The Scum of All Fears: Squeaky Clean Mysteries, Book 5 Read online

She shrugged and daintily began scrubbing another baseboard. We were going to be here all day if she kept cleaning at that pace. And she absolutely had to stop talking. I knew way more about the newest shows on MTV than I ever cared to.

  I sprayed more furiously. Finally, I was satisfied that I’d soaked the wall. I closed the shades, pleased that they were room-darkening variety. They made my job easier.

  Then I stepped back, feeling a little too giddy for my own good. “Check this out.”

  I flipped the lights, smugly thinking that I was about to shock her socks off.

  Instead, what I saw made my blood go cold.

  It wasn’t just the amount of blood glowing on the wall. No, it was also the message written there.

  One, Two

  I’m Coming for You

  Clarice screamed.

  I almost joined her.

  Chapter 2

  “Why in the world were you carrying Luminol?” Riley turned away from the stove for long enough to give me a questioning look.

  I paused from making a salad in order to face him better. “Because . . . well, why not? That’s why. But that’s not the point.” I crossed my arms and watched as he flipped chicken thighs on his stovetop griddle. “The point is that there was a message on the wall of the home.”

  He turned to face me, letting the chicken sizzle for a moment. “So the police missed something. Or maybe they didn’t miss it. Maybe they just didn’t tell the homeowner the message was there and the homeowner, then in turn, couldn’t tell you.”

  “It wasn’t there when the crime scene unit left,” I insisted. The police had just questioned me for an hour or so. They’d made no mention of that. Not that they had to tell me everything—or anything. And they usually didn’t offer any information. I was flying solo when it came to gathering information on crime scenes.

  Still, the detectives with the Norfolk Police Department didn’t look at me with the same disdain that they used to, back when I’d first started out. I’d solved a couple of cases and then been hired by the Medical Examiner for a whole month, so that had gained me some credibility.

  Despite that, it had been a little hard to explain why I’d brought Luminol to a crime scene. It wasn’t my usual M.O., but I’d just happened to have some on hand. And then there had been Clarice . . . one thing had led to another.

  I tapped my finger against my cheek, the crime scene igniting something in me, a kind of primal need I had for answers to life’s pressing questions. Thankfully, most of the time those questions went deeper than the “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” variety.

  I gave up on trying to make a salad in order to fully concentrate on this conversation. “Something doesn’t feel right. Someone left that message in blood—or some other bodily fluid—then cleaned it up some, but not enough that it wouldn’t show up under the right chemicals.” If only I had access to a lab. I could have taken a sample and tested it to find out if it had been blood. Or some other fluid. But I was not officially a part of this case.

  I was certain the criminal had left that message after the crime scene techs had come. That meant the bad guy had come back and risked getting caught just to leave that message. Why would someone take that chance?

  Riley crossed his arms. The top two buttons of his white dress shirt were undone and his sleeves rolled up. He’d offered to cook dinner tonight at his apartment, and I was never one to turn down free dinner. In reality, I should be at another scene cleaning. But a girl had to eat. No one could fault me for that.

  Riley looked all serious and lawyer-like as he stood there discussing the scene with me. He’d finally shaved off his scruffy beard that he’d let grow out while he was on a once-every-decade vacation last week. His dark hair remained just a touch too long, but I liked that. It let people know that he wasn’t all about the rules; he was just mostly about the rules.

  Our wedding was coming up in four months, two days, and 56 minutes.

  Not that I was counting.

  He stepped closer, his blue eyes sparkling. “The message was for the police, not you.”

  “But it said, ‘I’m coming for you,’ and it was left after the fact. Isn’t that strange?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it. What I would worry about is that poor innocent girl who had to see it. She’s probably traumatized.”

  I put my hand on his chest and nudged him playfully. “Poor innocent girl? She was driving me nuts! You have no idea.”

  Riley shook his head, a grin tugging at his lips. “You were trying to freak her out.”

  He knew me too well. Yet he still wanted to marry me. I still pinched myself sometimes.

