A Dark Mind by T. R. Ragan

bed at night. It was the strangest thing, because no matter how many dead bodies she embalmed during the day, she always smelled as sweet as a rose at night.

CHAPTER 9
    I didn’t want to hurt them, I only wanted to kill them.
    —David Berkowitz
    Davis
    Friday, May 11, 2012
    On the third knock, Hayley set the Kindle to the side, removed the cat from her lap, and went to the door. Lizzy had made her promise she would look through the peephole before opening the door, so she did it out of respect more than anything else. She released a heavy sigh when she saw that it was Jessica. She opened the door and Jessica stepped inside without waiting for an invitation. Hayley had almost forgotten how pushy she could be. She shut the door and bolted it, as Lizzy had instructed.
    “Well, hello to you, too,” Jessica said, a big sappy grin plastered across her always-happy face. “Where’s Lizzy?”
    “She had a meeting tonight.”
    “With who?”
    “I didn’t ask.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because if Lizzy had wanted to tell me, she would have.”
    Jessica rolled her eyes and then leaned over and rubbed her fingers through Hannah’s soft fur. “You’re getting so big, kitty cat.”
    Hayley took her seat on the couch and picked up the Kindle again.
    “What are you doing?” Jessica asked.
    “What does it look like?”
    Jessica left the cat alone and grabbed the leather satchel hanging from her shoulder. She pulled out a pile of mail along with a half dozen manila folders and placed it all on the coffee table in front of Hayley. “Turn your Kindle off. We have work to do.”
    “I thought you were working on the Cartwright case.”
    “I’m working on at least six different cases at once. But I’m keeping a few hours every day open for you.”
    “Wonderful.”
    Jessica ignored her sarcasm and rambled on some more. “I figured the two of us could work together while you’re trapped here. I’ll stop at the office every chance I get, grab any work Lizzy has for us, and bring it here.”
    Hayley nodded, hoping she had finished.
    “I would have come earlier, but I was watching one of the claimants today. He was doing all sorts of heavy lifting. I got some great pictures. I think I might be finally getting the hang of this whole surveillance thing.”
    A quick learner. It only took her two years
, Hayley thought. “What about school?”
    “Since when do you care about my schooling?”
    “You’re right. I don’t care. Forget I asked.”
    Jessica waved a hand through the air. “No, I’m going to tell you, because the truth is I like that you care about me. I care about you, too.”
    Hayley wanted to shoot herself, wondering why she’d asked her about school in the first place.
    “I’m taking a night class and a couple of online courses,” Jessica began. “But I’ve moved out of my mom’s house and into my own apartment and I need money, which is why I figured I’ll squeeze in all the overtime I can.” She stopped talking long enough to point a finger at Hayley. “If you ever get that monitor off your leg, I’d love to show you my place.”
    “Yeah,” Hayley said, “I’d like that, too.” She meant she would like to get the monitor off her ankle, not the part about seeing Jessica’s place. The two of them were sweet and sour, oil and water…there was no reason to pretend they were buds. But, of course, Jessica took it the wrong way.
    She smiled again and her eyes lit up excitedly. “I don’t think Lizzy has ever been this busy,” Jessica went on. “She has at least a dozen workers’ compensation cases, and now that you’re out of the gray-bar hotel, she wants you and me to work together on finding an eighteen-year-old girl.”
    “What’s the deal?” Hayley asked, ignoring the reference to jail as the gray-bar hotel. Jessica was by far the weirdest person she’d ever met.
    “A woman living in New York has asked Lizzy to find her daughter. The woman was forced by her parents to give her up