14 BOOK 2 Read Online Free PDF Page B

did.
    She was four games of nine ball in when the door opened.
    Baldwin stood in the frame, hair mussed, sleep marks creasing his left cheek. He whistled a low tune and she melted. He looked so damn unbearably cute that Taylor couldn’t help herself. All the bad thoughts left her. The worries, the frustrations, disappeared. She put the cue stick back in its holder, went to him. Took him by the hand and wordlessly led him back to the bedroom. 

Four
    Nashville, Tennessee
    Tuesday, December 16
    6:40 a.m.
    Taylor rose early, gritty-eyed from the lack of sleep. She left Baldwin in the bed, tucked a pillow in his arms, and felt her heart break when he smiled and murmured into it. Seeing him like that, remembering what he’d done to finally get her to sleep, made all her worries about the wedding seem silly.
    Long legs ensconced in a pair of jeans, she slipped into her favorite old Uggs and pulled on a creamy cable sweater. She stopped in the kitchen briefly, grabbed a banana and a granola bar, then got in the 4Runner. She backed into a drift of snow in the driveway, but the powerful truck slid through it easily.
    The neighborhood was beautiful, sheer and pure, a white only produced by snow fallen from a crisp wintry sky. She felt like she was in the mountains; the deciduous trees masquerading as heavy evergreens with black trunks and feathery limbs coated in ice, the sky cerulean, a shade rarely seen during a Southern winter. The beauty cheered her, and she left the quiet subdivision in a good mood. Moved by the weather. Sheesh. She was getting soft.
    Out in the suburbs, the side roads were unplowed and impassable to all but four-wheel drives, but the main roads were relatively cleared and not yet icy. She was careful, made her way to the Starbucks drive-through, got her now standard nonfat, sugar-free vanilla latte and headed toward work.
    The autopsy of Janesicle was scheduled for seven, and Taylor intended to witness. Maybe Sam would have the results back from the LCMS tests. If this was definitely victim number four, it would be a hard secret to keep. She flipped on the XM, used the remote to scroll through the stations until she found some music she liked. No talk radio for her this morning, and she’d given up on the holiday channels after the third murder. It just didn’t feel right to be listening to such joyful exuberance when girls’ bodies were stacking up like cordwood in the morgue. She needed mindless noise, distraction. She settled on a U2 tune and mouthed the words as she made her way down the highway. The roads were virtually empty and she felt freer than she had in months. Little by little, as she closed the distance to Forensic Medical, her heart grew heavier. When she entered Gass Street, she turned off the radio.
    Sam’s offices were housed in a corporate-looking building up the road from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. Taylor had been here so often that Sam had issued her a badge that allowed her access after hours. Or before hours, when necessary. They’d have a skeleton staff on a day like today, but Taylor knew Sam would be there. And she was, already prepped. Taylor could see her, distorted through the crisscross wire embedded in the glass of the industrial door. The air was cool and clean in the compartmented vestibule where she slipped out of her clothes and boots, sliding blue plastic clogs and doctor’s scrubs on. She put her street clothes in a locker. No sense making her clothes reek for the rest of the day. With the new gear in place, she went through the door into the autopsy suite. The chemical scent of death greeted her like an old friend. She hardly noticed it anymore. Sam nodded as she entered the room, already dictating into a hands-free mike clipped to her headgear. The body of Janesicle Doe lay on the cream-colored plastic slab that encased the stainless-steel table underneath. She was so white; cold, clammy flesh, with that big, black grin across her throat. Taylor felt