Ten Days Gone

By Beverly Long

A dynamic male female police detective team must catch a serial killer before he kills again in this crime thriller.

They know exactly when he’ll strike . . . They just have to find him first.

In all their years working for the Baywood police department, detectives A.L. McKittridge and Rena Morgan have never seen anything like it. Four women dead in forty days, each killed ten days apart. With nothing connecting the victims and very little evidence, the clock is already counting down to when the next body drops. A.L. and Rena will have to act fast if they’re going to find the killer’s next victim before he does.

But identifying the killer’s next likely target is only half the battle. With pressure pushing in from all sides, a promising breakthrough leads the detectives to Tess Lyons, a woman whose past trauma has left her too damaged to appreciate the danger she’s in. Unwilling to let another woman die, A.L. and Rena will put everything on the line to keep Tess safe and end the killer’s deadly spree once and for all—before time runs out again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Feb 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781488055690

Beverly Long

Beverly Long"s writing career has spanned more than two decades and twenty novels. She writes romantic suspense with sexy heroes and smart heroines. She can often be found with her laptop in a coffee shop with a cafe au lait and anythiing made with dark chocolate by her side.

Book preview

One

Tuesday, May 10

She’d been killed like all the others.

A.L. McKittridge squatted down to get a closer look at the body. The woman, already stiff, had likely been dead for hours. The coroner had not yet arrived, so there was no official cause of death. But a damn rookie could figure it out. And neither he nor his partner, Rena Morgan, had been rookies for a long time.

But they’d never seen anything like this, either. Four dead women in forty days, each killed ten days apart.

They’d started their shift over seven hours earlier, and as each hour had passed, they’d gotten more and more anxious, knowing the call was going to come, not having a clue what to do about it.

They’d had to wait until Jane Picus’s husband had gotten home from work and found his wife. Naked. Dead. And one pillow missing off their bed.

He’s going to... Rena’s voice trailed off. She likely did not want the photographer, the sketch artist and the evidence techs who were doing their thing to hear. She looked tired. They all were. He’s going to make a mistake, she said quietly.

The asshole hadn’t thus far. The three other victims, ranging in age from thirty-two to forty-eight, had all been found naked, with their clothes folded neatly in a pile next to them.

No signs of struggle, in their houses or on their persons. No robbery. No sexual assault.

No fucking physical evidence, not even a little skin or blood under their fingernails. Just some cotton fibers, as if their killer had made them wear gloves while he killed them. But those were never left at the scene. Nor was the pillow.

With so little to go on, they’d looked for connections between the three women. Had come up dry.

Now they’d dissect the life of this new victim and try to figure out what led to her ending up stone-cold dead on her kitchen floor. They’d hope like hell they could find something to link her to the other women. Then, just maybe, they’d catch the murderer.

If they didn’t, there’d be another dead woman ten days from now.

A.L. stood up when he heard the front door of the house open. Carrie Stack, the medical examiner, walked into the room, her cloud of perfume preceding her. She wore too much, but nobody ever complained. The smell of death was a worthy opponent. And most of the male detectives had a permanent hard-on when she was within fifty yards, so they weren’t about to bitch that their eyes were watering.

Carrie Stack was stacked. And beautiful. And he’d taken a ride on her merry-go-round more than once. It was an arrangement that suited them both.

Detective Morgan. Detective McKittridge, Carrie said, greeting them both. Her tone was neutral. She was a cat in bed, but on the job, she was always professional. And very good at her job. She stood in the doorway and carefully pulled on booties over her shiny black heels. I was, unfortunately, waiting for the call. Where’s the husband?

A.L. pointed outside. Terry Picus was in the back seat of a patrol car, his face partially turned away from the house. Five minutes earlier, he’d been bent double in the yard, losing his lunch on the rosebushes.

Press is behind the line, Carrie said. Can’t wait to see the headline.

The first murder had not gone unnoticed by the Bulletin. But it had been a reasonable four paragraphs—above the fold, of course, because, after all, murders were a rare occurrence in Baywood, Wisconsin. And if it had stopped after the first one, the victim would have been easily dismissed as that poor woman who was smothered in her own kitchen.

