Chapter Fourteen – Repercussions

The evening was, for late fall, very pleasant and Dominic carefully began his rituals. Whenever he went out on a date he liked to do everything in a strict order, make sure that it was all perfect. So far the suit was hanging on its dry cleaner's hanger on the front of the closet, his socks were carefully ironed and lying on his bedroom chair with a new, pure white, pair of shorts. Both shirts were also hanging up on closets with a tie over the right shoulder of each and he would decide which one he was going to wear in a minute or two.

Now though, he was sitting at his dressing table with a tall square white candle burning and for a moment he watched its reflection in the mirror in an almost hypnotised state. There was a small book of photos in front of him, along with a glass of red wine and one of the roses Matthew had purchased earlier in the day. Carefully, almost religiously, he began by taking a sip of his drink, then he started to go through the pictures he had taken, some of them openly, but most of them in secret. There were scenic shots of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco with Tanisha standing smiling in front of it. They'd had such a good time, and she had wanted him to take her photo, wanted to have a tangible memory of their date.

Dominic stared at Tanisha for a little longer and then he leant down and took a plastic package from the bag at his feet. Inside it was a neat, combed and braided, section of blonde hair. Holding all the tresses together at the top was a tortoiseshell barrette, and underneath that was a piece of paper with Tanisha written on it.

He placed the hair on the dressing table and then flicked through a few more photo pages until he came to what he was looking for. The scene changed to the Presido in Santa Barbara. The fortress was stunningly white against the blue cloudless sky and Juliana could be seen taking a group of tourists into the building. Dominic smiled, he'd known she was the one the moment he saw her, and had spent the entire day either watching from a distance or going on the tour and listening to her gentle voice and looking at her beautiful face. After a minute he reached down once more, the hair he retrieved this time wasn't braided, but held as a single long straight strand, again it was held together at the top and the name was there, not that he needed it, her hair, like all the others, was easily recognisable.

The third set of pictures was of the tallest girl he had ever dated, her name had been Mary Sue Evett, they had spent a day, at her insistence, walking through the beautiful countryside in Topanga State Park. He hadn't wanted to go, but it had been perfect, they hadn't seen a soul all day, they had walked, laughed and joked and he had some great pictures. Mary Sue had been on vacation in Los Angeles, an Australian she loved to walk and surf. He had met her on the beach at Malibu and by the end of the afternoon they'd had a date arranged for the next day. He'd called in sick and spent the day tramping up and down hills and enjoying himself thoroughly. Mary Sue had been different in another way, in her bag of things there was a special pair of sneakers, one of her legs was longer than the other, she'd had a raised shoe so that she could do all the things she loved.

The hair that he pulled out of the bag had a slight kink to it, just a little natural wave but it had still hung almost straight, just as he liked it. Mary Sue had tied it all back in a ponytail while they were walking, but he had leant over to kiss her as they ate their lunch and gently pulled the band out, letting it fall over his hands and down her back.

She had looked so different with her hair down, more so than any of the other girls, and he had tried the hair in all sorts of different styles as she lay there, face down so he could concentrate on the part of her that drew him, that would always draw him to a woman.

Finally, Dominic went to the very back of the book of photos. The face that stared up at him, the face of the one, was the most beautiful of all. There were pictures of the two of them on the steps of Colton Hall in Monterey, smiling, holding hands, just enjoying each other's company. For a second his vision blurred and Dominic closed his eyes, letting two tears fall onto the plastic covering of the page in front of him. Then, just as he always did, Dominic looked once more at the pictures, picked up the red rose and held the bloom in the candle flame until it flared and then died.

. . . . . . . . . .

Rae couldn't really remember what actually happened after Jesse left in any great detail. She knew she came in, locked the doors and made her way to the breakfast room where she sat until it became too dark to see. She had then gone up the stairs, had a shower and, once she was dressed in her nightwear, pulled her robe a little tighter and made herself comfortable in one of the burgundy easy chairs which were in the sitting area of her room.

She was still there the next morning when the voices of her children penetrated the cold chill which seemed to have settled around her heart. Carefully she got up, her aching muscles protesting at the movements after so many hours in the same position and walked down the hallway towards the girls' bedroom.

