CHAPTER TWO
Alison met Derek at the crime scene, a relatively large house hidden behind walls and a security gate. She parked on the street by the gate and got out of her car. Derek smiled at her as she approached.
Derek was a fighter, both physically and mentally.
He had a kink in his nose to prove the former, and Alison knew him well enough after working two cases with him to see the latter.
He had a grizzled look that played into his physicality and often helped his counterparts and opponents underestimate him.
His jaw was usually painted with a thick dose of stubble, and he wore an often-crumpled suit that looked more purposeful than careless.
Beneath the rough exterior lay a handsomeness that was almost held back by his way of dressing and gruff demeanor. For Alison, he was a man she would trust with her life, and since he’d come into that life, he’d proven time and time again that he was fighting on her side.
"Nice house," Alison said as she approached Derek. "It reminds me of my own."
"I was just thinking that," Derek said.
The house within the property was not at all similar, but it and hers were both behind security gates.
Working as a criminal psychologist who had put multiple criminals behind bars and kept countless others there, she’d gained many enemies.
She received threats from time to time, and with Derek in her life, she felt much safer.
"What are we looking at?" Alison asked, feeling like a seasoned detective. She’d consulted on cases before, but it was only since joining forces with Derek that she’d gone out into the field to work.
"Margaret Donovan," Derek replied. "A forty-two-year-old high school counselor."
"If she has a security system like this on the front gate, she likely has the same in her home, and that means she wants to keep people out. Who was out to get her?" Alison asked.
"Margaret was a witness in the case against Calvin Reynolds," Derek said.
"Wait, Calvin Reynolds? I know that name," Alison admitted.
"I was brought on to help in that case. I must have helped to coach Margaret Donovan before the trial.
I don't remember her, but I’ve coached hundreds of people over the years.
I remember he was a violent offender with a dark history and quite a reputation. "
"He still has that reputation," Derek said. "He was already well known on the outside, and he’s making a name for himself in prison. Still, he’s been imprisoned for five years, and he’s not scheduled to be released for another five."
"You think he could be behind it?" Alison asked.
"He’s made a lot of friends in prison," Derek replied. "It’d be easy for him to have someone target her when they were released, or have someone on the outside do it. Do you remember the trial?"
"No," Alison admitted. "I will have coached Margaret, but I wasn’t present for the trial. I remember there was something with her husband, too."
"There’s no record of anyone else living here," Derek told her. "Maybe they separated, and he didn't like that?"
"Either him or the man she helped to put away," Alison said.
"And if she went to this much trouble to keep someone out, she was afraid of someone getting to her.
We should check for any police reports connected to the residence.
Did anyone try to get in? Any domestic disturbances?
" Alison looked at the camera at the main gate.
"Maybe we get lucky with this one and the perpetrator is caught on camera. "
"That would be nice," Derek admitted. "You ready to go in?"
Alison nodded. They walked through the open gate together and up the driveway where a car was parked by the house.
"I’ve been meaning to ask you," Alison said. "Has there been any movement on my sister’s case?"
Derek sighed. "No, nothing. Is your dad still on at you?"
"He calls just about every week asking if there’s anything new in the case," Alison said. "Twenty years and nothing. There’s an almost zero chance something falls into our laps now, but he thinks that just because a CBI agent is on the case, you’ll be able to dig something up."
"If there’s something to be dug up, I’ll find it," Derek admitted. "But you know how these things go."
"Yeah, I do," Alison replied. "The first few days are the most important in a case, and the longer the case goes, the less chance there is to catch the perpetrator.
The graph is exponential. Twenty years means an infinitesimal chance of catching her killer.
We don't even know if the killer is still alive. Maybe they’re living halfway around the world. We might as well be chasing a ghost."
"I believe in ghosts," Derek said.
Alison cocked her head and stared at Derek.
"Yeah, that sounded better in my head," he admitted. "As soon as I said it, I realized it was a nothing statement."
Alison gave him a wry smile. They stood outside the open front door of the house. A doorbell camera was attached to the wall to the right of the doorway—it was another opportunity to get a glimpse of the person who’d killed Margaret.
A woman emerged from the house wearing a black pantsuit and white blouse. She had an air of authority about her, and Alison had no doubt the woman was the lead detective on the case. She went straight to Alison first.
"Dr. Payne, it’s a pleasure to have you on the case." The woman held out her hand. "I’m Detective Samantha Moore, the lead detective on the case."
Alison shook the woman’s hand. "I’m glad to help."
Samantha had long blonde hair tied into a high ponytail, prominent cheekbones, an athletic body, and dark blue eyes.
"I’ve followed your career from before I joined the force," Samantha said. "It’s partly what gave me the confidence to pursue law enforcement when it was… well, you know." She glanced at Derek.
Alison knew exactly what Samantha meant.
Law enforcement was a challenging field for women to get into and then thrive in, but the two of them were bucking the trend.
It was especially hard to be the one in charge, telling people what to do instead of doing what people told you.
Alison had had to work twice as hard for the same rewards as most of the men in her field.
"I’m glad to be on the case with another woman," Alison told her.
"Thank you for saying that," Samantha replied. "There’s often the tendency for women to compete against each other, and I wouldn't ever want that. All I have for you is the utmost respect and gratitude. Do you want to come in and take a look at the body?"
"We would," Alison said. "Did you get anything from the security cameras?"
"Nothing so far," Samantha said as she led Alison and Derek into the house.
