Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 114419 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114419 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Sienna watched the woman for a minute, true sadness, even downright grief, etched into her features. The warm little weight in her lap wriggled, reminding her he was there and that she was unconsciously stroking his back.
“Is there anyone you can think of who might have held a grudge against her?” Kat asked. “Someone from her past, or maybe her ex-husband?”
“Herb?” Jasmine laughed softly. “Nah, Herb’s an old softy, and he and Bernadette made their peace. He went to the same church we do when he lived here. But anyway, he moved to San Diego for work last year. Maya keeps me up to date on him, but he hasn’t been back since he moved.”
Sienna nodded. “Do you or any family members have a connection to Copper Canyon High School?”
Jasmine’s face screwed up as she shook her head. “I’ve heard the name, but no, not that I can think of.”
Kat looked at Sienna, and Sienna gave her a small nod. “I think that’s all for now,” Kat said. She took a business card out of her purse and handed it to Jasmine. “Thank you for meeting with us. If you think of anything at all that might help, will you contact me?”
“Oh, sure. Yes. Thank you for putting so much effort into finding who did this to my sister,” she said, standing. Kat stood as well, and Sienna, unsure of how to get Cookie off her lap, remained seated awkwardly.
“Of course,” Kat said, looking back at Sienna. Jasmine, obviously noticing Sienna hadn’t moved, called Cookie’s name, and the little dog jumped off her lap. Jasmine bent, picked him up, and placed him in the crook of her arm again.
They said goodbye to the woman and left her house, returning to the car. “You don’t like dogs, but apparently the feeling isn’t mutual,” Kat said, raising a brow and pulling away from the curb.
“That was barely even a dog,” Sienna said.
Kat laughed.
They turned the corner and started driving back to the station. “So what do you think about what Jasmine said about Bernadette’s past?”
“The daughter?” Sienna asked.
“Yeah. We have a similarity between the first victim and the second. Something that links them.”
“Bad mothers,” Sienna said. “Or mother figures anyway.” Sienna paused, looking out the side window as Kat merged onto the highway. “Neither one of them took care of their children—or grandchild, in the case of Reva Keeling—the way they should have.”
“There’s definitely a trend there,” Kat noted. “But Danny Boy’s mother did protect him. So was he . . . inspired by her?”
Sienna stared out the window unseeing, wishing she had an answer.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Serial killers are typically defined as those who kill three or more people in a period of over a month, with a cooling-down time between each kill,” Armando Vitucci said, his voice deep and clear, with the very slight lilt of an Italian accent. Those in the room—Sienna, Kat, Ingrid, and two other detectives who, though they were working other cases, had asked to sit in on the briefing—all watched him, riveted. The man struck Sienna as someone who had just walked out of a cigar commercial or stepped off the glossy page of an advertisement for some fine liquor.
Suave. Polished. Distinguished. His gray pin-striped suit appeared bespoke, and his thick black hair was combed back from his face, a strong cleft in his chin and flickers of gray dotting his temple. Sienna wouldn’t necessarily call him handsome, but he was definitely striking.
And yet, despite his sophisticated appearance and graceful—if graceful could be masculine, because he was definitely that—mannerisms, there was warmth about him, too, in the creases fanning away from his eyes and the way in which he looked so directly at each of them in turn as he spoke.
“While our killer has only killed two people so far, it is my belief that in light of the great effort and planning he is undertaking, either there have been other victims in the past that have not been discovered yet, or”—he looked around pointedly—“there will be more.”
Sienna did not disagree, and she knew Ingrid didn’t, either, as she’d already said something to that effect. She would have bet her bottom dollar that their guy wasn’t done yet, not by a long shot.
“So in an effort to get in front of this suspect, I am going to treat him as a serial killer and profile him as such. There are four main categories of serial killers, and I believe ours falls into two,” he said, tapping the board that held up-to-date copies and photos pertaining to the case. “Perhaps one more than the other, but still both to some degree.” He paused, meeting Sienna’s eyes momentarily. “The mission-oriented killer’s goal is to ‘improve the world’ by eliminating a defined group of people for a specific reason. For example, prostitutes because the killer believes them to be sinful or unclean, or gay men because the killer believes them an abomination before God. In the case of our subject, Detectives Kozlov and Walker are theorizing that he is eliminating mothers, or mother figures, who failed their children.”