RAPTURE

A London Carter Novel

(Book 7)

__________________

BY

BJ BOURG

www.bjbourg.com

RAPTURE

A London Carter Novel by BJ Bourg

This book is a work of fiction.

All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously.

Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or

reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the author, with the exception of brief

excerpts used for the purposes of review.

Copyright © 2023 by BJ Bourg

Cover Art by Christine Savoie of Bayou Cover Designs

PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 46

CHAPTER 47

CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER 49

CHAPTER 50

CHAPTER 51

CHAPTER 52

CHAPTER 53

CHAPTER 54

CHAPTER 55

CHAPTER 56

CHAPTER 57

CHAPTER 58

CHAPTER 59

CHAPTER 60

CHAPTER 61

CHAPTER 62

CHAPTER 1

Five years earlier…

Fairview, Colorado

As the clock struck midnight on a new year, Bella Jordan was exiting her last patient’s room. She was tired. Although her shift was days and she normally worked from six to six, she had been asked to cover half of Janine Rockford’s shift because she was allegedly sick.

“A convenient time to get sick,” Bella muttered as she stopped outside her patient’s room to make notes in his chart. “If you post a single picture of you partying tonight, I’m gonna float an air bubble in your—”

“Still talking to yourself, I see,” called a male’s voice from behind her.

Blushing, Bella whirled around to see Dr. Dan Smith smiling down at her. “I…I was just talking to myself.” She winced inwardly at her awkwardness. “Oh, wait, you already said that. I…I guess I’m just tired. I had to cover half of Janine’s shift.”

“Yeah, I heard she called in sick.” He cast a glance around, leaned close to her ear, and whispered, “I have it on good authority that she’s actually at a New Year’s party in Denver. While she might be sick come morning, there’s nothing wrong with her now.”

Bella shuddered violently as Dan’s warm breath tickled her ear. Dan noticed and his face reddened a bit. Shit! What was it about Dan that made her lose her composure? Why did she turn to mush when he was around? She had worked with doctors for years and wasn’t at all impressed with their status or their money. While most of them were self-important blowhards, she knew they were no different than anyone in any other profession. Some were good at what they did, and some sucked, but they were all just people doing a job.

She had been too lost in her mental stuttering to say anything, so Dan smiled meekly, wished her a Happy New Year, and turned to continue his rounds.

It was at that moment she realized what it was about him that she liked. He was a humble man. He wasn’t presumptuous. He treated his patients and everyone with whom he worked as equals. He always had a kind word for her and the other nurses. Hell, he had a kind word for everyone. And, most importantly, he didn’t sleep around.

“Dan…” Bella said hastily. She hadn’t thought through her next words. When he turned expectantly, there was a brief moment of panic, when she felt she was about to make a fool of herself. He didn’t wear a ring and never talked about a significant other, so she had always figured he was single, but what if she was wrong? She wanted desperately to invite him for a glass of wine—or whatever was his drink of choice—to celebrate the New Year, but if he turned out to be married or otherwise spoken for, she would be crushed. He had occupied most of her thoughts over the past few months. While every doctor in the hospital—married or not—had dated at least one or two of her fellow nurses, she had never heard any gossip about Dan. Not one to sleep around herself—she was constantly turning down the horn dogs with whom she worked—it was a trait she found most favorable in Dan. She had been searching her entire adulthood for a man like him, but now that he was standing right in front of her smiling and waiting, she didn’t know what to do with him. One thing was certain: she had stood there too long without saying anything, so she quickly uttered, “Happy New Year to you, too.”

He smiled and thanked her. He was about to turn around when he hesitated, cocked his head to the side. “Say, Bella, I never heard you talk about a boyfriend.”

Bella’s heart started to pound so heavily in her chest that she thought he would hear it. She shook her head.

“Do you have one? Or maybe a husband?”

Again, she shook her head.

“A fiancé?”

“No, I’ve got no one, not even a dog.” At thirty-two, Bella had been listening to her biological clock ticking like a time bomb for years now. While she would never jump into a relationship out of desperation, there were times when she had been tempted to give in and accept an offer from one of the doctors, but she knew how that would end.

“Would you like to have dinner sometime?” Dan asked.

Bella understood English, and Dan spoke it well, but his words sounded foreign to her. “Did you just ask me out?”

There was a look of panic in Dan’s eyes, and Bella instantly fell in love with him.

“Yes!” she said immediately. “Absolutely yes!”

Dan let out a long sigh of relief. He was beaming as they exchanged information, and Bella was still beaming as she turned onto Deer Park Court where she lived. It was a crowded but quiet little neighborhood. Hers was the oldest and most modest of the homes there. She had purchased it only two years earlier. It had come with a lot of problems, but she was slowly working through them. Her latest accomplishment had been to fix the automatic garage door, and it came in handy on those cold Colorado winters, of which the current night was no exception. As she pulled into her driveway, she gratefully pressed the remote that clung to her sun visor.

When the door had retracted far enough for her car to fit through, she sped forward and again hit the remote, trying to get the door closed before too much heat escaped. She shut off her engine and removed the keys from the ignition. She was just reaching for her purse when she heard the garage door lurch to a stop and then begin to rise again. She cursed. When she had first purchased the home, the emergency release rope on the door had been pulled to allow the door to be manually raised and lowered. Once she had reset the emergency release, she’d learned that the door wouldn’t stay closed.

Now, cocking her head to the side, she glanced in her side mirror and watched the door slowly retract. When it had completely opened, she grunted and hit the button on the remote again. As she watched, the door reversed course and began to descend once more. This time, it continued its descent until it fell smoothly into the closed position.

Bella smiled triumphantly as she stepped out of her car. The consummate DIYer, she had refused to hire someone to fix the garage door. After researching the problem, she had learned that the door force controls needed to be adjusted. With a ladder and screwdriver, she had gone to work and fixed the problem herself within fifteen minutes.

Still smiling, she slammed the door and began to walk around the front of her car when she caught movement in her peripheral vision. Startled, her head shot toward her right and she lurched in place when she saw a humanoid figure standing between her and the entrance to her house.

“Who the hell are you?” she asked, terror enveloping her like a cold blast of arctic air. Be it a man or woman, she couldn’t tell. The figure was clad in a black slicker suit, from head to boots, and the hood was tied snuggly in place under the chin. Across the mouth and nose was some kind of mask. The eyes were covered with safety goggles and the hands with latex gloves. Bella took a terrifying step back. In a weak voice, she asked, “What in the hell are you doing in my house?”

The figure reached into a pocket and produced a silver pistol. Bella gasped and dropped her purse. She had an extreme urge to relieve herself, but she fought it.

