Bless The Beauty - By Stacey Kennedy Page 0,37
dead a few days then?”
Mike shook his head. My guilt returned. “I’m not sure until we get there. As I said, I was waiting to find you all.” His gaze met mine in the rear-view mirror and gave me another stern glance before he focused back on the road.
Another couple miles clicked away on the odometer. Up ahead, flashing lights lit up the sky.
“Game faces on,” Mike exhaled as he drove past the group of people held back by the police.
A uniformed police officer waved us over and held up his hand in an indication for us to stop.
Mike rolled down his window. “FBI, Criminal Investigations Department.” He flashed his badge.
The cop nodded. “Go right through.” He lifted the yellow tape and waved us in.
Mike pulled in slowly then parked the car. “Let’s go see what we got.” Then, he opened his door and was out in a flash.
As I exited the car, I bit my lip in anticipation of what I was about to see.
Just cause I was a vampire didn’t mean I didn’t have a heart. Seeing dead young women was never a part of the job I enjoyed and could happily live without.
In only a few shorts steps, Kelly Lewis appeared on the pavement. Her face was angled toward me. Pretty woman—mid-twenties, blonde, blue-eyed and I suspected when she was alive those lovely eyes had been filled with happy memories. Now though, her eyes were empty—cold. She appeared done up, which aligned with McKinney’s MO.
The makeup along her skin made her look so alive, but her blue skin clearly indicated that she was not.
She stared, almost looking straight through me. The blue depths held in those eyes was a unique kindness that still showed through even though her life was lost.
“About time you got here,” Nick’s curt voice came beside next to me.
I tore my gaze away from Kelly to look at him. “Sorry, we were…uh…checking out the hospitals in the area.”
Nick nodded gave a forgiving smile, clearly he barely believed my story. “From what the M.E.’s reported, Ms. Lewis has been here for two days.”
It was like a damn roller coaster with my guilt. Luckily, with those few words said, it evaporated.
I kept it close. Until Sabrina was found I wouldn’t feel better about this situation.
“So, he put her here just before he was arrested?” Chase asked.
Nick nodded. “Manner of death is suffocation, but like buried alive kind of suffocation.”
My stomach clenched, a wave of sickness washed over me. “He buried these poor women alive?”
Nick sighed, glancing down to Kelly Lewis. “The M.E. found dirt in Ms. Lewis’
mouth and nose. He said he wouldn’t know more until the autopsy, but did note the findings of dirt lining her nostrils and down into her throat.”
“Fuck,” I exhaled. “So, he buries them, then digs them up and places them in places they’ll be found.”
“I’d say that is a likely assumption.”
I was about to ask more, but a thought presented itself that we hadn’t really dug into yet. It was what struck me first when I looked at the pictures of these dead women and what ran through my thoughts moments ago. I glanced over to Mike. “Have you discovered why he does this to them?” I waved my hand across my face. “You know, makes them so beautiful looking.”
There had to be more to it—something sick, I was sure of that. But my thoughts definitely kept bringing me back to this and that usually said something. Normally it meant I was on the right track.
Mike gave Chase a curious glance. “You’ve spent this much time with her and haven’t filled her in on what we have discovered thus far?”
Chase showed no moment of hesitation in answering him. “We were busy focusing on her end of the investigation—it just hadn’t come up yet.”
Mike gave a displeased look, but said nothing more on the matter, then glanced to me. “They’ve gotten jack shit out of him—the kid is insane. All he’ll admit to is that he has the other women hidden—keeping her safe, as he calls it.”
Nick let out a long sigh. “I’m going to stand in on the autopsy.” He looked over his shoulder as the M.E. pulled the gurney out of the white cube van. “I’ll call if they discover anything.”
Mike nodded, as Nick headed off toward the van. He looked back to Kelly Lewis, gave her a final glance before he started to walk back toward his car. “If they didn’t have the evidence they do, I