Sacred Evil. Heather Graham

in the morgue. When he had introduced her to Fullbright, she’d stood a slight distance back as well, as if trying to make herself unobtrusive.

      When he looked at her, curious as to whether or not she could really watch the autopsy and learn from it, he discovered that he was almost transfixed by her eyes. They were nearly gold. The color had to be hazel, but the green and brown blended so remarkably that the color was almost like the sun. And her skin was the most amazing shade of golden copper he could imagine. It seemed as if every race into which humanity had divided had recombined in her, and that mixture was arresting; she was a beautiful young woman, but much more as well. She stood still, and yet seemed to be brimming with energy. Character, curiosity, passion and a certain appearance of honor seemed to be imprinted in the very structure of her face.

       And she was young; too young to be jaded. He had the feeling she still believed in “Truth, Justice, and the American Way.”

      “Jude, look well,” Fullbright said, and he clenched hard on his jaw, returning his full attention to the sad matter at hand. “The two great lacerations to the throat severed both the major blood vessels in the throat—just as in the case of Polly Nichols, the woman most detectives—past and present—believed to have been the Ripper’s first victim. And if you’ll note the mutilations on the abdomen, you see how jagged this first cut is, and you’ll see how violent and savage the rest are. Jude, these are nearly the exact wounds as perpetrated by a killer over a hundred years ago.”

      He stared at the woman, holding back a groan. He didn’t discount the idea that they might be looking at a mimic who had an agenda that would send the city into a real panic, attempting to re-create the slayings of a long-gone killer.

      But he didn’t discount the idea yet that they were looking at an isolated incident, and that Virginia Rockford had managed to really anger someone intent on killing her specifically. And solely.

      Whitney spoke up. “I spent the hours on the plane here reading up on the crimes, since the press seems to believe there’s a copycat out there.” She walked to the side table where she had left her shoulder bag and dug in it briefly to produce a piece of paper with a picture on it. “Polly Nichols—a morgue photo. Care to compare the medical examiner’s report with our corpse?”

      Jude looked from her unique eyes to the photo, and despite his determination to keep an entirely open mind, he had to give the comparison credence.

      The Ripper’s victim had been older; life had not been kind. The image was not that of a pretty young woman.

      Whatever else Virginia Rockford might have been, she hadn’t been old. She had been attractive; killed when it seemed that the world was waiting for her.

      But, despite the difference in the living appearances and situations of the women, the wounds on the bodies were the same.

      Exactly the same.

      The autopsy had just begun. He thought they had already learned what they needed to know.

      3

      She was losing credibility, Whitney thought, and doing so by proving a point.

      But learning how to work with Jude Crosby wasn’t going to be easy.

      He was a hard-boiled cop. And the perfect vision of one. So tall, so leanly, ruggedly muscled. He had dark hair, with no signs of gray yet, neatly clipped. She estimated that he was in his mid-thirties; a man with gray eyes that had seen too much; he was weary, and yet he still seemed to have the look of a man who wanted to change the world.

      Whitney thought that he must have grown up reading every old detective novel that had ever been printed. He didn’t have to speak a word; she could tell by his body language that he wasn’t happy about her being on the case.

      Maybe she shouldn’t have been so pleased that she’d been the first of her team to arrive on-site, or that she should be the one to dive headfirst into the macabre killing. Perhaps it would have been better if they would have started out with Jude Crosby meeting one of the guys; Jackson Crow, Jake Mallory or Will Chan might have made a better impression. She doubted that Jude Crosby had ever worked with a female partner. He kept looking at her as if she were a little mosquito that had gotten in his way. She wasn’t out to prove anything; she and the others were a team, and each member was always glad to make use of his or her gender, color or any perceived edge when it meant getting done what needed to get done.

      “Let’s move through this autopsy before leaping to any conclusions, shall we?” Jude Crosby suggested. His voice was even; his tone was cool.

      Doesn’t play well with others! she thought.

      Too bad. Fullbright seemed fine; he accepted her simply as an FBI agent, and he was interested in the photo of Jack the Ripper’s first canonical victim. Full-bright was intrigued by the puzzle before him, and it seemed evident that he was an armchair detective himself, fascinated by the mystery of old. The medical examiner was convinced that the killer had, at the least, studied the modus operandi of the mysterious nineteenth-century killer.

       Crosby wasn’t happy. Maybe he was always that way. Maybe he felt that the federal government was encroaching upon his right as state law enforcement.

      Well, that was all right. They had worked with cops who were grateful to have them around—and cops who didn’t want them at all. They were learning as they went, and so far, their odd mix of a team had done very well.

      She could step back.

      “Definitely,” she replied, and did step back, clearly defining her role as observer.

      Whitney had seen many horrible things, but nothing like what had been done to the young woman on the gurney. She didn’t want to blink or blanch as the doctor reported his findings in a dispassionate voice; she couldn’t appear too weak to stomach it. The only thing she could do was force herself to take a huge mental step back as well. In truth, that wasn’t so hard. It couldn’t be real flesh on the table; that was too terrible to accept.

      But she had known what the findings would be. Not exact, perhaps. But close. There were two grievously deep slashes across the throat, cutting the windpipe and vital veins and arteries; the woman had nearly been decapitated. There was bruising on the throat. There was a ragged gash right beneath the ribs, and followed down on the right-hand side of the body to the pelvis, displaying the kidneys. There were two cuts to the genitals, deep, and violent.

      It was all so frighteningly exact.

      Down to the wounds, the direction of the wounds, everything.

      She felt Jude Crosby’s eyes on her, over the body of the dead woman, and she met his gaze. Steady, but not challenging, she warned herself. They’d been asked in, through Adam Harrison’s nudging, but it was still best to keep things as copacetic as possible.

      “Doc, you scraped beneath her nails?”

      “Of course—but we’re not going to get anything. She didn’t have a chance to fight him. She doesn’t have a single defensive wound on her.”

      “Fibers? Threads? Hairs?”

      “She went fast—the lab has her clothing.”

      Jude nodded. “All right. We’ll leave you to close her up. Call me if anything—”

      “Yes, of course, Jude. If anything, whatsoever. I’m not expecting anything on the toxicology reports, but, I promise, I’ll let you know immediately.” He hesitated, looking at Jude. “I still have your Jane Does in here,” he said. “Are we getting anywhere with them?”

      “We’ve sent out the picture of the girl who died on the way to the hospital—we’ve sent it everywhere in hell, and nothing,” Jude said. “The second girl … the one from the water. Well, you saw her face. Not even a mother’s love could help her recognize that child. I just asked my lieutenant yesterday about getting a graphic artist over. I’m not great on computers, but I know that a good graphic artist can do an amazing job with a likeness.”