Nowhere to Run (Stephanie Carovella) Page 4

  Jesse smiled softly. “You keep telling yourself that, but I know you. I know you’re incapable of sitting still for too long. You get that ache deep down inside. That restless feeling, the one that keeps eating at you until you think you’ll go crazy if you don’t completely rearrange your life.”

  “Not anymore,” she argued.

  Jesse said nothing, his smile widening. Stephanie scowled at Jesse. He knew her too well. Even after all this time, he still knew her. He was right, of course. She’d started to feel restless. She’d thought by marrying Leigh, the feeling would fade, but it hadn’t. It had just grown stronger.

  She’d known as soon as she stepped off the plane at L.A.X this was where she needed to be. She was home. It didn’t mean she didn’t love Leigh. She did, in her own way. She just knew she wasn’t cut out to be a small-town wife.

  Jesse grimaced, his thoughts drifting back to Gena Evans – the lead Detective on Angel’s case and Stephanie’s former, university roommate.

  “Does Gena know you’re back in town?” he asked cautiously.

  Stephanie shrugged carelessly. “Not unless you’ve told her. No, probably not. We’re not exactly on speaking terms. She’s never quite forgiven me for leaving without a goodbye.”

  “Imagine that,” he said dryly.

  “I hate goodbyes,” she said shortly.

  Jesse grinned at her. “I know this better than anyone. I didn’t even get a Dear Jess letter.” His grin faded. “She might not be quite as understanding as I am.”

  “Well I’m not expecting the welcome mat,” Stephanie answered, shrugging again. “After all, the last time we actually saw each other we weren’t exactly the best of friends.”

  Jesse rolled his eyes at the simple understatement. “Why do I get the feeling she’s going to wish you stayed away?”

  Stephanie stared at him defiantly. “I’m not going to back down from this Jesse. No one can stop me. I plan on finding out who killed Angel, and why. Nothing and no one will get in my way.”

  Chapter Four

  Gena Evans strode through the crowd gathering around the crime scene, scowling in frustration. Why did all the freaks come out to play as soon as a body was discovered? Was it voyeurism or just a twisted fascination with the dead? Either way, the complete lack of respect for the victim infuriated her.

  “Jackson, get these God damn leeches away from my crime scene!” She yelled, ducking beneath the yellow police tape.

  Stalking over to where the Crime Scene Unit was working, she greeted them with a terse nod. “Tell me about our victim.” She ordered, dropping down to kneel down next to where her Chief Medical Examiner, Cynthia Mallory, was inspecting the body.

  “I can’t tell you much until I take her back to the morgue. We’ve got a Caucasian woman, who looks to be in her mid to late twenties. Her body temp suggests she’s been dead about 12 hours, but I’ll know more once I start the autopsy. And, before you ask, it’s possible she’s been sexually assaulted. I’ll know for certain once I check for abrasions and seminal fluid.”

  “Do we know how she died?” Gena asked abruptly, staring emotionlessly down at the corpse.

  Cynthia shook her head. “From the marks and the cuts on her body, the poor girl looks like she was tortured. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what she went through. The deep laceration to her throat suggests it was slit, but whether this was the cause of death, I can’t tell you. I won’t know until...”

  “You get her back to the morgue,” Gena finished, with a wry smile. Her smile slowly turned into a frown and she looked sharply at Cynthia. “You said her throat was slit?”

  Cynthia vaguely nodded, staring down at the corpse. She lightly stroked the woman’s hair. “Who did this to you sweetheart?” She whispered softly.

  Tearing her eyes off the dead woman, she said quietly to Gena, “Every time I think I’m finally getting used to this town, something like this comes back to bite me in the ass.”

  Gena shrugged, not knowing how to comfort her co-worker and friend. She briefly wondered if she had ever felt the same way about L.A, but doubted it. Despite what she saw everyday in her profession there was still a Southern girlish naiveté about Cynthia – one Gena found charming. It was almost as if she still believed L.A was where dreams came true. Gena knew better.

