Wolfe tensed next to him, while West drew up abreast, his shoulders back.
They were ready to fight with him if necessary. Angus would reflect on how much that warmed him later. His team was good. Better than good.
Rutherford smiled, no doubt wanting payback for when Raider, another team member, had broken his nose a few months ago. “I’m ready. You hit one of us, just breathe wrong on us, and I’ll plant your ass in a jail cell. You’re done, Force.”
West cleared his throat, his green eyes piercing through the dark. “If you’re so sure Lassiter didn’t do this, give us a minute with the scene. Force will know the truth.”
Rutherford began to shake his head.
“Okay,” Fields said, stepping aside. He shrugged at his younger partner. “Why not? Lassiter is dead, right?”
“Right,” Rutherford gritted, his gaze promising retribution.
The stench of puke, garbage, and worse filled Angus’s nostrils as he stepped past the agents to venture deeper into the alley. “Lassiter kidnapped women and tortured them for days. We’ll need an autopsy on this one, but we probably won’t know much about her heart.”
“Why not?” West stopped short as the body came into view.
“That’s why,” Angus said, consciously switching from feeling human to something else. Something that would allow him to analyze the crime and not lose his soul any more than he already had.
West’s breath caught. “Oh.”
Yeah. Oh. A tarp had been erected above the body to protect it from the elements. The woman lay naked on the pavement, her eyes open and staring straight up. She had long dark hair, milky brown eyes, a petite form. Her arms were spread wide, hands open and facing up. Her legs were crossed and tied at the ankles with a common clothesline rope. Worst yet, her chest gaped open, the ribs and breastbone spread, leaving a hole. The crime signature was similar to Lassiter’s, but not exactly the same. What did that mean?
West coughed. “Her heart is gone.”
Angus went even colder. Rain dripped off his hair and down his face. The scene was . . . off. “He eats it. Says it keeps the victim with him forever.” Nausea tried to roll up his belly and he shoved it down.
Wolfe came up on his other side, his movements silent. He didn’t gasp, stall, or go tense. He just stared at the body, his jaw hard. He pointed to the victim’s arms. “Burn marks?”
“Affirmative,” Angus said crisply. “There will be both cigarette and electrical burns.” Outside and inside the woman. “As well as whip marks, ligature marks around the neck, and knife wounds. Shallow and painful. Not enough to let her bleed out.” Angus noticed that the cuts for the heart were rough—not smooth, the way Lassiter liked to do—which was why the press had dubbed him “the Surgeon.”
Yet the heart was gone.
West coughed. “Raped?”
“Probably,” Angus said.
Agent Rutherford approached from the far end, carefully stepping over water-filled potholes with his shiny loafers. “There’s no note, and she’s not blond. In addition, the cigarette marks are too large—almost like a cigar was used.” He looked around, as if worried they’d be caught working outside their jurisdiction. The Homeland Defense Department didn’t deal with serial killers. Well, not usually.
Angus breathed in and out before responding. He much preferred Fields to this guy. “Lassiter is very choosy about his cigarettes and would never use a cigar. Too common.” Angus dropped into a crouch, closer to the woman. Lassiter had also loved blondes. This close, the victim’s skin looked dusky, not pale. Was she Asian? Lassiter had liked them pale, the whiter the better. “Are you sure there isn’t a note?”
“No note,” Rutherford snapped. “Told you it wasn’t him.”
Everything inside Angus insisted it was Lassiter. But was it a certainty born of necessity? Because he needed to be on the case and hunting the evil psycho down—finally? He looked around, noting the alley had been cordoned off, blocking the view of any nosy neighbors or the press. In a different situation he’d be fighting with Rutherford right now about the news media. It probably killed the guy that he couldn’t chase the cameras. “Once you get an ID, track down her medical records.”
“No ID,” Rutherford said, glancing down at his shiny phone. “Her prints came up negative, and this isn’t our case. Time to go, gentlemen.”
Wolfe scouted the alley, his gaze sharp. “You think Lassiter did this?”
Yes. “I don’t know. The MO is close, but not perfect, and he was a perfectionist.” Frustration tasted like metal in Angus’s mouth. “If it isn’t Lassiter, it’s a copycat. That I’m sure of, and I was the best profiler the FBI had.”
“Until you drank the entire wagon,” Fields said, his bushy eyebrows rising. “You no longer work for the FBI, remember?”
Something on the victim’s hand caught Angus’s attention. “Glove?” He gestured toward a couple of techs.
One tossed him a blue glove and he slid it on, gently turning over the woman’s right hand.
“Shit,” West said, leaning down. “Is that what I think it is?”