“Please don’t hurt me.” Bella took another step back. Although she was panicking on the inside, she tried her best to appear brave. She bent to retrieve her purse. “I’ve got money. Cash and credit cards. You can have all of—”

“If you pick up that purse, I’ll shoot you!”

Bella froze in place, partially bent over. The voice was definitely that of a man. She straightened slowly. “What…what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to do exactly what I tell you to do,” he said. “If you scream or try to resist, I’ll shoot you. If you don’t do exactly what I say, I’ll shoot you. Do you understand?”

Bella’s lips and throat were suddenly dry. She nodded and tried to swallow, but it was no use. She suddenly realized why the descending garage door had been disrupted: the man had tripped the sensors! Had she only realized that sooner, she would’ve been able to throw the gearshift in reverse and speed away.

“Walk this way,” the man said, interrupting her thoughts. She complied. With the pistol, he indicated the keys she held in her left hand. “Give them to me.”

Again, she obeyed. Her mind raced as she watched the man stab at the knob with the house key while keeping the handgun trained on her. Neither his eyes nor his gun hand wavered. They were fixed on her like lasers, and she had no doubt he would kill her in a split second if she made the wrong move.

“What do you plan on doing with me?” she asked in a quivering voice. Having worked in the E.R. for years, she was no stranger to these kinds of situations. She knew what might be awaiting her inside the walls of her own home, and she knew she had a decision to make. She could either let him have his way with her and pray that he spared her life, or she could fight like hell and hopefully escape, or even disarm him. In that moment, she decided she would fight. She also decided she would kill him if necessary. “Whatever you do, please don’t hurt me.”

The man’s eyes curled up in the corners as though he were smiling beneath the mask. This angered Bella, but she didn’t show it. She needed him to think she was frail and frightened. Well, she conceded inwardly, I am frightened. As for how frail she was, that remained to be seen.

“Please, I beg of you,” she continued, her eyes subtly scanning the countertop of her work table, “don’t hurt me.”

She had placed a small garden shovel there on the previous weekend. If only she could get her hands on—

“Don’t even think about it,” the man said. “If you resist in any way, I’ll shoot you dead and the party will have to start without you.”

Bella swallowed. The man’s gaze pierced through the transparent lenses and right into her, and it appeared he could read her every thought. He had unlocked the knob and swung the door open. Stepping back far enough to be out of reach of her hands, he waved for her to enter. She did as he directed, but just as she cleared the opening, she grabbed the edges of the door and swung as hard as she could. She enjoyed a brief moment of triumph as it slammed shut and she was able to slide the chain lock in place.

However, that moment was cut short by a muffled explosion and an intense pain in her stomach when an unseen object punched through the wooden panel and struck her. She let out a gasp and reached for the injury. She had barely looked down at her bloody hands when the door was violently kicked open and the plastic man stood there, his pistol aimed right at her face.

She scowled through the pain, fear, and anger as she stared into his eyes. “I…I think I know you,” she said weakly. “Aren’t you—?”

Bella Jordan never heard the shot that killed her.

CHAPTER 2

Tuesday, January 5

Magnolia Parish, Louisiana

I swerved violently to the left and entered the turning lane, narrowly missing a car that had pulled out in front of me. The driver had either ignored my lights and siren or hadn’t seen or heard them. Either way, I wasn’t mad. I was just grateful I’d reacted in time to avoid a collision. I couldn’t afford a crash at that moment.

“What’s your twenty, London?” asked Sheriff Corey Chiasson, his voice betraying the dread we all felt as he asked for my whereabouts.

“I’m ninety-seven,” I called over the police radio, notifying him and everyone else who was listening that I had arrived at the scene. Luckily, I had been serving a plate for Dawn and me at our favorite Chinese restaurant 500 yards from the school when we’d received the call about shots being fired. Unluckily, I’d had to run to my truck, drive out of the parking lot, and race down the congested highway, all of which took precious time. When an active shooter was on campus—or anywhere, for that matter—seconds meant lives, and it had already taken more seconds than I’d liked for me to reach the scene.

Without saying another word on the radio, I aimed my SUV right at the front entrance of Central Magnolia High School and didn’t stop until I’d almost hit the columns near the concrete steps. In a flash, I grabbed my Sig Sauer AR-10 from the front passenger seat and jumped from my vehicle. While a nanosecond might have passed between me jumping out of my vehicle and racing to the front doors, it was enough time for me to take in the entire situation out in the parking lot, and I was disgusted.

A woman in jeans and a black shirt was running south along the front of the school, screaming as she ran. Although she had healthy lungs and was making a lot of noise, I could plainly hear the muffled sounds of gunshots from deep inside the school. A silver truck was parked parallel to the columns with the engine running and the door slightly ajar, and I made a mental bet that the truck belonged to the shooter. Another silver vehicle—a mini SUV—and two marked sheriff’s cruisers were parked beside the exterior wall of the school.

None of these initial observations rankled me. No, what pissed me off to no end were the two school resource officers huddled behind their vehicles hollering into their handsets for backup. Not only had they failed miserably in their duties, but they were so stricken by fear that they hadn’t even recognized that help had arrived. I was a plain clothes detective working for the same agency that employed them, and while I didn’t immediately recognize them, they should’ve known who I was, considering I taught a yearly mental preparation class to new recruits and veteran officers alike. If I made it out of the school alive, I planned on having words with them.

The doors to the school were designed to open outwardly, so I had to stop briefly to pull on them. I was grateful they opened, but also wondered how on earth a shooter could’ve gained entry to the building when the doors were supposed to be locked at all times. I also wondered if the school resource officers had run past the shooter to escape, or if they had been outside beforehand and simply refused to go after the gunman. Either way, they had failed the students and faculty of Central Magnolia.

To my immediate right as I entered the school was the office. I looked in that direction and could see the tops of a dozen heads as students and faculty members huddled behind the check-in counter. One teacher locked eyes with me and pointed toward the back of the school, which was toward the west. I nodded and headed down the wide hallway. It was 100 yards to the opposite end, but there were a lot of rooms on either side that I couldn’t neglect on my way down.

The gunshots had been sporadic as I’d sprinted toward the school, and the gunman hadn’t fired once since I’d entered. It was nearly impossible to pinpoint the shooter’s exact location from outside, so I wasn’t positive from where the shots had come, and would have to rely on the information I’d received from the teacher.

The hallway before me was empty and it was eerily quiet for a school that boasted more than a thousand students. Everyone had apparently reverted to the training we provided on a quarterly basis, one being that if they were unable to immediately escape, they were to shelter in place. It appeared that was exactly what they had done.

I scanned the floor before me and noticed several spent .45-caliber shell casings scattered about like breadcrumbs, leading straight to the back of the school. I paused briefly at an intersecting hallway and quickly checked both ends. They were clear, and this surprised me.

