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  Jon was excited but surprised. “What sort of injuries does she have? Craniofacial trauma like the others?”

  Zane was giddy. “No, just a couple of bruises, from what I understand. Guy was wearing a ski mask or something, so I don’t think she got to see his face. Unfortunately.”

  “A mask? None of the other victims have mentioned a mask,” Jon noted as they walked down the hall, Sherry on one side of him, Zane on the other.

  “None of the other victims got a look at the perp. This is our lucky break, Hatton.”

  Jon reserved judgment. There was nothing he’d like more than a lucky break in this case. But he had a sinking feeling that this wasn’t it.

  Jon found himself back down the same hospital trauma hallway where he’d met Sherry a few days before. She was quiet, but at least this time she wasn’t pale and shivering.

  “Doing okay?” he murmured to her as they walked.

  She nodded, and he reached down and grabbed her hand, giving it a supportive squeeze. She squeezed back before they both let go.

  “We’re waiting for Dr. Rosemont to come out and give us a report. Captain heard about the DNA and that the patient was conscious and is on his way over.”

  No doubt the man wanted to be here if there was going to be a big break in the case and press involved. Jon shook his head. He’d be glad to let Captain Harris get as much attention as he could handle as long as it meant they were stopping whoever was responsible.

  They could hear yelling from inside the patient’s room before they even got to the door. A woman’s voice, shrieking.

  “Someone thought they could do this to me? Thought they could just throw me down on the ground and attack me?”

  Someone murmured something to her, but Jon couldn’t hear what they said.

  “Yes, I know he had every intention of raping me. But I didn’t let him. I just kept hitting and punching.”

  Jon looked over at Zane with one eyebrow raised. “Sounds like she’s not injured too much; not like the other victims.”

  Zane smiled. “Yeah. Seems like the SOB messed with the wrong woman this time.”

  “Did he break into her house or building like the others?” Jon asked.

  “No.” Zane shook his head. “I haven’t confirmed this yet with the victim, but I think he was waiting for her at her work. Dragged her out of her car in the back of the parking lot.”

  Another discrepancy. Jon had to admit, their guy hadn’t tended to follow an MO, so maybe it was their serial rapist who’d also committed this crime.

  Sherry had taken a step back at the sound of the yelling. Jon stopped to talk to her.

  “I’m going get a uniformed officer to take you home.”

  “No, I’m okay.”

  “Hey, it makes you uncomfortable to be here, and that’s okay.” He lowered his voice so Zane couldn’t hear him. “I’ve got to be honest, I’m not even sure we’re dealing with the same perpetrator here.”

  “Really?”

  “I won’t know until I talk to the victim and check out the scene, but...”

  “There are some indications.”

  “Exactly. And if the attacker was wearing a ski mask, there won’t be much for you to draw.”

  Sherry nodded. “Okay, then if you really don’t mind, I guess I’d rather go home. I can call a cab.”

  “No, there will be plenty of officers that can give you a ride.” He took her by the arm and led her toward the nurses’ station. “If I need you, I’ll call.”

  “Okay.” Her voice was quiet, reserved.

  “Actually, I’ll be calling you tomorrow regardless. You have to make an honest man out of me before I talk to Caroline again. Have dinner with me tomorrow night, so it’s true that I asked you out.”

  He thought about their kiss and how much more he wanted than just dinner, but that was a good place to start. If she would even agree to a real date.

  “No manipulating or yelling, I promise,” he said.

  She smiled. “And I won’t walk through the city alone.”

  Jon reached his hand out to shake hers. “Deal.”

  He walked her the rest of the way over to the nurses’ station. Sara Beth Carreker, the head nurse from the other day, was working.

  “I have to admit, I’m sorry to see you back here again this week, Agent Hatton.”

  “I’m sorry to see me back here, too, Sara Beth, under these circumstances. This is my friend Sherry. Is it okay if she stays here until one of the uniformed officers gives her a ride home?”

