The 5th Horseman by James Patterson Read Free Book Online Page B

and it matched one of the two semen samples that showed up inside Caddy Girl.”
    I followed Claire’s finger down the results of the toxicology screen. She stabbed the letters ETOH with her index finger. “This is what I wanted to show you. Her blood was positive for alcohol. Point one three.”
    “So she was wasted,” I said.
    “Uh-huh, but that’s not all. Look here. She was also positive for benzodiazepine. It’s unusual to have booze and Valium in your system, so I had tox run her bloods again, this time looking for zebras. They narrowed it down to Rohypnol.”
    “Aw. No. The date-rape drug.”
    “Yeah, she didn’t know where she was, who she was, what was happening, even if it was happening.”
    The ugly pieces were there, but I still couldn’t make sense of the whole picture. Caddy Girl had been doped up, assaulted, and murdered with mind-boggling care and precision.
    Claire turned to the wall of photos. “It’s no wonder she didn’t have vaginal bruising and defensive wounds, Lindsay. Caddy Girl couldn’t fight back if she wanted to. Poor child never had a chance.”

    Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman
     

     
    Chapter 25
    I DROVE MY EXPLORER home in the dark, feeling female, not female cop. I had to see the world through Caddy Girl’s eyes if I wanted to understand what had happened to her. But it was horrific to imagine being that vulnerable to the will of violent men. Two of them, two animals.
    I grabbed my Nextel out of its clip on my belt and called Jacobi before more time passed. He answered on the first ring, and I filled him in on what Claire had told me.
    “So I’m guessing she found herself in a room with a couple of guys who had sex on their mind,” I said, braking for a light at the next street corner. “They got pushy — and Caddy Girl resists, rebuffs them. So one of the guys puts roofies into her Chardonnay.”
    “Yeah,” Jacobi agreed. “Now she’s so stoned she can’t move. Maybe she even blacks out. They take her clothes off, spray her with perfume, take turns having sex on her.”
    “Maybe they’re afraid she might remember the assault,” I said, my thoughts neatly in sync with those of my former partner. “They’re not totally stupid. Maybe they’re very smart, actually. They want to kill her without leaving a lot of evidence. One guy burks her; the other makes sure she’s dead by suffocating her with a plastic bag. A nice clean kill.”
    “Yup, sounds right, Boxer. Maybe after she’s dead, they reload and do her again,” Jacobi said. “Figure a little necrophilia never hurt anyone. Then what? They dress her in five thousand bucks’ worth of clothes and take her for a ride? Drop her off in Guttman’s Seville?”
    “That’s the craziest part of it all,” I said. “I don’t get it about the clothes. The clothes thing throws everything off for me.”
    “Claire didn’t have the results on the DNA?”
    “Not yet. You know, if Caddy Girl was the mayor’s wife, we’d know something by now. But since nobody’s even reported her missing . . .”
    “Good-looking girl like that,” said Jacobi. I could hear a tinge of sadness in his voice. Some small revelation of loneliness. “Someone should be missing her.”

    Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman
     

     
    Chapter 26
    I OPENED THE FRONT DOOR to my apartment and exchanged sloppy hellos with Martha.
    “Hey, Boo. Howzmygirl?”
    I hugged her squirming body as she yapped her enthusiastic approval of my return from the wars.
    As exhausted as I was, jogging with my girl was the greatest encouragement I had to keep fit.
    I leashed her, and soon after, we were running across Missouri in the dark, around the rec center, down and back up the hill, endorphins lifting my mood and giving me a slightly more positive outlook on Caddy Girl’s murder investigation.
    The perp’s DNA was cooking in the lab right at this moment.
    Cops were canvassing with her picture in hand.
    There was hope after all.
    Someone