The library—the door of which was closed—was directly to my right. Through the large glass windows, I caught glimpses of students and teachers hiding behind shelves laden with books. One student waved wildly to get my attention and then shot a thumb toward the back of the school. I nodded my thanks and continued forward, my rifle up and ready.

So far, and to my great relief, I hadn’t seen any bodies or blood. I did notice, however, that there were bullet holes in the ceiling. While that might’ve seemed like good news, I also knew there were kids in the upstairs classrooms. I found myself hoping desperately that the floor and ceiling of the interstitial space separating the two levels were as thick as I’d remembered when I had conducted a security analysis of the building for my work as a police sniper.

I had made it another twenty yards down the hallway when the explosion of gunfire erupted, and I headed straight in that direction, moving as fast as my legs could carry me. After four or five shots, the firing ceased, but I now knew the shooter was not at the end of the main hallway. Instead, he or she was somewhere to the south.

When I reached the next intersecting hallway, I heard loud screams from the south and saw at least thirty students heading straight for me, their faces betraying the panic they felt. I lowered my rifle and hugged the wall to the right as I ran, waving for them to stay to my left.

One boy skidded to a stop and hollered, “She’s looking for Mr. Porter! He’s in the shop!”

I hollered an update into my police radio and raced ahead, pocketing my radio and raising my rifle when I cleared the end of the stampede. I heard excited chatter over the airwaves, and I knew the response would be swift and expansive.

There was another intersecting hallway up ahead that extended east to west, and I knew it was the hallway that led to an exterior building that housed the shop department. There were several other buildings in the rear of the school—one being a greenhouse and the other being the Ag building—and I wondered if any students had been trapped outside. I didn’t know Mr. Porter, so I had no idea who was after him or why, but I was hoping the shooter had it out for him only. I feared I would be too late to save the man, considering the shooter had gotten too much of a head start, but if she could spare the children, I would consider it a small victory.

Just as I reached the intersection and started to round the corner, I heard more gunshots. They were closer now—much closer—and I knew I was gaining on the shooter. As I sprinted down the last stretch of hallway, I tried to see through the narrow strips of wired glass that made up the only windows on the exterior doors—one to each door—and I was able to catch a fleeting glimpse of two figures running down the sidewalk toward the shop building, which was sixty yards away.

The man was in the lead, with the woman trailing about forty yards behind him, and he hit the shop door just as a barrage of bullets peppered the wall and ground around him. He seemed to make it inside uninjured. The woman pushed her way into the shop before I exited the main building.

Cursing, I threw myself into the panic bar on the exit door and leaned into my sprint, running as though my own life depended on it. Shots were being fired when I crashed through the shop door. They weren’t sporadic or rapid, but methodical and sadistic-sounding. I headed straight for the noise, my ears exploding with each gunshot inside the metal building. I had to navigate a maze of large tools and clunky tables, but I finally caught sight of the man who was presumably Mr. Porter. He was crouched behind a table taking bullets like he was paid to do it. Blood was already covering the front of his pants and, as I skidded to a stop, I saw several rounds penetrate the backs of his hands as he tried to cover up his groin area.

The shooter was standing on the opposite side of a large bandsaw, the top of which concealed her head and shoulders. Without a bit of hesitation, I shouldered my rifle, attained immediate eye relief, quartered a spot on her back where I knew her heart would be, and pulled the trigger. Like a skilled deer hunter, I could pinpoint every vital organ on a human body from the outside, and I knew I’d made a direct heart shot before she even hit the ground.

Although my .308-caliber bullet had instantly destroyed her heart, she wouldn’t die instantly, thanks to the oxygen reserve in her brain, so I quickly rounded the band saw and prepared to make a follow-up shot to the head. As it turned out, none was needed. The woman, young and beautiful, lay on her back staring straight up in shocked surprise, a Thompson sub-machinegun resting loosely across her stomach. It was as though she’d never anticipated this ending. She had come here hunting Mr. Porter, and she hadn’t planned for any possible contingencies.

I approached the woman and grabbed the rifle by the barrel. It was still hot to the touch, but I didn’t care.

“Why’d you do it?” I asked as I cleared the rifle. I knew the woman was a second or two from expiring, so I didn’t expect an answer. I was right not to. She only stared up with panic-stricken eyes, and I watched as the life rapidly faded from her pupils.

I leaned the Tommy gun against a workbench that was out of the woman’s reach and turned to the man. I frowned as I saw blood squirting through several holes in his pant legs. They became weaker with each squirt. Bullets had also torn through his lower abdomen, and blood was oozing from a dozen wounds in that region. A large pool of blood had already gathered beneath his body and I knew it was probably already too late, but I rested my rifle against the nearby wall and began to remove my belt anyway. I didn’t have a junctional tourniquet, so I would have to improvise.

I was supporting my pistol with one hand and tugging on my belt with the other when the shop door burst open. I turned to see Dawn Luke, my fiancé, standing there breathing hard. She had an AR-15 in her hands and her jaw was set. When she saw me, she let out a long sigh of relief and lowered her weapon.

“Thank God you’re okay,” she said breathlessly. “I don’t want to get married by myself.”

CHAPTER 3

After letting dispatch know that we had one suspect and one victim down in the shop building, Dawn tossed me a pair of latex gloves. I handed her my pistol, which was still in its holster, and pulled on the gloves. I squatted beside our victim and prepared to wrap my belt around his torso, but hesitated. His mouth was wide open and he was staring straight ahead through expressionless eyes. I wasn’t sure if he was dead or just in shock that his junk had been shot to bits.

“I think he’s gone,” Dawn said from where she stood above us. “He’s lost too much blood already. Your belt won’t do any good.”

Just to be sure, I checked his pulse. Nothing. Dawn was right. I knew that performing CPR would only force out what little blood he had left in his body, so I had to face it: there was nothing I could do to save the man. I didn’t like admitting it, but those were the cold hard facts. He was gone and there wasn’t a damned thing anyone could do for him.

I cursed out loud and straightened. I glanced again at his wounds and winced. At that point, and with those injuries, death was probably the man’s best friend. I knew I had done everything in my power to save him, and I knew his demise was the fault of one person, but I couldn’t help but wish I had gotten there a few seconds sooner—like before our suspect had unleashed holy hell on his groin area. Once those bullets had ripped through him, I was sure he had begged for death—as any man would.

I slipped my belt back through my pant loops. After taking my pistol from Dawn, I shoved it in place and glanced at the card dangling from a lanyard that hung around the man’s neck. I hadn’t been sure of his identity upon first entering the shop, but his face and name were prominently displayed on the school access card, and the face definitely matched the man whose body lay before us. According to the name beneath the photo, he was Alex Porter—Mr. Porter to his students.

“Poor bastard.” I indicated his injuries with a nod of my head. “I guess it’s a good thing he died, because I doubt any man would want to live past that nonsense.”