  She smiled gently at Cynthia. “Alabama, you’ll get used to it,” she replied, using her pet nickname for Cynthia, who had transferred to L.A from Birmingham only a year earlier.

  Cynthia shook her head. “I don’t know if I will.”

  Gena patted her arm reassuringly. “Sure you will, trust me. When I first moved back here, after my stint in New York, I felt exactly the same way,” she said, the lie falling easily from her lips.

  Giving Cynthia another quick smile, she continued. “The one lesson I’ve learned in this job is that it will either make you or break you. You’re a hell of a lot stronger than you think.” Cocking her head, she studied the woman’s corpse with a frown. “As soon as you get back to the morgue...”

  “I’ll work on her, and call you with the results ASAP,” Cynthia finished with a knowing grin.

  In the year that Cynthia had worked with Gena Evans, she’d learned Gena was a slave driver who expected perfection from everyone, especially herself. She was a classic workaholic who lived and breathed her job. More often than not, when Cynthia was leaving work, she would see Gena still engrossed in her cases, unaware of the late hour. There were even times she would arrive early to work only to find Gena had never left.

  Gena dismissed Cynthia with a curt nod, rising to her feet. She swept her eyes around the crime scene, her thoughts already on the chosen location for the body dump.

  “Why here? Of all the places to dump her, why here? What’s the significance of this place?” She muttered to herself.

  She scanned the area, her eyes traveling over the people gathering in numbers. Most of them were tourists, trying to take snaps of her crime scene. To them, this was an added highlight of their trip, something to brag about and to tell their family and friends when they returned to wherever they came from.

  “Get those fucking tourists away from my god damn crime scene!” She yelled, irritated by the sight of people trying to take photos. Someone had just died, and they thought it would be a great little snapshot to add to their family holiday album. It was sick.

  She tapped her foot in annoyance, still confused at the crime scene location. “Why was she dumped here where she could be easily found?” she muttered, turning around.

  Her gut told her this wasn’t a random dumping. Whoever had killed their victim knew exactly what they were doing when they dumped her on Mount Lee Drive. This worried her the most. To her, it meant the killer either didn’t give a damn about when and where she was found or – worst case scenario – there was a motive behind the location.

  Gena hoped for the first option; she hoped they were dealing with an idiot, one who left his fingerprints all over the body. Sweeping her gaze over the crime scene again, she got the feeling they were dealing with the very opposite.

  “Why here?” She said quietly. It was a well-known tourist hot spot. She slowly walked around the perimeter, watching her team work efficiently. Moving to stand beside her partner, Detective Sandra Barton, she asked, “Have you found anything?”

  Her partner scowled in frustration. “Are you kidding me?” Breaking off, Sandra took a deep breath and jerked her head towards a petite blonde who stood talking to a police officer. “A tour group found the body. One minute their tour guide was showing them the glorious sights of Los Angeles, and then, bam, they were confronted with a dead body.”

  Looking down at her notepad, Sandra continued. “The Tour Guide, Paula O’Neal, said one of the tourists spotted the body and started screaming. Once she realized why the woman was screaming, she called 911.”She scowled at Gena. “You want to know what the whacky thing is, Gena? The crime scene is clean. It’s almost as if it was staged.”

  Ge
na nodded, shoving her hands into her black leather jacket. “I think it may have been. There’s just something too perfect about all of this.” Giving their surroundings another cursory glance, she smiled grimly at her partner. “What about the victim? Do we know who she is?” She asked, not liking Sandra’s observation about the staging one bit.

  “Did you see the body?” Sandra snapped, not waiting for Gena to answer. “She was cut up pretty good. We didn’t find a purse or any kind of identification on or near the body, but we did find this,” Sandra said, holding up a bloodied scrapbook.

  “Any prints?” Gena asked, already sure of the answer.

  “Not one,” Sandra replied in disgust.

  Gena pulled latex gloves out of the back pocket of her denim jeans, slowly putting them on. She took the bloodied scrapbook Sandra offered her, flicking through the first few pages expressionless.

