Chapter 2

      Taking out his flashlight, Chris crossed over to the body quickly. While there was some light coming in through the store windows, they were far enough away to make visibility around the body rather dim.

      Chris panned around the area slowly. The dead woman appeared to be a blonde in her midtwenties. There was nothing to distinguish her from any of the hundreds of other hopeful, beautiful blondes who flocked to Southern California each year, their heads full of dreams, searching for fame and fortune.

      This blonde’s search had been traumatically and permanently terminated, Chris thought, wondering who she was and how many lives were going to be affected by her death.

      He squatted down to get a closer look at the immediate crime scene, searching for anything that could give him a glimmer of insight as to why she’d been killed and why she’d been left like this.

      Behind him, the two teenagers who had led him here were becoming antsy. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure they weren’t getting ready to flee.

      “She was like that when we found her, honest,” Allen cried the second Chris made eye contact with him.

      Bill added his agitated voice to his friend’s testimony. “We didn’t do anything to her!”

      Because of the lack of blood in the immediate area, Chris assumed that the woman had been killed somewhere else and then moved.

      The question now was who moved her, the killer or these agitated teenagers. Turning off his flashlight, Chris got back up to his feet and faced them. “Did either one of you touch her?” he asked.

      “You mean, like when she was dead?” Allen cried, his brown eyes widening. The idea clearly horrified him. “Hell, no!” he declared emphatically. “She’s dead.”

      Chris turned to the other teen, waiting for his answer. Bill looked as if he was in danger of swallowing his own tongue—or throwing up. He shook his head vigorously. When he finally regained his ability to talk, he said, “We got out of here as soon as we saw her. We’re not freaks.” Stunned by the suggestion Chris had made, he cried, “Hey, man, what kind of people do you know?”

      “Not the kind that you would invite to a party,” Chris murmured. Taking out his phone, he started to put in a call to his precinct. But he stopped when he saw that the teens were about to leave. “Where do you think you two are going?”

      Bill and Allen exchanged looks. “We got class,” Bill told him, as if that was their get-out-of-jail-free card.

      His call temporarily put on hold, Chris moved to block their exit. “Not right now, you don’t.”

      Allen appeared distressed. “But I’ve got a second-period test,” the teen complained, then all but wailed, “I can’t miss it.”

      “I’ll write you a note,” Chris told him dismissively. “Stay put or I’ll have to cuff you.” He didn’t trust them to obey. “Now stand over there where I can watch you,” he instructed, indicating the wall right behind the dead woman who had sent them running.

      The teens regarded the body nervously.

      “Could we stand over here instead, not so close to her?” Allen asked, pointing to an area in the opposite direction.

      “Death isn’t catching,” Chris informed him in a no-nonsense voice. “Unless, of course, you and your friend try to run.”

      Pinning them with a look that all but nailed the two teens to the spot, Chris completed his call to the precinct and started the ball rolling.

      * * *

      Dispatched by Sean Cavanaugh, Dirk Bogart peered into the lab, looking for the woman he’d been told by his boss to fetch.

      Spotting her at the far end of the room, Bogart smiled as he called out, “Put your papers aside, Suzie Q. We’ve got a live one. Or rather,” he corrected with a grin that went from ear to ear, “a dead one. Boss man says to tell you that you’re up. I’ll drive.”

      The words came out like rapid gunfire, one after another, barely allowing Suzie to absorb one sentence before Bogart had already moved on to the third.

      Replaying the words a beat or so behind their actual lightning-fast delivery, Suzie nodded and grabbed the gear she personally packed and then repacked after each trip to a crime scene. Experience had taught her that anything else would already be in the car and ready to go.

      Because she liked being in control of any situation she found herself in, Suzie preferred driving to the crime scene and she preferred to do that driving alone. But she knew that making waves, even little waves, put people off, and in this case she had to admit it really wasn’t worth it. She was careful to pick her battles and fought only those that really needed to be fought.

      This was not one of them.

      Although, she thought several minutes into the drive, she would have done a lot better on her own. If there was anything that Dirk liked better than the sound of his own voice, Suzie had a feeling it hadn’t been discovered yet.

      The two-year CSI vet talked the entire way to the crime scene. He talked about the weather, the state of the country and how he was a thrill junky, which was why, he went on to tell her, he’d taken this job in the first place.

      For the most part, Suzie managed to tune him out, and made appropriate noises that might have been taken as agreement only when it sounded as if he was ready to challenge her if she didn’t concur with his many stated opinions.

      When Bogart finally brought the vehicle to a stop at what was clearly a roped-off area, Suzie was quick to get out of the car, clutching her crime scene case to her. She was glad to see that Sean was already on the scene.

      Spotting him, she made a beeline for the man.

      “I see we managed to get you away from your paperwork,” Sean observed pleasantly.

      “Could we get me away from Bogart now, as well?”

      The words just slipped out, surprising her as much as they obviously did Sean. Ordinarily, she wasn’t given to complaining and she could see that her request immediately registered with the man.

      He laughed, an understanding look on his face. “Couldn’t stop talking, could he?”

      Following her superior into the abandoned department store, Suzie shook her head. “Not for a second. I didn’t know a human being was capable of saying that many words a minute.”

      Sean walked toward the taped-off area. “I thought that maybe being in your company, he’d pick up a few tips on how to be silent. Guess not,” he concluded philosophically. “Next time, you can ride with me.”

      “I think I’d really like that.” She tried to sound neutral about it, but didn’t quite succeed. She heard the older man laugh again.

      “He’ll hit his stride, given enough time,” Sean told her.

      “What if that is his stride?” Suzie asked, far from comfortable with that thought.

      “People transfer out of the department on occasion,” Sean answered, as if that was something that might give her hope. “The crime scene is right over there.” He pointed ahead of them.

      Relieved that Bogart hadn’t caught up to them with the rest of the equipment yet, Suzie hurried closer to Sean.

      “Do we know anything yet?” she asked, assuming that whoever had called the crime into their division had given a few details.

      “Only that apparently Aurora has a whole nightlife I know nothing about,” said a man who walked up behind them. “According