  I cocked a shoulder, trying to look innocent. “Okay, maybe I was trying to freak Clarice out. Just a little. Not that bad, though.”

  “Uh huh.” Riley didn’t sound convinced.

  “You don’t understand my dilemma. There’s no way I could handle Clarice working for me every day until Chad gets back. I would go crazy. But if I fired her, Sharon would never speak to me again. In the very least, she wouldn’t give me free coffee anymore. And you know how much I love my lattes.”

  Halfway through my diatribe, I realized Riley wasn’t listening. His gaze was fastened on the TV blaring from the living room behind me.

  I turned around to see what could possibly be distracting him from my engaging story and latte confessions. I squinted as I saw the news banner stretched beneath a serious looking brunette news anchor. “Scum River Killer Escapes From Prison, Kills Two.”

  I glanced back up at my fiancé. “Riley?”

  He still didn’t hear me. He moved toward the TV, almost like he was in a trance.

  I moved behind him, curious to listen in and maybe get a clue as to why Riley was so fascinated with this story. I’d heard about the Scum River Killer. He’d been all over the news when he was first captured. But Riley seemed a little too interested.

  Even Lucky, Riley’s parrot, seemed to catch on to Riley’s total and complete focus on the TV. He squawked across the room.

  Riley turned up the TV volume, and a newscaster’s voice blared into the room. “Milton Jones killed thirteen women before his murderous rampage ended nearly three years ago. He was put away for life without possibility for parole. While being transferred from the high security prison where he’d been for two years to a supermax prison, he obtained a gun from one of the guards and escaped.”

  “I can’t believe it . . .” Riley muttered. He plopped on the couch and rubbed his cheek.

  I put my hand on his back and massaged his taut muscles, trying for the life of me to figure out why he was reacting this way. Serial killers were bad. I got that. But Riley didn’t generally have this reaction to them. It wasn’t like either of us lived in a bubble. No, we dealt with scum every day; Riley, as a lawyer, and me as a crime scene cleaner.

  When the news report was over, Riley fell back against the couch and stared at the ceiling. “I can’t believe it,” he repeated. He blinked as if absorbing life-altering news.

  “I’m so not following a single thing that is happening right now. This Jones guy escaped from a prison in California. We’re in Virginia—” I stopped myself. Riley had moved here from California. A year ago. There was no possible way that . . .

  He closed his eyes. “I put him behind bars.”

  My hand dropped from Riley’s back. “What?”

  “He was the big case that made my career. I put him away and became a bit of a hero in the region when I nailed his conviction. The case consumed me. It was all I wanted to eat, drink, and breathe for months.”

  Some of this was coming back to me. I knew he’d been involved in some big cases, but his time as a prosecutor in California seemed like another lifetime ago. “I still don’t understand why you look so shocked. I realize this is a big deal, but—”

  He leaned toward me and grabbed my hand. “I don’t think you realize just how huge this is, Gabby.”

  “Explain it to me then.” I braced
myself for whatever he might have to say. The only time Riley overreacted was when it came to my safety, and my safety wasn’t in play right now. I had nothing to do with this case.

  For once.

  “As Jones was led out of the courtroom, he vowed that he would get out and that he’d get even. He said he’d pay me back for putting him behind bars and that he would make everyone in my life pay.”

  “Make them pay?” My throat felt dry.

  “Make them pay just like he made those women he killed pay.”

  His words caused something ice cold to course through my blood. I barely even smelled the chicken burning in the next room over.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Okay, well, he’s in California. How’s a fugitive going to get to Virginia? That would be crazy. No way he’s sneaking on an airplane. If he steals a car or jumps on a train, he would still take a few days to travel across the country. By that time, the police are going to catch him.” I nodded, totally convinced that my theory was correct.

  Riley had turned the burner off and called for a pizza. With those all-important details taken care of, we could concentrate on more important things. Things like our lives.