But then the second murder had occurred ten days later. It had been the lead story for three days running. The television folks in Madison, sixty miles southeast, had picked up the story.

The headline after the third murder had been expected. Baywood Serial Killer Strikes Again. So far they’d been able to keep most of the details under wraps, simply offering up the cause of death, the absence of any sexual assault and the location in the home where the bodies had been discovered.

But the press was getting antsy to find out why the police weren’t releasing any more information about the crime scenes. No one just lies down in their kitchen and waits to be smothered. That had come from James Adeva, the crime reporter at the Bulletin who was probably smarter than most.

He was right. Mostly. A victim might start off compliant. Yes, Mr. Bad Guy, I’ll be happy to take off my clothes and lie on this cold floor. Of course, she’d be hoping to get the upper hand at some point, or that her attacker would have a change of heart when he saw how accommodating she was. Maybe the killer had told the victim that it would be fast and painless if she didn’t struggle, but long and torturous if she did.

But no matter how it started, when it came right down to it, once the air supply got choked off, victims would instinctively put up a fight. The will to live was strong.

While Carrie did her thing, A.L. and Rena walked around, pointing at evidence that the techs needed to tag and bag. The clothes on the floor, the cell phone on the counter, the computer on the small desk in the kitchen.

After the second murder, they’d asked for resources from the state. A.L. had worried they might get in the way, but instead, they’d been helpful, especially with the computer and online activity analysis. The Picuses, like the other three families, would have no secrets by the time they were done.

The money trails they’d helped uncover had yielded a few coincidences, as one might expect. Baywood wasn’t that big, after all. Didn’t have that many grocery stores or nail salons or gas stations that their three previous victims hadn’t overlapped at times. Now, they’d find out just how much in common Jane Picus had with any or all of the others. And regardless of how slight the connection might be, it would get followed up on.

He and Rena stood back while Carrie saw to the loading of the body into the ambulance. Then they followed her outside and watched as she walked over to Terry Picus. The two spoke briefly.

Carrie was good about remembering that while her focus was on the dead, the living couldn’t be ignored. It wasn’t possible to pretty up the indignity of an autopsy, but she would, at the very least, convey to Terry Picus that while his wife was in her custody, she would be handled with the utmost care.

She walked back to them. I’ll call you as soon as I’m done, she said. Then, looking at Rena, she asked, What about Friday?

Rena shook her head. I’m pretty sure we’re canceling it. I’ll let you know. Nobody feels like celebrating these days. It’s not fair, but it just feels wrong.

He waited until Carrie was gone before turning to his partner. Another jewelry party?

Baby shower for Violet, she said.

Maybe that was why Rena looked tired. Violet O’Brien was popping out her fourth kid in about as many years. And Rena and her husband had been trying for a while with no luck.

She’s been on maternity leave more than she’s worked as the department’s secretary, he said.

I guess. We should talk to the husband again.

Yeah. They’d exchanged basic information with him already. The guy had made the 911 call and had been waiting on the front steps when the first patrol car arrived. He and Rena had been just minutes behind. Mr. Picus had been pale and sweating, but he’d managed a few coherent sentences before his stomach had taken over.

Jane Picus had worked at the floral shop on Division. Today was her day off. She’d made him eggs and toast this morning before he’d left for work at the food plant at the edge of town. She’d still been in her pajamas. He had not talked to her or communicated with her in any way during the day. That wasn’t unusual. They’d been married for twenty-one years.

It was that last sentence that had sent him running for the rosebushes.

At some point, Jane had changed out of her pajamas into a white denim skirt and a blue T-shirt. That’s what had been neatly folded less than two feet from her dead body.

Rena knocked on the window of the patrol car before she opened the door. Mr. Picus. I know this is a very difficult time for you, but can you answer a few more questions for us?

The man licked his dry lips. Our daughter is at college in Milwaukee. I...need to tell her.

It wasn’t the kind of news a daughter should get over the phone. Unfortunately, because of the lightning speed of social media, there wasn’t a better option. The Picus family lived in a nice, middle-class neighborhood, and several neighbors were already gathering. Some idiot had probably already taken a photo and put it on Facebook. They weren’t going to be able to keep this under wraps.