"Aii, Mommy," it was Anneya who saw Rae first, and the little girl, sounding so much like her sister when she had been just over a year old, smiled and stood up in her crib.

"Hey, Sweetie," Rae stood in the doorway, not really knowing what to do or say. She knew that Eliana, at least, would expect Jesse to still be there, would want to know where her daddy was. With a deep sigh Rae moved into the room, leant over the high rail and picked up her younger daughter.

The house was quiet as the girls ate their breakfast and Rae sat, a hot cup of tea in front of her, wondering what she ought to do next. Eliana was due to start pre-school the next morning, and Rae had hoped that she and Jesse would have been able to take her together. As she sat there, working out in her mind what her daughter would wear, and how she would explain to Anneya that it would only be her at Sally's in the mornings from now on, the phone rang in the hallway and she got up to go answer it.

"Hello?" Rae heard the desperation and longing in the one word she spoke, and then tried to ignore the crushing disappointment when it wasn't Jesse making the call. Instead she listened as Steve suggested that if she had some time that day they could get together and discuss their two main cases. She said she would be round in just over thirty minutes and then with a sigh replaced the handset and went back to the breakfast table. The girls would have fun with Daniel and Michael, and Rae could do with some friendly company, but then she heard Jesse's words in her mind saying how she had taken Steve from him and felt guilty, hurt and confused once more.

. . . . . . . . . .

Mark had worked overnight in the ER and made his way sleepily into the beach house just after nine in the morning. He could hear the sounds of life coming from Steve's apartment; somehow it would always be that in his mind, even though Alex had been living there for a long time. The beat of something Alex called garage music drifted up and Mark had to admit it was catchy, although not in an easy, sing along sort of way. He closed and locked the front door and wandered absentmindedly into the kitchen, drawn by the smell of freshly made coffee, and smiled as he saw the smaller frame of Jesse, sitting at the counter, a mug of the steaming liquid in front of him.

"Hi, Jess, did you sleep well?" Mark had heard Jesse arrive back from his visit with Rae the previous night just as he was about to leave for the hospital. He hadn't had time to speak with him, but he had seen from Jesse's body language, as he came in the house, went straight along the hallway, and into his bedroom, that his young friend wasn't at all happy.

"Yeah, although I had a little visitor." Jesse tried a smile, he had, in fact, been delighted when Kira had nosed open his bedroom door and then made herself comfortable on the pillow next to him. Even though Alex had inherited their cat when he and Rae had moved to the gated community in his mind he still thought of her as his, or his and Rae's. The smile disappeared and Mark knew that Jesse was still as troubled, if not more so, than the day before.

"Jess, is there anything I can do to help you?" Mark sat down on the stool next to Jesse and waited quietly.

"I don't know, there's so much in my mind, all sort of … juggling for position y'know, and I have no idea which of it is really important and which of it I can ignore. I just want to start afresh, leave behind what's happened and get on, but I don't even seem to be able to do that right now." Jesse picked up his cup and took a long drink of the coffee, it was a good blend and he felt its warmth as it travelled to the heart of him.

"Jesse, there's a saying that a trouble shared is a trouble halved, and I would gladly listen and try to help you, so will Rae, Steve, Amanda, Alex, and Jo, just to name a few."

"Yeah, but a friend in need can be a damn nuisance too, and … I don't know how to start … or what to say." Jesse put his cup down on the counter and hung his head. Almost all his conversations with his friends were difficult these days, they never used to be that way, and he wanted his old life back.

Mark stood up and placed a hand carefully on Jesse's shoulder. "I have to go get some sleep, but when you're ready to talk, all of us will be ready to listen." He waited a moment in case Jesse replied, but when nothing was forthcoming he removed his hand, slapped it gently on Jesse's back, and headed for his bedroom.

. . . . . . . . . .

The shirts were in the wastebasket again, and the blood, always the blood. Matthew knew that he couldn't put the basket on the fire escape any more, and the last time he'd tried to burn something inside all the fire sprinklers had come on. That hadn't been in Los Angeles though, but San Francisco, they hadn't stayed there long he remembered, the apartment had been nice, the views across the bay had been wonderful, but the superintendent had been a harridan and Dominic hadn't liked her at all.

