Free The Last Victim by Karen Robards Page B

living room furnished with lots of white wicker. The floors were white tile, the walls soft blue, and the cushions on the wicker sported beach-y motifs. Nothing seemed out of place.
    Nothing seemed wrong.
    Charlie felt her stomach tighten.
    Maybe there’s no one here. Maybe they’ve already crossed over .
    “We should go upstairs first.” Bartoli was beside her, steering her toward the front of the house. Charlie saw the entrance hall, saw a flight of stairs leading up, and realized why the atmosphere down here felt relatively normal even as Bartoli spelled it out for her. “The victims were found in the bedrooms.”
    Okay, then .
    Taking a deep breath, Charlie allowed herself to be escorted to the stairs. Glancing into the front hall, she caught a glimpse of a technician dusting the doorjamb for fingerprints. As she walked up the stairs with Bartoli behind her, she could hear a TV playing somewhere on the second floor, and then as she neared the top it went silent. As they reached the upstairs landing a man of about fifty, with a salt-and-pepper crew cut and a grim expression, walked out of what she presumed was one of the bedrooms. He moved with a slight limp, and had the burly, paunchy build of a former football player gone to seed. He was wearing civilian clothes—a navy sport coat and gray slacks—but no one would ever mistake him for anything but a cop.
    “Bartoli,” he greeted them with a marked lack of enthusiasm. His eyes were impossible to read behind thick, black-framed glasses. “You back?”
    “Haney,” Bartoli responded just as flatly. “This is Dr. Stone. Detective Lou Haney. Kill Devil Hills PD.”
    “I’m in charge of the investigation,” Haney said. Then he shot Bartoli a look. “Or at least I was until the feds showed up.”
    “We’re only here to help,” Bartoli replied.
    Charlie would have offered Haney her hand, except her palm was damp with sweat. She nodded at Haney instead. He was looking her up and down, and from his expression he wasn’t real pleased with what he saw.
    “This is your serial killer expert?” The look Haney shot Bartoli was scornful.
    “That’s right, I am,” Charlie answered before Bartoli could reply. She was no stranger to having to defend her credentials. Her youth, looks, and gender tended to work against her being taken seriously, she knew. That’s why she was still letting Bartoli and the others address her as Dr. Stone instead of inviting them to call her Charlie. If she wanted them to give weight to what she had to say, she first had to have their respect.
    “Hell’s bells,” Haney said.
    “Good to meet you, too.” Charlie’s tone was cool.
    “Anything new?” Bartoli asked. As Haney’s gaze shifted to him, Charlie glanced around. Her heart was picking up the pace, and she didn’t know if it was in dreadful anticipation or because at some deep, fundamental level she sensed a presence she would really rather not know about.
    Haney shook his head. “We’re rerunning some tests. Guy had to leave something behind.”
    “You’d think,” Bartoli replied as his hand moved to rest in the small of Charlie’s back, silently urging her forward.
    But Charlie didn’t move, or at least not in the direction he obviously wanted her to take. She could once again hear the TV. Four doors opened off the spacious landing, and the sound was coming from the room on the far left. The one Haney had exited as she and Bartoli had reached the top of the stairs. Moving away from Bartoli’s would-be guiding hand, Charlie took a couple of tentative steps toward the sound.
    Every sense she possessed seemed to quicken. She felt like a bird dog on alert.
    “The master bedroom is over here. That’s where we probablywant to start,” Bartoli said behind her, but Charlie barely registered the words.
    “The TV …” Breaking off, she headed determinedly toward the room from which the sounds were emanating. Just inside the doorway, she paused. A glance showed her