Bad Roads: E&M Investigations, Book Two

By LJ Bourne

An unsolved, cold murder case sends deadly ripples to the present in this thrilling and suspenseful crime mystery novel by LJ Bourne.

Bad roads don’t lead to good places.

The murder of a small town mayor blows a cold case wide open. But less than twenty-four hours after the mayor’s body is found, the local authorities close the investigation. They’re calling it an open and shut case of a domestic argument gone wrong.

True crime writer Eva Lah and Ex-Military Special Investigator Mark Novak aren’t convinced it’s as simple as that. They believe the death is connected to a brutal killing of a young woman eight years ago.

The killer is back and he’s desperately trying to cover his tracks. And Eva and Mark are determined to stop him.

But this killer enjoys his freedom too much to let anyone expose him. If they get too close, this could be the last case Mark and Eva ever investigate.

A must read for fans of Donna Leon, Lisa Gardener and Karin Slaughter!

BAD ROADS, the second book in the E&M Investigations series, is a standalone, fast-paced and gripping crime mystery novel that is impossible to put down!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Waterside Dreams Press
• Release date: Dec 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9789619581599

Book preview

1

Ten Years Ago

Love. My grandma warned me that love would be the death of me. She just knew. I’d be running around with my boyfriend, skinny dipping in the river, sneaking out through my bedroom window to spend the night with him under the canopy of trees in the magical nearby forest, and staying out until sunrise.

Grandma would always wait for me when I got back at dawn, asking where I’d been and with who.

I’m in love, I’d tell her. And she’d shake her head and tell me love would be the death of me.

I never imagined she was right. But she was.

Esma, stay with me, he wails pain thick in his voice.

We found our love late. Found it buried under years of pretending, denying, and looking the other way. Found it only after another tried to take me away.

Found it too late.

I try to tell him it will all be all right. That I always knew I would end like this. That my grandma warned me years ago.

He’s crying. The man I’ve never seen shed a tear before is weeping over me.

I try to speak. Try to soothe his pain. Try to ask for one last kiss.

But no sound comes from my lips.

He seems to hear me despite that, leans down, and plants his soft, tear-wetted lips on mine.

He is the best kisser I’ve ever known. And this kiss is the best kiss I’ve ever had.

My last.

2

EVA

I’m not often up at dawn, because morning is not my best time of day, never was, never will be. But in Mark’s cottage, I don’t mind waking up with the hens, as they say. The wraparound windows in the living room are showing me the long narrow valley covered with rows of grapevines, which are just starting to grow fresh leaves. The sky above the hill rising above them is shaded red, yellow, purple, and pink, the colors flowing into each other and casting a copper-red sheen on the world. I’ve never seen this shade of sunrise before, but then again, I haven’t seen many sunrises, so that could be why.

I woke up about half an hour ago, but I’m still not fully awake. I’m only up this early because I have an article due in two days, and I barely started writing it.

It’s been years since I worked as an investigative journalist. For the last three, I’ve been writing true crime books, or more precisely, in-depth biographies and psychological profiles of notorious serial killers.

But my good friend from university and editor at the Guardian asked me to write a series of articles, outlining the major points from my books. My publisher agreed it was a good promotion, so here I am, writing for newspapers again. At first, it sounded like a good way to take a break from writing books. But now, with the first article due and none of them written, I’m having some serious second thoughts.

Though my sluggishness at getting to work is probably due to Mark and me enjoying something very close to a honeymoon since we moved in here a few months ago. To his cottage, the one he worked on restoring for a year while we were not speaking, is a dream home in more ways than one. It’s located in the village of Sveto, in the windy seaside region of Slovenia, where wine is plentiful, people are friendly and nice, and life is just slow and easy. I’ve never lived in a small town, let alone a village and I never thought I’d like it. I really do.

I also didn’t even know just how much baggage I’ve been carrying from the years I spent buried in researching psychos and killers, starting with the Fairytale Killer. The one that made me famous. The one that shattered my relationship with Mark.

More followed. Ten of them that I wrote books on, and about ten more that I just interviewed with a view of understanding the psychology better. There’s no understanding the psychology, not really.

And now there’s the eleventh. The one Mark and I, with the help of the special Europol task force, caught just a few months ago. I went into the case intending to write a book about him. I haven’t even started it.

He was the killer that brought Mark and me back together and honestly, I’ve just felt too good getting to know Mark again after the three years we spent apart, that I just didn’t want to invite any darkness into it.