Selina Witty had been tall, with dark brown hair, and used to be a prison warden. Matthew had felt safe with her guarding the block they lived in, but Dominic hated it. Not that it should have been a problem; he never talked to anyone anyway. It was always left up to him to pay the rent, get the groceries, and deal with all the inconveniences while Dominic hid inside in the evenings, after working all day.

He still didn't know what to do with the shirts. The suit was boxed up ready to go back to the dry cleaners in a day or so, and there would be a note left, probably the next Friday, for Matthew to pick it up. Sometimes he had to take it too, and then it took a little longer to get it back. With a sigh Matthew picked up a brown bag that he had carried some of the groceries home in and then he held the shirts by their collars and dropped them inside. He rolled the bag down as small as he could get it and deposited that into his garbage bag. It would be collected the next day and that would be the end of that little worry.

With a shudder Matthew ran his fingers through his hair and then smiled as Dominic returned. He moved towards the neat and tidy bedroom and the things he had to do.

. . . . . . . . . .

"So, what you're saying, basically, is that we have a middle aged woman, with no known enemies, who was, as far as her friends knew, the sister of the Chief of Police for Los Angeles, an opera and community theatre buff, who should be sitting, right now, with John Masters, sipping margaritas in Santa Barbara! We haven't got very far have we?" Rae slapped the folder down on the table and it made a satisfying thwack as she did so.

"Yeah, I guess I am and no we haven't. We've gone over her financial records, looked into all the members of the various committees and groups that she was a part of and found nothing. I have no more idea now why she was killed than I did when Cheryl and I first got the case." Steve shook his head; maybe Rae would be able to think of a new direction to go in.

"Oh well, that's reassuring then! Why don't we just shred the whole lot and take the next week off!" Rae spat the words out, the ache inside her being replaced by a huge and furious knot of resentment.

"Rae!"

"What? Look at us, shoving papers about like it matters! We have no idea who killed Elizabeth Masters, we have a guy slicing and dicing his way across LA and we haven't got a clue about him either! I'm just sick of the whole damn thing right now!" Rae stood up abruptly and moved towards the door intending to go out to where her daughters were playing with Texas, but Steve was closer than she was and got there first.

"Just hold on a minute here, what caused that?" Steve placed a hand on each of Rae's shoulders, but made sure he kept at arms length.

"Nothing, just leave me be. Maybe we would be better off working separately for a while. We can't get anything sorted together, so you work with Cheryl, just like you used to and I'll get Newman to assign me to some other poor sap."

"What?" Steve just looked at her, not knowing where the verbal onslaught had come from, and not really sure how to deal with it. "Rae, Honey, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, like I just said, leave me be. Or are you having trouble understanding that too?" Rae wrenched herself out of Steve's grasp, turned away from him, and left the room via the French doors out into the garden where he heard her voice and then crying as she gathered up her daughters and went home.

. . . . . . . . . .

The road leading to the lake was almost empty and once Hank Dingus had gone through the gate at the end of it he waited happily on the grassy pathway for his son to catch him up. Dillon was carrying all the picnic gear and not complaining, so Hank reckoned it was the least he could do.

"Gee, Dad, I thought we were coming to do a little fishing, you know, keep out of Mom's way while she's organising next week's church social, not move out here for a month." Dillon, who was a tall, amiable young man, caught up with his father and stopped for a moment putting down the wicker basket in the soft bouncy grass as he did so.

"Son, if I thought it would cause peace to reign at home I would stay here until new years. But, thank the Lord; it is only her responsibility once every twelve months so I guess we should be grateful… Son?" Hank looked over to Dillon noticing that the boy had tensed up and was staring to his right.

"Dad, I think you need to call 911."

. . . . . . . . . .

Mark groaned and turned over in bed, something had woken him, but he wasn't sure what. He opened his eyes and came face to face with Kira. "Well, that solves that little mystery; guess I didn't close my door properly, huh? He shooed her off the bed and checked the clock on his nightstand; it was just before three in the afternoon, which meant he had slept for a little over five hours. Knowing that he wouldn't be able to get back off again Mark stretched and then got out of bed. He looked at himself in his dressing table mirror as he passed it and then, without a word, headed for the shower.