  “As you can see, it’s a smorgasbord of reviews, articles and photos of Carolyn Mathers. It’s as if her whole life has been archived in this scrapbook,” Sandra said with a shrug.

  Gena’s expression changed to one of surprise. “Carolyn Mathers? As in the actress?”

  “You’ve heard of her then?” Sandra asked, a mixture of relief and disbelief in her voice.

  “Yeah, I do occasionally watch television,” Gena said with a flicker of amusement.

  “Then you know that Carolyn Mathers was the hottest thing on television three or four years ago. She literally had casting agents knocking down her door. The ‘It’ Girl of T.V, you could say,” Sandra explained with a wry grin, before she shook her head. “Then she disappeared. She quit The Real Thing and just left Hollywood. The Media went into a frenzy trying to find her, but it was as if she virtually vanished off the face of the earth.”

  Gena nodded, staring at where the Hollywood sign beckoned. “I remember. It sounds like she worked very hard not to be found,” she said softly. “Well, if this is her, she came back for a reason.”

  Sandra nodded, carefully turning the pages of the scrapbook and pointing to one of the articles with a latex-covered finger. “It says here she was rumored to be starring in a new film. She was making a comeback through Callendor Studios. She had a film lined up, which was the vehicle set to rocket her back to movie stardom.”

  Gena nodded her head. “It could have been just the bait to bring the elusive Ms Mathers out of hiding.” Glancing back at the Hollywood sign, she sighed heavily. “She’d have been better off staying where she disappeared to.”

  Sandra nodded, shaking her own head sadly. “Damn shame. She was a great actress.”

  “She still may be. Let’s find out first if this is Carolyn Mathers before we make assumptions. For all we know, Ms. Mathers could be living it up on some exotic Caribbean Island. The last thing we want to do is declare an actress has been murdered only to have her shown up alive and well. The press would tear the L.A.P.D a new one. First things first, let’s talk to Callendor. Until we do, we need to keep this quiet. If this is her, we need to find out where she’s been hiding all these years, when she came back to town and if there was anyone who might have wanted her dead,” Gena said, turning away from the Hollywood sign to stare intensely at her partner. “Because whomever created this nice little snapshot of Carolyn Mathers’ life, certainly did.”

  ***

  He watched the two leading Detectives with a hidden smirk, lifting his camera to take a shot of each of them. He turned his attention to where the pretty blonde Medical Examiner was leaning over his artwork. A rush of pleasure flooded through him, as he watched her carefully maintain his art.

  Now here was a woman who knew how to treat his offering. Lifting his camera, he directed the lens towards her, zooming closer to watch her work. He snapped her quickly. Oh yes, she had real potential.

  Turning his camera back towards the two Detectives, he focused his lens on Gena Evans. Sliding his eyes over her lithe form, clad in black jeans, a black T-Shirt and a black leather jacket, he wondered if she even remembered him. He certainly remembered her. Whore. They were both whores and stupid ones too. They would find nothing at the scene, or at least nothing he didn’t want them to discover.

  He watched them flick through the scrapbook he’d lovingly crafted for them. He smiled softly, watching Gena look from the scrapbook to the Hollywood sign. She was smart enough to notice the connection. Gena Evans was certainly smart. She always had been. It was one of the qualities he admired about her. He didn’t think it would take her long to realize the significance between the victim and the location. He’d made it clear enough. He wondered how long it would take her to realize the significance between the location and herself.

  He smiled coldly. He was counting on Gena’s intelligence. It would make the game so much more entertaining. Yes, Gena Evans was smart but he was smarter. He was one step ahead of her. He always had been. He was smart enough to know this was only the beginning. He wondered if she had figured it out yet.

  Chapter Five

  Stephanie hugged Ana Ferrier tightly. Smiling brilliantly, she slid into the restaurant booth opposite Ana. “Congratulations on Ben and yourself. It’s about damn time.”

  Ana smiled widely. “I always knew it was what I wanted. He just needed to get his act together. Angel, kind of, helped a little,” she confessed.

