The Broken Doll (Inheriting Evil Book 1) Read online

  “My name’s Tally,” she said, her voice clear and confident.

  Cade held out his hand toward the little girl. She reached out her little hand and put it in his. “It’s nice to meet you, Tally.”

  She smiled at him like they were best friends. “I’ll go get Auntie Sloane.”

  Tally wiggled out of her mom’s arms, then ran down the hall, the tutu she wore fluttering around her.

  “She’s adorable,” he told Emily when she turned back around to face him.

  “Thank you. She’s a handful too. Come on in. I’m sure Sloane’s almost ready. I don’t think she was expecting to get picked up, though. She mentioned ordering a car while we were having breakfast.”

  Cade followed her into the house, then stopped just inside the living room. “We had something come up that needs our attention, and your brother had to go into a meeting, so he sent me to get her.”

  “Ah. He must be pissed. He hates meetings.”

  Cade laughed. “I don’t know your brother that well, but you just nailed his reaction to being called in. When he asked me to pick up Sloane, he grumbled about bureaucracy and having to deal with paperwork and BS nearly the whole dang time. It took me five minutes to get him to spit out why he was waking me up so early.”

  This time Emily laughed. “Sounds like Reid. Did you want some coffee or anything, James? We have a couple of pancakes left.”

  He shook his head and gave her a thankful smile. “You can call me Cade. James is my grandpa’s name too, so it always felt weird being called by my first name. I appreciate the offer for food, but I picked up breakfast on the way over. Plus, we don’t have a lot of time.”

  “Maybe next time,” she said before turning to look down the hall.

  It sounded like a herd of elephants were making their way toward them, but when he peeked around the corner, Cade saw it was just Tally running at full speed. Before he could lean back, he spotted Sloane coming out of a room at the end of the hall. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. While she walked, she slipped her arms into her leather jacket, pulling it up and over her shoulders. Black skinny jeans, combat boots, and a dark blue t-shirt covered the rest of her slim body.

  Cade couldn’t help but admire the way she looked while noting she’d stand out wherever they went. He was dressed in his typical slacks, button-down shirt, and suit jacket and hated every second of it. He’d much rather be wearing an outfit shockingly similar to Sloane’s, although with jeans a little less tight. Not that he was complaining about the view hers left him with.

  Her feet stuttered as she looked up and noticed him watching her. Her brows furrowed as she gave him a once over, then a quick smile.

  “Here’s Auntie Sloane,” Tally announced while pulling on the sleeve of his jacket.

  Dragging his eyes off of her aunt, he looked down at the little girl who beamed up at him, proud of being able to deliver on her promise.

  “Look, Sloane, Cade’s here to pick you up,” he heard Emily say in a tone he didn’t want to try to decipher.

  He kept his attention on little Tally, who was looking at him seriously as she shook her head. “I tried telling Auntie Sloane it was tutu day, but she said she didn’t bring one. Umfortunately, she’s too big to wear one of mine, so I told her we’d have to get her one for next time.”

  Nobody bothered to correct Tally’s word choice. Instead, they talked about Sloane in a tutu. None of them, except for Tally, could see her aunt ever wearing one. With a smile a mile wide on her face, Sloane squatted down so she could be eye to eye with her niece.

  “Hey sweetie, I’ve gotta head out.”

  Tally pouted for a split second, then seemed to change her mind. “But you’ll be back tonight, right? And you’ll be here tomorrow?”

  Cade watched Sloane for a reaction, saw something flash across her face, but it lasted a fraction of a second, the smile on her lips never faltering. It was pretty obvious Sloane loved the little girl and was enjoying getting a chance to spend time with her. He wondered what that meant for her love of solitude. Did it hurt as much as he assumed it did to walk away from Tally when the visit was over? Would there ever be a time she’d leave the solitary life behind so she could be with her loved ones?