By the time he was clean and a little more alert Mark could smell the coffee which he guessed would always be on while Jesse was staying with them. He knew that Alex had an afternoon shift at the hospital and so would already be gone, but the two of them had a good living relationship, meeting when they could, and respecting each other's space. Alex was a fine doctor, and he was polite, tidy and conscientious. He always paid his rent a day early and Mark couldn't be more pleased with the way things had worked out. It had been a big step for Steve to move on, but an even bigger one for him to take someone else into his house permanently. Now though, his problem wasn't Alex, but Jesse. He would let the young man stay with him as long as he needed, but he didn't want him to hide away out here in Malibu when his problems were still waiting to be faced back in Beverly Hills. They needed to be addressed, and he hoped that he would be able to help Jesse do just that, however long it took.

"Hey, Mark, did you sleep well?" Jesse looked up from where he was sitting at the dining table, his laptop open in front of him and the newspaper folded back to show just one page laying beside that.

"Yeah, I did, think I could've done with about another hour or two, but that's the way it goes some times, I guess." Mark moved round the table, to see what Jesse was looking at, but stopped as he saw him shut down the lid of his computer and turn over the paper. "I'm sorry; I should've asked first, I just wondered what you were doing."

"Nothing, it was nothing." Jesse looked around a little furtively and began to move his chair out so that he could leave the room.

"Jesse, stay still, for a minute, ok?" Mark put his hand on the back of the seat and to his relief Jesse did just as he was asked. "You know that I'm happy to have you here, don't you?" He waited for an answer. "Jess?"

"Yes, I do, and I appreciate it, if you want me to pay rent, you know I will, and buy my own coffee, that sort of thing, I … well, you know how much I eat."

"Jesse, hush. If you're still here in a month's time then maybe we can talk about it." Mark prayed silently that that would be one conversation they didn't have to have. "Right now, I'm more concerned about your state of mind than your eating habits."

"Mark?" Jesse looked at his friend, his blue eyes troubled and his expression anxious.

"Jesse, there's just you and me here right now, Alex is at work, I'm not due in until six tomorrow morning, and I really think that if you don't get some of this off your chest you're gonna burst."

"Mark, I don't understand, what do you want me to say?"

"I don't know, but I do know that everything I ask you, other than easy things like, 'do you want cream with that', makes you either clam up completely, or tell me there is nothing wrong, or you are doing nothing, or there is nothing on your mind. Jesse, that's an awful lot of nothing and it sure is doing something to you." Mark had sat down as he had been speaking, moved his hand over and taken hold of the newspaper that Jesse had tried to hide. The job column for healthcare professionals stared up at him and Mark shook his head. "Find anything interesting?"

"Yeah, maybe … no, nothing as interesting as what I'm doing right now."

"Jesse, you're doing paperwork right now."

"I know, which shows you how bad the jobs were." For a second Jesse was back, the real Jesse, and Mark wanted to grab him and hold on tight, so that they could keep him with them forever.

. . . . . . . . . .

The phone rang in the hallway of Oak Place and with a sigh Rae put her book down and began to walk into the hallway.

"I'll get it, I wanna do it!" Eliana's voice rang out across the space between the playroom where she had been and the breakfast room door which was where Rae had got to before her daughter called out. "Lo, Yana here… K. Bye." Eliana carefully put the receiver back on its rest and turned with a big smile. "Unki Teve."

Even feeling as bad as she did Rae had to smile, it had been a long time since she had lived through a child of hers hanging up each time they answered the phone, and this time she was enjoying the innocence and simplicity of it.

"Thank you, Sweetie." Rae picked up the handset and dialled in the number and waited. "Steve, you called me… No, and I'm sorry … oh great, no, Steve, he's not, he … he went back to the beach house last night … no, I should have said something … well, if you're sure they won't mind … ok, no problem, I'll see you in a minute." Rae put the phone down and turned to see her daughter standing looking at her very seriously.

"Mommy, you didn't say bye." Eliana had her arms folded and Rae could hear herself in her daughter's voice.

"Well, I'm very sorry, but we have to go see Uncle Steve and Aunty Jo, so I'll say it then, ok?"

"K, Unki Teve, I go see Unki Teve, and Neya?" Eliana stopped jiggling up and down and put her serious face back on.

