Free Lethal Confessions by V. K. Sykes Page A

that never-to-be-healed wound laid raw by the victims she’d seen today.
    Whatever it took, she had to find this bastard before he killed again. It was her responsibility as lead investigator to bring the killer down, and she couldn’t blow it. Not for those who had suffered. Not for herself. And for sure not for the women who would otherwise die at this psycho’s hands.
    Inside the house, she was grateful that the Crime Scene Unit team was the same as the one at Okeeheelee Park. Joe Keswick and Melinda Rodriguez were busy dusting the living room for prints while Aaron Hillier snapped photos. Bobby James was probably upstairs. There would be hundreds of fingerprints. They likely all belonged to Matt and Carrie Noble.
    Amy headed straight in toward the fireplace where Melinda was dusting the dark wood mantel with fingerprint powder. “Anything interesting?”
    Melinda grimaced. “We’ve barely started. But you might want to take a look at the kitchen. Check out the tea cup. Or mug, to be more precise. Could be something important there.”
    Amy motioned to Poushinsky. He’d started a conversation with Keswick, but he caught her eye and followed her to the back of the house.
    The kitchen counter was an L-shaped laminate. Next to the stainless steel double sink, a white Florida Marlins mug had a dry tea bag inside it. Melinda had already covered the mug in fingerprint powder. Amy checked the kettle that sat on one of the rear elements of the glass-topped stove. Half full of water. “Looks like Carrie either forgot about making herself a cup of tea, or she was interrupted.”
    Poushinsky nodded. “Maybe she got distracted. I do that kind of thing all the time.”
    The kitchen, dining room, and small den on the ground floor all seemed totally normal, with their spare, basic furniture. The place was well-lived-in, but tidy. Carrie had kept a clean, orderly house. They could see no sign of any struggle having taken place. That was consistent with the condition of the body.
    They climbed the carpeted stairs to the second floor, passing two small bedrooms and a modest bathroom before they reached the master bedroom where they found Bobby James working.
    The tech turned around. “Pushy. Amy. I see you finally got to where the action is.”
    No trouble figuring out what that meant. The four-poster bed had been trashed. The sheets had been pulled out and bunched up in the middle, one pillow lay on the floor, and four or five bed cushions had been tossed around the room. Two empty wine glasses, dusted and individually bagged, rested on one of the matching bedside tables.
    “Wow,” Poushinsky said with a whistle. “Either Carrie was a heavy drinker and a violent sleeper, or I’d say she had a guest last night.”
    Amy snorted as she picked up the evidence bags. One of the glasses had traces of lipstick on it. “Not likely a rape scene, is it? More like monkey sex.”
    “Sure looks consensual,” Poushinsky said. “But then the guy kills her and hauls the body away? That doesn’t exactly fit the M.O. of the Lakeland killer.”
    “Let’s hope he left behind a bucket load of DNA on the glasses and the sheets,” Amy said as she stared down at the bed. “But I’m not holding my breath.”
    “Shannon’s killer didn’t have sex with her, and he made sure he didn’t leave any trace evidence. This guy will have used a condom, and wiped down any glass.”
    Amy carefully laid the plastic bags back down on the table, troubled by what she saw. “If he left any little goodies behind, CSU will find them. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We can’t be a hundred per cent sure Carrie had sex here last night, no matter how much it looks like it.”
    Carrie’s killer
had
to be the same as Krista Shannon’s—unless they were dealing with a copycat. But the chances of that were as thin as a thread. The theory that Matt Noble might have killed Krista for misdirection looked weak, especially given the scene in front of them.