  Cade didn’t know why the thought even crossed his mind. It didn’t matter to him what Sloane Matthews did. Once his case was over, he’d probably never see her again, and it was definitely for the best. He didn’t need the distraction she brought along.

  Sloane nodded. “I’ll even try to be home tonight to tuck you in and read you a story.”

  “Yay!” the girl cried out as she threw herself into her aunt’s arms, nearly knocking Sloane onto her ass.

  “Alright, sweet pea, we gotta let Auntie Sloane get to work. Especially if you want her to get home early enough to tuck you in.”

  Tally tightened her arms around Sloane’s neck, causing her to groan in pain. Then just as quickly as she was in her aunt’s arms, she was off running down the hallway, yelling goodbye to everyone over her shoulder.

  Sloane and Cade both said a quick goodbye to Emily before making their way out to his car. He set up the GPS to lead them to Mt. Diablo State Park, then pulled out onto the road.

  “I wasn’t expecting to be picked up today.”

  “I know. I hope it doesn’t throw a wrench into your plans.”

  Sloane laughed. “Well, I was really looking forward to hearing about a stranger’s kids again this morning, so that’s a bummer.”

  “I don’t have kids to tell you about, but I could come up with something else to bore you with while we head out to Mt. Diablo.”

  “There’s a body.”

  Sloane’s statement immediately changed the mood in the car. While he knew it couldn’t last forever, he’d been enjoying the lightheartedness he’d experienced with Tally and the joking manner in which the ride with Sloane had started. He hated for it to end, but the killer didn’t give a shit if Cade was enjoying his morning or not.

  So, neither could he, and it sucked.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “They’re pretty sure it’s Tasha Simpson.”

  “Fuck,” she growled, her fist clenching on her thigh. “I was really hoping we were going to be wrong about her and somehow find her alive.”

  “I know me too.”

  The lady in the GPS instructed him to take a left to get on the freeway, and he heard Sloane snicker. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her turn to him, her left eyebrow raised. He should’ve changed the damn accent on the GPS before he picked her up.

  “It was like that when I picked up the car,” he explained.

  “Of course, it was.”

  He shook his head but didn’t say anything else as he followed the GPS instructions. They had a while before they would arrive at the scene where the body was found. Even with the time it would take to get there, they’d still likely beat the medical examiner and the crime scene techs. Cade knew he’d have to go over the expectations with Sloane before they got there, but until then, he wasn’t interested in spending the next hour or so in awkward silence.

  “So, what’s it like…” he started but was immediately interrupted by Sloane.

  “What’s what like? Having parents that were two of the most prolific serial killers in US history? Or what about burning out and ruining my career and my marriage in such a spectacular fashion?”

  Cade couldn’t blame her for jumping to conclusions about what he was going to ask. He glanced at her, tension rolling off her in waves. While he’d be interested in learning about any of those things, they weren’t where he was going with his question.

  “I was going to say what’s it like being back working on this case, but you can tell me about the other things too if you want. I’m all ears, and we have a bit of a drive ahead of us.”

  He glanced over at her again and noticed a blush creeping up her neck and over her cheeks. It was adorable, but he had a feeling Sloane wouldn’t
appreciate his observation in the least. Hell, she probably wouldn’t appreciate any of the observations he’d had about her appearance since she arrived, so he’d keep them all to himself.

  “This case was the beginning of the end for me,” she admitted after a long silence that was an odd mixture of comfortable and awkward.

  He’d thought for sure he’d pissed her off, and she wasn’t going to speak to him for the rest of the trip. When she finally spoke, he couldn’t have been more surprised by her confession. Sloane had been an agent for another year after the Mommy Murderer case went cold. He never would’ve guessed it was the start of her decline.

  “Why? What was it about this case that made you want to quit?”

  Sloane sighed, then turned slightly so she could watch him drive. He glanced over at her, giving her a quick smile before turning back to watch the road.