  “Sure, I’ll be going in with the new victim, but some of the other nurses will be here. And Dr. Trumpold.” She pointed at a handsome doctor standing at the counter, going through charts.

  Dr. Trumpold shrugged. “I don’t think—none of us think—it’s very prudent for a male doctor to be in with a sexual assault victim, especially in the first few days.”

  “I guess that makes your job harder,” Sherry said to him.

  “It’s okay. I understand. Whatever is best for the patients.” The doctor smiled at Sherry.

  Suddenly leaving Sherry here didn’t seem like such a great idea to Jon, but he swallowed that down.

  “I’m going to get back down the hall,” Jon said and, unable to stop himself, put his arm around her in a sideways hug.

  But call it what it really was: a claiming. Jon ignored the relief he felt when she leaned into him and smiled. “If someone hasn’t come to take you home in ten minutes, come find me,” he said.

  Sherry nodded. “It’s okay if you need to call me if the victim remembers seeing anything. I can’t promise results, but I can at least try,” she said.

  “Are you a police officer?” Dr. Trumpold asked. “I saw you here the other day, but thought you were friends with the victim.”

  “No, I’m a forensic artist. Well, actually, I’m just on vacation. Evidently, I don’t know what I am doing.”

  “You’re healing, that’s what you’re doing.” Jon reached down quickly and kissed her on the cheek. “The rest...we’ll just see. See you tomorrow.”

  Just that brief touch of his lips—a friendly gesture by most counts—caused heat to flow through both of them. Sherry’s eyes met his before darting nervously to Dr. Trumpold, who had politely turned away and started going through files.

  “Tomorrow,” Jon whispered again, and she nodded.

  He turned and walked down the hall. He asked the first Corpus Christi officer he saw to find someone to get Sherry home. He was glad she wasn’t staying. She wasn’t comfortable. And he wasn’t comfortable with her spending too much time with the handsome trauma doctor. Hopefully he had other cases he’d be attending to soon.

  Captain Harris and Zane were standing outside the victim’s room talking to Dr. Rosemont when Jon joined them.

  “Ms. Grimaldi was very fortunate,” the doctor was saying. “Especially compared to some of the other rape victims. Although undoubtedly the attacker meant her harm, he was not successful in his rape attempt. Nor did she suffer the same craniofacial trauma as the other victims.”

  “She was able to scratch the attacker?” Captain Harris asked.

  The doctor nodded. “Yes, on the upper arm. The nurse will be out momentarily with the evidence that was collected.”

  “We’ll rush this through and hopefully it will be a hit,” the captain said. “Then we’ll be able to put this nightmare behind us.”

  “Captain,” Jon interrupted, “I don’t think we should be too quick to make any assumptions. Even if you do get a DNA hit, it might not be the same guy as the others.”

  The captain stood there shaking his head at Jon for long seconds. “You know what we really don’t need now, Hatton? Some sort of better-than-you outsider who’s playing devil’s advocate and doesn’t really un
derstand our community at all. People here are in a panic and they need to know immediately if we’ve caught this monster.”

  “I agree about people being in a panic.” Jon tried to keep his voice level, but damned if he wasn’t tired of this outsider trash. “I just think it would be prudent to be positive before we make any public announcements about the rapist being arrested.”

  The captain leaned forward, his lips pressed together in a thin line. “If I can give the people of Corpus Christi a good night’s rest for the first time in weeks, I’m not going to deny them that just because you’re a bureaucrat who wants to wrap everything in red tape, making it impossible for real police work to be done.”

  Jon counted to ten silently in his head in an effort not to tell the chief where he could go. Jon’s specialty—hell, Omega Sector’s specialty—was cutting through red tape, not adding it. Just because Jon refused to jump in to the hooray-we-caught-the-bad-guy party without any evidence did not make him a bureaucrat.