"Yes, and Anneya too." Rae moved with her eldest child into the playroom to grab some books and videos as well as Anneya, she had a feeling it was going to be a long night.

. . . . . . . . . .

"So, tell me again what we have." Rae had her notebook resting on her knees as Steve drove them to Toluca Lake.

"Caucasian female, age about twenty to twenty-five, blonde, probably, dead, definitely, left in underbrush just over the boundary from the golf course … with her feet slashed and a red rose in her hand." Steve slowed for a set of traffic lights and then turned left onto Sunset Boulevard.

"Great, so that makes it three. Dammit, I hate these kooky guys! They give me the whim whams." Rae closed her book and slid it into the pocket of her jacket and the car was silent for the rest of the journey.

"This is a nice place, quiet, unassuming, just the place to dump a body." The main street of Toluca Lake was wide with a few cars parked on either side of it. Rae could see some expensive looking stores through the gaps in traffic, and she wondered how the small town would deal with being used in this manner.

Steve turned off the main road and down a residential street. The houses were large and, for the most part, set back from the sidewalk with green front lawns and double garages. There were two houses with for sale signs outside them, and Rae wondered whether that would change too.

As they turned a corner the road ran out in front of them and Steve pulled in behind a black and white and an ambulance which were effectively cutting off the entrance to a small gated pathway which Rae could see disappearing from view just in front of her.

"Come on then, let's see what we've got." Steve undid his seatbelt and climbed out of the car. There were five or six people watching from the other side of the road, and about eight children sitting on the edge of the pavement, skateboards and bikes in an unruly pile next to them.

"Hey, Cop, wanna hand?"

"Leon, be quiet!"

A child's voice floated over to where Steve and Rae were now standing, but it was immediately hushed by an adult, possibly a parent standing close by. Rae grinned at Steve, ran her hand through her hair and moved off in the direction of the small track she had seen from the car.

. . . . . . . . . .

Dominic had carefully washed the clothes he had retrieved the previous evening, and now they were dried and ironed and waiting for the next part of the process. He picked up the blue jeans which had a soft red velvet pattern imprinted over the denim. He folded them neatly, as if they were new and placed them inside a large clear plastic bag. Then he picked up the shirt, also a burgundy colour, but there were some blood stains on it which, although he had tried, wouldn't come out. Once again he folded the item, making sure that the buttoned up front and collar were exactly in the middle once he had finished. This was slid into the bag on top of the trousers, and the underwear was placed on top again.

The sealing machine was underneath his bed and he knelt down to retrieve it. It had cost a fair bit but did a great job. He pressed all the air out of the bag and then slid the top part through the narrow opening on the front of the machine and pulled down on the handle. The plastic sealed itself and then he released his hold on it, took the package back out and cut off the excess unsealed piece. The machine disappeared back under the bed and Dominic stood up and brushed down his pants. The pictures he had taken were sitting on the nightstand, and he moved over to them next. There were five of them, and he spread them out so he could see them all at once.

She really had been beautiful, tall, blonde, obviously, and fun to be with. The meal they'd had together was laid out on the table in one picture, the bright colours of the Moroccan restaurant vivid behind her, as she sat, smiling up at the camera. The next picture was of her standing outside on the sidewalk after the meal. There had been a huge waiter in national costume, most likely about ten feet tall by the entrance way and he had to admit it did make a great photo opportunity. Probably got lots of people to actually go in and eat too. The three other pictures were taken at her apartment and that had worried him. He didn't usually go back to his dates' homes, preferring to bring them where he was more in charge. But she had insisted, worried that she needed to get home and let her cat out. In the end it hadn't made any difference, everything had gone as planned, and the outcome had still been the same but he didn't like it when his plans were changed. She was still dead though, they would all die, one by one, all of them would fall under his hand.

. . . . . . . . . .

Amanda was crouched down next to a body, but she turned and smiled as she heard Steve's voice talking with one of the officers at the scene. Rae moved as close to her friend as she dared and then crouched down herself. Amanda tended not to work weekends, but Rae wasn't surprised to see her here, no one liked murder, but when there was a serial killer on the loose then all those involved at the start wanted to carry it on to the end.