Dawn shifted the rifle sling that was draped around her neck and nodded as she surveyed the two bodies and the surrounding area. She finally cast an inquisitive glance at our young suspect. “Woman scorned?” she asked.

“You’re the expert,” I said with a shrug, glancing around for my spent shell casing. I was about to step around Dawn when I noticed the expression on her face. I cocked my head. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m an expert on women scorned?” she asked in exasperation, chewing her spearmint gum like she wanted to bite a head off. “Why would you think that?”

“No,” I said with a laugh, and then quickly explained. “What I meant was that you’re the expert in detective work. You know this shit way better than I do.”

Dawn had been working crime scenes for several years longer than I had, and I’d learned a lot from her in the time we’d worked together. Still, she could read a scene better than anyone I knew, and although motive couldn’t always be ascertained by looking at a scene, I knew she had some ideas already.

Dawn grunted at my explanation, not sure if I was joking or not, but willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. As for me, I continued to search for my spent shell casing. I wanted to mark the location before the medics arrived to check on the suspect and victim. Also, it would assist the internal affairs officers who would arrive at some point to investigate the shooting. I could hear cars arriving and there was a lot of chatter on the police radio, so I knew it was only a matter of time before the place would be surrounded by other officers.

“Over there,” Dawn said, pointing under a worktable that was located a dozen feet to the right of where I had been standing when I’d shot the suspect. “There’s your casing.”

I held my rifle steady and bent to glance under the bench. Sure enough, it had bounced across the floor and come to rest against one of the rear legs of the table. I removed one of my latex gloves and placed it on the floor near the casing. Just then, I heard pounding boots approaching the front of the shop. Dawn had already let our officers know we were Code 4, which meant everything was under control, so I figured the paramedics had arrived and were rushing to render aid to the downed individuals. Before I could move, Dawn headed for the entrance and met them in the doorway.

“They’re in here,” she said, and led the way.

One of the medics, a young man named Stan, headed for the suspect while his partner, a middle-aged woman, headed for the shop teacher.

The male medic stopped in his tracks when he reached the suspect. “Wow,” he said. “It looks like her heart was blown out of her chest. What happened?”

I looked at the kid. He was in his early twenties. “Bad life choices,” was all I said.

He nodded and started to check the suspect for a heart rhythm. I glanced at the gaping wound in her chest, cocked my head to the side, and said, “Really?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said, changing his mind and joining his partner. She was already removing the leads from Porter’s chest and shaking her head.

“There was nothing anyone could’ve done for this man,” she said. “Even if he would’ve been shot on an operating table, doctors wouldn’t have been able to piece him back together in time.”

Dawn thanked them and led them back out along the same path they had entered. When she rejoined me, I heard a voice over the police radio calling my name. It was Sheriff Corey Chiasson and I could hear the strain in his voice.

“I guess I’d better take this.” I waved my hand to indicate the scene. “Can you guard this place?”

Dawn nodded and tossed me the keys to her unmarked cruiser. “Can you get someone to bring me my camera? I’ll start taking pictures until internal affairs gets here.”

I snatched the keys out of the air and retrieved my rifle. Once I’d slung it around my neck, I took one last look around and then stepped out into the sunshine.

CHAPTER 4

The interior of the shop had been dimly lit, so I waited just outside the building to allow my eyes to adjust to the bright sunlight. I glanced toward Journey Drive, which was the street south of the high school, and saw a dozen cop cars parked there. The lot on that side of the school was filled with cars, and deputies were snaking their way through the vehicles toward the rear of the school to secure it. I waved one officer over and asked him to stand outside the shop entrance and secure the place.

He nodded grimly and we traded positions. I started to walk away but he called my name and stopped me.

He hesitated, licked his lips. “Any kids down?”

“Not that I know of,” I said. “From what I saw, she was firing into the ceiling to scare people away from her. It looks like she was only after one person.”

“Thank God.” He sighed. “Two of my nephews go here. They’re on the football team.”

I pulled out my radio as I walked off and asked the sheriff for his location. He told me he was in front of the school where they were setting up a command post. He couldn’t see me, but I nodded and pocketed my radio, making my way around the south side of the school. The interior was a crime scene, so there was no need for me to reenter. Besides, I’d recognized that some of the units parked along Journey belonged to SWAT personnel, and they would be making their way methodically through the school, looking for more suspects and escorting the students and faculty from their hiding places. They didn’t need other officers clogging up the school’s arteries.

A minute or so later, I found Sheriff Chiasson on the southeast corner of the school. He was pacing back and forth on the sidewalk and barking orders into his cell phone. When he noticed me standing there, he gave a nod and abruptly ended the call.

“What happened here?” he asked. “And why in the hell didn’t Lester or Patricia confront the shooter?”

I glanced toward the two school resource officers who were still standing in the vicinity of their patrol cars. My brow furrowed as I gazed upon the male deputy.

“Is that Lester LeBouef?” I asked, not recognizing the deputy at first because of all the weight he had gained.

“That’s him,” the sheriff said with a nod. “First, he screws up and gets Kenneth killed, and now he stands idly by while a gunman shoots up the school he’s supposed to protect. If he doesn’t have a good explanation for what happened out here, he’s fired. He’ll be lucky if I don’t arrest him.”

“He doesn’t have a duty to act,” I mumbled, remembering how just four years earlier Lester had loaned one of my snipers a cell phone and left him alone in an interview room. Under suspicion of murder, Kenneth had taken his own life. As it turned out, he had been innocent of the murder, but had been involved in an affair that was about to ruin him. A lot of people had blamed Lester for Kenneth’s death, but I had not. Kenneth was a grown man and he had made his own decision.

“What are you talking about?” the sheriff asked. “He was trained to run toward gunfire, not away from it. He swore to protect and serve. He has a duty to protect those students. I’ll have him arrested for malfeasance in office.”

“There’s nothing in the oath of office or the Constitution that requires officers to risk their lives to protect individual people unless they’re in custody,” I explained patiently. “I can cite the Supreme Court cases if you like.”

Sheriffs were not lawyers and they weren’t expected to know the legalities of every situation. Hell, unless they had worked a case pertaining to it, many lawyers weren’t familiar with the case law that governed an officer’s duty to act—or lack thereof. I was familiar with the rulings because of my work as a sniper leader, and I gently reminded the sheriff that we’d had this conversation several years earlier.

He grunted, but seemed to accept my response. “I’m still firing the asshole. I know this much: as sheriff, I can fire him for bumping into me in the hallway or tying his shoes the wrong way, and this is a lot worse than not looking where he’s going. His career is over. I will not employ cowards.”

I nodded my agreement. There were other lines of work for those too timid to risk their own lives to protect the children of Magnolia Parish. I looked away from Lester and Patricia and detailed everything that had happened upon my arrival at the school.