But we did take some time to create the perfect little writing room for me in the cottage. I’m heading to it as soon as the fog of sleep clears from my mind. It’s just off the living room, only big enough for a long desk, chair, comfy armchair, and a set of shelves that are all neat now but won’t be once I really start using the room. The window behind the desk overlooks this same valley.

I always wanted my own writing room, but never had one, not in any of the apartments I lived in. I lived a transient life since I moved away from home at eighteen to go study journalism in London twenty years ago. The last three years have been especially harsh in that regard. I didn’t even rent an apartment anywhere. I just moved from hotel room to hotel room as needed.

In this cottage is the first time I’ve felt like I’m home since I left my childhood home. I haven’t told Mark that yet because I don’t want to jinx anything. It’s too early. I shouldn’t even be thinking about it for the same reason.

I take a sip of my coffee and just stare at the sunrise for a while, wishing Mark was sitting next to me. But he’s asleep and I didn’t want to wake him if I’m going to work on my article anyway.

The coffee is too strong and too black but does have a very pleasant aftertaste. That’s because we got the good Italian stuff while we were in Trieste getting furniture for my new writing room. I still haven’t gotten the hang of the new espresso machine we also got, but I’m working on it. Not that I’m not a lover of good coffee, but I always just drank instant at home. This will be much better. As soon as I learn how to make a good cup.

The sky is glowing a pale reddish-gold as the rising sun finally crests the distant hill.

I get up with a sigh. Enough wasting time. The sooner I finish the article the sooner I get to spend all my time with Mark again.

MARK

My phone’s ringing in the living room, echoing off the wall and unnecessarily loud. It’s the job, it has to be, since no one else calls me these days. And if Eva was still in bed with me, I wouldn’t be getting up to answer it right away.

But she’s not.

She’s been talking about the article she needs to write for the last week and finally decided last night that today is the day. I’m glad she’s writing again. She loves it, and I’m getting kind of sick of her complaining that she’s going to miss her deadline. I’m also glad she’s not writing the book on the psycho we unearthed over the winter.

I stumble into the living room, bumping into everything I can bump into on the way, starting with the low, dark oak doorframe of the bedroom. It’s only after I stub my toe on one of the steel sofa legs that I open my eyes fully. And then just stare out at the sunrise for a couple of minutes, hardly hearing the ringing phone in my hand. The sky is reddish-orange and glowing as though a fire is burning just behind the low rolling hills in the distance. I doubt it’s a fire, but it’s definitely the most interesting sunrise I’ve seen since moving here. It’s also just like the sunrises over the desert in Afghanistan, some of which were caused by fires and explosions. I buried my memories of one and a half tours of duty I served there deep, but this one comes to the surface easily. Too easily.

My career as a Special Investigator for the US Army Criminal Investigations Department started at the tail end of the second tour, and they all call me one of the top investigators around now, fifteen years later, but I know the truth. I’m only forty years old, or going to be soon, but I’m over the hill and sliding down the other side fast. I was comfortably retired just a couple of months ago.

But then, I signed a one-year contract with the Europol Violent Crimes Task Force and I don’t back out of my commitments. Besides, if all the future cases that come our way are as desperately in need of professional investigating as the one we just wrapped up, then even my failing skills could still be useful.

The phone stops ringing by the time I finally remember to answer it.

Good.

I can smell coffee, Eva is smiling at me from the doorway of her new writing room and it will be another beautiful day today. Under her old purple and grey cardigan, she’s wearing her new, floor-length off-white, satin nightgown, with a dangerously low-cut v-neck trimmed in lace. I can make out every curve of her body under the thin fabric. And that’s a good start to a great day if ever I saw one.

Simon and the task force can wait. Everything can wait.

I walk over to her and she meets me halfway. The reddish light outside colors her face and her long blonde hair a faded bronze and reflects in her otherwise bright blue eyes. They’re so good at catching the light, I love it.

Her cardigan makes my neck itch and burn as she drapes her arms around my shoulders, but her softness as she presses against me more than makes up for it. Plus, she always wore this cardigan around the house back when we started going out—almost five years ago now—and it’s a nice link back to those happy days. A gulf of three years of not speaking to each other separates us from it, but we’ve done a lot to close that up since we’ve been living here. In fact, I’d say this kiss pretty much says there’s no more gulf.

So I am a total idiot for even noticing that the phone I’m still holding is ringing again, and an even bigger one for pulling away from her to begin the process of answering it.

