Under His Skin. Rita Herron

secrets had gotten them killed.

      Remembering the body she’d seen in the graveyard and the figure in the woods, she shivered. He’d been painted so grotesquely that he was probably part of a prank, but still the police weren’t sure. And they weren’t telling her anything.

      Maybe she could sneak into records and find the man’s autopsy. Maybe she’d find Bruno’s and check it out, as well. She especially wanted to see the report the coroner had filed after Bruno’s body had been recovered.

      Unable to rest for the questions needling her, she headed toward the records department. A crowd filled the elevator, so she waited for another. But the power blinked off, then on again, and she panicked. No way she’d get trapped in the elevator, so she darted into the stairwell.

      She’d made it to the second-floor landing when the sound of something scraping broke the silence. She froze, her breathing vibrating in the quiet. Was someone in the stairwell with her? Maybe behind her?

      She turned to look, but the lights blinked off again, pitching her into darkness. She swallowed hard as thunder roared, and prayed the lights would be restored immediately. But the stairwell remained cloaked in a black fog. The scent of some kind of chemical and stale air permeated the space. Then the sound of a shoe padding softly on cement broke the silence. Someone was in the stairwell with her, and they were coming toward her.

      “Who’s there?” she called.

      No answer.

      The hair on the nape of her neck stood on end, and she called out, but again no answer. The footsteps drew closer, louder. Ominous.

      Panicking, she gripped the handrail and began to feel her way down the steps. One step, two, three, her heel caught the edge and she stumbled. Her heart pounding, she grabbed the rail and steadied herself, breathing heavy. The footsteps sped up.

      She had to hurry. But the whisper of a breath bathed her neck, then someone shoved her from behind.

      She screamed, clawing for the railing, but her hands connected only with air.

      Then she lost her balance and went careening down the staircase.

      Chapter Five

      Grace’s questions about the tissue transplants aroused Parker’s curiosity. Although Bradford had informed him about the Coastal Island Research Park and some unethical projects that had taken place, stealing dead bodies to remove tissues seemed far-fetched. Captain Black and Detective Clayton Fox had investigated the center for over a year. Fox had gotten too close to one case and they’d performed a memory transplant on him. For months he’d actually believed he was a guy named Cole.

      Police had also exposed another experiment where children had been trained and brainwashed to be spies. A twin identity experiment had taken one of the participant’s lives, and a few months back, someone had poisoned unsuspecting people with a chemical that caused depression, delusions, agoraphobia, and eventually lead to suicide. Bradford’s wife and brother had also been subjects of a study on paranormal abilities.

      Then again, the painted corpses definitely read like teenage pranks.

      But worry nagged at him. He didn’t like the fact that the paper had printed Grace’s name as a possible witness to a crime. Or that they’d revealed that she was pushing the police to find her brother’s killer.

      Besides, a cop would most likely eat his gun versus a bullet to his temple.

      He had to know more about Bruno’s cases.

      The bullet to the head fit the MO of a professional hit. Or had the killer meant to make it look that way?

      Grace’s conviction that her brother had been murdered drove him to pick up the file Bradford had dropped off earlier. He flipped it open and began trying to decipher the man’s handwriting to review his past cases. Someone Bruno had arrested might have harbored a vendetta against him.

      Parker jotted down the names of three convicted felons Bruno had arrested the previous year for burglary, a handful of others for petty crimes, a gang who’d robbed a bank, a woman who’d poisoned her husband with antifreeze, and a husband who’d killed his wife and kids with a gas leak.

      Parker would check each of their whereabouts to see if one of them or a family member had threatened retribution after their arrest or incarceration.

      According to Bruno’s notes, the brother of the man convicted of killing his own family had insisted the man was innocent and had gotten violent after the sentencing.

      Parker booted up his computer, accessed the police database, and discovered the man still lived in Savannah, and that he had been arrested for carrying a concealed weapon. A .38.

      The same type of gun that had killed Bruno.

      Surely Captain Black had investigated the man.

      He phoned Bradford and asked. “Yeah, we questioned him,” Bradford told him. “But he had an alibi for the night Bruno died. Why are you so interested?”

      Good question. “His sister’s my nurse,” he admitted. “She asked me for help.”

      “The sister?”

      “Yeah. I know she’s talked to the captain, that she insists her brother didn’t kill himself.”

      A long tense second stretched between them. “We all want the truth,” Bradford finally said. “But I’m not sure we can trust everything Grace Gardener says.”

      Parker chewed the inside of his cheek. “Why not? She seems intelligent, sincere.”

      “You don’t know about her past?”

      “No.” But his partner’s tone jump-started his suspicions.

      “Grace Gardener’s father was a cop. At age seven, she saw her parents gunned down in front of her very eyes.”

      Oh, hell. “What about Bruno?”

      “He was five, spending the night at a friend’s house for a birthday party. Grace went into shock and had to undergo counseling.”

      “What are you saying? That Bruno’s sister is not stable?”

      Another pregnant pause. “That she might be in denial. A trauma like that affected both of them. I heard Bruno say that he felt guilty for not being home during the murder.”

      And that guilt could have driven the man to suicide.

      “Did they find the parents’ killer?”

      “No,” Bradford said. “But Bruno insisted he would.”

      “Maybe he did,” Parker said. “And the killer murdered Bruno to silence him.”

      And if he did, and Grace kept nosing around, the guy might come after her, too.

      GRACE TRIED DESPERATELY to regain control, but lost it as she tumbled down the cement steps. She screamed, throwing out her hands, her knees slicing painfully into the sharp concrete edge, but the dark inside of the stairwell blinded her and she couldn’t see the rail. Whoever had pushed her had hit her with such force that she pitched headfirst, unable to stop until she reached the next landing, slamming into the wall.

      She panted for a breath, her body trembling with shock as her muscles protested the awkward position, but she fought to rise to her knees.

      She had to get up, run, escape…

      But suddenly her attacker gripped her by the throat from behind. She tried to scream for help, but his fingers bit into her neck, cutting off her voice. Gasping, and struggling to pry his fingers away, she tried to remember the self-defense moves Bruno had shown her.

      Lashing out, she brought one elbow up and slammed it backward into his chest, at the same time clawing at his hands. He grunted and momentarily loosened his hold. She swung backward again with her other elbow and knocked him down.

      Her pulse