All the Pretty Girls Read online

  Praise for J.T. Ellison’s

  ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS

  “J.T. Ellison’s debut novel rocks. Darkly compelling and thoroughly chilling, with rich characterization and a well-layered plot, All the Pretty Girls is everything a great crime thriller should be.”

  —Allison Brennan, New York Times bestselling author of Fear No Evil

  “Taylor Jackson is a fresh portrayal of a cop with a serial killer to catch. Creepy thrills from start to finish.”

  —James O. Born, author of Burn Zone

  “An impressive debut that is rich not just in suspense but in the details. Fast-paced and creepily believable, Ellison’s novel proves that there is still room in the genre for new authors and new cops. There’s no novice showing in All the Pretty Girls. It’s all gritty, grisly and a great read.”

  —M. J. Rose, internationally bestselling author of The Reincarnationist

  “All the Pretty Girls is a spellbinding suspense novel and Tennessee has a new dark poet. J.T. Ellison’s fast-paced, clever plotting yields a page-turner par excellence. A turbocharged thrill ride of a debut.”

  —Julia Spencer-Fleming, Edgar Award finalist and author of All Mortal Flesh

  “Ellison hits the ground running with an electrifying debut. All the Pretty Girls is a masterful thriller, shockingly authentic and unputdownable. Fans of Sandford, Cornwell and Reichs will relish every page.”

  —J. A. Konrath, author of Dirty Martini

  “A word of advice before you read J.T. Ellison’s brilliant debut, All the Pretty Girls: keep the lights on. With a masterful hand, Ellison delivers a villain to make you quail, pitted against the thriller world’s freshest new detective since Tess Gerritsen’s Jane Rizzoli. Complex and sharp-tongued, Taylor Jackson is destined to become an icon in crime fiction. With a deft command of the language and a refreshing respect for the delicate balance between killer, victim and detective, Ellison is an original worth keeping an eye on.”

  —Kristy Kiernan, author of Catching Genius

  “In J.T. Ellison’s impressive debut, we’re taken on a gripping ride into the seemingly nonsensical world of a serial killer and the passionate urgency of those who try to stop him. From the tragedy of missed potential in an ebbing life to the frustration of a crime unsolved, All the Pretty Girls spurs us to confront our own complicated humanity and to acknowledge what can rip us from its grasp. Ellison’s characters—whether major players or quiet students—will stay with you long after you close the book.”

  —Pari Noskin Taichert, two-time Agatha Award finalist and author of the Sasha Solomon mystery series

  ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS

  J.T. ELLISON

  For Randy

  and

  my parents.

  Love you more.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The process of writing All the Pretty Girls was without a doubt a group effort. There are many people who graciously gave their time and expertise to help me get the details straight. I would like to send my deepest thanks to the following:

  My extraordinary editor Linda McFall, of MIRA Books, and all of the MIRA team, especially Margaret Marbury and Dianne Moggy. A very special thank-you to Tara Kelly for designing the perfect cover.

  My incredible agent Scott Miller, of Trident Media Group, for taking a chance on an unknown, and Holly Henderson Root, for all her help and editorial advice.

  Detective David Achord of the Metro Nashville Homicide Department was an invaluable resource for the law enforcement details in the book. Not only did he allow me to ride along with him, he read, edited, gave ideas and information, encouraged me to keep on track and was always there for a question, chat or dinner. In the process, he’s become a great friend and I am very thankful to have him on my side.

  Officer Carl Stocks of the Metro Nashville Police Department took me on a midnight-shift ride-along that changed my life. He showed me that the horrors we write and read about are very real, and I have such great respect for his abilities and dedication to getting it done right.

  The Metro Nashville Homicide Department gave me complete support, and continues to handle even the most mundane questions. Detective Mike Mann helped me understand the mind-set a homicide detective must have to keep sane, and shared his ghost stories. Dr. Michael Tabor, the Forensic Dentist for the state of Tennessee, was a font of detail and information, and my respect and awe for his efforts following the September 11 attacks is everlasting. Kris Rinearson of Forensic Medical and the Medical Examiner’s Office for Tennessee provided long-standing insights.

  Nashville is a wonderful city to write about. Though I try my best to keep things accurate, poetic license is sometimes needed. All mistakes, exaggerations, opinions and interpretations are mine alone.

