Dark Reasons Ch 12

I'm so glad you guys are enjoying this repost. I'm still working on A Tiger's Love but I have three novels to edit this week...Lord help me.

Take care all.

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Chapter Twelve

Jenna hurried down the bank of the river, the second time she'd been called to this river in as many days. A body waited below. Another victim of the same killer, from what she'd been able to gather over the phone, left just a few yards from the last one.

She'd left Ethan in her apartment, snuggled into her bed looking decidedly masculine amidst her flowered sheets. He'd been warm and solid next to her, and very hard to leave. She could still taste his last kiss on her lips, the feeling of his body against hers as he tried his hardest to make her want to hurry back to him.

Justin stood off to the side as she finally slid the last few feet to the bottom of the hill. She handed him the coffee she'd stopped and got without a word.

"Sorry," he said. "I told Harley I could handle it myself but he said to call you." He shrugged and walked over to where the body was lying under a white sheet that was slowly turning red.

"It's fine. Don't worry about it," Jenna said, bending to lift a corner of the sheet to look at the body. Another girl, short dark hair that had been ruffled around her heart-shaped face, green eyes this time, but still wide open with a look of horrified terror in them. Jenna lifted the blanket further, seeing the long wounds on the naked body. "Raped?" she asked.

"Yeah, and he did quite the job on her. She's got bruises and contusions like nothing I've ever seen before. And he took a souvenir this time. Her ear is missing." Justin crouched down next to her. "How was the date? I didn't want to interrupt it again."

"The date was fine, and you didn't interrupt anything." She stood and looked around the small clearing. The body was close to the river but not wet, not like the last girl. She'd been left posed, her body straight, her arms at her side, blood pooled under the body. This was the primary kill site; it had to be, unless there was a blood trail. "Did your find blood anywhere but under the body?" she asked Justin.

"No, she was definitely killed here. He took her clothing with him, unless it's someplace else in the park. How he got in here, I don't know. We've had guys on all the entrances all day since the last murder." He lifted up a plastic bag. "He also left us the murder weapon."

Jenna took the bag staring at the knife it contained. Small, with a short blade, the handle was metal. It was a blade used for precision cuts, a scalpel, very sharp and covered in blood. She turned the bag around in her hands staring at it as if it could tell her the name of the killer.

"Has it been dusted for prints?" she asked, her eyes still on the knife.

"Yeah, it's clean." He stepped back from the body, careful of where he put his feet. The park was a big scene to cover and he didn't want to foul the crime scene. "He's got a scalpel, he's probably also got latex gloves."

"What about a purse? Do we have an ID on her?"

"Nothing yet. Jenna, did you see her?"

"I know," she said, huffing a breath that sent her bangs flipping up. "I saw, she looks like me. And it's creeping me out, Justin. But what the fuck am I supposed to do about it?"

"Have you noticed anyone following you? Have you had any strange phone calls or hang ups?" He rubbed her shoulder, feeling the knots that seemed huge under her skin caused by stress.

"Just you," she said, trying to lighten up the tension between the two of them. "Besides that, no, no one."

"You've been getting a lot of press recently since the Kevin Elliott case. Maybe someone is fixated on you. I'm going to talk to Harley and see about getting some protection on you, Jenna. He might be going for substitutes now, but you never know when he'll want the real thing." Justin pulled his phone out of the pocket of his jacket and flipped it open.

"I'll lose them, Justin so don't bother." Jenna walked away from him, hearing his furious curse and then the click as he flipped his phone closed. She walked the perimeter of the crime scene, searching the ground with the flashlight that she'd pulled from her pocket. She heard him following her and sighed, ready for the fight he was about to give her.

"Jenna..."

"Justin, I don't want to discuss this. I can't do my job if I've got people following me around. And I'm a cop, dammit. I protect other people, I can damn sure protect myself. So just drop it!" She could hear the tension in her own voice and hated it.

His hand dropped on her shoulder, flipping her around so that she was forced to crick her neck up to see him. "No," he said furiously. "No, I won't just drop it. We are more than just partners, Jenna. And I don't want to lose you no matter how you feel about me." He dropped his hand off of her shoulder and took a deep breath.