“How’d you get here so fast?” the sheriff asked when I was finished.

“I had just arrived at Chinese Chef for lunch,” I explained as I watched teams of officers exiting the school with dozens of students in tow. A staging area had been set up in the expansive front yard of the school under the ancient oak trees that grew there. Grief counselors had been summoned to the scene, as well as a legion of ambulances and fire rescue personnel, but so far, based on what we were hearing over the police radio, it appeared there was but the one casualty. “Dawn was supposed to meet me there for lunch,” I continued, “but I heard the call over the radio and left as fast as I could. I have to go back and pay for the two plates of food I served.”

“If it’s true that no students were injured, I’m promoting you to lieutenant and giving you a fat raise,” Sheriff Chiasson said. “It was your quick action and quick thinking that saved all those children.”

“What did or didn’t happen in there had nothing to do with me,” I said with a shake of my head. “Had that woman wanted to hurt anyone other than Alex Porter, she would have. She was intentionally shooting into the ceiling. I guess she wanted to clear the hallways so she could find her target more easily. I don’t know how many rounds she fired along the way, but the rifle was outfitted with a fifty-round drum. Those things are difficult to reload in a hurry and I didn’t see any other magazines on her person, so once she shot it dry, it would’ve been over anyway.”

“What are you saying?”

“I don’t think she planned this out. I think it was an impulsive act.” I shrugged. “Dawn mentioned a woman scorned. Maybe she found out he was cheating on her, grabbed the rifle, and headed for his place of work, which just so happened to be a school.”

“Why do you think he was cheating?”

I explained the placement of the shots, and chuckled when the sheriff winced out loud.

“Remind me never to piss off my wife.”

I nodded idly, thinking of my own future wife. Dawn and I were set to be married in Tennessee in six months. It was where I had proposed to her and it was where we took our vacations every chance we got, so we thought it was fitting that we’d get married there. She and I were both detectives with heavy caseloads and I ran the department’s sniper team, so we always had to get coverage when we took time off from work. While that wasn’t usually a big deal, thanks to the very capable people with whom we worked, we wanted most of them to be a part of the wedding, and therein lay the problem.

“Oh, by the way,” I said to the sheriff, “Dawn and I are getting married.”

He had been watching the last of the students file out of the school—as had I—and I felt him turn to stare at the side of my face. “It’s about time,” he finally said. “What took so long?”

“We decided to get married in Tennessee, which seems to be a popular idea, because it took forever to find a venue that wasn’t booked until the next century. The earliest date we could get was June 25th.” I turned and gave him my full attention. “Jerry, Ray, and Andrew are three of my groomsmen, and Dawn asked Rachael to be one of her bridesmaids.”

He blinked. “You’re taking the entire sniper team to Tennessee for your wedding?”

“That’s the plan.”

“What am I supposed to do?” he asked in desperation. “How do we cover the parish while y’all are gone?”

Jerry Allemand, Ray Sevin, Rachael Bowler, and Andrew Hacker were all on my sniper team and they were the closest things to siblings that I had, so they had to be a part of my wedding. If I were to take them with me, we’d have to ask snipers from another parish to cover our leave. I wasn’t in love with the idea, but I didn’t know another way around my dilemma.

“We’d have to ask a neighboring parish to put their snipers on call for us,” I said.

“Like everything else with you, I’m sure you’ve pre-planned the shit out of this and you already have someone in mind.”

I chuckled. “I’m friends with the sniper leader for the Lafourche team. His name’s Bourg. He’s the only one I’d trust to keep our people safe, and he can get here within thirty minutes.”

“Do I need to make a call to his sheriff?”

“Nah, I’ve already gotten with him,” I explained. “He said he’d do it.”

“Then it’s settled.”

I nodded and turned when a vehicle approached us from behind. It was Chuck Wayne, the captain of internal affairs. Knowing he would need my rifle as evidence and keeping the muzzle pointed downward in my sling, I removed the twenty-round magazine and shoved it in my back pocket. Next, I pulled the charging handle back, caught the live round in mid-air with my left hand, locked the bolt, and then slid the charging handle forward.

“I’ve never seen you with that sniper rifle,” the sheriff commented.

I didn’t have time to explain the differences between a sniper-grade rifle and my scout rifle, so I only nodded and released the sling attachment. By this time, Captain Wayne had made his way to us and I indicated the rifle. “Want it now?”

“Only if you have another one at your disposal.”

I smiled my appreciation. The last thing an officer wanted after being involved in a shooting was to be disarmed, and the captain was aware of that fact. I’d not had many dealings with the man, but at that moment, his status went up a notch in my book.

“I’ve got plenty,” I said, and handed over my Sig AR-10. “Just bring it back in the same condition you got it.”

“Okay,” Chuck said with a nod. “Now, you do understand you’ll be suspended with pay pending the results—”

“That won’t be necessary,” Sheriff Chiasson interjected. “It doesn’t get more righteous than this. He’ll get a medal, not a suspension.”

CHAPTER 5

Thirty minutes later

Dawn finished photographing the interior of the crime scene and began drawing a rough sketch. Other than two corpses and numerous spent .45 casings on one side of the room, and a single spent .308 casing on the opposite side, there wasn’t much to see. According to Abraham Wilson, the detective who had brought Dawn her camera, there were a few dozen spent casings inside the school. He said they led from the front door, through the hallways, out the south-side rear entry, and along the sidewalk leading to the shop building. He also reported that there were numerous gouge marks in the ceiling and walls along the way.

Dawn had sent Abraham back into the school to put evidence flags near the casings and to make sure no one tampered with anything until more detectives could arrive to work the scene. Although new to the bureau, Abraham showed a lot of promise as a detective and crime scene investigator.

Dawn retrieved London’s latex glove from the ground near his spent casing, and replaced it with a plastic evidence marker, and then she set about to mark the spent casings that the suspect had fired. As near as she could tell at first glance, the woman had fired eleven rounds in the shop building. Thanks to his bloody pants, it was hard to tell how many bullets had actually hit Alex Porter, but the distance between the shop teacher and his killer had been about a dozen feet, so Dawn was sure most of them had found their target.

After marking the location of each of the casings, Dawn added the details to her crime scene sketch. Soon, she would call Abraham back inside so they could begin measuring the scene, and after that was done, they would examine the bodies more closely.

“Detective Luke,” called a voice from the doorway. “Are you in here?”

Dawn turned to see Captain Chuck Wayne—often referred to as the captain with two first names—peering into the room. He was squinting, trying to penetrate the darkness to find her.

“I’m back here,” she said, orienting him to her location. “The pathway to your left, around that large compressor and through the rows of saw horses, is clear.”

