Kitabı oku: «The Precinct: SWAT», sayfa 2

He squeezed his hands around the steering wheel. “I’m sorry, Jose. I made a promise to your dad to take care of you. I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing. I always figured it would be intense with you. That’s kind of exciting. And you know I…care about you.”

And he cared about her. But he couldn’t keep trouble away or screen those jerks or even make sure she got safely to her car when she worked too late if his senses were blurred by his emotions and his focus was distracted by long legs and lush lips and that gorgeous fall of dark hair. He could hardly do right by her if he was the trouble. “Look, I already failed Patrick. I couldn’t keep him off drugs and out of jail. I don’t want to mess up what we have.”

“Rafe, what about what I want?”

He opened his door and stepped out into the night. The bracing air filled his lungs and cleared his head of her lingering scent. “You’ve got class in the morning and you need to get home. I need to get back to the precinct garage and get the SWAT van cleaned up and refitted for our next call.”

She grabbed her backpack and climbed out her side of the truck. “You have to do that tonight?”

Oh, yeah. He needed to get his hands busy doing something besides itching to reach for Josie again. He needed to busy his mind with a task where he didn’t have to second-guess his every move. “I’m a jerk, okay?”

“Please stop. It hurts me to hear you talk like this.”

“I never wanted to hurt you. I don’t want things to change between us. I want you to be able to trust me. I need you to trust me. Nothing like that will ever happen again. I promise.” After she unlocked her car, he opened the door for her and waited while she slid behind the wheel. Man, he wished she’d let him pick out something more reliable than this rattletrap for her. At least she let him change the oil and keep the motor tuned up and running as well as a beater car like this one could. “Go on, I’ll wait to make sure your car starts. I’ll see you next time you work at the Shamrock.”

She turned the key. Once the engine growled to life, he started to leave. But Josie put out her arm to keep him from shutting the door. “Just for the record? You weren’t a jerk for making love to me. Now you’re being a jerk.”

Of that he had no doubt.

He jumped back as she slammed the door, knowing he deserved worse. Once inside his truck, he followed her out of the parking lot but turned in the opposite direction toward his condo. He’d better be keeping a lot more than a few miles of physical distance between them. What the hell was he thinking? That was the problem—he hadn’t been thinking.

Josie’s skin was cool and pale in the frosty moonlight. Her touch was so gentle, so certain. He’d gotten more drunk on her lips than the beer she’d served him earlier that night. And her body—her tall, lithe, sweet body with those long legs snugged around him…

“Damn.” He was breaking out in a sweat that had nothing to do with the heater in his truck.

Josephine Erin Nichols was his friend. His unofficial ward. His penance for letting his friend and mentor die ten years ago.

She was pretty and kind and sexy and funny, and strictly off-limits. And yet, for several mindless minutes tonight, she’d been everything he needed. Exactly what he needed.

He’d been a rutting bull who’d taken advantage of her friendship and compassionate nature. Hell, he’d barely gotten a condom on and hadn’t even asked if she was on the pill. In his saner days before this one, he hadn’t wanted to know if his sweet, hardworking buddy was sleeping with anyone. She was either working one of several part-time jobs, studying or going to school, so he knew she didn’t have much time to date. He hadn’t even had the presence of mind to make sure that she’d found the completion he had.

He was a jerk. A lonesome, selfish, let-friends-and-children-die-on-his-watch jerk. He’d been on his own since high school for a reason. And it wasn’t just because he’d severed all ties with his worthless parents. He’d become obsessed with his job and the sweetheart he’d been engaged to had left him. He was alone because he couldn’t make a relationship with a woman work.

But he could find solace in her beautiful, willing body.

Rafe picked up speed and merged into the late-night traffic that was mostly big rigs at this time of night on Interstate 435, and waited for the lightning bolt of her late father’s spirit, or his own troubled conscience, to strike him dead.

Chapter Two

The Present

“You didn’t bring me any cigarettes?”

Josie Nichols let the accusation in her half brother Patrick’s tone sink in and curdle with the nausea already rolling in her stomach. “By the end of this summer, I’ll be a registered nurse, and I’m not going to support such an unhealthy, expensive habit. Anyway, you promised me you were quitting.”

