Prologue

Sunday, June 8

3:10 a.m.

   Even after fifteen years of working as a police officer, ten of which he’d spent as a homicide detective, the scent of death never got any easier to stomach. It was a hideous smell, especially if the flesh of the victim had been decomposing for a period of time, as was the case tonight.

   Detective Thomas Cavanah stepped over the yellow crime scene tape that had been woven across twelve feet of muddy ground and chain-linked fence and walked towards the body of the decomposing victim. He ignored the whirring of lights from nearby police cars, the buzzing sound of vultures—also known as reporters—as they clamored around for a story, and concentrated on the crime scene.

   She looked just like the others before her. Late twenties to mid thirties. Light brown—maybe dark blonde?—hair. Average height. Well endowed. Very dead.

   “Cavanah!”

   Thomas glanced up at the familiar sound of his partner’s voice. He absently watched Detective James Merdino flash his badge at a rookie cop securing the scene before stepping over the police tape. Thomas cast his gaze back down to the muddy ground, his thoughts on the victim.

   The UNSUB who did this woman in likes to play, he thought, his acute brown eyes immediately noting the several superficial lacerations zigzagging across her torso. Cuts like that weren’t meant to kill—only to injure, to torture. To give hope of living where none exists. To play…

   His gaze flicked up to the woman’s bared breasts. Or what was left of them rather. A large hole had been dug out of her chest, a gaping wound where her heart should have been revealing that, just like the others, that particular organ had been removed from her body—probably when she’d still been alive.

   Thomas pinched the bridge of his nose. He took a deep breath and blew it out. When the perpetrator finally allowed the victim to die, she had been grateful for it, he was certain.

   “On my way over headquarters informed me that the heart was missing,” James said, squatting down on the ground next to the victim. “I see they got that right.”

   “This dude is one sick bastard,” Thomas muttered, his gravelly voice kept low.

   “They all are.”

   Thomas’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Not like this, bro.”

   James nodded down to the victim. “He tied her up like the others.”

   “Yes.”

   “Any signs of a struggle?”

   Thomas snorted at that. “Hell yeah she struggled,” he growled.

   “You know what I mean—”

   “But whether or not she struggled before he tied her up I just don’t know.” Thomas frowned. “Let’s hope the coroner can answer that one. We need something more to go on because right now we have as much as we did when the last body surfaced—nothing.” He ran a hand through his dark brown hair, the muscle in his bicep bulging. “Why do I have a feeling Dr. Goldstein is going to say she’s too badly decomposed to tell?”

   “Because she is. They always are.” James sighed, standing up before his partner.

   “He’s gotten good,” Thomas murmured. “Too good. He knows how to cut them, how to hide them, never fucks up. Never leaves DNA traces behind.”

   “He will eventually. And when he does, my friend, we’ll get his ass.”

   Thomas was silent for a protracted moment as he considered that. “Right now we’ve only got one thing going for us. His ego. It’s getting bigger and bigger.”

   He glanced back down at the victim, his eyes narrowed in concentration. The laceration marks across her torso were almost artsy this time. “He’s not just cutting them up and killing them any more. He’s taking his time, confident in his ability to keep from getting caught.”

   “And the more time he spends with them…”

   “The more chance there is that he’ll leave behind a fiber—anything.”

   James nodded. “We’ll get him, buddy. I know we’ll get him.”

   Thomas forced his intense gaze away from the victim’s body. His brown eyes clashed with his partner’s. “I just hope we get him before he gets anybody else.”

   Silence.

   That scenario was as unlikely as the perp turning himself in, a fact both detectives implicitly understood would never happen.

   Somebody else would die.

   And given Lucifer’s penchant for playing, it would happen soon.

Chapter 1

Sunday, June 8

11:10 a.m.

   “How much blood has he lost?”

   Dr. Nicole “Nikki” Adenike put the question to the OR nurse as she quickly scrubbed down, preparing for an emergency surgery. The victim took a bullet through the chest, just two inches shy of his heart.

   “A hell of a lot. We can’t even tell.”

   “Drug related?”

   “Yep.”

   Not that it mattered. Not that she cared. It was Nikki’s job to save the man’s life, not to play judge and jury. When he was healed he would be handed over to the Cleveland Police Department. Until then, she had a job to do.

   “Has he been prepped?” she asked as they ran together from surgery toward the awaiting victim in the operating room.

   “Prepped down in ER.”

   The scene inside the OR room would have looked like chaos to the casual, untrained observer. In all actuality the team of nurses and doctors attending to the victim moved with expert precision, the singular goal of saving the drug dealer’s life paramount to all else.

   “We have to move fast so don’t make me repeat myself,” Nikki calmly intoned as she took her place next to the victim. “Nurse, gauze please.”

   For the next eight hours Nikki worked like Mozart before the piano, doing what it was she did best. Her hands were steady, her fingers skilled. She detached herself from the pandemonium around her, concentrating instead on picking out the bullet, restoring the victim’s vital signs, and sewing up the obscenely gaping hole in his chest.

   Easier said than done. There was a lot of blood loss. His vitals were touch and go. Twice she almost lost him.

   But in the end, eight hours, a perspired brow, and a fatigued body later, the victim’s chest had been sewn back up sans the bullet, his vitals improving if not fully restored.

   He would live. He would be staring at the inside of a jail cell soon enough, but he’d live.