  Jon turned toward the doctor. “Do you feel that Ms. Grimaldi is up for any questioning tonight?”

  “She’s scared, of course, but feels very lucky that she was able to fight off her attacker. I’ll ask if she’s willing to talk to you.” The doctor went back into the room as a nurse came out with a bag of evidence.

  Zane took it from her. “I’ll go have this run immediately, Captain.”

  “You tell them to put every rush possible on it, Wales. And leave someone there so that as soon as the results are in we are notified.” The captain looked over at Jon, pointedly. “Tonight, if possible.”

  Zane left, sprinting down the hall. Despite his words earlier, Jon prayed they would get a hit off the DNA and that it really was the serial rapist who had made a mistake with this victim.

  Dr. Rosemont returned. “Ms. Grimaldi will see you and seems up for it. In light of what happened last time, I’m going to stay in the room.”

  Jon wasn’t offended. After what had happened last time, the doctor was right to protect her patient. “Thanks.”

  The moment Jon walked into the room he became convinced this wasn’t the attack of the same man. The woman had only one bruise on the side of her face and it was on the lower part of her chin.

  The serial rapist had consistently aimed for the eyes first. The blows to the face had been purposeful in nature: to cause his victims not to be able to see or to identify him.

  “Ms. Grimaldi, I’m so sorry for what happened to you tonight. If it’s okay, we’d like to ask you a few questions?” Jon said.

  She nodded and grabbed the hand of the woman—sister? friend?—sitting next to her. “Okay.”

  Dana Grimaldi was in her early thirties, Jon would estimate. She had blond hair, obviously not her natural color with the dark brown showing at the roots, and was of medium height and build. The serial rapist hadn’t stuck to any one MO when choosing the demographics of his victims, so Jon had to admit that she could’ve fit the bill there.

  “I’m Captain Harris from the Corpus Christi PD.” The other man spoke up. “I don’t normally work cases like this, but I’m here to personally help get this solved for you as soon as possible. Can you walk through what happened?”

  “I was working a shift out at the harbor yard. I’m an administrative assistant for one of the companies at the port, so my hours aren’t the same hours as the people who work the line, but they’re pretty similar. A lot of times I have to walk in and out of the parking lot by myself. In the afternoon, when I get there, it’s not a problem, but at night...”

  The woman began crying. The other woman scooted closer and wrapped an arm around her. “You’ve told them about it. I know you have,” the woman murmured.

  Ms. Grimaldi looked up at Jon and Captain Harris. “I have told my supervisors how unsafe I feel walking out there alone. Where I have to park is usually way in the back. It’s isolated from the rest of the parking lot by a line of Dumpsters.”

  “What did your company say when you told them?” the captain asked her.

  It was a good question. Maybe there would be cameras that the company had available. It wouldn’t help poor Ms. Grimaldi in what had happened to her, but it would possibly help capture who had done this.

  “They said that any of the security guards would gladly walk me out to my car if I wanted them to. That warehouse is huge and finding a security guard sometimes isn’t that easy. So I just went by myself.” She started crying again, painful sobs. “I was so stupid.”

  “Hey,” Jon said, taking a slow step toward her so as not to spook her unnecessarily. “Just because you walked there by yourself doesn’t make this your fault. You could’ve walked across that parking lot in nothing but skimpy lingerie and that still wouldn’t make it okay for someone to attack you. His fault. He’s the one to blame. Not you.”

  She nodded, tears subsiding a little.

  “Tell us what happened next.”

  “I got into my car. I left the door open once I sat down because it was so hot in the car from sitting in the parking lot all afternoon. I was turning to get my phone out of my purse when the guy reached in and grabbed me.” She clung to the other woman.

  “He pulled me up out of the car by my shirt, ripping it, and then threw me against the side of the car. He was wearing a mask, so I couldn’t see his face.”

  Jon looked over at Captain Harris. The man had to realize how different this victim’s story was than the stories they had heard over the past few weeks. No immediate blows to the face? A mask? At a car instead of inside a building?