“That was last month.” Patrick leaned back from the plastic table in the KCPD detention center where she’d come to visit him between classes at UMKC and her nightly shift at the Shamrock Bar. His blue eyes narrowed as he brushed his dark hair off his forehead. Their black-Irish looks were about the only thing she had in common with what was left of her so-called family. “I’ve got pressures in here that keep me on edge, and a couple of smokes could go a long way toward making me feel better. Besides, they’re like cash in here.”

Josie slipped her hand below the tabletop, gently rubbing at the small bump on her belly, trying to coax some cooperation from her stomach. “What do you need to buy in jail?”

“Protection. Weed. Private time in the shower.” He leaned forward again, propping his elbows on the table. She noticed the sinuous lines of a snake circling his forearm. Great. He’d given himself another tattoo. Sanitary considerations aside, their father would be so proud. Not.

“Are you in some kind of trouble?”

He paused for a moment, blinked, then sat back, silencing whatever he’d been about to share. “No more than usual. You bring me cigarettes next time you come.”

Although her regular bouts of morning sickness had passed, long times between snacks and stress like this visit could easily trigger that unsettled feeling. Josie hadn’t told Patrick about the baby. She hadn’t told anyone beyond their Uncle Robbie—who’d found her in the Shamrock’s restroom kneeling over the toilet two afternoons in a row, and said he recognized the signs from his own dear late Maureen—and the nurse practitioner-midwife who was taking care of her. The midwife was paid to be discreet, and no one kept a secret better than Robbie, even though he’d pestered her time and again to give him the father’s name so he could “set the ruddy bastard straight.”

Her relationship with Rafe had tanked after that night in the parking lot. Oh, he was just as protective as ever—annoyingly so—showing up to escort her to her car after work, coming over to her apartment to fix her car when it wouldn’t run. But he’d turned into such a bear, nit-picking her every decision as if she was a child, arguing over trivial things, refusing to discuss anything deep or meaningful. He put in as many hours with his SWAT team—training, answering calls, volunteering for off-duty assignments—as she worked in a day, leaving them no time to sit down to talk and reconnect. Rafe had once again become the loner she’d first met all those years ago—afraid to attach himself to anyone, afraid to care.

Josie splayed her fingers, cradling the precious life growing inside her even more carefully. Sooner or later, her secret could no longer be hidden beneath loose clothes. But if Rafe couldn’t deal with her in a healthy, reasonable way, then how would he deal with a child? If nightmares of dying children and his own abuse growing up still haunted his sleep, then why would he want one of his own? While she had no doubt that Rafe would do right by her once she found the courage to tell him, she knew his support would be all about providing money or a name or whatever the kid needed that didn’t involve any emotional commitment.

If he couldn’t or wouldn’t love her or their child, then how could they ever hope to be a real family?

So Josie intended to treasure this baby all by herself, delaying the fight and the blame and the guilt Rafe would surely heap upon himself once he found out. She’d never known a man to hurt as deeply as Rafe Delgado did. He’d suffered so much loss in his life that he trusted duty and honor more than his heart. Or hers. So Josie kept her secret.

Yeah. Aaron Nichols would be real proud of both his children.

“I brought you the magazines you asked for.” Even the seedy ones she’d swallowed her pride to purchase at the convenience store for him. “Happy Birthday. I’d have baked you a cake and brought that, too, if it wasn’t such a stereotype. You know, hiding a hacksaw inside it.”

But Patrick didn’t laugh with her, or even smile. Or thank her.

Instead, he signaled for the guard at the door, indicating the visit was over.

“I love you, Patrick. Be good. I want you to make your parole and get out of here…” by the time the baby comes. So she wouldn’t be quite so alone. But Patrick didn’t care about her wishes any more than Rafe did. “I want you out of here soon.”

“Me, too. Bring me those cigarettes.”

No “I love you.” No “thanks, sis.” No “goodbye.”

Tears blurred her vision as the guard released him from the room and another escorted him to his cell. Josie pulled a tissue from her pocket and quickly dabbed them away, wishing she could blame the sudden sense of loss and loneliness she felt on her fluctuating hormones. She sniffed loudly enough to embarrass herself and glanced over at the two men across the room, shaking hands at their table. The prisoner in the orange jumpsuit seemed startled by the consideration that her own brother hadn’t even shown her. But the man in the suit and tie—his lawyer, most likely—said a few words that calmed his client. A few gentle words, some show of caring and support would have been enough for her as well.

