Chapter Four

The Purple Pawn

Woody had chalked it up to an aberration. An anomaly. A freak incident – the girl they found murdered by having her heart cut out. And he was convinced of that until another girl turned up with her heart cut out…and then another….and then another.

Until there were a total five of them in the morgue within a month's time.

All of Boston was in turmoil…the belief was hot on the streets that the city was under the siege of a serial killer and the newspaper headlines announced each murder with a creaming 72-point type.

But the police department remained relatively quiet on many of the details and their beliefs about the women. Secretly, the homicide detectives didn't think this was the work of a random murderer, or even your garden-variety serial killer. This was the work of someone more sadistic. Someone that was controlling.

Someone, that if he couldn't have the ultimate power over a victim, proceeded not only to take his victims' lives, but also the organ that provided most of the sheer essence of that life – their heart. The seat of life and the symbolic seat of a person's emotions.

That fact did not escape Woody, who was still the lead detective on the case. And after conferring with Bug, Nigel, and Dr. Macy, he also knew that information had not escaped them. The hearts were not cut out with surgical precision, but hacked out with rage -- sometime before the person was completely dead.

"It isn't making a whole lot of sense right now," Woody said to the men one afternoon in the morgue. "Killing, yes…but the whole cutting out the heart thing…" he shuddered inwardly at the torture these women must have gone through.

"It's pretty grotesque," Bug agreed, as they were going over the autopsy done on the last victim, but all the time casting a glance at Dr. Macy and Nigel that plainly said, you need to tell him…confront him…

Garret sighed. He had hoped Woody would have put two and two together before now and understood the extent of their concern, but the detective had been too wrapped up in this case to see the forest for the trees. "Woody…what do all these women have in common besides having their hearts hacked out?"

"They were found barely inside the city limits…and all of them had no identification on them. We're having to track them down through Interpol, the FBI, the police data bases …and that is if we are lucky that somewhere they have fingerprints or DNA on file. And right now, we've only identified one of the victims – Jessica Standford."

"Anything else catch your eye?" Nigel asked, watching Woody carefully, trying to gauge his reaction.

Woody sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Since things had gone south with his and Jordan's relationship, the morgue staff had been a little more stand-offish in their relationships with them. Oh hell, who was he kidding? They had been barely civil to him. And since she had been missing, it had only gotten worse. For some reason, none of them could understand why he wasn't out there pounding the pavement, looking for Jordan. He had two very good reasons. First, was this case…the murdered women and their missing hearts. It was eating up his time and his patience.

The second reason was that it was no longer his place. Before, he would have been all over that missing person's report. Instead, he had given it a cursory reading and turned it over to Roz Framus. The last thing he needed to do was get himself involved looking for a missing Jordan. Knowing her, she was probably extending her vacation as long as she could and just simply didn't call back in to confirm it with Macy. She had never been one to go by the rule book anyway. Why start now?

At least that's what he kept telling himself. And if he said it enough, he was sure he'd believe it. "No," he finally breathed out in an irritated sigh to Nigel. "Would any of you care to enlighten me?"

"They are all in their late twenties to early thirties," Bug began. "They all have brown hair and brown or hazel eyes…They are all around five foot, nine inches…"

"They all are slender…and Jessica had been reported missing before she was found…As a matter of face, she had been reported as missing for about 15 months…and yet was only recently found murdered…"

"Make you think of anyone?" Bug finally asked, his voice low, but full of anger. The detective's lack of attention to detail could have cost her life.

Woody paled as the details began to sink in….and when they did, her name came out in a whisper…."Jordan…."

Oh, dear God…she could be… "Roz….this is Woody," he said into his radio. "Fax to the lab all the notes we have on the crime scenes of the women…everything….and fax Jordan's missing person's report. Stat."

Two hours and six cups of coffee later, Woody sat back in his chair in the morgue conference room and finally admitted the cold, hard truth to himself. She hadn't run away…she was really missing and could be in imminent danger. She could be tortured...hurt...or worse.

He had to find her…and fast. His head kept telling him it was because she was a citizen of Boston…her welfare was his responsibility to protect.

His heart kept telling him something entirely different – that if something had happened to her…if she was harmed…or something worse that he dared not even attempt to think about, he didn't know how he would continue to go on. Yes, he had been angry with her…furious…and didn't believe her when she told him that she did love him because she did it at a time he was emotionally vulnerable.

Even through JD …Danny…and the women he had dated, he knew all of those relationships had been wrong. He and Jordan irrevocably belonged together…they were just having a hard time finding their way back to each other. If he found her now, he had no qualms at his certainty of keeping her …making her his.

He just had to find her first.

And he was coming up empty of that one. Determinedly, he rolled up his sleeves and set to work going through all the reports one more time, just to see if he had forgotten something…some small detail he overlooked…all the time knowing that Bug and Nigel were doing the same thing with the autopsies. Ruefully, he laughed as the thought flickered through his mind…If Jordan was here looking for herself, she would have long ago made all these connections and would probably be out by herself looking for this control-freak. His heart dropped at the thought that if someone didn't come up with some connection….lead, forensic, whatever … he may have to live with the fact that she could be the next victims he was sent out to find.

He knew he would never be able to deal with that…doggedly he pressed on…resifting leads, clues….making notes about who he needed to go and re-interview…so engrossed in his work that he didn't hear Nigel knock on the door. The Brit finally had to call out to him to get his attention.

"Woody…we have a lead…"

Woody's head snapped up, giving Nigel his full attention. "What is it?" God, don't let it be another body….

"I just got a call from a joint called the Purple Pawn. It's on the other side of Boston, nearly in Cambridge….someone just pawned Jordan's laptop."