  “I knew all along our unsub wasn’t a woman, but no one would listen to me. Not even when we had eleven murders on our hands and a woman barely clinging to life while her child was in the hands of a serial killer. If Maggie Whitten had died, I think the brass would still believe the unsub was a woman, just because someone decided a woman desperate to have a child had to be behind the killings.”

  “The profile said...”

  “I know what the profile said,” she said sharply before letting out another deep sigh. “Profiles aren’t always one hundred percent accurate, and you know it. We all know it. Yet, everyone spent the entire investigation chasing after an unsub that didn’t exist. Everyone kept trying to make the profile fit when it didn’t.”

  “Statistics backed the profile up.”

  Cade cringed the second the words were out of his mouth. The conversation didn’t need him to put in his two cents. Especially since he didn’t really believe what he was saying, he was just playing a weird sort of devil’s advocate. Not that it mattered anymore. No one could argue with Maggie Whitten’s eyewitness report, and now when he read the files on the case, he had to admit the profile had been all wrong.

  “Yeah, well, statistics also said there was no way my mother was the alpha, but they were wrong then, too,” she quickly countered.

  Neither of them spoke for a moment — the heaviness of her words filling the uncomfortable space between them.

  “Not being able to save the unsub’s victims because I didn’t have a voice is what started me on my path to burnout. It ate at me every day until the next case popped up. Even then, it continued to break me down. It didn’t matter that the next two cases were wins. This one still bothered me. And then everyone in the bureau knows what happened next.”

  “That guy had it coming,” he told her, although he couldn’t say how he would’ve reacted in the same situation.

  “Hell yeah, he did, but that wasn’t for me to say. Not in my position as a law-abiding federal agent,” she admitted. “He may have just slaughtered a child right in front of me, but he was unarmed when I caught him in that field. I could’ve taken him down easily and brought him in to pay for what he did. But I didn’t. Instead, I cut him down where he stood.”

  Cade had read her file, read the statement she signed about the night in question. Yet, hearing her say it out loud nearly knocked the wind out of him. She’d watched a known child killer, who enjoyed kidnapping, then keeping and raping his victims for days, slit the throat of an eight-year-old little girl before he ran into the woods. She chased him down, caught him, then shot him multiple times.

  She could’ve lied during her statement. Told them she didn’t realize he was unarmed, that he lunged for her, and she feared for her life. No one would’ve questioned her because the man deserved worse than what he got. But she’d laid it all out for the special agent in charge, gave them every gruesome, truthful detail, and barely escaped the FBI without jail time.

  “Everyone said I was just like my parents.”

  “You’re not,” he tried to argue.

  “You don’t know me, Cade. You don’t know what I’m capable of.”

  Cade knew she was right, but in the brief time since they’d met, he realized he didn’t believe she was capable of the same kind of atrocities her parents were. Being truthful about what happened in the woods with the pedophile was proof of that.

  Figuring her out was the whole reason he was in San Francisco in the first place. He was there to see if she turned out to be everything people thought she’d be — a chip off the metaphorical block. A heartless killer like her parents.

  While his instincts told him she wasn’t like them at all, part of him wasn’t quite ready to trust his gut just yet. Only time would tell if Sloane Matthews was everything he thought she was or if she was the best actress he’d ever seen.

  Cade was looking forward to seeing how it all worked out, but in the meantime, they had a killer to catch, and he couldn’t afford to be distracted.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Despite having serial killer parents and being an FBI agent for years, Sloane never could stomach seeing a dead body up close and personal. She never really let on that it made her squeamish, but if anyone had been paying attention to her, it wouldn’t be hard to figure out. Standing over the body of Tasha Simpson, she could feel the blood drain from her face, and the sweat start to bead on her forehead.

  The woman wasn’t much younger than Sloane, and from all accounts, she’d been happy and healthy and joyously awaiting the birth of her son. Now, she was lifeless, her throat slit, blood coating her skin and clothes. Her skin was pale and waxy, her eyes glassy and vacant. The once vibrant young woman was gone, replaced by an empty shell.

