Clean Kill

The girl lay in the grass on the side of the trail beneath the low-hanging limbs of a dogwood tree. Her arms were by her side, one leg bent at the knee. She was completely nude, and her skin glistened with a thin coat of early dew. Her lifeless eyes were open so that she gave the appearance of a storefront mannequin. There were no signs of any struggle, no drag marks, no obvious footprints. There was also no obvious sign of any blood anywhere to be seen. There was not a mark on her that could be seen, nor was there any hair-anywhere. She had been completely shaved everywhere one would normally expect to see hair. It also appeared as if she had just stepped out of the shower and dried off. The body was spotless, save for a few insects, which had begun to crawl on it. There was no sign of any dirt, grass, twig, even dust. Homicide Detective Robert Gillette had investigated a lot of murders in his nearly twenty-five-year career as a policeman and had seen a lot of bodies-bodies shot, cut up, blown apart, run over, ground up, beat up, burned up. The bodies now turning up around the city are unlike any he had ever seen-they are perfectly clean. How are they dying, and who is killing these beautiful young girls? And are the murders connected to the series of unsolved sexual assaults that had eerily similar characteristics? As the investigation continues, Gillette would encounter more and more questions while finding fewer and fewer answers. It will also draw him back into a relationship he thought was long over but would lead to near-tragic circumstances.