Read Now or Never for Free Online Page B

could confirm it.
    They were also testing the saliva taken from the bite marks on her breasts, and a forensic odontologist was reconstructing the killer’s teeth and dental work from the bite marks.
    But the most vital piece of evidence was the semen found on the victim. When the results of the DNA tests came through, it could link the killing to the two other murders. DNA evidence was as damning as any fingerprint. It was what would put this killer behind bars for life.
    Meanwhile, a week had gone by since Harry and Latchwell had gotten the photo-fit. The local TV stations had shown it on every news program and all the newspapers had front-paged it, morning and evening. Calls had flowed in, from the usual cranks as well as from the genuinely concerned who thought they might have seen the killer. Every possible lead had been followed. And—nothing.
    Harry was beginning to doubt the accuracy of the picture. Maybe he had pushed those fishermen too hard, put ideas in their heads.
    Harry thought about what Summer had said before she died.
Staring dark eyes … soft hands
. She was the only one who really knew what the killer looked like.
    Even Doc Blake, after the autopsy, had seemed skeptical. “Are you sure this is a true likeness?” he had asked. “How can you be certain? Only the girl could have told you, and unfortunately she didn’t live long enough.”
    Dr. Blake was right, he thought, swinging his legs down from the desk and running his hands wearily through his dark hair. Either the photo-fit was not a goodlikeness, or the killer was not a local man. The case needed more public awareness if they were to keep him from striking again—it needed more nationwide publicity.
    “What we really need,” he said to Rossetti, “is Mallory Malone.”
    Rossetti raised his dark eyebrows. He stared at his partner as though he’d gone crazy. “Yeah. Sure we need her. She’d make us look like a couple of dumb cops on network TV, while she batted her baby blues and told the nation that if we were smart and did our job properly, we would have caught this killer first time out. In other words, buddy, you and I would take the rap publicly for three murders. The media would latch on to us like piranhas in a feeding frenzy.” He shrugged. “Think again, Prof. That’s my advice.”
    “But what if she displays the photo-fit on her show? Maybe she’d snag the one person who knows who this guy is. In California, perhaps. Or Florida or Texas or Montana. Jesus, Rossetti, we need help, and we need it now. Before the trail goes cold.”
    “What trail?” Rossetti glared at him. “Why go looking for trouble? Aren’t we in deep enough already? Don’t we have the chief on our backs, to say nothin’ of the mayor and the college presidents … hell, all of Massachusetts. So why not Mallory Malone as well? Might as well make a party of it.”
    His dark eyes met Harry’s angrily for a minute, then he shrugged, defeated. “Ah, what the fuck, of course you’re right. What’s a guy’s career worth anyhow if he can’t finish the job he set out to do. Call Malone if you have to, but leave me out of it. I’m off to Ruby’s to punish myself with eggs and a short stack, and their ‘special’ ungenuine maple syrup. You comin’?”
    Harry grinned. “I’ll let you kill yourself with Ruby’s kindness on your own. I’ll settle for another cup of that black death they call coffee around here.”
    Harry shouldered through the crush to the coffee machine at the end of the hallway. It smelled of sweat and cigarettes and stale pizza, and even this early in the morning the squad room was buzzing. The graveyard shift had been busy: a domestic dispute had ended in a stabbing—not fatal yet, but odds were it would end up that way; a drug-related shooting and a drive-by. The holding cells were crowded with drunks and domestic-violence and public-nuisance cases, and weary cops were typing up case sheets and answering the constantly ringing