Page 4 of Murder in Calusa Cove
“What the heck?” Dawson caught him before fell on his ass. “Jesus,” he mumbled. “You okay?”
“I am, but she is definitely not.” Hayes wiped the sweat from his brow as he lifted his radio and pressed the button. “Bear, we’ve got a mayday.” He let out a long breath, staring at the young woman being held up by a hanger and a rope. She had shoulder-length brown hair. Her face looked bruised and swollen. Her clothes were torn. Dried blood clung to her body like dried paint.
And she was missing her ring finger.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Bear’s voice boomed over the radio. “Good thing I sent Dawson in there with you.”
“I need to declare this a crime scene and call State.” Dawson pulled out his cell. “We need to rope off the area, and I can’t have anyone else but your investigators inside this building.”
“Yeah, I know the drill,” Hayes said.
“You should call Chloe.” Dawson pointed to the dead girl's hand. “This is the work of her killer, but I can’t make that leap right off the bat based only on a missing finger because she barely got her bosses to declare the few cases she has over decades a serial killer, and this scene doesn’t quite fit, but I don’t give a shit if you call her and muddy my waters. I doubt Lester with State will either.”
Hayes had spent a few nights—and mornings—talking about the Ringfinger killer with Chloe. To say she was obsessed would be putting it mildly. It consumed her every waking thought and probably her dreams as well. It was the case that she couldn’t crack. The one that haunted her and made her feel like a failure as an agent.
He understood. He and the rest of the team had held themselves responsible for missions that had gone sideways, for lives lost.
For Ken.
He tore his gaze from the dead girl. “My phone is in the engine truck.”
“Remy’s outside. I’m sure he and Bear have connected and are barking out orders. I’ll stay here and keep this contained until State and Remy can get inside. Let me know when Chloe and her team will get here.” Dawson rubbed the back of his neck. “And here I thought being a cop in a small town meant I wouldn’t have to work much.”
“You do know that this case will be taken right out of your hands.”
Dawson let out a dry chuckle. “Right, because I’m going to wash my hands of it. You know me better than that.”
Hayes rested his hand on his longtime friend's shoulder. “Let Chloe handle it. Enjoy your wedding and honeymoon.” He turned and made his way out of the Crab Shack, knowing damn well that Dawson wouldn’t be able to enjoy much of anything.
This murder, no matter whose jurisdiction it fell under, had happened on his watch, and Dawson would take that personally.
Once back at the engine truck, Hayes found his cell and pulled up Chloe’s contact information. He tapped the screen a little too harshly. He worried Chloe might not take his call. She’d been adamant their fling was over. As much as he didn’t want that to be the case, he had no choice but to accept her decision.
But this had nothing to do with his feelings.
“Hayes?” she answered on the first ring. “Are you okay? Is everything okay?”
He blinked. That wasn’t the greeting he’d expected. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You sound tired. What’s wrong?”
“I was called to a fire tonight, and we found a body,” he blurted out.
“That sucks.”
“The victim is missing her ring finger. Dawson called State because he doesn’t have the resources to deal with the crime scene, and while we know you’ve been working on a serial killer case, it’s not something that’s been publicized, so it wasn’t something he could just leap to. However, it could take a day or two before it lands on your desk, so we thought we would skirt the system and give you a call.”
“That’s a convoluted way of getting yourself into trouble,” Chloe mumbled. “But thanks, I appreciate it. We can be there in a couple of hours, or less.”
“We?”
“Um, yeah. Just like State, we have a team that’ll work the crime scene, deal with witnesses?—”
“Okay, that was a dumb thing for me to say.” He leaned against the hood of the engine truck as the local news crew pulled up. “Crap. You might want to hurry. Our resident busybody is here, and if she gets wind of the magnitude of this story, she’ll pull out all the stops.”
“Are you talking about Stacey Mohawk?”
“That’s the one, and last I heard, she’s got stars in her eyes—as in, she wants to be picked up by national programs. She’s twisted a few stories, trying to make a name for herself.”
