When No One Is Watching

Mia might have believed the same thing, but her sister had been engaged to a handsome, rich and well-connected man, and she knew Lena wasn’t the straying type. Neither would she have opened her door to any strange man, charming and attractive or otherwise. “Maybe, maybe not.”

They entered a dining area with a small wooden table and four matching chairs. “My theory is that he’s a person who seems innocuous. Someone who comes across as trustworthy, maybe because of his manner or maybe because of his job or position. The victims let him in not because he’s good-looking but because he’s harmless.” Aside from the blood in the kitchen, everything in that apartment was maddeningly neat.

“Position?” Gray was immediately behind her, keeping a close watch. “What are we talking about? A professor?”

“I doubt it. The victims were from different schools. It’s only a theory, but it’s possible Valentine works in a job that permits him access to homes. A plumber or electrician.” Mia saw nothing unusual in the dining room and proceeded to the bedroom.

“D’Augostino,” Gray said, “make a note to ask around and see if the vic had any problems with her apartment. Water leaks, electrical problems, mice, things like that.”

“Will do.”

“We shouldn’t overlook the obvious, either,” she said to Gray.

“Which is?”

“Maybe he delivers flowers.”

The bedroom was decorated sparsely, with a dresser, two nightstands and a queen bed occupying most of the small space. “That’s odd. The bed is bare.” She froze when she saw the arrangement on the dresser: long stems of blue-and-white hydrangeas in a drinking glass.

“The flowers.” Mia held her breath as she approached the arrangement. A white translucent ribbon was secured around the glass in a complicated bow. “Hydrangeas symbolize vanity.” She reached for a small framed picture of a woman with blond hair and blue eyes standing next to a tall, attractive man. “Is this her?” she asked Gray.

“The vic? Yes.”

“She’s very beautiful,” she murmured. “And this must be her boyfriend?”

“We think so.”

“Have you spoken with him yet?”

“We haven’t been able to speak with the boyfriend. They don’t live together.”

Mia set the picture back on the dresser. “This is how it usually looks. Valentine leaves the flowers beside a picture of the victim.” The gesture reminded her of a wake, where funeral wreaths were set beside pictures of the deceased. She gently turned the makeshift vase. “Some of these stems are broken.” Really, it was a sad-looking arrangement, and that wasn’t Valentine’s style. Some of the blooms were missing, giving the flowery globes a shabby, moth-eaten look. “Is it possible these flowers are from the boyfriend? Can we rule that out?”

“There’s this.”

Gray reached forward to remove a small white envelope hidden between the hydrangeas. He opened the flap and pulled out a card decorated with a cupid poised to shoot an arrow from a bow. Mia felt the blood rush to her feet. “What’s this, some kind of joke?”

“He signed the back ‘V.’” Gray flipped the card.

“Damn.” She took the card from him and delicately turned it over in her hand. “Valentine is making himself known.”

* * *

Mia pouted her lower lip when she was deep in thought. She probably didn’t even realize that, but Gray sure noticed it, just as he’d taken notice of everything else about her. Back at the hotel, he’d thought she was a beautiful woman, with her hair pulled back and that sexy slit up her dress. Now, with her hair in waves and her makeup washed off, he realized she was stunning. He told himself that her appearance wasn’t the reason he’d allowed her to come here, but now as she looked at him with those dark, almond-shaped eyes, he wondered if he wasn’t fooling himself.

“So what do we have, Dr. Perez? A copycat or Valentine?”

She did that thing with her lip again as she considered the card in her fingers. Damn, she was cute. “Serial killers evolve. It’s not like they commit the same cookie-cutter crime over and over. They’re human. What I saw at the Charles last week looked like a copycat killing, but this?” She handed the card back to him. “The blood in the kitchen bothers me. Valentine doesn’t kill his victims right away. He cages and tortures them first. Has anyone called the boyfriend?”

“The friend tried earlier,” Gray said. “Then she gave us his contact information—cell, work and home phones. Email. Nothing.”

Mia’s face darkened. “I wonder if that blood in the kitchen is his.”

She turned and walked out of the bedroom, passing Gray and D’Augostino. The two men followed her into the living area, where she was standing by the door. “I suspect Valentine isn’t a very imposing man, physically. All of his victims are diminutive in stature. All of them were women five feet one inch or shorter, and all of them were thin. Drag marks have been found at the dump sites, indicating he’s not physically strong enough to carry even these petite women.”