  Thankfully the medical examiner hadn’t been far behind her and Cade. Once he’d taken enough pictures of the body to satisfy everyone’s needs, he closed her eyes. It didn’t matter, though. Sloane had no doubt she’d be seeing those vacant eyes staring back at her in her dreams.

  A chill ran down her spine, but she shook it off. She could feel Cade’s eyes on her, but she didn’t glance over at him. The man already seemed to be able to see things she didn’t want anyone to see. She definitely didn’t want to know if he could see through her calm facade.

  “It might be difficult to get an accurate time of death depending on how long she’s been outside, but I can probably give you an estimate,” Dr. Miller said as he waved over his assistant.

  “An estimate would be great,” Cade said before glancing away from the body.

  Sloane took his lead and looked away too. She didn’t need to watch the ME make a small cut and stick a thermometer into Tasha’s body. She’d witnessed enough liver temperature checks to know what it looked like. She could and did describe them in great detail in her books. Not watching this one wouldn’t hurt her ability to solve the case. Sloane wondered if Cade had looked away for her benefit but wasn’t ballsy enough to ask him.

  “Hmmm…”

  Sloane looked back down at Tasha’s body to see Dr. Miller moving the dead woman’s dress. Her reaction matched the doctor’s, confusion spreading through her as realization set in.

  “He didn’t perform a c-section.”

  She needed to say the words out loud so they could register with everyone around them. Tasha Simpson had not been cut open, had not had her baby ripped from her body.

  “No, but she’s no longer pregnant. It looks like she delivered her son vaginally before he slit her throat. At least that’s my observation. Of course, I’ll know more once I have her on the table.”

  Stunned, Sloane took a step back. “Jeezus. So that’s why he held on to her longer than usual. She was in labor, and he didn’t want to risk cutting her open to make things go quicker.”

  “Are we sure this is the same unsub? Why would he care about the risk? It can’t be that big of one if doctors perform emergency c-sections on women in labor all the time,” Cade pointed out.

  He wasn’t wrong, and his question about whether this was their guy or not had to be asked. There were too many differences between Tasha’s situation and the others
. She could very well have been abducted and killed by someone else, but her instincts told her Tasha was adult victim number eight, and her instincts were rarely wrong, though they weren’t completely infallible.

  “The unsub is not a surgeon. He doesn’t have the skills necessary to perform an emergency c-section. I don’t know much about it, but I’m guessing there’s probably more of a risk of cutting the baby. Or maybe even the baby being out of position. I don’t really know how it all works, and I’m betting our guy doesn’t either.”

  “It’s definitely a lot harder to perform surgery on someone who’s in active labor. If your guy isn’t trained and what he’s after is a healthy baby, taking the risk wouldn’t be worth it. Waiting would be the key,” Dr. Miller agreed while he continued to work on the body. “Lividity and her liver temp are offering up different estimations of her time of death. I don’t think she’s been outside for very long. We’ll know more after the autopsy, so I’ll get her packed up and back to the city and bump her to the front of the line. I should have her on the table in about an hour and a half if you’d like to observe. Otherwise, I’ll call you as soon as I’m done.”

  “We need evidence, Dr. Miller. Fingerprints, DNA, fibers, anything that can help us get this guy. Even if this guy isn’t the same one we’ve been hunting.”

  “We’ll take good care of her and get anything we find sent to the lab ASAP.”

  “Sounds good. Please give us a call as soon as you’re done,” Cade said before turning away from Tasha’s prone body.

  He started to walk back toward where they parked but then turned in a circle, looking out over the area of the park they were in. Sloane followed his gaze, taking it all in slowly, methodically. The dumpsite was the perfect place if you wanted the body to be found at first light. Not far from the road, it would be easy for the unsub to get in and out without being seen. The park was locked overnight but only during the winter months. During the rest of the year, people could come and go as they pleased.