Tough Justice Series Box Set: Parts 1-8. Carla Cassidy

number. “Victoria?” she said as she answered.

      “Lara, I need you to go to a crime scene in Central Park.”

      Lara turned on her bedside lamp, opened a drawer and pulled out a pen and paper. “Where?”

      “By the reservoir on a jogging trail around Ninety-Third Street. Local authorities are already on the scene but have been instructed not to touch anything until you and Nick get there. I’ve already contacted Nick.”

      “What kind of a crime?” Lara wasn’t sure why she’d be sent out to Central Park on another case instead of continuing to work the Dunst case.

      “A murder, and from what little I got from the officers on the scene, it’s probably tied to Dunst.”

      Lara’s heart dropped to the floor. “On my way,” she replied. She wanted to ask Victoria a hundred more questions, but the only way to get answers was to get to the scene as quickly as possible.

      Within minutes she was clad in a long-sleeved white sweater that hugged her slender body and a pair of her expensive black jeans that fit her like snakeskin, but also had enough stretch to allow her to move easily.

      With her gun in a shoulder holster and her badge and cell phone fastened on her belt, she grabbed a black suede jacket and left her apartment.

      Her heart thundered in time with every quick step she took toward the elevator. The murder was tied to Dunst? How? Dunst was dead. What was going on? Somehow, someway she had the terrible feeling that a thread of something evil had begun to unravel.

      She touched the butt of her gun beneath her jacket for reassurance. Where would the thread lead? And how much of the fabric of her life would be destroyed as it continued to unstitch?

       CHAPTER FOUR

      Lara took a taxi to Central Park, knowing that parking there would be a bitch, especially with a crime scene on the popular jogging trails that surrounded the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir.

      The autumn-colored leaves on the trees in the area would have made a beautiful backdrop, if not for the fact that she was headed to a murder scene.

      It was relatively easy for her to find the right area. A wide perimeter had been set up by more than a dozen of New York’s finest.

      One of the cops was dealing with joggers who appeared on the trail, turning them away and instructing them to take another path.

      Nick was already there, and he approached her before she even got a chance to flash her badge at the nearest stony-faced officer.

      He motioned her ahead and then stopped and stood far enough away that she couldn’t see the victim or the actual crime scene. “What have we got?” she asked. “Victoria mentioned a murder.”

      Nick nodded. No sexy grin this morning. No charisma oozing from him. His eyes were dark and flat, and he was definitely in the pissed-off yet professional zone every cop or FBI agent went to when confronted by a murder victim. He might have a charming side, but she suspected this was the true Nick Delano, with hard edges and a dangerous power that he kept tightly controlled.

      “Young blonde female clad in running clothes and shoes. Another early morning jogger found her on the trail. He’s being held in the back of a patrol car for us to question,” Nick said.

      “How was she killed?” Lara asked.

      “The medical examiner isn’t here yet to make a final determination, but it’s obvious she was stabbed in her chest.”

      Lara frowned in confusion. “Victoria said something about this potentially being tied to the Dunst case. What’s up with that?”

      Nick’s well-defined jawline tensed, and as he took her by the elbow she caught the smell of minty soap and a pleasant, clean-scented cologne.

      He propelled her forward. “I think it’s better for you to see the victim to answer your question about the connection with Dunst.”

      Lara steeled herself as ahead on the trail she spied a prone figure in a bright pink-and-yellow jogging suit and matching shoes.

      Pink and yellow...such bright and cheerful colors to die in. They got close enough to see the victim’s eyes staring straight up and the bloody mess on her chest.

      “Weapon?” Lara asked curtly. Stabbed in the chest while going for a morning run. Knife? Ice pick? What had been used to steal this young woman’s life? The weapon could say a lot about the killer.

      “Not found yet,” Nick replied. “Officers have been combing the area, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it was taken away by the killer. Otherwise, it would have just been left in her chest.”

      “I still don’t see what this has to do with Dunst,” Lara said.

      “Look on her right cheek,” Nick said, his voice deeper than usual.

      The victim’s face was turned just enough that Lara had to walk around the body to get a look at her right cheek. When she did, a gasp of shock escaped her. Stamped onto the youthful, clear skin was the unmistakable MM insignia. It had obviously been done with the same kind of ink pad and stamp that Dunst had had in his pocket at the time of his death.

      She turned a startled look at Nick. “What in the hell is going on here?” It was a rhetorical question. Nick didn’t have an answer. She didn’t expect one.

      She scanned the area. There wouldn’t have been a lot of foot traffic or eyewitnesses at around six or six-thirty in the morning, but there would have been a few early birds on the trails.

      Still, it should have been difficult for the killer to stab the victim and then bend over her prone body to take the time to stamp her cheek. The killer had to have looked as if he belonged on the trail, which meant he would have probably been clad in some sort of running clothes.

      “Any ID found?” she asked the nearest cop.

      “We were told not to touch anything until you arrived,” he replied.

      Nick bent over the body and carefully plucked a slim wallet from one of her back pockets with gloved fingers. He opened it. “Laura Bowman, twenty-three years old.”

      Lara winced. Twenty-three years old and her life was finished, cut short by a knife from some perp. “Call it in, and let’s see what Cass and the others can find out about her background. Meanwhile, I’m going to interview the man who found her.”

      Lara headed toward the patrol car where a man sat in the backseat. She tried not to think about the ink imprint on Laura Bowman’s cheek. Right now she just needed to get information and not attempt to process any of it. There would be time for that later when they had more facts at hand.

      James Carlson was a thirty-six-year-old fitness freak who loved to run in the early mornings when he didn’t have to contend with the hobby runners. He worked as a trainer at a well-known gym and was still pale and shaken as he told Lara about nearly running over the dead girl.

      “I’ve been jogging along these trails for the past five years, and I’ve never seen anything like that poor woman,” he said. “I’ve seen drunks and druggies and homeless people scurrying away as the sun came up, but nothing that even comes close to this.”

      “Have you noticed her on the trail when you’ve run here before?” Lara eyed Carlson from the top of his short brown hair to the tip of his light gray running shoes.

      The person who found and reported a murdered body was always the first suspect, but she didn’t see a speck of blood or any sign to indicate that he’d had anything to do with the killing.

      It would have been difficult to stab the victim and then lean over her to stamp her cheek without getting some blood transference. He also couldn’t fake the ashen color of his face or the utter horror that emanated from his pale gray eyes.

      “No,