But that’s muscle memory for you. The phone rings and I answer. It’s always a new case, a new assignment to work on, rarely anything pleasant or mundane. It’s how I lived my life as a US Military Special Investigator for over fifteen years. It wasn’t until I met Eva that I even thought much about settling down. But I think that wish is finally coming true too.

Especially as she smiles when I show her the flashing phone.

Answer it. I’ll get you some coffee, she says and glides to the kitchen.

Yes, Simon? I say into the phone, more interested in watching Eva pour my coffee than anything Simon has to say.

There’s a new development in one of the cases we’ve been looking at, he says. And a live crime scene. I’ve cleared you and Brina to attend.

He’s talking fast and kind of breathlessly, like maybe he’s walking. Or jogging. He does a lot of that. A live crime scene? In which case?

The task force hasn’t officially taken on a new case since we wrapped up the last one, but we’ve reviewed quite a few of them. We’ve even managed to make some real headway in a number of them where the problem was mostly non-centralized evidence trails.

The sex worker. Anita Rajić, he says and I groan.

The one Brina is working on? I ask.

Yes, he says. It’s a delicate case, with political ties.

And running from here to Austria via Bosnia, I add. A political and jurisdictional nightmare, in other words.

I’ll handle the bureaucracy, you handle the investigation, he says.

Sounds like a plan, I say.

Now get to the scene as fast as you can. I’ll text you the address.

What am I going to find there? I ask. Hopefully not a dead illegal stripper/prostitute. I don’t want to think it, let alone say it.

As much as I’ve been enjoying the quiet life in the country with Eva these last couple of months, I have to say that the cases we’ve been reviewing have been calling to me. This one especially.

I have a special and strong dislike for men in power importing and exploiting young women who have no choice and no say in the matter. This case fits the bill. The two victims we’ve connected to it were both barely eighteen years old. They’d been trafficked at fifteen. I’m sure there are other victims we just haven’t found yet.

Even if I catch whoever is behind these murders, I’ll never stop it from happening. This kind of thing is as old as time. But I will do what I can to put a dent in it.

Alright, I’ll be there, I say and hang up.

Eva approaches me with a cup of coffee, a very weird look on her face. It’s something between curiosity and dread, that’s the best I can describe it.

A new case? she asks.

I nod and take a sip of the coffee, which is too strong, but I tell her it’s great anyway. It’s the little white lies that make a relationship work, was one of my mother’s favorite sayings after she met and married my step-father. Their relationship held, but the one between me and my mom went downhill fast after she married him. And I can’t believe I’m thinking about that crap now.

It’s not, Mark, she says and grins. But I’ll get the hang of it eventually.

I have no doubt, I say and grin back.

So what’s the case? she says.

The stripper murder, I say. The one found mutilated under the Dragon Bridge.

Hands and feet cut off, teeth knocked out, face so badly beaten she was unrecognizable. A classic old-school mafia murder. So old school they clearly never even heard of DNA. That’s how Anita Rajić was identified. She’d been missing for years before she was found.

Three more illegal strippers/prostitutes were found in the year following Anita’s murder, but they weren’t mutilated as she had been. But they were all beaten to death. The cases all stank of mafia involvement and were never officially tied together. But Brina Turk, one of the detectives on the task force, thinks they should be. She was one of the officers assigned to Anita’s case when her body was first found and it has haunted her ever since. I gave her free reign on it despite the lack of leads and potential bureaucratic and jurisdictional challenges.

And there’s been a new development? she asks. Sorry, Simon talks really loud on the phone. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but I heard it all.

There has and I have to go view it, I say and hand her back my empty cup. You’ll be fine here without the car?

She nods. I have a ton of work left to do on the article.

The only good thing about this case being the next one the task force tackles is that it’s most definitely not a serial killer case. Meaning Eva won’t have to be a part of it. On the last one, she was brought in as an outside expert/profiler and she’s staying on in that capacity for the time being. I wish she wouldn’t.

I feel guilty just thinking that, but a part of me still wants to protect her from the darkness of gruesome murders and psychotic killers. She’d be so pissed off if she knew I was thinking that right now and I hope she doesn’t read it on my face.

Just in case she can, since she usually can, I kiss her again.

I’ll never stop wanting to protect her and keep her out of harm’s way. But I’ll do my best to let her do whatever she wants despite that. We’ve had a few conversations about that. They were productive, and I made promises regarding that. I plan to keep them.