Lena’s the exception, thought Gray. He’d just read her stats earlier that week and had noted that she was about the same size as Mia: approximately five eight, with a similar athletic build. “Valentine has a type?”

“It may be that the victims fit a certain physical profile for Valentine,” she continued, “but victim selection is usually about opportunity.”

“He looks for women who are small enough for him to overpower,” said D’Augostino.

“That’s my theory, anyway.” Mia rested her hands on her hips. “So Valentine comes to the door under some pretense. He knocks.” She knocked in the air with one hand, talking more to herself than to the officers in the room. “He’s tracked Katherine, singled her out, and he expects her to answer the door, but someone else answers. Let’s say it’s the missing boyfriend.”

Gray watched her intently as she worked through the crime scene. “What’s his pretense for being here? Why didn’t he just abandon it and leave when the boyfriend answered the door?”

“That’s a fair point. Valentine has a fantasy of being in control, but that fantasy has never involved overpowering a man—at least not to our knowledge. If he’d known the boyfriend was home, he probably would have run.” She paused and tapped one index finger against her hip as she thought. “Maybe Katherine answered the door. She let him in. Perhaps he had flowers for her, and he offered to set them down. He attacked. Then he was interrupted.”

“The boyfriend came over.”

“Yes.” Mia gazed at the floor as she imagined the scenario. “Valentine is drugging Katherine. The medical examiner has found injection sites on the victims, none of whom were recreational drug users. We think he injected them with Rohypnol to keep them sedated. Again, this would play into his fantasy of being powerful, to have total control of his victims with minimal effort. He is drugging Katherine, and the boyfriend comes home and sees them.” She scratched her head. “But then the boyfriend would have fought him and probably overpowered him. There’s no sign of struggle here.” She looked up. “Maybe Valentine was in the kitchen.”

She headed toward the kitchen with such purpose that Gray came up behind her to restrain her from walking on the bloody floor, but she stopped on her own just short of the tile. “Valentine is in the kitchen,” she repeated to herself. “But what is he doing?”

Her brow furrowed as she thought. D’Augostino pointed to a wooden block of knives on the counter. “The carving knife is missing,” he said. “Maybe he was getting a weapon?”

Gray thought about this. “His victim is already sedated. Why would he be getting a knife?”

“Maybe when the boyfriend came home, he ran into the kitchen to get a weapon,” D’Augostino offered.

“Maybe,” Mia began, stretching the word slowly. “But if he was in the living area, would he have time to run into the kitchen and locate a sharp knife before the boyfriend began to pummel him?” She paused. “Those hydrangeas had broken stems. They also looked like they’d been stepped on. What if...?”

She stepped toward the kitchen, and Gray immediately grabbed her shoulder. “Hold on. We’re still processing this scene.” The last thing he needed was for her to go and muck up the blood evidence on the floor.

“Fine.” Mia stepped back grudgingly. “But one of you should go look around the sink.”

“What’s in the sink?”

“Maybe nothing, but someone should look.”

Gray and D’Augostino exchanged a glance, and then Gray stepped forward toward the sink, careful to walk on the white parts of the floor. The sink was stainless steel and spattered with blood. He glanced inside. “There are some dirty dishes. What else am I looking for here? Wait a sec.” He reached for a wet blob tucked behind a mug half-filled with coffee. He pulled it out with gloved fingers. “Looks like wilted lettuce.”

“Look carefully,” Mia said, leaning forward. “That’s not lettuce.”

He held it in one palm and pried the blob open gently with the index finger of his other hand. She was right—it wasn’t lettuce. He pressed the object open and it slowly took shape, revealing one sphere, then another. Gray shook his head. “I’ll be damned. It’s from a hydrangea.” He looked up to see Mia smiling with satisfaction. “CSU almost missed it. So what’s this mean?”

“I noticed the hydrangea stems were broken, and some of the blooms had gaps in them. Then there’s the fact that they’re in one of Katherine’s drinking glasses, but Valentine always supplies his own vases. And the broken glass CSU found between the kitchen and the living area—” She gestured with one finger. “That could be from a broken vase.”

“Put it all together, Mia,” said D’Augostino.