowden’s final resting place. I got on the scene and saw her, lying there in the snow. The story popped right into my head.”
    He cracked open the book. No bookmark was necessary; it opened to the page he wanted. The words he read made a chill spread through Taylor’s body.
    “‘Once upon a time, when the flakes of snow were falling like feathers from the sky, a queen sat at a window sewing, and the frame of the window was made of black ebony. And whilst she was sewing and looking out of the window at the snow, she pricked her finger with the needle, and three drops of blood fell upon the snow. And the red looked pretty upon the white snow, and she thought to herself, would that I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood of the window frame. Soon after that she had a little daughter, who was as white as snow, and as red as blood, and her hair was as black as ebony, and she was therefore called little Snow White. And when the child was born, the queen died.’”
    Kimball closed the book, cleared his throat. “Fitting, really.”
    They were silent for a few beats. Taylor was the first to venture in. “Wow. I had no idea.”
    Kimball offered her the book. She took it and glanced at the cover. Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm.
    “That was my copy from when I was a boy.”
    Taylor met Kimball’s eye, gave the book back. “Thank you. This helps. Did you ever think that he’d read the story and was trying to re-create the scenes?”
    “Sure. Made perfect sense. Too perfect. I always thought there was more. Hate. Lust. Power. All excellent motives. But why does any killer develop his MO? Maybe Snow White’s mother read to him before she went to work. Maybe he had someone who he read to, and lost her? Attaining the unattainable, always a rich source for motivation. We won’t know unless we catch him, ask him.”
    “Can I ask you about the note he sent you? I’m curious about that.”
    “Smart girl. I bet you are.” Taylor took the praise and