"Dammit!" Jenna dropped gaze, taking a step back and away from him. "You know as well as I do that I can't work with a couple of uniforms tailing me, Justin. But I can't fight you. There has to be a way to compromise."

"Yeah, there is. I'll call Harley and tell him what's going on, then whatever the decision is, he's made it, not you or me." Justin scowled down at her, trying to intimidate her.

"Can we talk about this later?" Jenna nodded towards the gathering press people that were huddling against the yellow saw horses used to blockade the hill and keep them back. "We don't need to have headlines screaming about lover's spats in the newspapers."

"I wish," Justin said under his breath. "Fine, but we will discuss it later and you aren't leaving my sight."

"Fine," she shrugged. Let him bitch and browbeat, she wasn't doing anything she didn't want to no matter who threw the fits. Even Harley could be gotten around if it were necessary. "Let's try something new for today and actually work the case."

They searched the area surrounding the perimeter and found nothing. Even the grass didn't seem disturbed anywhere but around the body where the blood had soaked into the ground. The crime scene unit finally arrived taking over from where Justin and Jenna had stopped. Jenna stopped a uniformed cop who was walking back to where his car was parked.

She smiled when she saw his face, it was the same cop who'd called her a bitch the last time she'd ran into him. "Take a couple more units and start doing some dumpster diving," she ordered him, not hiding the glee in her voice at ordering him around. "We're looking for clothing, a purse and possibly an ear. Check out about five blocks..."

"Six," Justin interrupted. "Make it at least six blocks from here."

"Okay," Jenna said, staring up at him with a frown. "Check out a six block radius, all dumpsters, trash cans, alleys. Every fast food restaurant, I want inside trash checked as well. Oh and don't forget to look for her shoes, too, Officer... Worth," she added reading his name tag.

"Is that all?" Worth asked, his voice belligerent.

"No, as a matter of fact, it isn't," Jenna stepped forward only stepping back when Justin's hand came down on her shoulder.

"Get out of here and do as you're ordered, Officer. Or else I will let her loose on you."

As soon as he stomped away, Jenna turned on Justin. "Don't ever do that again," she snarled.

"Taking it out on him isn't going to do you any good, Jen. We both know you're frustrated and pissed off." He smiled staring down at the cantankerous look on her face. "Did you know you're beautiful when you want to cut off someone's balls?"

"Then if you ever do that again, I'll be downright glowing." She stomped away, leaving him standing there staring after her.

"Chad!" she called, seeing the investigator on his knees next to the body, picking up something with his tweezers. He looked up at her call and waved one bloodstained gloved hand in her direction.

"Your ten card is in my pocket, Jenna. Let me finish here and I'll get it out for you." He wasn't even going to argue with her this time about it. He opened up a small brown bindle envelope, dropping what he'd found into it and folding it to stuff in a pocket of the vest he wore.

"What'd you find?" she asked, curious.

"Shards of glass, probably from off our unsub's shoes. Looks like colored glass, but I'll have to get it to the lab before I can tell you anything for sure." He reached in his pocket and pulled out the thick white card, carefully holding it between the tips of his fingers.

Jenna took it from him, tucking it into her own pocket. She'd put them into the computer as soon as they left here. "Find anything else?" she asked, watching as he combed the ground next to the body, before carefully flipping up an edge of the sheet. He pulled small paper bags out of his case and a couple of heavy duty rubber bands and picked up the body's hand in his own.

"Nothing probative, but we're still looking. I want to get her hands bagged so when he coroner's guys get here they can take her right away. I'm going to tag her special processes and go over the body myself at the morgue."

"Good, not that Doc Rumny doesn't do a superior job, but I'd rather have you checking this one out."

"Um, Jenna, have you looked at her yet?" Chad glanced up from where he was slipping the paper bag over one of the body's hands. His eyes were curious but she could also see worry there, and that tempered the snide remark that almost came from her lips.

"Yes, I've seen her, Chad."

"And the one yesterday, you saw her too?"

"Yes, Chad, this our third body in similar circs. And they all look like me." She felt a shiver run through her, hating having to admit to this.

"I know this is a stupid thing to say, Jen, but I have to say it. Be careful. I kind of like working with you."

