“Who?” Sol yelled, slamming her fist onto the bloody floor.
And then she heard it.
“Lucifer.” The name of the devil whispered through the cavernous foyer, but in her mind’s eye, in her vision of Mavis dying, Sol realized the dead woman’s lips never moved.
She began to shiver.
Was suddenly cold to the bone.
She blinked.
Caught her breath.
She would learn nothing more. Unsteadily, she rose and, once the vision had passed completely, cleaned her feet and knees as best as she could, then dressed and swiped the towel across the bloody marble. She wasn’t worried about fingerprints. She’d left some earlier in the day. She might have to come up with some explanation about the disturbed bloodstain, but she didn’t think so. The police were done with the scene, and she doubted Archer Greenlee would notice or care. She tucked the stained towel into her backpack and turned on the foyer lights again, then hurried outside to the spot where she’d hidden the bicycle she’d ridden through the town. She hadn’t risked driving her own vehicle, didn’t want anyone or any street or neighbor’s camera to have caught it as she’d driven by or parked at the Greenlee estate. She was dressed in black, wearing a mask, hiding her own identity, just as the killer might have.
She was only three blocks down the street when she looked over her shoulder at the sound of a car engine. A police cruiser had turned onto the street behind her and was slowing near the entrance to the Greenlee home.
Quickly, she cut down an alley so as not to be seen. She had every right to be at the crime scene as an investigating officer, but she didn’t want to lie nor have to come up with any kind of excuse.
Not yet.
She’d save that for later if anyone noticed the disturbance in the blood within the house.
She avoided what little traffic there was, but noticed, as she reached her apartment house, that the city was coming to life. The early-morning risers had turned on lights and were probably already making coffee. She noticed a couple jogging a few blocks ahead, their reflective shoes and wristbands glowing in the dark. From several streets over, she heard the rumble of garbage trucks starting their rounds. A delivery van rolled down the street in front of the building, and the old guy who lived in a condo across the street was walking his ancient Labrador retriever as he did every morning before dawn.
Sol rode in a wide circle to avoid the parking lot’s camera, then slipped into the back of her ground-floor unit unnoticed. After parking her bike in the hallway and locking the sliding door behind her, she took the bloody towel from her backpack and shoved it to the bottom of her under-the-sink trash can. She made her way to the bathroom, stripped, lathered her entire body, then stood under a steaming, hot spray until the blood on her feet and knees had completely washed away and the cold she’d felt in her soul had finally dissipated.
With water streaming down her body, she leaned her head against the wet tiles of the small shower stall, whispered a prayer, and was finally able to center herself again. Twisting off the taps, she took her towel from its hook and dried off before wrapping her wet hair in a turban and donning her white sack dress.
In her bedroom, she lit a candle, drinking in the cleansing smells of cedar and lavender before sitting cross-legged on her bedroom floor and again praying. This time not to the Christian God but to any spirit who would listen. “Help me,” she murmured. “Help me find this madman before he strikes again.” She breathed deeply, hoping her prayers had been heard and would soon be answered, but inside her soul, she feared that the gods were quietly reminding her of the lessons she’d learned in her youth: “Find strength in yourself, Sol. We are here only to guide you.”
“Then, please do it. Guide me.”
She heard no answer, but knew in her heart the horrible truth: The murders had just begun.
This killer was far from finished.
Chapter 13
“You’re kidding!” Lily said the next morning as she was filling the coffeemaker with water. Her hair, piled on her head, was a mess, and she was still in a robe and slippers, while Nikki, carrying Chloe, was dressed for the day. “Mavis Greenlee is dead? Someone killed her?”
“It’s all over the news. Pierce took off over an hour ago.”
“Really?” Lily said around a yawn. “Didn’t hear him leave. Guess I was dead to the world.”
“He couldn’t sleep. Too wound up over the case.”
Nikki and Pierce had turned on the television in their room when the first newscasts were being aired before dawn this morning, and sure enough, the murder of Mavis Greenlee, one of Savannah’s socialites, had been on every local station.
They’d discussed the homicide before falling asleep. Though Pierce hadn’t come right out and said so, she was almost certain that the killer had left his calling card at the scene, an etched rock. So, the two murders were related. And it was shocking, stunning, really, that someone in her mother’s social circle was one of the victims, killed by the same person who had attacked and murdered Billy Huber, a man who was far removed from the Greenlees in about every way possible.
“What’s the connection?” she’d asked her husband, but he’d simply shaken his head. She took that to mean the police hadn’t figured it out yet … although Pierce was also growing a little tired of her questions by that point.
But they had a serial killer.
In Savannah.
“Wow, I missed it all.” Lily was shaking her head as she measured ground coffee into the basket of the brewer. “Hard to believe that awful woman is gone, that someone killed her, though, Lord knows, she made more than her share of enemies.” When she caught Nikki’s surprised expression, Lily pulled a face. “Come on, you know what she was like.” As she pressed a button on the coffeemaker, she added, “I’m not one of those people who creates saints out of sinners just because they’re dead.”