The tears welled up again and Josie quickly turned away to dab her eyes and collect the sack she’d brought Patrick’s magazines in. Ashamed by her weakness, she stood and hurried toward the exit. She’d taken only three steps before plowing into the attorney’s chest.

Instinctively, her hand went to her abdomen and she backed away. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t looking.”

She looked up to offer him an apologetic smile, and would have grinned outright when she saw his toupee sitting slightly askew on his forehead. But there was a blank look behind his glasses, something so cold and devoid of emotion in his light-colored eyes, even more so than Rafe’s, that her smile died and she took a second step back.

“My fault entirely, ma’am.” He smiled. But even that outward gesture of civility didn’t reach his eyes. He was wiping his fingers with a crisp, white handkerchief. And was that…? Were those drops of blood she glimpsed before he tucked the crisp white cloth back into his pocket?

“Are you all right?”

“No harm done.” He nodded to the guard and reached for the open door. “After you.”

Maybe her hormones were out of whack and her imagination was working overtime. He’d probably suffered something as simple as a nosebleed. Lord knew the air in this place was dry as a bone. “Thanks.”

But a gurgling sound behind her caused Josie to stop and turn. And go on instant alert.

The prisoner had slumped over the table, clutching his throat.

“Wait a minute. Is he…? Is your client all right?” When she spun around, the man had disappeared and the guard was closing the door behind him. “Guard!”

The uniformed black man hurried right behind her. The prisoner was shaking now.

“He’s convulsing. Help me get him to the floor.” All of Josie’s training kicked in as she cleared the man’s throat and turned him onto his side.

The guard was on his radio, calling for backup, while she checked the prisoner’s thready pulse and fixed, pinpoint stare of his pupils. He wasn’t breathing. His heart was stopping. She had nothing but her hands to help him. He needed a tracheotomy. Now. “Do you have a knife?”

Fifteen minutes later, the medic on staff at the detention center pronounced what Josie already knew. “He’s dead.”

She wiped the blood from her hands and dashed over to the corner of the room to empty her stomach.

THE NOISE OF clacking pool balls and TV broadcasts and dozens of conversations was particularly grating tonight. Josie waited a moment in the Shamrock Bar’s walk-in freezer, counting the clouds formed by each breath, savoring the utter quiet of insulated walls and cold, heavy air.

But she was already shivering. She’d be hypothermic if she waited in here long enough for her headache to pass.

Ignoring the throbbing inside her skull and the twinge in her lower back, she lifted a crate of bottled beer off the shelf and backed her hip into the door release. The noise assaulted her eardrums the moment the door swung open. But this was rent money, or maybe that oak crib that was in such good shape at the thrift store. So she’d sucked up the pain and pasted a smile on her face by the time she left the back hallway and pushed through the swinging door that took her behind the Shamrock’s polished walnut bar.

“There you are, girlie.” Uncle Robbie plucked the crate from her hands and winked one crinkling blue eye. His robust Irish voice warmed with concern. “I wondered where you’d got to. Everything all right?”

Josie nodded, resisting the urge to touch her belly out here where the other staff and customers could see. “I just needed some fresh air.”

“You know I’ll give you all the time off you need.” His silvering dark curls bobbed up and down as he cradled the beer on his hip and opened the cooler behind the bar to drop the bottles in one by one. “You only have to ask.”

Josie eyed the two waitresses at their station, waiting to have trays filled, and took note of the customers standing two and three deep behind the green vinyl bar stools while Lance, another part-time student bartender hurried back and forth. Robbie Nichols was short-staffed, as usual, his nose for business not nearly as reliable as the charity in his heart.

“Who called in sick tonight?” Josie asked, answering the high sign from one of the waitresses and pulling two pilsners from the rack above the bar to draw a pair of beers.

Robbie’s thick stomach jiggled as he laughed. “You know me too well, girlie. Enrico called, said he was under the weather. Odds are that’s a lie, but what can I do?”

It was a bet she wouldn’t take. Knowing Enrico Gonzalez, he was probably under the sheets with his girlfriend—or sleeping the evening away after staying too late at her apartment the night before. Josie set the beers on the tray and took the next server’s order for a round of whiskey shots.