Jenna smiled. "Thanks, Chad. And the feeling's returned. Not many of you investigators will allow me to step all over your cases. And I appreciate it. Now, take care of our Jane Doe, I'm going to go run these prints."

He waved her off, lifting the other hand to bag. Jenna had one more stop to make before she walked out of the park. Detective Robert Darvin, who used to be a homicide detective and became burned out with the long hours and the hectic life. Instead of losing everything, his family included, he took a step back and went to school for photography, becoming the department crime photographer.

He came toward her now, lugging his cameras and photo bags. "Hey kiddo," he said, setting down his stuff at his feet. "What you got for me?"

"Another murder, Bobby. He's not waiting long between kills at all, so I need your help. Can you get your shots to me ASAP? And get me some shots of the crowd; I need everything you can get. Detailed ones of the body, also, Bobby, please." She turned and stared at the sheet covered body, noting that Chad was off to the side, once more bent over poking through the grass.

"Sure thing, sweetie," he smiled at her and lifted his camera, pulling off the lens cap and taking a quick shot of her. "You know, if I could get you to model for me, I could quit this gig and go into more professional photography. You are much prettier than my usual subjects." He gave her a hangdog look, begging with his big brown eyes.

"You are a dirty old man, Bobby. You'd want me to pose naked and we know your wife wouldn't go along with that." She reached up and patted him on the cheek, smiling like she knew he wanted her to.

She looked around, seeing Justin talking to a couple of officers, looking over his shoulder at her as they walked away. He smiled and she smiled back. They'd been friends a long time and she knew that he cared about her. And she cared about him, too.

"You ready to get to the station, I need to put these prints into AFIS and see if we get any hits." She stopped and looked up at him, seeing the question in his eyes. "Yeah, I understand how you feel Justin. It just doesn't mean that I'm going to go along with it. And no, I don't want a team on me. Right now, we'll just go with you being my personal body guard while I'm at work, okay?"

"And when you aren't at work? What then?"

She sighed. "You just don't know when to stop, do you?" She turned, ready to tackle the hill and head back up to her car.

"Where you going?" he asked, grabbing her arm.

She looked at the big hand that held her arm and then followed it up, allowing her glare to get darker. With the slightly yellow cast to her face from the bruises that were still healing from being hit by Kevin Elliott, her glare had extra impact. He dropped his hand, but didn't back down.

"If I'm your body guard, then you need to tell me where you're going. So?"

Jenna sighed. "My car is up there and I'm not leaving it on the street. You can follow me to the station if you want."

"My car is over there in the lot," he said, jerking his thumb back towards the main entrance to the park.

"Then I guess you'd better run," she said and started up the hill.

The press attacked Jenna as soon as she reached the top. She pushed through them as if they weren't there, ignoring their questions, stalking past the recorders and the cameras as they flashed in her face. She walked past the cops on traffic duty, waving at one that she knew before heading down the alley where she'd left her Mustang.

The dark of the alley seemed sinister and strangely silent at this time of the night. Traffic was at a minimum, only those out heading home from bars or a late second shift were about. Or those that were looking for trouble. She could almost feel eyes on her and quickened her step, making sure that her badge was easily seen, hooked to her belt.

The hand that grabbed at her arm was huge and brawny, the knuckles bruised and knotted as if recently in a brawl. She twisted, her hands going to his wrist, her body pushing back against his to use his weight against him. He fell, and Jenna thought she felt the floor of the alley shake with his weight.

"Ouch! Jenna, dammit, why'd you go and do that for?"

Jenna pushed her 9 back into its holster. "Dougie," she breathed, feeling as if the air could finally release from her lungs. "What are you doing here?"

"Justin knew I was around watching you guys work on the dead body and he called me. He asked me to make sure you made it to your car okay." He took the hand that she gave him and let her help him up. Standing, he dwarfed her, his massive body solid with muscle that he'd worked for years to acquire. He was close to seven feet tall, weighed in close to 350 pounds. In his youth, he'd played football and had planned to go pro but one too many hits had taken that away from him, affecting him until he had the intellect of a twelve year old.

Jenna had met him one day when she'd been on a case. He'd been left at the scene, his hands bloody and shaking, tears streaming down his big cheeks. She'd got him into interview and she'd managed to get the whole story out of him, while still being kind enough not to scare him too badly. Since then, he always seemed to hang around crime scenes, waving to them when they noticed him.