  The support and encouragement of friends and family were vital for both motivation and sanity. Many thanks to the Bodacious Music City Wordsmiths—Janet, Mary, Rai, Cecelia, Peggy, my Dutch uncle Del Tinsley and my wonderful critique partner J.B. Thompson. This story couldn’t have been told without your input! Joan Huston caught all the little errors, and a couple of big ones. Linda Whaley is there for me always.

  John Sandford inspired me to write and Stuart Woods gave me the rules. John Connolly taught me about faith, grace and pitch-perfect prose. Lee Child, my ITW mentor, is just one big class act and M. J. Rose is always ready with a quip or a shoulder. Fellow authors Tasha Alexander, Brett Battles, Jason Pinter, Rob Gregory-Browne, Toni Causey, Kristy Kiernan and all the Killer Year folks have created a support net that is indispensable. My fellow Murderati bloggers keep me honest.

  All my buddies at the Bellevue Post Office, who constantly cheer me on and treat every package with care.

  My amazing parents, who constantly remind me that I can do whatever I set my mind to, and my brothers, who’ve always stood behind me. Jade the cat listened attentively whenever I needed a sounding board and amazed me with her ability to park her butt on each page of the manuscript as it printed.<
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  Finally, to Randy. Your love, fortitude, patience, indulgence, sacrifice and faith in me keep me going. You are the keeper of my soul.

  One

  “No. Please don’t.” She whispered the words, a divine prayer. “No. Please don’t.” There they were again, bubbles forming at her lips, the words slipping out as if greased from her tongue.

  Even in death, Jessica Ann Porter was unfailingly polite. She wasn’t struggling, wasn’t crying, just pleading with those luminescent chocolate eyes, as eager to please as a puppy. He tried to shake off the thought. He’d had a puppy once. It had licked his hand and gleefully scampered about his feet, begging to be played with. It wasn’t his fault that the thing’s bones were so fragile, that the roughhousing meant for a boy and his dog forced a sliver of rib into the little creature’s heart. The light shone, then faded in the puppy’s eyes as it died in the grass in his backyard. That same light in Jessica’s eyes, her life leaching slowly from their cinnamon depths, died at this very moment.

  He noted the signs of death dispassionately. Blue lips, cyanotic. The hemorrhaging in the sclera of the eyes, pinpoint pricks of crimson. The body seemed to cool immediately, though he knew it would take some time for the heat to fully dissipate. The vivacious yet shy eighteen-year-old was now nothing more than a piece of meat, soon to be consigned back to the earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Blowfly to maggot. The life cycle complete once again.

  He shook off the reverie. It was time to get to work. Glancing around, he spied his tool kit. He didn’t remember kicking it over, perhaps his memory was failing him. Had the girl actually struggled? He didn’t think so, but confusion sets in at the most important moments. He would have to consider that later, when he could give it his undivided thought. Only the radiant glow of her eyes at the moment of expiration remained for him now. He palmed the handsaw and lifted her limp hand.

  No, please don’t. Three little words, innocuous in their definitions. No great allegories, no ethical dilemmas. No, please don’t. The words echoed through his brain as he sawed, their rhythm spurring his own. No, please don’t. No, please don’t. Back and forth, back and forth.

  No, please don’t. Hear these words, and dream of hell.

  Two

  Nashville was holding its collective breath on this warm summer night. After four stays of execution, the death watch had started again. Homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson watched as the order was announced that the governor would not be issuing another stay, then snapped off the television and walked to the window of her tiny office in the Criminal Justice Center. The Nashville skyline spread before her in all its glory, continuously lit by blazing flashes of color. The high-end pyrotechnic delights were one of the largest displays in the nation. It was the Fourth of July. The quintessential American holiday. Hordes of people gathered in Riverfront Park to hear the Nashville Symphony Orchestra perform in concert with the brilliant flares of light. Things were drawing to a close now. Taylor could hear the strains of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, a Russian theme to celebrate America’s independence. She jumped slightly with every cannon blast, perfectly coinciding with launched rockets.

  The cheers depressed her. The whole holiday depressed her. As a child, she’d been wild for the fireworks, for the cotton-candy fun of youth and mindless celebration. As she grew older, she mourned that lost child, trying desperately to reach far within herself to recapture that innocence. She failed.