   Her job was done. Today.

   “You did good,” Juanita Brown remarked as she swiped at the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.

   Nikki smiled, then tiredly patted the younger nurse on the back. Juanita was a terrific lady to work with, her favorite on the trauma surgery team. They’d been saving lives together since Nikki had been a resident surgeon. “You weren’t too bad yourself, kiddo.”

   Juanita half smiled and half sighed. “Damn, I’m beat. I’d say let’s go grab a bite to eat, but I’d rather go catch some Zs.”

   “Me too. I’ll grab a burger from a fast food place on my way home.”

   “Watch out. That stuff will kill ya.” They shared an insider smile, both of them recalling the man they’d saved together barely a week past after he’d almost choked himself to death by swallowing hamburger bites too fast. “You on call tomorrow?”

   “Nope.” Nikki grinned. “I have a day off if you can believe it.”

   “Well enjoy it. I got stuck pulling a double shift.”

   “Hey I’ve had my fair share of those. See you Tuesday, Nita.”

   “I’ll be here.”

   Fifteen minutes later, Nikki had changed into her street clothes, alighted into her Mercedes Benz, and was driving toward the apartment she rented out in a high-rise complex that catered to doctors and other affluent professionals who worked at or around Cleveland General. Only ten minutes away, it was a logical place to live when people were depending on you to show up at the hospital on a moment’s notice in order to perform emergency surgeries.

   The minute the hospital was out of sight, so too was it out of mind. Nikki had learned the importance of leaving her work at work long ago to avoid burnout.

   She doubted that most people could appreciate the stress that is inherent with playing God in people’s lives, to know that they lived or died depending upon how well you performed on any given day. There was no room for error. Only for precision. An impossibility given the fact that she was human.

   Due to the nature of her occupation it was vital to not only be a skilled healer, but also a skilled commander of people that her trauma team respected. They looked to her for direction, for the ability to provide authority and leadership.

   Not that she was complaining. Nikki loved her job, always had. She took a lot of pride in what she did and the fact that she did it so well. Nobody, however, can be precise, commanding and authoritative all the time, so she looked forward to her days off as a time to recuperate, a time where she could be plain old Nikki instead of the respected surgeon, Dr. Nicole Adenike.

   Exhausted, Nikki smiled as the high-rise complex she lived in loomed into view. She patted the grease-stained paper bag sitting on the passenger’s seat beside her.

   First a burger and then a hot bubble bath. Damn, she loved her days off.

* * * * *

   “Another body was discovered in the early hours of the morning outside downtown Cleveland’s financial district. The victim, identified through dental records as thirty-three-year-old Linda Hughes, was a well-respected international tax accountant at the prestigious Waterson, Helman, and Pandley firm.

   Reported missing several months ago, news of her death nevertheless came as a shock to family, friends, and co-workers, all of whom described Linda to reporters as an affable, highly intelligent businesswoman and friend.”

   Nikki watched the news report on the flat panel TV display that had been mounted onto a nearby wall from the bathtub she was soaking in. She absently worked soap bubbles over her breasts, then up and down her arms, as the victim’s shaken mother spoke tearfully before the cameras.

   “If this can happen to my Linda, it can happen to any woman,” Mrs. Hughes said, her voice quivering. “My daughter was a smart woman. She never would have gotten herself into a preventable situation.”

   Which meant, as the police no doubt already suspected, Linda had trusted the man who had murdered her. It was kind of unnerving to think that this particular serial killer had ingratiated himself into the lives of so many women—so many smart women at that. Doctors, lawyers, CEOs…the man whom the Cleveland press had dubbed “Lucifer” was nobody’s fool, she thought.

   The phone rang, breaking Nikki out of her reverie. She reached for the TV’s remote and hit the power button, flicking the box off at the same time she answered the cordless. “Hello?”

   “Hey Nik. It’s Kim.”

   Nikki smiled into the phone. Kimberly Cox was her nearest and dearest friend. “After sixteen years, one would think you would quit identifying yourself every time you call. I do recognize your voice, my dear,” she said teasingly. “I’ve only known you since, oh, college.”

   “Hey, you never know. We’re both thirty-four now. Starting to lose brain cells and all.”

   “Uh huh.” Nikki tucked a light brown lock of hair behind her ear. “What’s up?”

   They chatted for a few minutes, catching up on the past seven days, neither of them having had time to phone the other at all last week.

   “As nice as that sounds, I’m too beat to go out tonight,” Nikki said regretfully. “I feel like bumming around in my sweats and that pina colada stained t-shirt I got when we vacationed in St. Maarten.” She smiled when Kim chuckled nostalgically. “Want to do brunch tomorrow instead?”

   “Sounds good. I really need…I need to talk, to see you.”

   Nikki’s eyebrows slowly drew together. “Is something wrong, kiddo? If there is I’ll be right over—”

   “Nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow,” Kim cut in.

   “Promise?”

   “I promise.”

   Nikki wasn’t precisely certain she believed her, but decided to let it go. The last thing she wanted to be was a nag. “That little French bistro in the Flats. At, let’s say, eleven?”

   “It’s a deal.”

   She hung up the phone a minute later, the next day’s plans cemented. Whatever was worrying Kim, they would deal with it together over crepes tomorrow. Their usual method of enlightenment.

   Tonight, she told herself, was for Nikki. And for her, um…research.