Fear Nothing by Lisa Gardner Read Free Book Online Page B

bleach-soaked mop, you can’t get it all. It’s the whole magic of your job. Even when you can no longer see blood with the human eye, it lingers, just waiting for the right high-intensity beams or proper chemical solution to tell its tale. This”—she waved her hand toward the relatively blood-free expanse of hardwood floor—“I’m seeing it, but I’m not believing it.”
    “As I mentioned, the Boston PD wouldn’t mind some help with this one.” Alex walked deeper into the room, his beam sweeping methodically right, left, right. “Shall we start with the bedsheet? I believe it serves as the beginning of the story.”
    She nodded once. Responding to his hand signal, she obediently killed the overhead lights. In the near gloom, it was easier to focus on Alex’s high-intensity light and the way it cast a single fitted sheet into a terrible inkblot of dark, deadly stains.
    Blood patterns, D.D. had learned by now, varied depending on the velocity of the blow and the porosity of the surface area. Bedding, such as blankets and mattresses, was obviously very soft and porous, meaning the blood spatter soaked straight in versus ricocheting or forming a starburst pattern on impact. In fact, the white sheet now bore a single, very long, almost cylinder-shaped bloody print, broken in two places by bars of white. She and Alex both stepped closer, inspecting the outer edges of the print.
    “I don’t see any signs of fine mist,” D.D. murmured, “such as blowback from high-velocity gunfire.”
    “Victim wasn’t shot. Blood patterns indicate a low-velocity impact.”
    Which was consistent with most stabbings, D.D. knew. She still frowned. “But there’s no spatter at all, not even random drippings from the handle of the knife or edge of the blade. How do you explain that?”
    “Killer’s not stabbing. Cause of death is unknown. But given the lack of defensive wounds, arterial spray and spatter, the victim was dead before the killer began removing her skin. I’m just a criminalist, not a behavioralist, but it would appear the crime is about control, not about pain and suffering. What we’re seeing here is purely the result of postmortem work.”
    It should’ve been a reassuring thought. That the victim was already dead before the first slip of the cold blade beneath the surface of her skin . . . And yet, D.D. found herself almost slightly more horrified. A sexual-sadist predator with an overwhelming compulsion to inflict pain and suffering was something she could almost understand. But this . . . a killer who skinned his victims for sport?
    “The voids?” she whispered now, pointing to twin patterns of clean white sheet amid the large cylinder of blood.
    Alex got out a pencil. With his left hand, he started pointing and explaining. “Remember, the postmortem mutilation is mostly to the torso and the upper thighs. If you look at the bloodstain, you can see feathering at the top, and imprints here, which I believe are from the victim’s shoulder blades pressing into the sheet and limiting the absorption of blood. Orienting ourselves, then, here is the head, the shoulders, the torso, the legs. Given that . . .”
    “The voids are on either side of the victim’s thighs.”
    “From the lower part of the killer’s legs, I presume. Essentially, he was straddling her body, the front part of his shins pressing against the mattress on either side of her thighs, which shielded that part of the sheet from blood.”
    “He incapacitates his victim,” D.D. murmured, trying to form a sequence of events in her mind. “Then, most likely, he sets the scene. The champagne, handcuffs, single rose. He’d want to get everything out before things get too . . . messy.”
    Alex turned, sweeping his high-intensity beam across the nightstand where the champagne bottle and other props awaited. The light didn’t expose a single drop of blood.
    “Fair assumption,” he said.
    “Next . . . he would have to strip the