How was she ever going to leave Robbie to his own devices long enough to finish her nursing practicum at the Truman Medical Center or go on maternity leave? “Why don’t you let me run this for a few minutes, and you go in the office and call Allison to see if she can come in and help out. You really need to fire Enrico and hire someone more reliable, too, so we don’t get shorthanded like this again.”

“You sure got your daddy’s level head, didn’t ye?” He crushed the box between his meaty hands and leaned in to kiss her cheek. “Fine. I’ll go call. But I don’t want to come back and find you lifting anything heavier than that whiskey bottle, understand?”

Josie grinned and shooed him toward the swinging door. “Yes. Now go before we lose any more customers for being too slow to serve them.”

“I’ll wait as long as you need me to, Miss Nichols.” Josie set the shot glass she’d just filled on the tray and turned to the red-haired man in a suit and tie sitting at the corner of the bar. Something about him seemed familiar, but with the chaotic distractions going on all around her, she couldn’t immediately place him. He pulled a leather wallet from his suit coat and flashed a brass and blue enamel badge. “My name’s Spencer Montgomery. I’m a detective with KCPD.”

Maybe that’s what she recognized. Being located just a few blocks from KCPD’s Fourth Precinct station, the Shamrock Bar drew the majority of its customers from cops and KCPD support staff. He must be a returning customer. “What can I get you, Detective Montgomery?”

“A cup of coffee is all right now. I’m on the clock.”

Josie went to the counter behind the bar to pour him a mug of coffee. “Here you go. The coffee is always on the house.”

But his light green eyes warned her that he wasn’t really here for something to drink. “When the baseball game rush is over, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“About what?”

“About the murder you witnessed today.”

AT 1:42 A.M., Josie locked the door behind her and turned to face the Shamrock’s parking lot. What she needed after this endless day and longer night was a hug and a hot shower.

What she got was Rafe Delgado.

The springtime air was cool and pleasant, but a shiver rippled down Josie’s spine when his truck door opened and he strode out across the parking lot to meet her. He was still wearing his SWAT uniform, crisp black from head to toe, with only KCPD and his last name embroidered in white on his chest pocket, the badge on his belt and a gun strapped to his thigh to break up his lean, dangerous look.

“Are you on duty?” she asked, pulling her shoulders back, bracing for another impersonal, duty-motivated meeting. “How many times have I told you I can get someone else to walk me to my car when you’re working?”

“And who’s that going to be?” He propped his hands on his hips and scanned the nearly empty lot from side to side. He glanced up at the dark windows on the building’s second floor. “Did Robbie already turn in? He should walk you out.”

“He would if I asked. He’s on the phone with my cousin, Susan, back in Ireland.” She could do a little contemptuous scanning of her own, up and down his tall, rangy build. “Besides, he knew you’d be here like clockwork, so why bother?”

Rafe no longer took her arm when he walked her to her car, but instead fell into step beside her as she headed for her Fiesta. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you’d gone to see Patrick today?”

Josie bristled at his tone. “It’s his birthday. I always go.”

“I would have gone with you.”

Like having him lurking in the corner, standing watch over her, would have made the day go any better. “You weren’t invited.”

His breath seethed between his teeth. “So now I hear you’re running a trauma unit there?”

Josie stopped in her tracks, cinching the straps of her backpack in tight fists as she tilted her chin to meet his downturned gaze. She stood five foot seven, and he could still make her feel small when he glowered like that. “Not tonight, Rafe. Just get back in your truck and wait for me to drive away.”

“Do you know who that was you tried to save?”

“I was told his name was Kyle Austin. Apparently, he’s part of some wealthy family with good lawyers who got him into the same security facility as Patrick. I guess money can’t save your life, though, can it.”

His clean-shaven face tightened with a stony look. “Austin is the man who was masquerading as the Rich Girl Killer. He’s a stalker. An embezzler. A kidnapper. He tried to kill Charlotte Mayweather and Trip.”

Flinching in surprise, Josie quickly processed the names. Trip was Rafe’s friend, a fellow SWAT cop. He’d been hospitalized for most of a month after nearly dying while rescuing the reclusive Mayweather heiress from her kidnappers. “I thought the name was familiar. But I had no idea who he was. Has Trip recovered from his wounds yet?”