A.L. saw that the man had a cell phone on his belt. Call her. Tell her what has happened, and then we’ll have someone drive you to Milwaukee, he said. Before you do that, however, can I ask you about the following names and whether they mean anything to you?

Picus nodded.

Leshia Fowler. Marsha Knight. LeAnn Jacobs. He didn’t need to refer to a list. He’d been dreaming about these names almost every damn night.

Picus shook his head. They’re the other women who got killed, he said, his voice flat. Jane and I had read the articles in the newspaper. Had talked about the three women. How horrible it was. The man swallowed hard. I don’t think either one of us realized, he added, his voice barely audible.

When had Jane Picus known that she was number four? And why the hell hadn’t she fought like a crazy woman? No. It seemed as if she’d simply gotten undressed, lain down and let the bastard smother her.

Does your daughter have a good friend at school? Rena asked.

She and her roommate get along great.

Do you have her roommate’s phone number? Rena followed up.

The man nodded. In case of emergency, he said.

A.L. was pretty confident this hadn’t been the type of emergency that Picus and his wife had been anticipating. Having a daughter close to the same age, he had an idea of how tough it might be for the kid to hear the news. Rena had been smart to think of getting some on-hand help.

We’ll take that number. Once you’ve talked to your daughter, he said, we’ll contact her friend, ask her to stick close to your daughter until you can get there.

With shaking hands, the man pulled the number up on his phone. Rena entered it into her phone. Call your daughter, sir, A.L. said.

Picus pressed a button, held the phone up to his ear. Hey, honey, he said softly. It’s Dad.

A.L. and Rena drifted ten feet away. There was no dignity in death, but the man deserved a little privacy to deliver the news.

Guess I’ll make that call, then, Rena said.

I can do it, A.L. said. He’d had some practice with emotional teens.

I’ve got this, Rena said, already dialing.

A.L. nodded and listened while Rena explained the situation briefly, providing just enough detail that the girl understood the gravity of the situation.

Rena hung up. She’s at the library, but she said she’ll find Hailey Picus and be there until Mr. Picus arrives.

Good. We should try to talk to the neighbors. They walked to the house on the right. Knocked sharply. No answer. Maybe not home from work yet.

They crossed in front of the crime scene tape and walked up the sidewalk to the house on the left. Before they could knock, a voice behind them said, That’s my door.

The woman, very Scandinavian-looking with her blond hair and fair skin, had a much darker-skinned baby on her hip. The kid had a pink headband wrapped around her mostly bald head.

Detectives McKittridge and Morgan, he said. Both showed badges. She barely glanced at them. What’s your name, ma’am?

Reese Holden.

Were you home this afternoon, Mrs. Holden?

Ms. Holden, she corrected. I’m not married. And yes, I was home.

Did you see or hear anything unusual? Rena asked.

The woman shook her head. I’m a graphic artist and I work out of my house. My office is in the basement, on the back side.

Have any knowledge that Mrs. Picus was having trouble with anybody, that anybody would want to harm her? Rena continued.

Jane is delightful, she said. Was. Was delightful. The woman nervously straightened the headband on her kid’s head. It’s like those other women, isn’t it?

No woman was feeling safe in Baywood anymore. We can’t comment, ma’am, he said. You don’t happen to have any exterior security cameras, do you?

No. But I might think about getting one, she said.

He understood. No doubt, others were probably thinking about going to the sporting goods store and picking up a shotgun. If you think of anything that might be helpful, we’d appreciate a call, he said, handing her a card. Rena did the same.

They were walking away when Rena turned. How old is your baby? she asked.

Seven months, Reese said. I adopted her when she was twelve days old. I wanted a baby but didn’t want the husband that generally comes with it.

Rena nodded, her eyes thoughtful. I get that.