To be completely honest, her reckless way and the wild-abandon with which she goes after everything in life is one of the main reasons I fell in love with her in the first place. My need to keep her safe drove us apart the first time and I’m not about to make the same mistake now that we finally have our second chance.

3

MARK

The sun rose a normal bright yellow by the time I finished getting dressed and left the house. Almost the whole way to the crime scene, the blinding brightness was showing off the newly budding trees in the forests lining most of the highways in this country. But as soon as I got within ten kilometers of the capital of Ljubljana, grey clouds took over the sky.

I’m not actually heading to the capital. The crime scene is just outside the town of Vrhnika and even though I’m following the GPS coordinates Simon sent exactly, I’m still afraid I took a wrong turn somewhere. The narrow road I’m on keeps winding up and up. Lush green trees and shrubs line it on both sides, there’s no sidewalk to speak of, let alone a shoulder to pull up on, and no end in sight. I’m just about to call Simon again to recheck the information he sent when a bend in the road finally reveals a clearing. And about ten service vehicles of all sorts—police, fire, ambulance, forensics. The sirens are all off, but the lights on most of the cars are flashing.

They’re all parked around a fancy home, which is too large to be called a house. A mansion would be more apt. It’s a new structure with a pale peach color facade, burnt orange-colored accents, and more windows than I can easily count. As far as I can tell, it’s surrounded by acres and acres of soft-looking grass interspersed by gravel paths. The driveway that leads to the house is one such, and on either side of it, fields of green stretch to a slight rise on the left and dense forest on the right. What little sunlight is managing to seep through the cracks in the grey clouds is attaching itself to the house, making it glow rose gold. The whole scene just screams money. Not taste though, judging by the architecture and coloring of the house. Ever since I spent almost a year renovating my first home—the cottage in Sveto—I notice these things more than I ever did. But I’m not here to give an architectural critique.

Brina, one of the detectives on my task force team, is leaning against one of the three black sedans Simon recently purchased for our job cars. Her shoulder-length black hair is flapping in the wind, and the color makes her face look paler than chalk. The dark circles around her eyes almost match the color of her hair. She’s one of those detectives that can’t separate their own life from the job and finding justice. I should know since I’m the same. Which is why I haven’t mentioned it to her like a bunch of my bosses always made a point of doing with me. I know very well that there’s nothing she can do to change it. That’s just how we’re wired. It’s all or nothing when it comes to working cases. And neither of us is in a position to do anything right now.

She waves to me, and I park beside her.

What is this place? I ask after we exchange a hasty greeting.

The home of Anton Leskovar, the former Minister of Commerce, former CEO of the country’s largest oil company, and the current mayor of this town, she says. He and his wife were found shot this morning. She’s dead, but he survived and was rushed to the hospital.

I narrow my eyes at her. A domestic killing? How did you connect this to Anita’s case?

We’ve started walking towards the wide-open main door of the house and she stops abruptly and spins around to face me.

A former colleague called me as soon as the report came in, she says. Leskovar was questioned in connection with Anita’s death eight years ago. He was never named a suspect, but…You think it’s a stretch?

She read the expression on my face right. I came here expecting to see a dead young woman, but now I have serious doubts about this being a true break in Anita’s case.

Your zeal for solving this case is commendable, I tell her, wondering when the last time she got any real sleep was. Up close, she looks haggard. This case has a bad hold on her. Let’s go in and see what we see.

They haven’t cordoned off the area, but a uniformed police officer stops us about ten feet from the main door. He’s a young guy, maybe twenty-three years old at most, and he takes his sweet time examining my flashy new ID card with the huge gold Europol seal on it. All the while, he looks like he’s about to start crying because he doesn’t know what to do about me.

He’s with me, Brina says, showing her normal detective badge.

He breathes a visible sigh of relief and lets us pass.

Good thing you still have that, I tell her. Mine isn’t doing a lot.

She nods and quickens her pace towards the door.

Not without these, a woman yells after us. It’s Ida the crime scene tech whose work proved invaluable in tracking down the killer we had just caught. I have no doubt that the forensic investigation into that case that she’s heading will land him in jail for the rest of his life. Simon is still trying to get her to join the task force full time, but I don’t know how that’s going.

She’s wearing a full-body white PPE jumpsuit, complete with a hood cinched tight around her face. It rustles as she approaches, holding out latex gloves and blue shoe covers for us.

Mark, Brina, she says. I didn’t expect to see you here. Is this part of a case you’re working on now?

