A Killer's Mind (Zoe Bentley Mystery #1)(51)

Moving slowly, she managed to get to the bedroom window. She removed the cloth that covered it. Would Glover realize someone had been in the room? Or would he assume it had just fallen? It didn’t matter. Just get out and call the cops.

Carefully, she twisted the window handle. It was a bit stuck, and she had to push hard. She could hear Glover walking around the house and prayed he wouldn’t come into the bedroom right now. Just a few more seconds . . .

She pushed the window, and it squeaked. Glover’s footsteps paused.

She grabbed the window ledge and lifted herself out, tumbling, her foot hitting the pane, thumping. She quickly stood up and shut the window, the frame cracking as she did so. There was no way he didn’t hear it.

She turned around and hurriedly walked away, crossing his yard toward her home and safety . . .

“Zoe?”

She froze, knowing she should just bolt, not able to move, her legs frozen in place. She turned around.

“Hey,” she said, her voice shaking.

He looked at her with confusion, his eyes narrowing. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Why aren’t you at school?”

“M . . . my mom said I could stay home today. She sent me over. She wanted to know if you had some sugar. But then I remembered that you must be at work.”

“Right,” Glover said. His face was blank. His usual goofy grin was gone.

His eyes flickered to something behind her. Zoe glanced over her shoulder. Mrs. Ambrose was outside, shoveling the snow from her doorway.

“Hi, Mrs. Ambrose,” Zoe called, trying to sound nonchalant, her voice high pitched and hysterical.

The neighbor raised her eyes and gave her a grudging nod. Zoe turned around and realized Glover was now much closer. He had crossed the space between them in less than a second. His jaw was locked tight.

“I have some sugar,” he said. “How much do you need? A cup?”

Zoe nodded hesitantly.

“Come in,” he said. “Let me get it for you.”

“You know what? I just remembered that I can’t . . . I can’t eat sugar. I might be diabetic. I . . . thanks.”

She turned and strode away, her steps fast, wondering if Glover would grab her, pull her into his home, rape her, and kill her.

“Zoe. Hey, Zoe,” he called after her.

She kept walking, rigid with fear.





CHAPTER 38

Chicago, Illinois, Thursday, July 21, 2016

The alley was lit by flickering red and blue lights shimmering on the brick walls that enclosed it. The body of Lily Ramos had been discarded on the ground. It was a tight space, and Tatum and the detectives pushed their way ahead of Zoe, who made no effort to get there first. She could see glimpses of the victim between the people who huddled around the body. A palm, facing the sky, fingers outstretched. The woman’s face, her eyes wide open and vacant, mouth parted. Her hair, disheveled, spread on the ground.

“Do you have an estimate for the time of death?” Martinez asked.

Someone answered, but Zoe couldn’t see past the wall of people in her way.

“Time of death is between nine thirty and ten thirty.”

Zoe assumed it was the medical examiner. She sighed and walked closer, shoving her way forward a bit until she could see the man crouching by the body.

This body was not posed, and there was no mistaking it for a living woman. Her arms sprawled on the ground, her left leg bent at the knee, the other straight. She wore a shirt and underwear, no pants. There was a dark-crimson gash on her throat. The entire neck was covered in dried blood as well as some on the body’s chin. The blood had also trickled under her collar.

“She was still alive at nine thirty,” Martinez said. “We know she was alive until nine thirty-seven.”

“Unless it wasn’t her on the phone,” Tatum said.

Martinez nodded, conceding the possibility.

“Well,” the medical examiner said, “she didn’t die after ten thirty.”

“And she didn’t die here, either,” Martinez said. “There’s no blood on the ground.”

The detachment came over Zoe, as it always did. As far as her brain was concerned, the body on the floor wasn’t a dead woman. It was a collection of clues and indications. A footprint left by the killer. This was how her brain coped, and she knew it well by now. She also knew it was a temporary reprieve, that the body in the alley would haunt her later.

But that was later.

She crouched by the woman, looking at her intently.

“This doesn’t look like the work of the same killer,” Tatum said.

“Really?” Zoe glanced at the sides of the woman’s neck. “Why not?”

“Well, she isn’t embalmed, her throat is cut, she isn’t posed, and we found her almost immediately after she disappeared . . . nothing is similar.”

“She was tied,” Zoe said, indicating the woman’s wrists, which were scraped and bloody. “And I think she might have been strangled as well.” She pointed at a bruise on the side of the neck.

“This looks all wrong for our killer.”

“I definitely agree that this isn’t what he wanted.”

“But you think it’s the same guy?” Tatum sounded very skeptical.

“I think it’s too soon to tell,” Zoe said.