---

A.L. rode shotgun while Rena drove. He liked to look around, to study the landscape. Jane Picus had lived within the city limits of Baywood. The fifty-thousand-person city bordered the third largest lake in west-central Wisconsin, almost halfway between Madison and Eau Claire. Generally peaceful, that many people in a square radius of thirteen miles could do some damage to one another. Add in the weekend boaters, who were regularly overserved, and the Baywood Police Department dealt with the usual assortment of crime. Burglary. Battery. Drugs. An occasional arson.

And murder. There had been two the previous year. One, a family dispute and the killer had been quickly apprehended. The other, a workplace shooter who’d turned the gun on himself after killing his boss. Neither had been pleasant, but they hadn’t shaken people’s belief that Baywood was a good place to live and raise a family. People were happy when their biggest complaint was about the size of the mosquitos.

Now, for-sale signs were popping up in yards. There would likely be more by next week. Four unsolved murders in forty days was bad. Bad for tourism, bad for police morale and certainly bad for the poor women and their families.

In less than ten minutes, they were downtown. Brick sidewalks bordered both sides of Main Street for a full six blocks. Window boxes, courtesy of the garden club, were overflowing with petunias. The police department had moved to its new building in the three-hundred block over ten years ago. Even then, it hadn’t been new, but the good citizens of Baywood had voted to put some money into the sixty-year-old former department store. There was too much glass for A.L.’s comfort on the first floor and too little air-conditioning on the second and third. But it beat the hell out of working in the factory at the edge of town.

Which was where his father and his uncle Joe still worked. The McKittridge brothers. They’d been born and raised in Baywood, raised their own families there and had never left.

A.L. had sworn that wouldn’t be his life. Yet, here he was.

Because of Traci. His sixteen-year-old daughter.

He and his ex-wife, Jacqui, hadn’t done much right together, but Traci was the exception. And he didn’t intend to leave Baywood until she graduated from high school. She was changing. Maybe it was just hormones. But he was worried. She didn’t confide in him anymore, didn’t share her secrets or dreams. Maybe thought he wouldn’t understand. Maybe thought that he’d never had any of his own.

Kids were wrong about a lot of things.

Rena pulled into a parking spot at the side of the building. Unbuckled her seat belt. Opened her door.

I’m not looking forward to this, he said, his head turned away from his partner.

Rena sighed loudly. I know. I’m going to miss him. I really wasn’t expecting Toby to do this.

Toby Kingman had been with the Baywood Police Department for thirty-two years. He’d been A.L.’s boss for twelve and Rena’s for eight. Two months ago, before the murders had started, he’d given notice to his boss that he was retiring.

The hissing and moaning could still be heard.

Toby Kingman was a cop’s cop. Understood what it was to work the street, knew the bullshit that cops put up with. Didn’t back down from supporting his cops when they were right.

Didn’t protect bad cops, either.

That made him okay in A.L.’s book. He would miss the man. Two nights ago, they’d had his retirement party. The one that counted. The one where cops gathered in a dark and familiar bar and told stories, the kind where service was understood and really appreciated.

Tonight, the city was putting on some official thing to celebrate the event. A.L. would normally have skipped out, but the word had come down that attendance was mandatory.

Rumor is that they’re going to announce the new chief, Rena said. It sort of lacks some class that they’d do that the same night that they celebrate Toby’s retirement.

A.L. turned to look at her. You were expecting class?

Neither of the two deputy chiefs want the job. Piss poor succession planning if you ask me, Rena said.

Not great, A.L. agreed. Toby had been good at so many things but probably hadn’t given enough thought to who would ultimately fill his shoes.

They’re going to have to tap the detective ranks. It should be you, she said. You’re the best detective on the force.

It won’t be me, he said knowingly.

Rena didn’t argue. You’re too cantankerous.

A.L. shrugged. It was unlikely that anybody considered him management material, even though he’d done many of the right things. Had gone to college and earned a criminal justice degree. Gotten a beat cop job in Madison. Four years later, had transferred to the SWAT unit. Professionally, he’d had it going.

Personally, things had been rockier. Two years into his job in Madison, Jacqui had gotten pregnant. They’d dated for only six months, but he’d been confident they could make it work, and eight weeks before Traci was born, they’d tied the knot. When she’d been four, and the marriage was already on a downward skid, Jacqui had wanted him home more. He’d left the SWAT unit and moved back to Baywood to take the open detective slot. Things were better for a while but, ultimately, not good enough. The divorce five years ago had been a relief.