  The sky was dark now. She could see the throngs of people heading back to whatever parking spots they had found, children skipping between tired parents, fluorescent bracelets and glow sticks arcing through the night. They would spirit these innocents home to bed with joy, soothed by the knowledge that they had satisfied their little ones, at least for the moment. Taylor wouldn’t be that lucky. Any minute now, she’d be answering the phone, getting the call. Chance told her somewhere in her city a shooter was escaping into the night. Fireworks were perfect cover for gunfire. That’s what she told herself, but there was another reason she’d stayed in her office this holiday night. Protecting her city was a mental ruse. She was waiting.

  A memory rose, unbidden, unwanted. Trite in its way, yet the truth of the statement hit her to the core. “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” Or became a woman. Her days of purity were behind her now.

  Taking one last glance at the quickening night, she closed the blinds and sat heavily in her chair. Sighed. Ran her fingers through her long blond hair. Wondered why she was hanging out in the Homicide office when she could be enjoying the revelry. Why she was still committed to the job. Laid her head on her desk and waited for the phone to ring. Got back up and flipped the switch to the television.

  The crowds were a pulsing mass at the Riverbend Maximum Security Prison. Police had cordoned off sections of the yard of the prison, one for the pro–death penalty activists, another comprised the usual peaceful subjects, a third penned in reporters. ACLU banners screamed injustice, the people holding them shouting obscenities at their fellow groupies. All the trappings necessary for an execution. No one was put to death without an attendant crowd, each jostling to have their opinion heard.

  The young reporter from Channel Two was breathless, eyes flushed with excitement. There were no more options. The governor had denied the last stay two hours earlier. Tonight, at long last, Richard Curtis would pay the ultimate price for his crime.

  As she watched, her eyes flicked to the wall clock, industrial numbers glowing on a white face: 11:59 p.m. An eerie silence overcame the crowd. It was time.

  Taylor took a deep breath as the minute hand swept with a click into the 12:00 position. She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until the hand snapped to 12:01 a.m. That was it, then. The drugs would have been administered. Richard Curtis would have a peaceful sleep, his heart’s last beat recorded into the annals of history. It was too gentle a death, in Taylor’s opinion. He should have been drawn and quartered, his entrails pulled from his body and burned on his stomach. That, perhaps, would give some justice. Not this carefully choreographed combination of drugs, slipping him serenely into the Grim Reaper’s arms. There, the announcement was made. Curtis was pronounced at 12:06 a.m., July 5. Dead and gone.

  Taylor turned the television off. Perhaps now she would get the call to arms. Waiting patiently, she laid her head down on her desk and thought of a sunny child named Martha, the victim of a brutal kidnapping, rape and murder when she was only seven years old. It was Taylor’s first case as a homicide detective. They’d found Martha within twenty-four hours of her disappearance, broken and battered in a sandy lot in North Nashville. Richard Curtis was captured several hours later. Martha’s doll was on the bench seat of his truck. Her tears were lifted from the door handle. A long strand of her honey-blond hair was affixed to Curtis’s boot. It was a slam-dunk case, Taylor’s first taste of success, her first opportunity to prove herself. She had acquitted herself well. Now Curtis was dead as a result of all her hard work. She felt complete.

  Taylor had stood vigil for seven years, awaiting this moment. In her mind, Martha was frozen in time, a seven-year-old little girl who would never grow up. She would be fourteen now. Justice had finally been served.

  As if in deference to the death of one of their own, Nashville’s criminals were silent on this night, finding better things to do than shoot one another for Taylor’s benefit. She drifted between sleep and wakefulness, thinking about her life, and was relieved when the phone finally rang at 1:00 a.m.

  A deep, gruff voice greeted her. “Meet me?” he asked.

  “Give me an hour,” she said, looking at her watch. She hung up and smiled for the first time all night.

  Three

  “I sure am glad we don’t live in California.”

  Detectives Pete Fitzgerald, Lincoln Ross and Marcus Wade were killing time. Nashville’s criminal element seemed to be taking a vacation. They hadn’
t had a murder to investigate in nearly two weeks. The city had been strangely quiet. Even the Fourth of July holiday had procured no deaths for their investigative skills. No one was scheduled for court, and their open cases were either resolved or held up by the crime lab. They had hit dead time.