"The victim is face down, Rae, and I don't want to move her yet, the photos haven't been taken and I need to make my notes as detailed as I can. There has to be a clue in the way he is leaving these women, and this time I intend to make sure I find it. There is some damage here from small animals, but not enough that it'll get in the way of the investigation. Sometimes it even helps."

Rae smiled a small smile. Amanda was thoroughness personified. She knew that her working routine would vary very little this time from the previous two cases, if there had been a clue she would have already found it, but Rae understood her need to improve, she felt it too.

"What about the person who found the body, do you know if they are still here?" Rae looked around; she couldn't see anyone who looked as if they would rather be fire walking than waiting to talk to a cop, so she guessed they had gone home.

"Mr Dingus went home, he only lives a couple of minutes away, and one of the other officers went with him."

"Mr Dingus? Poor guy, I'll bet his wife just loved becoming Mrs Dingus!" Rae shook her head; she didn't need to think of trivialities right now. "I'll go get the details; I would feel happier if we could talk with him tonight. Do you have any idea which cops actually spoke to him at the scene?"

Amanda stopped what she was doing for a second. She had continued with her work while Rae had been talking, not because she wasn't listening, but because she was. She could keep her concentration total when the words around her related to the job she was doing, and was used to sometimes doing three or four things at once at a crime scene. "Yeah, Randall, he's over there, talking with Steve."

"Thanks." Rae recognised the young man from the station and walked over to him. She thought he looked a little green around the edges, and she also thought that Steve was less than impressed with him.

"If you aren't up to the job, Randall, then go back to the station, pack your bag and leave, this is an ongoing investigation, we need everyone to be working one hundred and ten percent, one hundred percent of the time. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Sir." The hapless cop looked down at his feet, and Rae decided to intervene.

"Hey, Steve, is there a problem here?"

"No, not at all, if you can tell me where the ribbon is, where the crime scene labels are that should be tied to trees, where everything that is supposed to be here is, including some sand to cover up his breakfast." Steve moved a little uncomfortably then, and Rae looked down to see that her partner would probably need some new sneakers very soon.

"Well, Randall, you must have done something other than barf since you got here, why don't you tell us what notes you've taken?" Rae knew that part of Steve's problem was the helplessness he was feeling, and the fact that Randall hadn't performed adequately was a great outlet for his anger, just as he had been for hers earlier in the day, but their friendship could take it, she wasn't sure this young man could.

"Ma'am?" The young man looked, if anything, even more uncomfortable than he had just seconds before.

"What have you written down?" Rae tried to be patient, but her voice was a little tense and she knew that Randall picked up on it.

"I … I sent Mr Dingus home with my partner, Eve, his son too, and then … well, then I went and looked at the body …"

"Did you touch it?" Steve cut into the conversation, his words cold and unfriendly.

"No, Sir. I may be a little wet behind the ears, and green in the face, but I know how to do my job … well most of it anyway." The last few words were spoken very quietly and Rae felt for him.

"Hey, Randall, it's ok. Is this your first murder scene?"

"Yes, Ma'am, and I didn't touch anything, I promise, I was no closer than you were just now when you were talking to the ME. I just … there was so much blood, and her feet, and, oh, God." His face took on a very pale look and suddenly Randall turned and both Rae and Steve looked at each other and waited for him to finish.

. . . . . . . . . .

Jo had seen the affect the call from the station had had on her husband. Murder was a way of life for him, but she knew that each time he got a new case or, even worse, a new victim in an old one; it cut a little deeper into him.

Once he had gone she had spent some time playing with Eliana and Anneya, marvelling at their acceptance of the changes which peppered their lives. Ever since they had been born they had been on the move in one way or another. Rae had been at home for a lot of the time, but she had been injured or even worse, on bail, and there had been many nights when the girls had slept with Sally, or with Steve and her. They were both open, friendly children and she wondered whether this had to do with their upbringing, or whether they would have been that way whatever. Jo shook her head, she had no idea where those thoughts came from but she didn't worry too much about them. It was now just after five in the afternoon, and across the room from her Daniel had Eliana snuggled up to him one side and Anneya the other as they watched Beauty and the Beast. Jo had a feeling that at least one of the girls would be asleep long before the last rose petal fell; Anneya had her thumb in her mouth already and was winding her fingers through her blonde hair.

