Dead Simple

that’s fine. Or the next day. Whatever you feel is best. I just want to help you. That’s all I care about.’
    Another long silence.
    Then Nicola Taylor suddenly blurted out the word, ‘Shoes!’
    ‘Shoes?’
    She fell silent again.
    ‘Do you like shoes, Nicola?’ the SOLO probed. When there was no response she said chattily, ‘Shoes are my big weakness. I was in New York before Christmas with my husband. I nearly bought some Fendi boots – they cost eight hundred and fifty dollars!’
    ‘Mine were Marc Jacobs,’ Nicola Taylor said, almost whispering.
    ‘Marc Jacobs? I love his shoes!’ she replied. ‘Were they taken with your clothes?’
    Another long silence.
    Then the woman said, ‘He made me do things with them.’
    ‘What kind of things? Try – try to tell me.’
    Nicola Taylor started to cry again. Then, in between her sobs, she began talking in graphic detail, but slowly, with long periods of silence in between, as she tried to compose herself, and sometimes just plain let go, waves of nausea making her retch.
    As they listened in the observation room, Glenn Branson turned to his colleague and winced.
    Grace acknowledged him, feeling very uncomfortable. But as he listened now, he was thinking hard. Thinking back to that cold-case file on his office floor, which he had read through only very recently. Thinking back to 1997. Recalling dates. A pattern. An MO. Thinking about statements given by victims back then, some of which he had re-read not long ago.
    That same wintry gust he had felt earlier was rippling through his veins again.

 
    This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
     
    DEAD LIKE YOU . Copyright © 2010 by Really Scary Books/Peter James. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
     
    www.minotaurbooks.com
     
    ISBN: 978-0-312-64282-2
     
    First published in Great Britain by Macmillan, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited