Six Killer Bodies by Stephanie Bond Page A

a charm that freaked Shawna
    out a little. It was a woman asleep or something, with her
    arms crossed over her chest.”
    Carlotta’s mouth went dry. She picked up the corpselike
    charm from her own bracelet. “Like this one?”
    “That’s it! Wow, how creepy that the two of you have the
    same charm.”
    “I’m sure there were lots of duplicates,” Carlotta
    murmured, then took a sip from her coffee cup. “The
    intertwined-hands charm sounds interesting. Did Shawna
    have a boyfriend?”
    “No.”
    “Are you sure? Maybe someone she knew from online?”
    “Not Shawna. She was thinking about joining an online
    dating service, but she didn’t have the chance.”
    Carlotta poured a packet of creamer into her cup. “I
    suppose the police came by and asked all kinds of
    questions.”
    Monica shrugged. “I heard a detective came in on one of
    my days off, but I didn’t talk to him. I didn’t know
    anything, and I was just so sad, I had to get away from
    here for a few days.”
    “Did Shawna mention if any customers made her feel
    uncomfortable?”
    Monica laughed. “If you work retail long enough, you meet
    your share of weirdos. But I don’t remember her saying
    anyone in particular was bothering her.”
    Carlotta smiled. “Being a bookstore, you probably get lots
    of loners.”
    “Oh, yeah. The guys who can’t get a date on weekends put
    on their toupees and cruise the aisles ogling the help.”
    Monica offered a wry smile, then glanced down the
    counter to see another customer waiting in front of the
    pastry case. “Excuse me.”
    Carlotta nodded and walked away sipping her coffee,
    thril ed with the information she’d gleaned—information
    that apparently Jack had missed out on due to bad timing.
    She walked back through the bookstore to study the
    information desk—a tall, curved counter with a phone and
    computer. It was unmanned at the moment. Carlotta
    imagined the plain, slender woman standing behind the
    counter, offering up shy smiles to customers. Had she
    gotten too chatty with a psychopath? Inadvertently ticked
    him off in some way?
    The last two victims, the Georgia State coeds, had been
    found with book charms in their mouths. Maybe the
    charms were clues to the murderer’s identity. Maybe he
    was an intel ectual, or fancied himself to be. If so, it made
    sense The Charmed Kil er would hang out in a bookstore.
    But Michael Lane certainly didn’t fit that profile.
    “May I help you?” a young man asked, stepping up to the
    information counter.
    Carlotta gave him a big smile. “Does your store specialize
    in a certain type of book? Or is there a unique section that
    would bring in a particular customer?”
    “We sel more textbooks than anything else, mostly to
    students, of course. But we have lots of professionals
    come in to buy reference books, too.”
    “What type of professionals?”
    He shrugged. “Engineers, doctors, architects, you name it.”
    Any one of whom might have latched on to Shawna Whitt.
    Carlotta pul ed out a picture of Michael Lane. “Have you
    seen this man in here?”
    The man squinted. “He looks familiar, but…I don’t think
    so.”
    Eager to further exonerate Coop by proving he didn’t
    know Shawna Whitt, she pul ed out a picture of him taken
    on their road trip to Florida. In it, Coop looked tanned and
    happy, a far cry from his disheveled appearance being
    flashed on television and in newspapers. “How about this
    man? Have you ever seen him in here?”
    The clerk bit his lip, then nodded. “Yeah, that’s the white-
    van guy. He’s in here a couple of times a week, checking
    out the medical books. I figure he’s a med student or
    something.”
    The breath stalled in her lungs. “How…how do you know
    he drives a white van?”
    “Hard to miss, it’s so big. He parks it across the street.”
    The man turned and pointed out the window at the
    metered street parking. “Are you looking for him?”
    She nodded, but the effort was painful. Tears pushed