“He’s on vacation with Charlotte right now. He reports back for duty next Monday.” Rafe leaned in ever so slightly. “Just think how dangerous a man has to be to go nose to nose with a cop with Trip’s skills. You don’t want to be messing with a bastard like that.”

Bastard status aside, Josie had a calling. “He was dying.”

“There are people on staff to help—”

“I was there to help.”

“You can’t save everyone, Josie.” She glared up at him. He knew he was at the top of her list of lost causes. “You need to stop trying. You’re going to get hurt.”

Tell me about it. Josie pulled her keys from her backpack and headed toward her car. She was tired, upset, hungry and in no mood to be reminded of that foolish night when she’d mistaken physical intimacy for an emotional connection. She’d opened up her heart that night—and Rafe had closed up his. Lesson learned.

“It’s over and done with, Rafe. Detective Montgomery said he had ruled me out as a suspect in Mr. Austin’s death, so I probably won’t have to talk about it ever again.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Hint, hint.”

“Back up. When did you talk to Spencer Montgomery?”

He knew the red-haired detective? Josie shrugged as they reached her car. “He came to the bar tonight. He’s investigating Kyle Austin’s death as a homicide.”

“He doesn’t deal with jail-cell murders.” Rafe’s hand on hers stopped her from sticking her key into the lock. “He’s investigating the Rich Girl Killer serial murders and related deaths. Does he think you know something?”

“I don’t know.” For a moment, Josie imagined the warmth seeping from Rafe’s hand into hers was meant to comfort. But she wisely pulled away. “At first he thought I might have had something to do with Austin’s death.”

“Montgomery’s an idiot.”

“No.” Josie remembered the unabashed perusal of those pale green eyes. “I think he’s really smart. I thought he was going to accuse me of slitting Austin’s throat.”

“What?”

“I had to perform an emergency tracheotomy. The medic, he was there—he said I did everything just right.” Memories of all the blood she’d washed from her hands and blouse, and the nerves she’d squashed down so that she could offer the help he’d needed, squeezed like a fist inside her, intensifying the headache and sour stomach she’d been fighting all day. “But that wasn’t it. I mean, he took a statement, like the officer and medic at the jail did. But Detective Montgomery had me brainstorm a list of poisons for him that could cause the anaphylactic shock—that’s um, paralysis of his airways—that killed Mr. Austin.”

“He could get that info online or out of a book.”

“He already did. I saw his notepad. He had a list of poisons already written down.”

Rafe braced one hand against the roof of her car and glanced up into the moonless sky before muttering a curse and swinging his gaze back down to her. “Did he accuse you of anything?”

Josie shook her head. “Not outright. But he sure made me feel guilty about letting Austin die.”

Rafe’s hand moved from the car to her shoulder, his hard expression changing as he gave her a gentle squeeze. “You didn’t let anybody die. Montgomery was out of line.”

Josie swayed on her feet, drawn to the warmth and security of Rafe’s chest. But she didn’t want to open up and be cast aside again. No matter that he claimed the distance he’d maintained these past six months was for her own good, the distance was there. And she was too weary, too wary, to breach it. She twisted away to unlock her car and toss her backpack across the front seat. “So now you’re on my side? You can’t have it both ways, Rafe. You can’t lecture me about taking risks and then think you can be there to pick up the pieces when that risk fails.”

His arms flew out in the air on either side of her, his frustration stamped on every inch of his tall frame. “I don’t know how to talk to you anymore. I’m just trying to take care of you.”

“We’ll be just fine.”

He grabbed the door when she tried to close it. “We?”

Oh, what a mighty slip of the tongue. There was no way to hide the truth from those dark, ever-watchful eyes now. She leaned back in the seat and pulled up the tails of her untucked blouse to reveal the elastic waistband of her maternity jeans hugging the small bump on her belly.

The dome light of the car revealed everything she wanted him to see. “You’re pregnant?”

She tugged her blouse back into place and inserted the key in the ignition. “Brilliant deduction. And you’re not even a detective.”

“How far along are you?”

“Do the math, Rafe.”

His strong arm kept her from closing the door. He stepped into the triangle between the door and the car and squatted down, forcing her to look straight into those suspicious amber eyes. “It’s mine?”

Did he really think she had the time or inclination to be sleeping around? “It’s yours.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice was little more than a husky whisper in the night.