He nodded and followed her instructions. He was a short man who was waging a valiant war against male pattern baldness. Although it was obvious to everyone around him that the last of his soldiers would soon join the rest on his shoulders, he still refused to put down his sword, instead opting for a comb-over that made him look like a dehydrated chicken.

Once Chuck reached her, he brushed off the sleeves of his blazer as though he had trudged through a jungle, and then surveyed the dead bodies. “Upon my arrival, I spoke with London,” he said after a moment. “Do you know where he was standing when he fired the shot that killed the suspect?”

Dawn nodded and indicated the yellow plastic evidence flag that denoted the spent casing from London’s AR-10. “He was standing over there.”

No stranger to crime scenes, Chuck carefully checked the floor before moving in that direction.

Chuck had been employed by the sheriff’s office for many years, working his way up from patrol to detective, and then to detective sergeant, and then back to patrol as a lieutenant. After working several years as a lieutenant in patrol, he had transferred to internal affairs, retaining his rank along the way, and worked under Captain Justin Wainwright for a few years. As part of his job with IA, he also conducted lie detector exams, and it was in this capacity that he had become involved in a major case that Dawn had worked about ten years earlier involving a rogue pastor in the southern part of the parish.

Not long after the case with the rogue pastor, Chuck had left the sheriff’s office to become the chief of police for the City of Chateau, which was the parish seat, and he remained there for eight years. He had recently returned to the sheriff’s office internal affairs division, but the sheriff had seen it fit to promote him to captain. No one seemed to mind, because he had always given everyone a fair shake.

“It looks pretty open and shut,” Chuck said after taking in the scene. “Although London shot her in the back, it was the only opportunity he had to try and save the victim’s life.” He frowned and shook his head. “Had he only been a few seconds earlier…”

Chuck let his voice trail off, but Dawn sneered and retorted, “Had those cowardly SROs done their jobs, London wouldn’t have had to risk his life to get here and stop this bitch.”

The internal affairs captain sighed. “Yeah, I’ll have to deal with those two. The sheriff wants me to find out why they failed to act, but he’s already said he doesn’t care what their reasons were—they’re gone.”

“Good.”

“That stays between us,” Chuck said quickly. “I don’t want them finding out their fate now, because they might refuse to say anything at all.”

Dawn nodded and pulled out her cell phone when Chuck excused himself from the scene. She sent a text message to Abraham asking him to return so they could start measuring, and then she called London to ask if he was okay. While he was as mentally tough as they came, it wasn’t easy for a man whose lifelong rule had been to never hit a woman to be forced to kill one in such a brutal fashion.

“I’m fine,” London said. “I’m just relieved no kids were hurt.”

She nodded. “It’s a miracle.”

“Oh, by the way,” London said, changing the subject, “I told the sheriff we were getting married and taking the entire sniper team to Tennessee with us.”

“What’d he say?”

“He was cool with it.”

Dawn sighed. She had been worried that the sheriff would object to so many of his vital staff taking leave at the same time, which would’ve forced them to move the wedding to Louisiana. Her dream had been to get married in the mountains of East Tennessee, and it looked like that would become a reality.

There was noise indicating movement in the background and Dawn asked London what he was doing.

“When I first arrived on scene there was a truck parked up here with the motor running and the driver’s door open,” he explained. “I’m searching the purse on the floorboard of that truck. I’m pretty sure it belongs to our shooter, and since she’s dead, I figure she won’t mind.”

Dawn looked down at the suspect. She was a beautiful young girl who looked healthy and well maintained. She looked too young to be Porter’s wife or girlfriend, but some women were into that sort of thing, so it wasn’t impossible.

A knock at the door brought Dawn’s attention around. Abraham was standing there with his crime scene kit. Although it had only been two years since he had graduated from the police academy, the sheriff had transferred the kid to the detective bureau five months earlier after he had spent an entire day working a case on his own time. He had put some crucial pieces of the investigative puzzle together and had impressed more than just the sheriff.

“I’m ready when you are,” Abraham said quietly, noticing she was on the phone.

Dawn could almost hear the word ma’am in the back of his mind. It had taken her and London some time to break him from the habit of calling them sir and ma’am, but it seemed he had finally been properly untrained from the good manners he’d learned as a boy. She nodded and was about to tell London she had to go when she heard him curse.

“What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

“The driver’s license for our suspect says she’s Jennifer Porter,” London said.

“Oh, wow.” Dawn squinted and moved closer to look at the woman’s face. Maybe she was older than she looked. “So, she is his wife.”

“No,” London said, “she’s his daughter.”

Dawn gulped. “This girl murdered her own father?”

“So it seems.”

“What in the hell did this man do to piss her off so much?”

“Whatever it was,” London said with a grunt, “it had definitely pissed her off.”

Dawn nodded and considered her own father. She had once fired a shot at him in anger, so she knew she couldn’t be too judgmental.

CHAPTER 6

I had been shocked to learn that the shooter’s last name was Porter, and even more shocked when I realized she was the man’s daughter.

“How can you be so sure?” Sheriff Chiasson asked from over my shoulder. He had followed me to the truck on his way to the staging area, hoping I’d be able to offer some kind of explanation for the hundreds of parents who were racing to the school to find out the status of their children. So far, about two hundred of them had already arrived at the staging area, and they were all obviously relieved that none of their children had been hurt.

I removed a photo from the girl’s wallet and backed out of the truck to show the sheriff. I pointed to the tallest of the three girls standing in front of a seemingly happy mother and father. “That’s her, and the man in the picture is Alex Porter, our dead guy.”

“So, the news media is wrong,” Chiasson said with a slow nod. “This isn’t a mass shooting like they’re reporting. It’s a domestic violence incident that spilled over into the school, and the only one targeted was Porter.”

I nodded, but I wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying. He was the sheriff and public perception was his problem. Mine was solving crimes, and I was already thinking ahead to when we would interview Porter’s wife. I wondered how she would take the news, and I wondered if she could offer some insight into why her daughter would head to the school and pump her dad full of holes.

The sheriff left me to my work and I took the photo and driver’s license as evidence before locking the truck to preserve its contents. I next called our crime lab and asked them to send someone to the school to retrieve the truck. After asking a deputy to stand guard over the truck, I pulled out my cell phone and called dispatch to run a name inquiry on Jennifer Porter.

“I need a good address on her and the names of her two sisters and mother,” I said. “Her dad’s name is Alex, if that helps.”

“Need me to run a rap sheet, too?” asked Julie, a dispatcher who had worked for the department for many years.

“You might as well,” I said, “but I don’t think you’ll have anything on her.”

“I’ll call you back.”

I saw a white van pull up to the deputy who was directing traffic. The van had MPCO stenciled in large letters on the side panel, and I walked over to greet the employee from the Magnolia Parish Coroner’s Office.

