Chapter Forty-Nine
Carter Cost had lived in a mansion on a hill. He’d driven a BMW, the high-end model that cost more than most folks made in three years.
He’d died the way he lived . . . in excess.
The ME hadn’t arrived yet. Evidence techs were doing their thing. Cooper was interviewing neighbors. Braddock studied the staging of the victim.
Seated in a recliner in front of the massive flat-panel television in his living room, Cost’s body was nude.
One of hundreds of homemade porn videos showcased his lack of skill with a video camera on the widescreen hanging on the wall.
One would think he’d simply sat down to relax and watch his cinematography, were it not for the empty Vicodin prescription bottle glued to his left hand and the way his right hand was similarly glued to his penis.
His throat had been slit, and blood had leaked down his torso to pool in his lap. The lack of arterial spray indicated that final travesty had taken place during the last moments of his life, after his heart rate had slowed to a near stop.
E. Noon was written in blood across his forehead.
The cops sitting in the cruiser out front hadn’t heard or seen a thing. The house, and Cost, had been quiet all night.
Braddock moved his head side to side. They were turning Huntsville upside down in an attempt to find Nash. Not surprisingly, he’d disappeared. Four victims, not counting Celeste Martin, whose body hadn’t been staged like the others, and not a single piece of evidence to go on.
This one would be just like the rest. There would be no fingerprints other than those of the victim and his guests and family.
No trace evidence. No witness accounts of seeing anyone arrive or depart from the residence.
Braddock didn’t have to hear the confirmation from Cooper’s interviews with the neighbors.
He knew.
This killer was not just good, he was brilliant.
Tyrone Nash wasn’t that damned smart.
At that moment the reality of the situation crystallized for Braddock.
This was not about Nash . . . not about the village or Shelley Patterson.
This was about CJ. Somehow the murders were about her.
Cooper burst into the room. “The chief’s here. And he doesn’t look happy.” She jerked her head toward the body. “The father’s here too.”
Carter Cost’s family was one of the most prominent in Huntsville.
This was going to get ugly.