"Next time say something before you grab me, Dougie. I could have hurt you badly." She dusted off the back of his huge jersey with her hands.

"You're too little to hurt me much, Jenna. When I was playing football, I smashed guys bigger than you before breakfast." He took her arm walking with her towards her car, crowding her a little.

Jenna laughed, but nervously. D, could that stand for Dougie? No, not even an idiot would think that Dougie could possibly be a way into a modeling career. He probably couldn't figure out which end of a camera to point. And using a knife wouldn't fit with him, he'd tear someone apart with his bare hands, not use a knife. She was being ridiculous.

"You need a ride anywhere, Dougie?" she asked him, standing by her car, her keys out.

"Nope, just doing what Justin asked me to do," he said, standing there while she unlocked her car and got in.

Jenna waved and started the car, not breathing easy until she pulled out of the alley and left him behind. She had to laugh at herself, Dougie didn't have the brains to pull off a murder and not get caught. How could she think that he'd managed to do three?

She beat Justin to the station, pulling into the underground parking and taking the stairs to the second floor. Turning on the lights in the small computer lab, she walked up to one of the stations and turned it on, pulling out the ten card and laying it in the scanner.

It took but seconds for the prints to be scanned into the computer, labeled with the case number and the date and then put into the Automated Fingerprint Information System or AFIS. It ran through the hundreds of thousands of prints in the database, comparing them to the ones that she'd put in.

Hits could take seconds or hours, there was never a set time limit. So while she waited, Jenna got up and went into the homicide bullpen, dumping the sludge in the bottom of the coffee pot and cleaning it out. She made fresh coffee, smiling as the scent of rich black caffeine filled the room. With a hot mug in her hand, she grabbed the case file from her desk and headed back to the computer.

She sat at the long table in the lab, the file and photos spread out, her coffee at her elbow as she worked.

Justin found her there, a small magnifying glass in her hand as she stared at the photos of the body of Stephanie Lawrence. He could see the computer working behind her, fingerprints flashing over the screen.

"Hey," he said by way of greeting.

She looked up and smiled, waving him over. "Does this look strange to you?" she asked him, showing him the picture of the body.

"Strange how?" He took the picture and the glass, staring through it.

"Look at the way the body is, her hands and feet just so. Does that look posed to you?"

He took another look at the picture, noting the position of the extremities. "Yeah, she does. What about it?"

"The second victim was sprawled in the grass, her body half in the water. Her clothes were ripped off of her and strewn around the primary site, even her earrings, which were diamonds by the way, were torn from her ears and dropped to the ground. But did we find Stephanie's clothes that she was wearing. And the body this morning," she paused to take a sip of her coffee. "Where are her clothes, her purse? I think he was interrupted. I think someone came along and spooked him and that's why the second body was just dumped and her things just left where they were dropped."

"So we need to find that person," Justin said, his eyes lighting up.

"Yeah, we need to find them." The computer beeped, indicating a match was found and Jenna turned, pushing the wheeled stool towards it. "We got a match on Victim three's prints. Charlene Redman, she lives in Lapeer." Jenna wrote down the address and hit the print key. Taking the ten card and the three copies she'd printed of the match on the fingerprints, she put them inside her file. Stacking all the photos up of the crime scene, she cleaned up her mess, and shut down the computer.

"Come on, we need to get over there," she said.

"Yeah, and then we need to get some pictures of Victim two out and see if anyone saw her the night she was killed."

They headed toward the garage stopping only when hailed by Chief Harley. "Donovan, Swope, in my office, now."

Jenna looked up at Justin from under her eyelashes and turned, dropping her coffee cup on a table as she passed it. Walking into the Chief's office, she stood in front of his desk, not taking a chair and not having one offered to her. Justin stood next to her, staring down at the Chief.

"What's going on with this case?"

"We've got three victims sir, the third was just identified by her prints. That's where we were heading sir, to let the next of kin know. The first victim was baited to come to the warehouse where her body was found. All three are the same body types, same coloring." Jenna stopped, her thoughts shuddering to a halt. It was her body type and her coloring that this prick liked. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth to continue when Justin stepped in.