“Do you have room back there for two?” I asked.

“Yeah, that’s why I took the van,” said the man. His nametag told me he was Blake York. He wore an oversized baseball cap with the MPCO logo stenciled on it. “When they called, they said it was a double homicide, and they also told me I’d be able to have some help loading the bodies. Starla’s coming out to meet me at the office, so she can help me unload them when I get there. Dr. Fitch told me to get here as soon as possible, so I couldn’t wait for Starla.”

“Sure, we’ll give you a hand.” I pointed toward Journey Drive. “Turn down that street and circle around the school. It’ll be the shop building next to the greenhouse. I’ll meet you back there.”

After greeting a team of detectives who had arrived to process the inside of the school, I stood for a moment and watched the mob of students gathered on the front lawn. Nearly to a person, they were all talking excitedly, no doubt recounting their harrowing experiences. I wondered if they knew how different their day could’ve been had Jennifer intended on doing real harm. If there was one positive thing to come out of the incident, it was that Lester and Patricia had been exposed as cowards.

Julie called me as I was making my way to the back of the school and gave me Jennifer’s address. It was an apartment in Mathport.

“She doesn’t have a criminal history—not even a speeding ticket—and it seems she’s a student at LSU.”

“How do you know that?”

“I looked her up on social media.”

That made sense. “What about Porter’s wife? I need an address so we can make the death notification.”

“Her name’s Georgia Porter and they live on Green Oaks,” Julie said. “She was a Billiot before she was married. Neither she nor her husband has a criminal record, but there were a few domestic disturbances out at their house.”

“Any arrests?”

“It doesn’t look like it, but I haven’t pulled up the complaints yet. I thought you were more interested in the shooter’s criminal history.”

“Good call.” I thanked Julie and shoved my cell phone in my pocket as I reached the sidewalk that led to the shop building. A patrol deputy had cleared a path for the coroner’s investigator to back the van as close as he could to the entrance, and Blake was opening the back door to remove the gurney.

I approached the entrance to the shop and peered inside. “How’s it going in there?” I asked.

Dawn appeared from the shadows of the room and tucked a tuft of brown hair behind her ear. “We’re pretty much done,” she said. “Not much to see here.”

“Rachael and some of the others just headed into the school to process it,” I said. “I’m done with Chuck and I’ve got the address for Porter’s wife, so as soon as we get these bodies loaded, we can hit the road.”

Blake had dragged the first gurney along the sidewalk and stood waiting for the signal.

“Abe, are we done?” Dawn asked our newest detective.

Abraham walked up and began checking his notes. He mumbled to himself as he went through his mental checklist. Finally, he nodded, and said, “I’ve got everything. Do you want me to transport the spent casings, projectiles, and rifle to the evidence room?”

Dawn nodded.

“How many projectiles did y’all find?” I asked.

“We found what was left of yours, and five of the .45s,” Dawn explained. “Four of them punched through the body, and one missed completely. It glanced off the floor and flattened against the wall.”

I nodded and then waved for Blake to enter the scene. I followed him inside and stopped when he did. He hesitated, staring down at Jennifer’s body.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

He pointed. “Um, should I bag her hands to preserve any DNA evidence that might be under her fingernails?”

“Nah, DNA won’t be a consideration in this case,” I explained. “She never made contact with her victim and I never made contact with her.”

He was thoughtful. “Will you guys need to swab her hands for gunshot residue?”

I shook my head. “While we use them from time to time, GSR results are limiting, as they can’t definitively say that someone fired a weapon. In this case, I personally witnessed her fire the weapon and”—I pointed to one of the surveillance cameras overhead—“she was also caught on camera. That’s as direct as any evidence will ever be, and it’s more reliable than GSR.”

“So, if Dr. Fitch asks me why the hands aren’t bagged, I can tell her you said so?”

I smiled and nodded. “Absolutely.”

This seemed to satisfy him and he readied the gurney to accept the first body. I helped him load Alex’s body first, and then he brought it to the van. He returned for Jennifer.

Afterward, Dawn and I headed for our vehicles. Before driving off, I called the sheriff and let him know where we were headed.

“Good luck,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to have to make that death notification.”

I grunted my agreement.

CHAPTER 7

Jumping in her vehicle, Dawn followed me to the Chinese Chef, where I quickly ran inside and dropped forty bucks on the counter to pay for the food I’d served but hadn’t eaten. Dawn then got in with me and left her unit parked there.

Green Oaks was a little more than a mile north of the school, and we were cruising down the street within a few minutes. The house number was 521, so we had to drive almost to the end of the long street.

“There it is,” Dawn said when we approached a red brick house that was on the left side. “This won’t be as bad as when I had to make the death notification to Lily, but it won’t be easy to tell this woman that her daughter murdered her husband, and then she was killed by the police.”

“I don’t know,” I mused. “Some women don’t like their husbands. Maybe this is one of those cases.”

In Lily’s case, Dawn had been forced to notify the young girl that her brother had murdered her father. She had loved both of them very much, and it had devastated the poor girl. I couldn’t imagine any woman loving her husband as much as Lily had loved her father and brother.

“Should I wait in here?” I asked as I parked my truck on the street. “If she ever finds out I’m the one who shot her daughter, she might be really pissed to know I showed up at her house.”

“She’ll hate you no matter what.”

I grunted, but scowled when I noticed burn out marks on the concrete in front of the house. They looked fresh, but I didn’t know what it could mean. I pointed it out to Dawn. “It looks like someone took off in a hurry.”

Dawn nodded. We stepped out and she approached the right side of the door while I approached the left, and I waited while she knocked. I would do my best to keep my mouth shut. I’d never had children and didn’t know what it felt like, but I couldn’t imagine I’d want to speak with the man who had killed my child, even if it had been justified.

Dawn had barely knocked when the door flew open and a woman wearing blue jeans, a sweater, and a badly swollen face stood there staring wildly at us.

“Dear Lord,” Dawn said, “what happened to you?”

“Who are you?” the woman asked, looking us up and down. Her mouth dropped open when her eyes fell to the badges clipped to our belts. She threw a hand to her mouth. “Oh, no! She did it, didn’t she?”

“Are you Georgia?” Dawn asked.

The woman nodded idly, repeated herself. “She did it, didn’t she?”

“Who did it and what did she do?”

“Jennifer, my daughter, she shot him, didn’t she?”

Dawn frowned and nodded solemnly. I could almost read her mind, and I knew she instantly understood what had happened. “How’d you know? Did she tell you she would do it?”

Tears welled up in Georgia’s eyes and began streaming down her face. “Is she in trouble? She did it for me, you know. She…she did it to protect me.”

Dawn indicated the bruises and cuts on the woman’s face. It appeared she had been beaten with a tire iron. “Did Alex do that to you?”