"Most of the cameras are motion-activated, so the killer must have avoided the cameras. I’ve had a couple of the team walk the perimeter and a route to the house, and there are a few ways the killer could have entered the yard and house without being seen. "
They walked down the short hallway from the front door to the living room.
"How about the security system?" Derek asked.
"Yeah, that’s a little trickier," Samantha admitted. She stopped before they got to the living room door, where the body presumably was. "The security company sent an alert this morning when the AI system detected that the security system hadn’t been changed in keeping with Donovan’s usual routine, and they requested that a patrol car come to do a wellness check.
That was when the body was found—she was visible through the side window.
"The only problem is that when police arrived, the security system was set, and there’s no record of it being turned off and back on last night after Donovan arrived home.
The doorbell camera shows her vehicle arriving and her opening the door, and the change in modes coincides with her arrival home.
Nothing after that. So, the killer somehow got in and out of the house without tripping the alarm system. "
"Any open windows?" Sam asked.
"Nope," Samantha replied. "And all of the windows have sensors. If a window had been opened after Samantha arrived home last night, it would have tripped the alarm."
"The killer could have entered the house at the same time as Samantha," Derek noted.
"Possibly," Samantha confirmed, "but he still had to get out again. We’re still checking for a possible exit point."
"So, this was someone who was familiar with the alarm system and likely knew where the cameras were," Alison said. "Do we know who sold and installed the security system?"
"No, but we can find out," Samantha said.
"It would be easier to get the passcodes and disable the alarm when coming in and out, but the killer didn't do that. They knew their way around the security system enough not to need to do that," Alison said.
"Anything taken from the house?" Derek asked.
"Not that we’re aware of," Samantha replied. "We did a quick sweep, and it didn't look like anything was taken or searched."
"So, they came to kill Donovan, and they wanted to get away before anyone noticed," Alison said. "And they knew her system well enough to bypass it. She was targeted, which means this was a personal attack. We just need to find out who had the most reason to want her dead."
"The security system is advanced," the detective said. "Whoever bypassed it knew what they were doing. No sign of forced entry. No sign that anyone was here in the first place except for the dead body."
"Let’s take a look at her," Derek said.
Samantha led them the last few feet into the living room, where the lifeless body of Margaret Donovan lay. The sight was a hard one to take in.
Donovan’s face was pale with a blueish hue, the lips and beneath the eyes more blue than anywhere else.
Tiny red spots and purple discoloration pocked her face where blood vessels had burst as she’d struggled for air and the blood had pooled under the skin.
She lay on the floor, eyes open and looking up at the ceiling, one leg bent slightly, her arms splayed from when she’d been lowered or dropped to the ground.
There was no indication she’d been placed or arranged.
"That’s the bag," the detective said. She pointed to the bag, which was inside its own evidence bag, lying on the far end of the crime scene. It was a thick, clear plastic bag. A long bag that could be pulled over the head and then tightened at the neck.
Derek crouched down beside the body, donning a pair of latex gloves before lifting one of her hands.
"Broken nails," he noted.
"She struggled to get the bag off her head," Samantha said. "Forensics scraped under the nails, but it looks like only plastic fibers."
Alison looked down at the body. The face was swollen, as was the tongue in her open mouth.
Dried saliva glistened at the edges of her mouth.
The neck below was bruised and red where the bag, and likely the killer’s hands, had gripped tightly.
She had scratches on her neck, which had likely been self-inflicted from when she’d tried to remove the bag.
"It was slow," Detective Moore said as she circled Alison, Derek, and the deceased. The forensic team had finished with the body, and they were waiting to move her. Two officers stood in the living room, waiting for orders. "The killer took their time, slowly draining the life from the victim."
"Then it was personal," Alison said.
"Anything else from the house?" Derek asked as he stood and removed the gloves.
"Not yet," the detective relayed.
Derek ran a hand through his hair. Alison looked at him. Derek inclined his head quickly to ask: What do you think?
"Calvin Reynolds makes sense, but why wait so long to send someone after her?" Alison asked. She looked around the living room. There hadn’t been much of a struggle, except that a side table had been knocked over.
"Maybe he didn’t have someone who could do it for him. Detective Moore said it herself—we don't know how they managed to bypass the security system. This is someone with exceptional technical skills. He might have been waiting for someone he could trust with those skills."
Alison nodded. "Maybe." She studied the living room, not looking for anything in particular. "Any other evidence? The intruder bypassed the alarms, but do we know where they entered?"
"We don't know that either," Detective Moore admitted.
Alison picked up a photo album from the shelf and flipped through it.
"The point of entry and exit from the yard?" Derek asked. "Footprints? Car tracks?"
"Again, we don't have anything yet," the detective admitted.
Derek rubbed his forehead.
Alison stopped flicking through the album and went back a couple of pages.
"Hey, come and take a look at this," she said to Derek.
The picture showed three people, with the deceased being the person on the left. She was significantly younger, perhaps six or seven years younger, and looked full of life, especially in comparison to her current state.
"Is that?" Derek asked.
"Yeah, Calvin Reynolds," Alison confirmed, mapping the person on the right of the photo.
"And the guy in the middle with his arm around Margaret?" Derek asked.
"He has to be her ex," Alison said. "Which means she knew Calvin before testifying against him, and so did the ex."
"So, Calvin has someone on the outside who knows Margaret and might know her security system well, someone she might let willingly into her home or give her alarm codes to. Someone we need to talk to immediately."
"Exactly," Alison said. "We have someone with a grudge to bear, who is able to gain access to her house. He could be our killer, and we need to find him now.