  “All I could think was about that rapist who was on the loose. We’d all been told not to open our doors to strangers, but I hadn’t heard about anything in parking lots. I knew what he was going to do—going to try to do—so I just started fighting like a crazy person.”

  “You were able to scratch your attacker?” the captain asked.

  She nodded. “Yes, although I didn’t really notice it at the time. I think it was his arm because that was the only place where I saw skin. I was just trying to scream my head off and get away if I could.

  “He hit me when I screamed, right on the jaw, but I just kept screaming and swinging and kicking the best I could. And he just ran away. Some other people heard me and they came running up not long afterward. Called the police and ambulance, and they brought me here.”

  Her breaths were coming much heavier, but she made it through the story.

  “It sounds like you were very brave and did everything right,” Jon assured her.

  “I was so scared. Now I’m angry, but then I was just scared.”

  “I can imagine,” Captain Harris said. “We’re going to use the DNA from when you scratched him and hopefully be able to make an arrest soon. Even tonight.”

  Jon shook his head. Harris still wanted to run with this being the serial rapist. After hearing Dana’s story, Jon was convinced more than ever that—very fortunately for Dana—the man who attacked her wasn’t the rapist they’d been searching for.

  This was some sort of copycat.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Ms. Grimaldi, is there anyone that you know of that might want to hurt you in some way? Any ex-boyfriends or husbands or friends that are mad at you? Fights you have had with anyone?”

  Harris glared at Jon at the question, but he didn’t care. Even though it probably wasn’t the serial rapist, Ms. Grimaldi had still been attacked and this was still a case that needed to be solved.

  “I broke up with my boyfriend a couple of weeks ago. He was pretty upset. But I know he didn’t do this. He’s not that type of person.”

  Jon knew that heartbreak and rage could turn people into someone different. Unrecognizable. He got the man’s name and address from the victim. Tony Shefferly.

  “Hopefully just to eliminate him as a suspect,” Jon to
ld her. Any scratches on his arms would help confirm or eliminate him from their suspect pool.

  Since she hadn’t seen much because of his mask and the attack, thank God, had not progressed to an actual rape, there weren’t many other questions that either Jon or Captain Harris had to ask. Jon turned to leave, but Harris went back, offering his hand out to Dana to shake.

  “Your bravery is going to be key in helping us catch this monster who has terrorized our city, Ms. Grimaldi. Thank you for that. We’ll be back in touch.”

  Ms. Grimaldi looked elated at Harris’s words. Jon bit his tongue to keep from saying anything. Bringing up the holes in the captain’s theory in front of the victim was not a good idea.

  As he was going out the door, there was one last thing Jon knew he needed to ask her, based on what Sherry had learned from Jasmine Houze earlier.

  “You didn’t see any tattoos on the man’s arms, did you? About halfway up between his wrist and elbow?”

  Dana shook her head. “No, I don’t remember seeing anything like that.”

  “What about gloves? Was the man who attacked you wearing any sort of gloves? Latex or otherwise?”

  Dana shuddered. “No, he definitely wasn’t wearing gloves. I remember feeling his hands on my arms when he pushed me down on the ground. Definitely no gloves.”

  “Okay, thanks again for your help. No matter what happens in this investigation, Captain Harris is right, you were certainly very brave.”

  Jon pulled the door closed behind him when he exited the room to find Captain Harris glaring at him.

  “What the hell was that about, Hatton? ‘No matter what happens in this investigation.’ Are you trying to make me look like a fool?”

  No, the older man was taking all the steps to do that himself without any help from Jon. “Captain, I’m trying to be objective here. I don’t think this is the same guy.”

  “What were those questions about the tattoo and gloves?”

  “I found out earlier today that Jasmine Houze remembered something. A tattoo on the inside of her attacker’s arm. Also, that he was wearing latex gloves.”