I take the items from her hand, and say, We’ll see, just as Brina says, Yes, we think so.

She looks from one to another. Well, let me walk you through it.

She takes the lead, then waits for us to don the protective gear before entering.

My entire cottage could easily fit into the foyer of the house. The flooring is checkered black and white marble, there’s a wide white marble staircase directly opposite the door and a round wooden table in the center of the space with a huge vase full of roses on it.

About three feet from the door, there’s a shallow pool of blood, its edges already congealed. A set of wheel tracks leads from it out the door and boot prints surround it, outlining an area roughly the size of a body. It’s almost like a chalk outline they used to draw around murder victims back in the day. Discarded latex gloves, tubes, and even a used syringe are littering the area, along with a sheet of paper so soaked in blood it’s impossible to read anything on it.

This is from the paramedics trying to save the man? I ask Ida, who rolls her eyes as she nods.

I’m sure the rolling of the eyes was an unconscious gesture on her part. Every single crime scene tech I have ever worked with is always annoyed with anyone who messes up the crime scenes they are working on. But I’m sure she hopes the guy will live.

He was shot first in the living room, just through there, Ida says and points at a set of wide-open double doors—light brown inlaid with brushed gold. Then again in here. The second bullet knocked him down, but he still managed to crawl a ways before collapsing.

This is evident from the blood trail too. I crouch down to examine it closer. On one side, the blood trail of the crawling man is clear and there are even two palm prints, but on the other side, it's interrupted by something he must have held in his hand.

Was he carrying a bag of some sort? I ask. A briefcase, maybe?

She shakes her head. Nothing like that was found. But well-spotted. I also concluded that he had something in his right hand while he was trying to get away. But I already spoke to the paramedics and they didn’t find anything lying next to him. Nor did we. Maybe his arm was just paralyzed on that side from one of the bullets.

Who found the body? I ask her.

One of the stable workers, as far as I know, Ida says.

I straighten up. And where’s the wife?

This way. She leads the way to the living room, which is a cavernous room with a very high ceiling lined with tall windows. The two sofas and two armchairs inside are either replicas or actual antiques, upholstered in a cream-colored fabric covered with roses and gold leaf. The wife is slumped over on one of them, a large black-lined bullet hole in her right temple. Her blood has soaked into the sofa coloring half of it crimson.

She looks about my age, with long, dyed red hair, the dark brown roots beginning to show. She’s wearing a floor-length nightgown of a similar cut to the one I left Eva in. Except that in her case, she’s wearing a matching long-sleeved kimono over it. Both are silk, judging by the way they drape over the blood-soaked sofa.

She’s still clutching a revolver in her right hand. It has a white bone handle, the barrel has roses etched into it, and looks like something from the Wild West.

This looks like a pretty straightforward murder-suicide to me, I say making Brina grimace. Ida is nodding along though. Maybe he was divorcing her. Or she found out he was cheating.

Who are you? asks a dark-haired man with so much gel in his hair that it shines silver in the overhead lights.

Mark Novak, Europol Violent Crimes Task Force. This new title of mine is a mouthful and it doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. You?

Detective Nik Jenko, he says in a slightly less sharp tone. I was told to expect you. And to share all we find with you.

That doesn’t roll off his tongue easily either. He looks to be about thirty and so full of zeal the air is thick with it.

This is my case, he adds in a very obvious pissing contest display.

We’re looking into a possible connection with a case we’re investigating, Brina says. Maybe you’ve heard of it. A stripper was found under the Dragon Bridge in Ljubljana about eight years ago. Badly beaten, no hands, face so smashed in it was unrecognizable. Anita Rajić.

Nik turned almost as pale as Brina while she was speaking. He clears his throat nervously.

Eight years ago was a bit before my time, he says. But this is an important man. And everything points to a murder-suicide, as Novak here said.

Was the husband also wearing his pajamas? I ask, since I don’t want their conversation to go any further down the path it was heading. We don’t know if the cases are connected yet, nor do I feel like listening to instructions on how we must keep our investigation discrete.

Yes, the victim was an important man, but with all those elite positions under his belt, and this being Slovenia, I’m sure none of us thinks he came by all of them simply on the back of honest work and merit. Though maybe I’m being unfair.

No, he was dressed in a suit, Nik says. Shirt and tie, but no jacket.

Do we have an approximate time of death? I ask.

Sometime between one and five AM. The ME couldn’t be more specific.

And the neighbors? They didn’t hear anything? I