Dexter's Final Cut by Jeff Lindsay Page B

carefully, looking for any hints that might tell me something new. The similarities were striking. This victim, like ours, was a young woman who had almost certainly been attractive before the series of unfortunate events that had led to this picture. She had a very nice, trim figure, and shoulder-length hair of the same golden color our local victim had. I worked my way down the body, noticing that the knife wounds were in the same places, and I was so engrossed that it was several moments before I became aware of a soft floral aroma nearby, and realized that somebody was standing behind me. I glanced up quickly, startled, to see that Jackie had come silently back into the room and was standing very close to me,peering around my shoulder at the photograph. Her hair was down now, hanging around her face in a way that was disturbingly like the victim’s. “Oh,” I said. “I didn’t hear you.”
    “I was a Girl Scout,” she said. “Merit badge in woodcraft.” She didn’t move away, and for a very long moment I forgot about the photo in my hand and just inhaled the subtle perfume she was wearing. Jackie finally reached a finger around me and tapped the picture. “This is different,” she said. “I mean, it’s not the one we’ve been working on.”
    “That’s right,” I said.
    “What is it?” she said, sliding her finger down the image of the body.
    “We got an answer to the query Deborah sent out,” I said.
    “Really,” Jackie said. “I thought it was supposed to take a while?”
    “It always does,” I said. “Unless it’s a really high-profile case.”
    “What would make it high-profile?” she said.
    “A lot of things,” I said. “She might be somebody’s daughter.”
    “Almost certainly,” Jackie murmured.
    “Or it could just be because she’s young, pretty, not a hooker.”
    Jackie looked up and raised one eyebrow at me. “And white?”
    I nodded. “Sure. But nobody ever admits that. How did you know?”
    She looked back at the picture. “I did an after-school special about that,” she said. “An African American girl goes missing, and the family can’t get the cops to do anything.”
    “I’m sure they did something,” I said. “Just not as much.”
    “Where did this come from?” she asked.
    “New York,” I told her, and I realized that this was a wonderful opportunity to further her forensic education. And to be truthful, I didn’t want her to move away, either. So I added, “How many things do you see that are different?”
    She glanced up at me and gave me a quizzical half smile. “What, like one of those puzzles for kids? How many things are not the same?”
    “This is the homicide version,” I said. “For grown-ups.”
    “All right,” she said, and she began to study the picture in earnest. She bent her head forward so that her hair brushed against my barearm. She pulled it back and tucked it behind her ear, revealing her neck, and I could see the pulse fluttering in her carotid artery.
    “Vegas,” Deborah said. She said it softly, under her breath, but I still jumped; I’d forgotten there was someone else in the room. Debs gave the keyboard a few more irritated pokes and the second file began to print. Once again the first few pages were the report, and they whirred out quickly. When the photograph finally slid out I stepped around Jackie and grabbed it, and it was just like the other two: a young woman with a good, athletic figure and shoulder-length golden hair. There could no longer be any question about the pattern; now it was a matter of trying to figure out
why
this specific type was necessary.
    “I found something,” Jackie said, pointing at the picture. I looked at where her finger rested on the victim’s face. There was nothing there but smooth skin.
    “What?” I said.
    “Well,” Jackie said, “the Miami victim has a slash mark here. Lemme see Vegas.” She held out her hand, and I gave her the second picture, leaning in to look with her.