Page 16 of Only You

She made her way into the alley. The stench of rotting veggies, urine, and, yes, even vomit filled her senses. The idea that someone spent their last moments here made her sad. No one deserved to die in a place like this.

A photographer took pics, and the ME was already on site.

Sharlene Anderson glanced at her. She and the tall African American woman had known each other for a while. They had grown up on the same street. “O’Reilly. Nice dress.”

“Thanks. Eddie said that she’s in her mid-twenties?”

“Yeah, if that.”

Eileen stepped closer and felt her entire world shift. Oh, hell. She had seen something like this scene before. A woman in an alley, young, stripped of every possession and left in a dank alley. The stabbing in her chest… was the same also.

That cold case she had been studying earlier today might have just boiled over.

Four

What the actual?—

“Eileen?”

She glanced at Sharlene. Even wearing heels, she felt tiny compared to the African American ME. She was over five nine, with sharp dark brown eyes that rarely missed anything. Even standing at a crime scene as bloody as this one, Sharlene looked stunning.

“I might be wrong.”

Sharlene let her eyebrow rise up. “You’re rarely wrong, and when you are, it’s so tiny no one notices.”

Eileen wished that was true. What she told her cousin was true. Being an O’Reilly was good, but it put a spotlight on her. Being one of the few women to make it to detective so fast and in homicide no less made her a target. Every asshole in the department who thought they should have been chosen made her life hell. Not outwardly. Just enough to slow down her investigations. But she knew Sharlene had dealt with her share of misogyny.

“This looks just like the Norma Wilson case.”

Sharlene pursed her lips. “When was that? I don’t think I worked on that case.”

“Probably because it happened in 1987.”

Her eyes widened as she looked down at the woman. “Did they ever catch the guy?”

Eileen shook her head.

“So…are you thinking this would be the same murderer?”

“God, no. The profile on the guy said he would have been white, in his mid-thirties to late forties. That would make it impossible. Even if he were in his twenties…”

“Not impossible, but definitely improbable.”

She nodded. “It’s odd to go this long between killings for someone like this.” She might not have been FBI like her brothers, but they had taught her a lot. This much rage was hard to contain. The victim might have been stabbed once in the heart, but the bruising and swelling around the face told of the bastard’s rage. Plus, stabbing someone in the chest was not an easy feat.

“Does she look like the woman?”

She had the same athletic build, slight curves. There was something familiar about the woman, but it was hard to tell with her face swollen.

“Yeah, except for the dark hair. That’s different.”

“Hmm. Well, hopefully, I can find out who she is fast.”

“How long has she been here?”

“Less than two hours. I hear they have the person who found her in the back of one of the cars.”

“Gotcha.”

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