Hollywood Notorious: A Hollywood Alphabet Thriller Series (A Hollywood Alphabet Series Thriller Book 14) Read Online Free PDF Page B

from being up half the night.
    “Nothing official. As you know, the coroner determined that her heart was removed. We’re waiting on the autopsy. Brie’s hoping to get to it this afternoon.”
    She took a moment, moving through images of the crime scene. The room was silent, maybe because of the impact of seeing the terrible images again.
    Molly Wingate then took over. Thanks to some excellent work on prior cases, our former secretary had recently been promoted to a crime analyst, like her counterpart. Molly was in her thirties, with dark red hair and green eyes. She was a compassionate, hard-working employee who was trying to raise two young children on her own after her cheating husband had left her.
    “The paints used on the victim were oil based, typically found in art supply stores,” Molly said. “The depiction of a skeleton and the way the victim was dressed is common to Day of the Dead displays. The female figure in these ceremonies is often referred to as Catrina.”
    “Where does the name come from?” Darby asked.
    “It’s taken from an etching done by a Mexican printmaker in the early 1900s. Over the years, that image has become the physical re-creation of the figure used in these festivals.”
    Darby scoffed. “That’s all a crock of shit, if you ask me. Some asshole whacked the girl, wanted some press, so he played dress-up, and got out his paints.”
    “Speaking of press,” Selfie said, before I could tell Darby what he had simmering in his own crockpot, “I suppose by now everyone’s seen the video?”
    “What are you talking about?” Leo said. “I spent the morning trying to catch up on my sleep.”
    “I’ll play it for you. From what the press is saying, the clip was downloaded to the Internet late last night. No one is claiming credit, so far.”
    We all watched as a shaky image of our victim and the makeshift altar was displayed on an overhead monitor. The video was about fifteen seconds long, showing an unseen subject moving in and taking a close-up of our victim’s face.
    “God damn it,” I said to Leo as the video ended. “It must have been shot by that SID asshole we sent packing.”
    “But you took his phone,” Oz said.
    “Then maybe it was one of his buddies.” I looked at Selfie. “Any idea where this came from?”
    She shook her pink head. “It was put up by one of the paparazzi websites and distributed to the media outlets. By the way, they’re calling our suspect ‘the Reaper’.”
    “As in the grim reaper?” Leo asked.
    Molly nodded. “We can try to track the source of the video, but…”
    “You might as well look for Martians while you’re at it,” Darby said. He looked at Buck. “Or maybe cowboys in Hollywood.”
    “I’m not gonna tell you again to knock it off,” Buck said, his handsome features hardening as he regarded his partner.
    Oz saw the storm brewing and cut it off. “Enough.” He turned to our crime analysts. “What else?”
    “As you know, the photograph of the victim was found at the crime scene,” Molly said. “A decision needs to be made about whether or not to release it to the press.”
    “What’s the hold up?” Darby asked. “We’ve got no prints, no other identifiers. If we wait on DNA, we’re going to be playing catch-up.”
    As much as I hated to admit it, he was probably right. DNA analysis could take days, and time was of the essence in homicide cases.
    “Let’s take a look at the missing person cases first,” Oz said. “I’d like to spare the family from seeing the girl’s photograph on TV if we can avoid it. In the meantime, I’ll talk to Captain Dembowski and see how he wants to proceed.” He looked at Selfie and Molly. “Anything similar to our crime in VICAP?”
    The FBI managed a computer database called the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. It was a repository of thousands of criminal records, including homicide and sexual assault cases.
    Selfie answered. “There’s lots of cases nationwide