  “Milton Jones is sneaky. He’s conniving. No one can still figure out how he got into those people’s homes. He never told anyone and the police couldn’t figure it out.” He shook his head. “And what he did to those women . . .”

  “What did he do to those women?” I was squeezing my own hand so hard that I nearly yelped.

  Riley rubbed his cheek again before turning down the volume on the TV as a consumer report came on. “You don’t want to know. It was horrific. The crime scene photos gave me nightmares for weeks.”

  They had to be serious if they gave Riley nightmares.

  He leaned back on the couch, any sense of lightness and teasing that had been present earlier gone faster than my peace of mind. He stared into the distance, as if going back to a different time. “Everyone in the area was on edge. People wouldn’t let their daughters go out at night. They bought extra locks for their doors. Tons of new neighborhood watch groups started. People lived in fear over this guy.”

  As I pulled one of my knees to my chest, my stomach grumbled, and I really wished that chicken hadn’t burned. “Let me guess, when they caught him, no one could believe he was guilty. They all said what a nice man he was. Isn’t that what the neighbors always say?”

  He went from rubbing his cheek to rubbing his temple. I don’t think I’d ever seen Riley this distressed. “You’re absolutely right. He was a deacon at his church. He coached his son’s little league team. He worked as a sociologist by day, lived in a middle class neighborhood, took family vacations in between the murders.”

  I shivered. “That is creepy. And by creepy, I mean totally whacked out and sick. Tell me—how did he get the name Scum River Killer again?”

  “He always dumped the bodies in this area that locals called the Scum River. It wasn’t actually a river. It was this area of town, underneath an overpass, where there was a sewage leak. Filthy water flowed right down the middle of this street and walkway. People started calling it the Scum River.”

  Riley’s cell phone rang, and he scrunched his eyebrows together when he looked at the screen. He stood as he answered, his body rigid and tight.

  “What’s going on? I see. Okay. Right. I just heard. Are you serious?”

  That was the extent of what I could pick up on from this side of the conversation. I sat on the edge of my seat, apprehension growing in me as I watched the strain pull tighter and tighter at Riley.

  Really, this shouldn’t affect Riley anymore. The police? Yes. The FBI? Probably. Riley had only prosecuted the case. His involvement was over.

  And even though the man’s threats toward Riley sounded horrific, what was the possibility the man could make it all the way across the country? I wasn’t great at statistics, but the likelihood didn’t seem high.

  Riley came back into the room, and his face looked paler than I’d ever remembered it looking. Nausea roiled in my gut as I asked, “What’s going on?”

  He lowered himself beside me, his jaw flexing as he gathered his thoughts. “That was one of my former colleagues at the D.A.’s Office in California. He wanted to make sure I’d heard what happened. He told me that Jones actually escaped last night. Officials didn’t release the news story until today in an effort not to send the public into a panic.”

  “Okay.” I wiped my hands on my jeans, realizing my palms were sweaty.

  “The FBI went through Jones’ prison cell. He had some papers hidden in his mattress.”

  Waiting to hear what Riley had to tell me was worse than waiting for a shot at the doctor’s office. “What are you getting at, Riley?”

  He glanced up, his eyes intense. “They were news clippings about me, Gabby. About me since I moved to Virginia.”

  “Okay.” The man had been carrying a grudge. I was sure a lot of convicts did.

  “And about you.”

  I jabbed my finger into my chest, my anxiety torpedoing into shock. “About me? What do you mean?”

  “You know that article that ran in the paper about you back in January?”

  Of course I remembered it. I’d only framed four copies of it, and whenever I felt down in the dumps, I re-read it for an ego boost. I read it even when I didn’t feel down in the dumps, for that matter. I might have even considered using it as wallpaper. “Yes, I remember.”

  “That article was there, too.”

  The blood drained from my face. “Why in the world would he have a copy of that? You weren’t mentioned in the article, even.”

  “Somehow he’s figured out that you’re connected to me.” He shook his head. “He must have had help from someone outside the prison. That’s the only way he could have gotten those clippings.”