Josie gripped the steering wheel, fighting the dueling urges to scoot away across the seat or to soothe that pulse beating along his tightly clenched jaw. “It hasn’t exactly been business as usual between us lately. You changed that night. It’s hard to confide in someone who snaps at me every chance he gets.”

“I don’t—” He had no room to argue there. “I’ve seen the worst the world has to offer, Josie—and some of that’s rubbed off on me. Maybe a lot of it. I wouldn’t inflict what I’ve seen and who I am on anybody. Your dad knew that about me. That’s why he wanted me to guard you from the dangers that are out there. It’s the same reason he knew we shouldn’t be together.”

She wouldn’t let him off that easily. “He didn’t want us together because I was only fifteen years old back then. That’s hardly the case now.”

“I gave him my word.”

“You worry too much about keeping your word to Dad.” She swallowed hard, feeling a familiar pinch of loneliness. But she had to be strong for her son or daughter. In three months’ time she wouldn’t be alone anymore. “I know you loved him as much as I did, Rafe. I admire your loyalty, but he’s gone. You’d do better to devote yourself to someone who’s actually alive.”

“Is that what you want? You want me to marry you?” He reached inside the car and Josie instinctively pulled her hands from the wheel and hugged her arms around her belly. The movement wasn’t lost on Rafe. She could see it in his eyes—she was shielding her baby from him. “You know what kind of childhood I had. How I feel about…having kids.”

“Oh, I know.”

At last, he drew his hand away. “Are you giving the baby up? Keeping it?”

“I’m keeping Junior.” She’d never considered any other option. “But don’t worry. I absolve you of all responsibility. I’ll sign papers if you want. I don’t want anything from you. Just think of this baby as all mine. I do.”

HE STOOD IN the shadows, waiting nearly thirty minutes for the cop sitting in his truck to quit cursing and banging his steering wheel, and then staring out into the darkness as though he might be holding back tears. Whatever Josie Nichols had said to him had clearly upset him.

Only after the black-suited cop had started the engine and peeled out of the parking lot, still fighting whatever the bad news had been, did he emerge from behind the Dumpster and walk to the vehicle he’d parked two blocks down the street. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket, squirted it with a splash of breath spray and held the minty scent over his nose, trying to dispel the acrid stench from his hiding place that lingered in his nostrils.

Officer Mood Swing had thwarted his plan to make quick work of the situation that had developed. But his ongoing research and his patience in the shadows had paid off in other invaluable ways. He’d quickly learned Josie Nichols’s nighttime routine. The fat uncle would be of no consequence—he’d taken the whiskey bottle upstairs to his apartment after closing the bar. But the big-brother cop could be as problematic as the extra security around the hospital where Miss Nichols spent most of her days.

He pressed the remote on his key chain as he approached his vehicle, pocketed the handkerchief as he found fresher air to breathe, and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. It was a nasty habit, one he indulged only when he needed to calm himself, when he needed to think. And he definitely needed to think now.

KCPD was closing in on him. Every time he wrapped up a loose end, another thread in his plan unraveled. They’d kept him from knowing the satisfaction of squeezing the life from his last two victims. And he was hungry for revenge now. Aching with the blood-pumping need to destroy the last two women who had denied him what was rightfully his.

He could see their faces now, telling him no, apologizing. As if I’m sorry made everything all right. His heart raced in his chest and his breathing went shallow as he remembered the humiliation. He’d been punished for his failures, punished his whole life for being different, for not being rich enough or powerful enough to earn his place in their world.

He stumbled over the curb and caught himself on the hood of the van. Stupid, stupid boy!

“Shut up,” he muttered, remembering the fists and the torture, remembering how he’d suffered all because a woman had denied him what should have been his. “Shut up!”

Hearing his own voice echoing off the brick and stone buildings surrounding him brought him to his senses. He inhaled deeply on his cigarette, letting the nicotine sink into his lungs and blood, finding the calm he needed before grinding it out in the street beneath his foot.

Remembering his training, remembering to never leave one trace of DNA, one clue to connect him to any one place or crime, he carefully picked up the squished butt and climbed into the van. After disposing of the butt in the ashtray with the other two cigarettes he’d smoked, he picked up the digital camera from the seat beside him and turned it on to scroll through the pictures of his victims. It was a trip down memory lane that made him smile.