Read Online Jackson 05 - The Immortals by J.T. Ellison - Free Book Online

and finished up with Brittany?”
    â€œWatching? Sure. You know how these kooks love to watch. He could have been at one of the houses at the far end of the neighborhood while we were in one of the other residences.”
    â€œJesus. The media is going to have my head.”
    Sam was back to being all professional. She and Sam hadn’t hung out in a few weeks, and Taylor missed her. “Taylor, you’ve done the best you can. Let’s get back, I still have two bodies to declare.”
    â€œOkay. Let me tell Marcus, I’ll need to come back here later.”
    She found him in the kitchen, staring hard out the back window into nothingness. His shoulders were slumped in defeat. She knew exactly what was going through his mind. Blame, guilt. Taylor decided to give him the same pep talk Sam had just given her.
    â€œHey,” she said softly. “It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.”
    He met her eyes, bleak with despair. “She didn’t have a pulse earlier, Taylor. I swear it. The EMT who came couldn’t find one, either. Jesus, she’s been lying here dying while Ichatted up her mom and figured a way to get the dog to leave her side.”
    Ranger sat heavily on Marcus’s feet. He reached down and petted the dog absently.
    â€œDid the mom have any idea what went down this afternoon?”
    â€œNo. She’s a single mother, a nurse. Name’s Elissa. She worked late, came home and found Brittany in the den. Brittany’s a scholarship student, I did find that out. Strait-laced, shy. Her mom says there’s no way she was doing drugs voluntarily.”
    â€œThere’s no sign of forced entry. Whoever tried to kill her, she let him in.”
    â€œShe’s younger than the others, too. I’ve got a patrol canvassing, but this house is set back so far that no one has come forward yet to say they saw anything out of the ordinary.”
    â€œThen we need to start looking for the ordinary. A killer who can disappear into this neighborhood for hours unnoticed.”
    â€œCaucasian, then. Dressed professionally, or in a Halloween costume. It could be anyone.”
    â€œCould be a kid.”
    â€œYou think another kid did this?”
    â€œI don’t know. But we need to take that into consideration.”
    â€œIf we’d just gotten to her earlier,” he repeated, voice hollow.
    She got in his face, forced him to make eye contact.
    â€œMarcus, let’s just focus on the now. Get me a report from the hospital, and let’s take it from there. If the girl lives, post a guard on her room. She’s the only witness we have to this afternoon’s events. I need to get back to Estes—there are still two bodies that Sam hasn’t declared. Take it easy on yourself. Get the patrols to secure this house and we’ll come back to it. This one goes in the win column. Okay?”
    â€œOkay,” he mumbled, misery etched on his handsomefeatures. He wasn’t fooling her. She’d need to talk him off the ledge some more, but right now she needed to attend to the rest of the dead.
    â€œHere, I’ve got something that will distract you. I think our killer may be watching us, waiting to see our reactions. We need to talk to everyone within one hundred yards of these crime scenes that might have a video camera trained our way. Check with the media first. They know to get some crowd shots in the B-roll, and Keri McGee will, too. I’ve noticed some of these homes have a little extra security—they may have cameras that aren’t readily visible. Get through to the security firms in the area, see if any of them service houses near the crime scenes. Can you handle that for me?”
    â€œOf course.” He nodded, putting away the upset, becoming all business again. His eyes shuttered and he snapped open his cell phone, started giving instructions. Taylor squeezed his shoulder and went to join Sam.
    She closed the front