  I shivered. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want this to affect me at all. I wanted to be tough and reasonable. Unaffected. To wear my logic like armor. But the shivers kept coming.

  Riley pulled me into his arms and whispered into my hair, “I don’t like this, Gabby. I don’t like it one bit.”

  I couldn’t lie. I didn’t like this one bit either.

  CHAPTER 4

  I awoke the next morning with Milton Jones still on my mind. It hadn’t helped that I’d done an Internet search on the man before I went to bed. In my defense, I’d hopped online to place an ad for a new temporary employee this week. I’d quickly gotten distracted.

  Story of my life, it seemed sometimes.

  As I read the details of his crimes, I’d shuddered. He’d tortured his victims before killing them. He was one big, bad dude, beyond the vile killers I’d encountered in the past.

  He snatched women in the middle of the night. They were almost always in their early twenties, outgoing in nature, and thin in stature. No one could ever figure out how he got in and out of the homes. He always left a picture of his victims with their eyes Xed out after he abducted them. He kept the women for six days and then killed them, dumping their bodies in a public location afterward.

  He was a psychopath. Yet he was meticulous. A planner. Devious.

  I stared at my bedroom ceiling as the earliest of morning light trickled in from outside. Jones’ threats to Riley had been idle, something he’d never be able to carry out. He’d probably threatened a lot of people for that matter. So why did he only have an unofficial shrine to Riley?

  I didn’t need to worry about it. For that matter, the FBI had probably already arrested the man. I was sure that when I turned on the news this morning I would see an update. I’d see video feeds of the man being led back to prison in handcuffs, taking the walk of shame.

  Meanwhile, I’d forgotten to place my ad for a temporary worker, which meant I was flying solo today. I was already behind thanks to the debacle yesterday, so I had to get busy. I had a reputation for being reliable and thorough. I didn’t want to mess that up, even if my days doing this job were potentially num
bered.

  I comforted myself with the fact that I’d still probably get my crime scenes cleaned faster alone today than I would have with Clarice yesterday.

  Poor Clarice. I doubted she ever wanted to see me again. She’d looked pale and ready to throw up when she’d seen the message left in that house. Crime scenes could do that to a person. I’d dropped her off with Sharon, told her to take some Tylenol, and waved adios.

  Now, it was time to start my day alone. I had four crime scenes on my docket to get cleaned between today and tomorrow. It was going to be a lot of work. I was going to have to hire some subcontractors to replace some dry wall and even a section of subfloor at one place.

  I got out of bed, got dressed, grabbed a Pop Tart, and opened the front door, ready to get started. To my surprise, a woman was standing there, her hand poised to knock. She stepped back and smiled. “So sorry to scare you like that. I wanted to stop by and introduce myself.”

  “Introduce away then,” I said, surprising even myself at the lameness of my words.

  “I’m Rose Turvington. I’m your new landlord.”

  “New landlord? What happened to Mr. Sears?” Mr. Sears had been around since our country’s forefathers signed the Constitution. I was pretty sure he’d used it as a guide when drawing up the papers to lease this place.

  “He decided to go down to Florida. It was all very sudden, apparently.” She pulled a lock of hair behind her ear. I noted her red, curly hair that bore a resemblance to mine. The difference was that she’d teased her bangs so they stood up in a gigantic curl.

  The woman was probably in her mid-forties, so she had a good fifteen years on me. She wore skinny jeans with ankle boots and a black KISS T-shirt that emphasized her oversized apple figure. Her mascara was heavy, and she’d chosen an electric shade of blue to paint her eyelids. It was just a gut instinct, but I had a feeling she was thrilled that 80s clothing was back in style. In fact, maybe she’d never given up on it.

  “I’m Gabby. Nice to meet you.”

  “Mr. Sears said you’re one to watch out for.” Her voice was low, kind of scratchy, maybe from smoking or possibly from yelling too loud at rock concerts.