Rena got the rest of the way out of the car, slammed the door and started walking. And, she said, picking up the conversation, they want somebody who will kiss their ass every now and then.

I kiss your ass. Isn’t that enough?

You maybe bite my ass, but you definitely don’t kiss it, she said over her shoulder.

He smiled and caught up with her.

It won’t be me, Rena said. I’ve been discounted.

He didn’t bother to placate her and tell her that her thoughts were unfounded. She’d made the mistake of confiding in a friend, who hadn’t had the sense to keep her mouth shut about it at work, that Rena and her husband were taking fertility treatments. Sexism, just like racism and ageism, was real. She’d been labeled on the mommy track. Not in any file and never in any public venue. But that wasn’t where the real decisions were made. No, those still happened over beers by mostly white men.

I think it will be Faster, she said.

She was probably right. Christian Faster had been a detective for a few years. He was less than thorough, didn’t really give a shit about victims and cheated on his wife. But he was a supreme ass-kisser. Who cares?

I do. You should.

Well, he said, we’ll know soon enough.

The party was on the third floor, in the large conference room. On the way there, he and Rena stopped on the second floor, in the office that they shared with the four other detectives on the force. It was empty. Likely everyone was already assembled upstairs. Word would have spread quickly that there had been another murder, and cops weren’t immune to the need to ruminate and speculate. But even within the department, information was being handled carefully in a need-to-know manner. Members of the task force that had been initiated after the second murder would be briefed at the daily morning meeting. As the lead detectives on the case, either he or Rena had to be there to provide updates. It had been chaired by Toby. Now the new guy would have that responsibility. I’m giving them ten minutes, A.L. said. They needed to start dismantling Jane Picus’s life as soon as possible.

Rena nodded. And, like the good mind reader that she normally was, said, We should probably start at the flower shop. They’re open until six.

He checked his phone. It was almost five. The store was just down the street. Okay, he said. He looked at his partner a little closer. She really did look tired. Hey, are you feeling all right? he asked.

Two

Rena felt like shit. They’d been working nonstop for weeks and the new meds that the doctor had put her on made her sick to her stomach. She’d lost five pounds in two weeks and was tired of getting up in the middle of the night with stomach cramps that could have dragged a water buffalo to its knees.

And it really made her angry that she couldn’t say anything about it to Gabe. Because he’d feel badly for her and it would weaken his resolve to keep trying.

At thirty-eight, and after two years, Rena could barely keep herself motivated to try the next thing her eternally optimistic reproductive endocrinologist came up with. If Gabe wasn’t all in, it would simply be too much.

Infertility was stressful. Ask anybody.

Gabe thought it was her job that was preventing pregnancy, and three nights ago, just before he’d left for Cleveland, he’d said she should quit. It had been the second time he’d voiced that opinion, clearly not caring that the first time he’d offered up the suggestion, they’d had a fight that had lasted three days. She loved her job. He knew that. She understood that he didn’t feel the same. Understood when he said all the things one might expect. It’s too dangerous. People are getting crazy. Nobody respects the police anymore.

It was hard to argue with the truth. But that didn’t mean that she was willing to give up everything she’d ever worked to be. She’d go to the effort of putting on a face tonight, something that A.L. wouldn’t be bothered with. She was willing to play the game; nobody would know that she agreed with A.L. that Christian Faster was an idiot.

Gabe would be back tonight, and hopefully they could keep it together until a fertilized egg managed to attach itself to her uterine wall. He’d be a great dad—she was confident of that. His older brother, Danny, was a great dad, and everybody said that Gabe and Danny were just alike. Hell, Danny was both dad and mom, having lost his wife to cancer two years earlier. But he and his young boys were soldiering on.

She looked at the stack of files on her desk, all needing her attention. But now with a fourth woman smothered, they would continue to be put aside. And she would continue to believe that they’d catch a break pretty soon and nail Perp’s balls to the wall.

