Page 2 of Line of Sight (Second Sight #4)

Boston, MA

IN THE cold-case office, the whiteboard’s pristine surface had been divided into four sections, each with a headshot of the victim, and the crime-scene photos below them seemed to scream at Detective Gary Mitchell every time he glanced at them.

Wrongful death!

Avenge us.

Brad Mitchell wasn’t screaming, however.

He stared at Gary the same way he’d done from every photo of him Gary had ever seen in the twenty-three years since his murder.

Photos that sat in his parents’ dining room on the sideboard, the piano, showing Brad as a baby, a little boy, a teenager, at graduation… . Brad staring at the camera—at Gary.

The quiet stare that said, Find who did this to me . Do it for me.

For the first time in all those years, Gary was finally ready to do just that.

The aroma of freshly brewed coffee filled his nostrils, and he took the proffered cup. “You read my mind.” Then he realized what he’d said and laughed.

“As if I needed to do that, even if I possessed the gift, which I don’t.

” Dan Porter smiled. “You’re a creature of habit.

Let’s face it, anytime I bring you coffee is the right time.

” He inclined his head toward the door. “Your coworkers, however? They clam up every time I pass by them, and it doesn’t require mind-reading skills to know they’re nervous around me.

” His eyes sparkled. “I can almost hear them. Don’t talk to the psychic.

What deep, dark secrets are they afraid I’ll uncover?

Although to be fair, since they found out we’re a couple, some of them appear less nervous.

” Dan’s lips twitched. “Because of course their straight asses are safe. I’m not about to jump on their bones now that I’m fully occupied jumping on yours. ”

Gary arched his eyebrows but said nothing.

He’d stood by his decision to come out as bi to his colleagues.

It was early days, and while it was true there’d been no muttered comments, awkward silences, or inquiring glances so far, Gary knew his fellow detectives well enough to realize once the honeymoon period was over, they wouldn’t pull their punches.

He dreaded the cartoons he knew would soon be pinned to his office door. Someone out there had a wicked sense of humor and a whole lot of talent.

Right then he had more important things to think about.

He gazed at the photos that were about to be the focus of his attention for a while.

Very similar photos.

“You work fast.” Dan gestured to the whiteboard. “All I did was go out for coffee and you got all this done. This is all of them?”

He nodded. The department’s tech whiz, Barry Davis, had scoured VICAP for all the cases that bore the same MO as Brad’s—brutal, unusual murders that had so far gone unsolved.

What he’d uncovered had been shocking.

Some of the photos were in black and white, but the absence of color didn’t rob them of their heart-stopping properties. Each section bore the name of the victim and the date of their murder.

Brad was the first, and Gary’s heart had quaked as he’d attached the photos.

He looks so young.

The picture of his brother before his death was a study of a freckled, tousle-haired youth, his eyes bright with humor. Gary’s mom had provided the police with the photo, and every time Gary glanced at it, he saw himself at that age.

I must have reminded them of him so much. Almost like a wound that was never allowed to heal.

He didn’t have to look at the crime-scene photo. He knew it by heart. He’d visited the picnic table in Forest Park, Springfield, Massachusetts, countless times, and during one visit, he’d lost it when he spied a family sitting there, shaded by the trees, eating, laughing, joking….

A far cry from what had been discovered back on April 16, 1995. Brad’s mutilated body lying there, blood soaking into the wooden slats of the picnic table. Brad’s heart nestled in his hands, his chest open….

So much blood.

“Hey.” Dan’s hand was on his back, a comforting reminder of his presence. “I don’t have to ask where your head is, do I?”

Gary tore himself away from his memories. “What surprises me? I remember one of these cases. I wasn’t working on it, but I do recall how sickening it was at the time—and how frustrated detectives were that they hadn’t been able to find the murderer.”

“Which case?”

He pointed to the photo of a dark-haired woman, maybe in her mid-forties. “Heather Kelly.” Below her name was written June 8, 2013. “I’d only recently joined Homicide.” He shivered. “Her murder was straight out of a horror movie.”

Below her headshot, the crime-scene photo of the victim in situ could have been a still from such a movie. Heather Kelly was seated at a desk, unrecognizable from the earlier photo, her head a mass of crisped flesh—the result of high-pressured steam, the medical examiner had surmised.

The device employed to deliver said steam was on the desk in front of her.

What was noticeable was the lack of restraints. It was as though she’d sat there and let it happen.

Dan pointed to the photos next to Brad’s. “This was before your time.” He peered closer. “How old was he? Mid-twenties?”

Another nod. Mark Wilson’s body had been discovered in Acadia National Park on August 17, 1997, another gruesome murder.

He’d been found out in the open, his body suspended from his wrists, cuffs biting into them.

The restraints were locked around metal loops hammered into what looked like a wall of rock, but that wasn’t what made Gary’s stomach churn.

Wilson was dressed in shorts and a tee ripped at the neckline, hanging in two flaps, his innards tumbling from his torso, which had been cut open from the base of his sternum to the waistband of his shorts.

The final victim, Jeff Murphy, had been thirty-eight at the time of his death in January of 2018. His murder was uncomplicated compared to the others. He’d been found dressed in a shirt, bare from the waist down—

With the heel of a stiletto shoe lodged deep in his eye socket. Deep enough to penetrate his brain.

“So where do we start?”

Gary picked up a pen and wrote on the board. “We look at age. Social class. Schools. Locations. Any links, anything that connects them. Any patterns.”

The door opened, and Barry Davis poked his head around it. “Hey. You got a minute?”

Gary smiled. “For you? Several, especially after you did all this.” He gestured to the board.

“How did you find these cases?” Dan asked. “I mean, apart from the fact that they’re all unsolved and particularly gruesome.”

“Once I’d found all the unsolved murders, I ran them through my computer to search for anything else that linked them.”

“And what linked these?”

“The same names kept cropping up. Then I searched through tax records to locate those names and pulled up any murders occurring in the same vicinity. What made me stick with these? They were all motiveless.” Barry flung his arm out.

“Et voila.” Then he gave them an apologetic glance.

“And as for why I’m here. Much as I hate to increase your workload… I’ve found another one.”