  Stephanie chuckled softly, remembering Angel’s well deserved reputation for matchmaking. “Yeah, I bet. She was as subtle as a sledgehammer when it came to her friends affairs of the heart.”

  Ana laughed in remembrance, her sparkling laughter turning heads in their direction. “That was her, all right.” Her laughter died, and her eyes glistened with tears. “We’re all going to miss her.”

  Stephanie leaned forward, pressing her palms into the table, her expression fierce. “I’m going to find her killer, Ana. Find him and get justice for her,” she vowed determinedly.

  Ana studied the determination and fury that raged within Stephanie’s fiery gaze. Without thinking, she automatically asked, “You recruiting?”

  “Are you offering your services?” Stephanie shot back.

  “What? You want a drummer to help you because…” Ana queried, trying to hide her interest.

  “Cut the bullshit, Ana. You forget, I know all about that fancy degree of yours. The one stating that you’re a qualified criminal profiler.”

  “I’m a non-practicing one,” Ana reminded her. “I decided a long time ago that profiling was not the job for me.” Shuddering she said in a small voice, “I didn’t have the talent you had – have – to delve inside a killer’s mind.”

  Stephanie opened her mouth to protest, but Ana reached over and lightly touched her hand, silencing her. “Don’t deny it Stephanie, your talent is scary. It’s creepily accurate, but damn scary. You have the ability to take a walk inside a killer’s head; it’s an ability I couldn’t successfully manage. You should have been a Criminal Profiler instead of a Journalist. You and I both know it. You have a gift to tap into the darkness.”

  Ana shook her head with a gentle smile. “I’m not sorry I walked away from that. I thought it would be exciting, like a rollercoaster ride in which I got to help put away the bad guys. Instead it only left me terrified. It made me see people differently. It made me look at people in ways I didn’t want to look at them. It made me overanalyze everyone and anyone – including everything I did.”

  Her smile dimmed, the horror reflecting in her eyes. “I hated the nightmares, Steph. The nightmares started after my first day, and stayed with me for months after I left.”

  Ana sighed resignedly, recalling how exhilarated she’d been her first day on the job only to leave at the end of it feeling exposed, almost violated.

  “I hated the way it made me feel. I hated how it made me feel violated, made me feel terrified to be alone in my own apartment,” She shook her head, adding, “The way both Gena and yourself thrive on it, I’ll never understand it.” She lapsed into silence, quickly changing the topic. “You’re going to
catch Angel’s killer and you want me to help huh?” She spoke before Stephanie could reply. “I don’t think I should.”

  Stephanie nodded in mock understanding. “You’re right. Ben would hate it,” she said with a heavy sigh.

  “The balls and chains aren’t on me yet,” Ana said, wrinkling her nose. She cocked her head to one side. “I do love a challenge.”

  Stephanie grinned at her. “I should have known the idea of Ben not liking it would appeal to you.”

  Ana shrugged casually. “I don’t want him to think he can get his own way all the time.”

  “Does he ever get his own way?” Stephanie pointed out with a smirk.

  “Well...no, he just thinks he does,” Ana replied, laughing huskily. Shaking her head, she said, her voice tinged with sadness. “God, I missed this. I’ve missed you. Why the hell did you leave L.A, Carovella?”

  “You know after Dominic died nothing was the same,” Stephanie said with a sigh. “Even before then, something changed. After our marriage ended, I wasn’t the same. He didn’t understand why I couldn’t love him, couldn’t be married to him, and I didn’t know how to explain the reasons why.”

  Ana stared at her friend’s bent head, wondering if anyone except Stephanie knew the real reasons she’d suddenly decided to end her marriage. It had happened so abruptly, and affected each and every one of them in different ways.

  She often wondered about the dark secrets Stephanie kept locked up inside. Secrets that, Ben once told her, gave Stephanie nightmares and kept her awake at night. Secrets so terrible they forced her to cut herself off from the only man who had managed to keep the nightmares at bay. The only man she had ever loved. “Did you have to disappear off the edge of the earth?” She asked in exasperation.