It could be a woman, of course. No balls. She and A.L. had discussed this at length. Statistically, most serial killers were men. But there were some females. And the absence of sexual assault definitely made that an option. Also, the no forced entry. Both believed it more likely that a strange woman knocking at the door would be less frightening than a strange man. She and A.L. had gotten to the point where they simply said Perp. It was unisex. But in the back of her mind, she was confident Perp was a man.

Maybe she was as much a sexist as the rest of the world.

Ready? she asked A.L.

As ever, he said.

She hadn’t been blowing shit when she’d said that he was the most qualified to lead the department. She’d always been incredibly grateful that she’d been assigned to be his partner. It had taken her almost a year to be confident that he wasn’t as big of a jerk as he wanted people to believe. And she’d known better than to make the mistake of trying to convince others that they were wrong about him.

A.L. would have verbally chopped her up in little pieces and had her for lunch. At six-one and some two hundred pounds, he was big enough to get some attention. He could still beat her in a foot chase, which he’d proven just months earlier. The touch of silver at the edges of his short dark hair didn’t make him look distinguished but rather a little dangerous and she thought that probably made him happy.

She knew that Carrie and A.L. hooked up every now and again. She figured A.L. knew that she knew, since she and Carrie were friends, but they never discussed it. Carrie was equally discreet, although every now and then, only when they were off the clock, she would let it drop that she and A.L. had once again had a moment.

Rena wasn’t aware that A.L. was seeing anybody else. He never talked about what had led to the divorce, but based on some of the conversations she overheard between A.L. and his ex-wife, they weren’t well suited. She’d made the mistake of telling Gabe about one of the more vitriolic exchanges, and his response had been, "Once you have a kid, you’re stuck with that person, and for better or worse can become pretty damn bad."

Like the crazy person that the fertility drugs were making her, she’d interpreted his comment as reason number 151 of why not having a kid was better than having a kid, and a crying jag had commenced. It had taken Gabe two full days of talking in a nice, neutral tone to get her to admit that 1) he’d never ever said that he didn’t want a child, and 2) just maybe she’d read a meaning into his remarks that had no way in hell been intended.

She and A.L. took the stairs to the third floor. There was a low buzz of conversation in the conference room. All the chairs were taken, so she and A.L. took a spot leaning up against the back wall. There was a small table off to one side, holding the requisite cake and fruit punch.

They were there less than two minutes when the mayor entered the room. Kenwood Johnson was a six-foot seven-inch black man. Twenty years ago, he’d been the starting forward on the University of Wisconsin’s basketball team. Maybe not in quite the same shape, he still looked real good. And always smelled delicious.

She took a big breath as he walked past and smiled at A.L., who rolled his eyes. They’d had the conversation about the mayor’s cologne at least twice.

People, cops and noncops alike, thought Kenwood did a good job. Appreciated the fact that he’d stayed in Wisconsin after graduation and started a small catering company. The fact that he had been elected and reelected to a second four-year term was a testament to his ability to get along with most anybody.

The fact that he favored Christian Faster was a testament that everybody had bad judgment once in a while.

Mayor Johnson made his way to the far side of the room, shaking hands as he went. He turned to take in the room. Good to see so many of you here.

Always nice to pretend that they’d all shown up voluntarily. She wondered if he’d go off script and mention Jane Picus. That’s what the room really wanted to talk about.

It’s always a bittersweet moment when you have to bid an esteemed colleague goodbye. On one hand, we’re sad to see Toby Kingman exit from the police department, and on the other... He paused for dramatic effect, and A.L. leaned close to her ear.

We’re jealous as hell, he whispered.

We’re so happy that he’s at the point in his life and career where he can start to take it easy, Mayor Johnson said. A round of applause, please, for Toby Kingman.

Every cop in the room put his or her hands together. Toby, a humble guy, turned red above the collar of his dingy white shirt.

We’re fortunate, Mayor Johnson went on, that we have an excellent person to take his place. Tonight, I am here to announce that I have appointed Christian Faster to be the chief of police of Baywood.

For a long moment, the room was absolutely quiet. Then Toby Kingman, good guy that he was, started clapping and the other people in the room,