Taylor didn’t bother finishing the article, or the paper, for that matter. Disgusted, she threw the paper on the floor and turned to business she had some control over. Whitney Connolly’s cell phone. Scrolling through the options, she found memo and hit playback. Whitney’s voice floated through the air, running down a to-do list. The last item was interesting, and Taylor replayed it several times. All the Pretty Girls

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“Need to talk to Quinn about the notes.”

That was it. No clues, no other directions. It didn’t even sound like this was important. Was she talking about the e-mails?

Taylor picked up the phone and called Quinn Buckley. Quinn answered on the first ring.

“Quinn? It’s Taylor Jackson. I have been going through Whitney’s personal effects that were in her car, and I have your sister’s cell phone here. There’s a recorded memo on the cell phone, I want to play it for you and get your impressions. Okay, I’m going to play it now.”

She held the cell phone up to her own portable phone and replayed the memo. Whitney’s voice rang out like a shot. Taylor couldn’t help but get goose bumps, she didn’t usually commune with the dead. That was Sam’s job. She lifted the receiver back to her ear and heard Quinn crying softly.

“Oh damn, Quinn, I’m sorry, I should have warned you it was going to be her voice.”

“No, that’s okay,” Quinn sniffled through the phone.

“I just wasn’t prepared to hear her voice again, like that. Was there nothing else?”

Taylor shook her head though no one was there to see it. “No, Quinn, there wasn’t anything else. Do you know what notes she’s talking about?”

“Who knows with Whitney? I was getting us both some note cards, maybe that’s what she meant. She must have changed her mind about the style, or something. I had so hoped there would be something more.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, but I’ll keep working on it. I’m sorry.”

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J.T. Ellison

“No, Taylor, you’re doing your best. I appreciate your help. They’re going to release Whitney’s body today. I think we’ll be having the memorial next week, as soon as I can get in touch with my husband and little brother and make arrangements for the service. They’re both out of town. I would appreciate it if you would come.”

“Of course. Just leave me a message as to time and place, and I’ll be there.”

They hung up and Taylor felt terrible. Here the woman’s sister was dead, her husband was perpetually out of town on business and she couldn’t even contact her younger brother to help make the funeral arrangements. For a privileged life, it seemed very lonely. Taylor decided the best thing she could do was get into the office. She brushed her still-wet hair into a ponytail, grabbed a Diet Coke and her keys. The phone rang just as she was getting ready to walk out the door. She set her things down and answered it. Baldwin’s voice boomed through the line as if he were in the next room, and she felt an overwhelming loneliness. Silly, she chided herself, he would be home soon.

“Hi, honey. Everything okay up there in North Carolina?”

“Well, no one’s gone missing this morning, so I guess we’re making improvements. I can’t predict this one, Taylor, and it’s driving me crazy.”

“Then sit down and write me a love poem,” she teased. “That should get your mind off things and back to where it belongs.”

The comment was greeted with silence. Taylor wasn’t hurt exactly, but she felt stung, usually Baldwin All the Pretty Girls

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would coo right back at her. But before she could say anything, he spoke.

“What made you say that?”

“Well, I’m sorry, hon, I was just joking around. They’ve been on my mind since I saw them at Whitney Connolly’s house. She had a boyfriend or admirer that was sending her love poems in her e-mails, and I read a couple while I was going through her stuff. It’s no big deal.”

But Taylor could feel the intensity coming off Baldwin through the phone. “Taylor, do you remember what the poems were? Anything in particular about them?”

“No, I didn’t pay that close attention. Why, Baldwin, what’s going on?”

“We haven’t released this to the press, okay, so I need you to keep it very quiet. The killer is leaving the victims poems. Love poems, classics by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Yeats. You have to get me the poems off Whitney Connolly’s computer.”

“At the crime scenes? I don’t recall anything like that at Shauna Davidson’s apartment.”

“One of Grimes’s men found it in her desk drawer. They are completely innocuous, unless you know what to look for, the notes are easily missed.”

“Jesus, Baldwin, if you’d told me I could have given you all of this yesterday. It didn’t even register, I only glanced at a couple of them. Crap.”

Taylor’s head felt like it was going to spin off into space. She loved it, that rush of adrenaline that came when you got the big break. Things were making a little sense now. The notes.

“Baldwin, Whitney was trying desperately to reach her sister yesterday, remember? Her memo on her cell 256

J.T. Ellison

phone that you suggested I check? There was a message there that she needed to talk to Quinn about the notes. We thought it was something benign, like note cards. Maybe we were wrong. What do you think?”

“I don’t want to jump to any conclusions. But I want you to get a hold of those poems and read them to me, let me see if they’re a match to what we’re getting at the scenes. The killer may be a fan of Whitney Connolly’s, who knows. Can you get to that computer?”

“Yeah, let me call Quinn Buckley and get permission to go into Whitney’s house again. I’ll call you as soon as I have them in front of me.”

Baldwin flipped on the news, trying to gauge public opinion on their handling of the case. The murders were the lead story, the sensational nature of the slayings, the fact that all the victims had a medical tie-in, the speed at which the killer was progressing. Everyone was baffled, desperate for answers. Gun sales were on the rise, and locksmiths were doing a brisk business all along the southeast corridor. Great, nothing worked better for an investigation than instilling fear in the public. And where were they getting all that information? Only a select few knew about the medical tie-in, the leak was high up on the food chain. He would have to deal with that sooner rather than later. Baldwin sat incredulous on the bed for a few moments. Then a thought hit him. He opened up his computer and went to the Health Partners Web portal. He had glossed over a lot of the information last night, but something was tickling his conscience. He navigated the site until he found a section that was entitled All the Pretty Girls

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Contact Us. He clicked it open, and there it was. The home office of Health Partners was in Nashville. He started scrolling through but couldn’t find any more information. The company must have a listing of officers and executives, he just wasn’t finding it online. No matter, that was something a quick phone call could provide. He dialed the number that Health Partners had listed in their contact information. A pleasant southern voice answered, but Baldwin quickly realized it was voice mail. Damn, he was hoping to get a secretary. The voice gave him the option of hitting zero to speak to a live person, and he did just that. Muzak drifted out from his earpiece and he rolled his eyes. There was just something so wrong about hearing synthesized Aerosmith.

“Dude (Looks Like A Lady)” just didn’t work in the dulcet tones of elevator music.

After a few minutes, the music stopped and a real voice came on the line.

“Health Partners. Can I help you?”

He cleared his throat and gave a brisk no-nonsense answer. “Yes, you can. This is Special Agent John Baldwin with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I need to get an organizational chart of your company.”