Page 28 of Her Lips Are Sealed

Morgan was smiling at the three of them. ‘I don’t know why it has to be this difficult, you either fancy a curry, or you fancy a Chow Mein. It’s not rocket science.’

‘Well, I want pizza now after that, you can go get your own takeaway.’ Amy’s mouth was set in a straight line.

‘I want pizza too.’ Morgan laughed.

‘Fine, I’ll have pizza,’ said Ben.

‘You absolute traitors, you know I wanted an Indian,’ Cain muttered.

‘Who is stopping you from ordering from the Indian, Cain?’ Amy asked.

‘You lot, we haven’t got time to do a tour of the takeaways before the next briefing. You’re all selfish, you know that, don’t you?’

‘Usual?’ asked Ben. He walked into his office to order, leaving them bickering behind him.

Cain flopped down on a chair and grinned at Amy. ‘You did look rough when you came in.’

She turned to him and gave him the middle finger. ‘I have a teething baby who has decided not to sleep through the night anymore. What’s your excuse?’

Morgan tried not to gasp out loud at Amy’s comeback. She probably hadn’t realised how awful it sounded.

Cain’s laughter filled the room. ‘Baby, I was born this way.’

Ben, who had come back out of his office, couldn’t help but laugh, and Morgan wondered if she was being extra sensitive or whether Cain was doing a great job of pretending that he wasn’t still grieving for Angela. Either way she supposed he’d asked for it and he probably relished Amy’s sarcasm because she didn’t feel the need to tiptoe around his fragile ego like the rest of them.

Pizza eaten and feeling full, Morgan could have quite happily finished her shift and gone home. Ben had taken Amy to one side and given her the option to do just that. She’d tried to call her friend who had Ava Rose, to see if she was okay to work another couple of hours, but she hadn’t answered and now she was a bit panicked. Looking relieved, she’d packed up her laptop and stuffed it into her bag.

‘If you need anything ring me, I can log on and work from home once Ava is asleep.’

Ben smiled at her. ‘Thanks, Amy, I’m sure that won’t be necessary. Appreciate the offer though.’

Once she left, he turned to Morgan and Cain. ‘Right then, folks, what are we doing?’

‘If I knew that I’d be in the fancy office instead of out here with the reprobates, boss.’

Morgan shook her head at Cain. ‘You love being out here, not much chance for gossiping inside Ben’s office.’

He shrugged.

‘Ben, how are we going to find the next victim? These notes are horrific, but they don’t tell us anything useful. Just that we ought to panic.’

Morgan picked up the photocopied notes from both crime scenes. The originals had been sent off for forensic testing and handwriting analysis. It looked obvious that the same guy had written them. Neither of them moved as they read it together.

Both notes had blood-red lipstick kisses at the bottom of them.

‘This is so messed up, either the killer did those kisses, or he made the victims do it.’

Morgan stared at the lines in the lipstick prints, noticing that each was different. Rachel’s lips were fuller than Ash’s.

‘Actually, he didn’t do it. The lip shapes are different.’

‘Do you think he did it when they were still alive or after he killed them?’ asked Cain.

‘I hope it was after; I can’t imagine the fear they would have felt and the confusion if he’d pulled out a red lipstick and said, “can you put this on for me”. It’s so weird.’

‘Do you think he bought it locally?’ Ben had hope in his voice.

‘Maybe, we could check with any shops that sell beauty products. We need to know what brand it was, and if they can narrow that down, we’ll have more of an idea.’