Michael came quietly into the room and Jo stood up, she needed to talk with him, and decided that the kitchen would be better for that. Indicating with her hand that she wanted to leave the room Jo moved into the hallway and then on into the part of her house which was Michael's domain.

"You wished to speak with me privately, Madam?"

"No, not really privately, but I just didn't want to stop Anneya fallin' asleep if she wanted too. Michael, I need you to go down to Texas for me."

"Certainly, Madam, when would you like me to leave?" If Michael was surprised his training effectively masked it.

"Well, you can stay an' have your dinner first, seein' as how you cooked it an' all!" Jo smiled as she spoke. "Tomorrow would be just fine. Don't you want to know why I need you to go?"

"I imagine, Madam, that it has something to do with the fact that you had to return home earlier than you had planned. Maybe you wish me to arrange for the transportation of the contents of Madam's attic rooms."

Jo wanted to lean over and kiss Michael on the cheek, but knew he would be scandalised. "I'll just leave the plannin' to you then, shall I? Seein' as you seem to have it all in hand already!" Jo smiled warmly at him and laid her fingers on his arm. "I want to have it back here, it's mine, an' I don't want Miss Prissy Knickers gettin' her grubby hands on any of it."

"There are quite a large number of boxes from what I understand. Would you like me to arrange for them to be transported by air or road, Madam?"

"Oh, road, we don't need to hire a plane, it's only a day's journey by car, so a truck should be able to do it in two, maybe two and a half." Jo paused for a moment, as she tried to remember something. "Use Crayfields, they're the people who moved my stuff up here after Grandmamma died, they're good, an' reliable."

"Very good, Madam, I will call first thing in the morning to arrange it, and leave for the airport straight after that."

"That's great, oh, an' Michael, have the full service on the plane, I know you just love it, an' I just love bein' able to share it with you." Jo smiled again, Michael was very respectful of his position, and she found it almost impossible to give him any extra perks. However, one time when they had been travelling together on the private jet she had seen how he enjoyed being waited on by the staff, and so since then she had tried to make sure that he took full advantage of it whenever he travelled for her.

The aircraft was a full sized one, there was room to actually live aboard it for a considerable amount of time should the need arise. It wasn't Jo's first choice, but when she had been drawing up the plans for it the company representative had mentioned that she had more facilities than Airforce One, and so she had cut back, not wanting to appear to be flaunting her wealth.

"Is there anything else you will be requiring now, Madam, only the dinner is ready to be served?"

"No, thank you, I'll let you know if I think of anythin' else, an' thank you, Michael, there is only you an' Steve who I would trust enough to do this for me."

"Then I am gratified that I am able to assist you, Madam."

Jo chuckled to herself and went back towards the television room, just once she would like him to surprise her and say 'I'm happy to help,' but she guessed that wasn't going to happen.

. . . . . . . . . .

It was after five-thirty before Steve and Rae moved over to where the body was, knowing that Amanda and the photographer had finished with it in its current position and were preparing to turn her over. They had worked methodically in and around the area until that time, but both of them knew that there was little more they could do until a positive ID could be made, and that was impossible with the woman face down.

Rae had drawn a sketch of how the body laid, its position in relation to the land around it, and the type of vegetation it was in, she had also, from a distance tried to make out any wounds on the back of the victim. The two slashes on the soles of the feet had been only too obvious, as was the dark red of the rose in her hand against the green of the foliage and the fact that the victim's hair had been cut off. Rae thought she saw at least four stab wounds other than those to the feet and Steve had agreed with her.

It had been apparent to both of them that there were wounds to the neck, probably a cut throat, as had been the case with the two previous victims. The blood in that area was far greater than anywhere else, and that was where Rae's eyes were focused as two EMT's and Amanda carefully turned the body over. She heard both Steve and Amanda let out gasps, and heard the pathologist say, "Oh, no."

Rae looked up into the lifeless face of the woman now laying in an unzipped body bag on the gurney which had been waiting for it. That face was still young, still beautiful and still very dead. For a moment Rae closed her eyes, and then turned to Steve, who had known her longer and much better than she.

"Steve, I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, I know." Steve leant over, and with one of his glove covered hands he gently touched the shoulder of the young woman called Nadine, who had worked so well for him at Barbeque Bobs.