Georgia nodded. “He’s a violent man. I’ve tried to leave, but he wouldn’t let me. Oh, God, is Jen in trouble?”

Dawn frowned. “Ma’am, can we come inside to talk about it?”

“But is she in trouble?” Georgia searched Dawn’s eyes with her own. “Why won’t you answer me? What’s wrong?”

When neither of us spoke, the woman’s eyes grew even wider and she shook her head. “No! Please, say it isn’t so!”

Dawn hesitated. Finally, she said, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m afraid Jennifer’s gone.”

“What do you mean gone? Is she going to jail?” Georgia stepped forward and grabbed at Dawn’s shoulders. “Please tell me she’s only going to jail!”

“I’m truly sorry, but she’s gone. She was killed inside the school.”

The woman’s arms slid from Dawn’s shoulders and her eyes rolled back in her head. She fell straight down like she’d been shot through the medulla oblongata.

Neither Dawn nor I had been expecting her to pass out, but we both lurched forward and managed to catch the woman before her head could bounce off of the concrete porch.

“Ma’am,” Dawn called, tapping the woman’s cheek lightly with her palm. “Ma’am, can you hear me?”

Georgia’s eyes opened and she stared up in confusion, but that only lasted a second or two. As soon as she remembered who we were and why we were there, she began bawling uncontrollably. I helped Dawn get the woman to her feet. Supporting nearly all of Georgia’s weight, we guided her into the house and found a sofa to lower her into. She fell over on her side and sobbed into the pillow.

While Dawn tried to console her, I glanced around the living room. In addition to the main entryway, there was a door to the right that was open. It was possibly a closet, but the interior was shielded from my view. I could see the kitchen from where I stood, and there were broken dishes strewn about the floor. The tiles were dark, but at an angle and in the glow of the pale light above, I thought I saw drops of blood scattered about.

The woman was so distraught that she wasn’t aware of what was happening around her, and I shifted my position slightly so I could see inside the open door. Sure enough, it was a closet, but instead of containing towels and blankets, there was a built-in wooden rack of sorts that held firearms. There were two long shotguns and a scoped hunting rifle resting in three of the notches and crooks of the rack. There was one empty slot, and I was certain it had previously held the Tommy gun that had been used to kill its owner.

“I…I can’t believe it,” Georgia was saying. “I can’t believe she’s gone! She did nothing wrong! She was protecting me! Who would hurt her for protecting me? What she did was self-defense!”

“Tell me what happened,” Dawn said soothingly. “Help me understand.”

Georgia took a long and trembling breath, exhaled so forcefully that spittle sprayed from her mouth. Some of it got on Dawn’s face, but she didn’t even flinch. Georgia noticed and apologized quickly. She reached forward to wipe it, but Dawn withdrew and shook her head.

“I’ve got it,” she said. “Just concentrate on telling me what happened between you, Alex, and Jennifer.”

Georgia nodded and took another breath. This time, she turned her face away before exhaling. She then began speaking in a more controlled tone.

“Alex…he’s my second husband. He’s not Jen’s father. He…he started getting abusive two years ago, right after Jen moved away for college.” Georgia took another breath. She seemed to be regaining some of her composure. “Jen lives in an apartment up the road and she usually stops here every morning on the way to college. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays she has early classes, so she stops for coffee and beignets, but on Tuesdays and Thursdays she has late classes and stops for lunch. She…she stopped by for lunch this morning and saw…she saw my face.”

Georgia stopped talking and squeezed her eyes shut. “I tried to hide the marks. I put on as much makeup as I could, but I wasn’t able to hide the swelling. When Jen saw me, she knew instantly what had happened.

“She’s come here before and seen marks on me. I tried to lie—to convince her that I’d fallen or had run into the door—but she was too smart for that. The last time he hit me, Jen threatened him. She said she would kill him if he ever touched me again. That only got him angrier and he hit me again that night for telling her.”

“Did you ever call the sheriff’s office?” Dawn asked.

“No, it was either Jen or the neighbors,” she said.

Dawn knew there had been no arrests as a result of the domestic violence calls, because I’d earlier told her what I’d learned from Julie. She asked Georgia about that now. “When officers see evidence of abuse, they’re supposed to take the abusive party into custody. Why wasn’t he ever arrested?”

“There’s never been any evidence,” Georgia said. “Alex usually punches me in the arms or stomach—places I can cover up in public—and I always covered up the bruises when the cops came over.”

“Did Jennifer ever see him hit you?”

Georgia shook her head. “She was on the phone once and heard him threatening me. He punched me in the back of the head that time and I dropped the phone and screamed. I guess she got scared when the phone disconnected, and she called the cops. When the officer came over, Alex said she was a vindictive stepdaughter who was angry because he made her move out when she started college.”

“Is it true about forcing her to move out?”

“It’s true that she moved out, but she wasn’t forced to do it. I told her that as long as I lived here, so could she, but she just didn’t want to be around Alex anymore. He was always fussing her for something and he never let her do anything with her friends. She was eighteen and he treated her like a prisoner in our own home, while our other two girls could do whatever they wanted. They’re always having friends over and going out with them, but he would never let Jen have visitors. It was obvious that he treated her differently.”

“Is Jennifer really his stepdaughter?”

Georgia nodded. “I got pregnant for her while I was in college. I met Alex seven years later. We had two girls together and, while I love them all equally, he never really connected with Jen.”

“Tell us about your injuries and what happened today with Jennifer,” Dawn said softly. “Help us understand why she did what she did.”

I frowned as I listened to Georgia Porter’s story. The more she talked, the deeper my frown became. While I had never regretted using force in the line of duty, I was starting to have serious doubts about what I had done. It was hard enough to kill a young woman in the line of duty, but it was downright sickening to think that she had good reason for killing Alex.

CHAPTER 8

Earlier

Jennifer Porter checked her messages before stepping out of her truck to have lunch with her mom. The message she’d sent the previous night was still unread. She frowned. Her mom never went a day without telling her goodnight or good morning, and she couldn’t help but think that something bad had happened. She had been tempted to drive out there on the previous night, but she’d had a few glasses of wine while she studied, and she had learned early on to never drink and drive. She thought about calling the sheriff’s office, but the last time she’d reported Alex, they had issued a stern warning that filing a false report was a crime.

“It’s not a false report!” she had argued. “That asshole hits my mom! I heard it happen!”

“We checked it out and found it to be false,” had said the deputy. “That’s the second time you send us over there on a wild goose chase. You do it one more time, and we’re gonna cite you.”

“Did you pull up my mom’s shirt?” she had asked heatedly. “Did you check her legs? He hits her where no one can see. I swear I’m not making this up!”

“We split them up and pull your mom aside each time we visit,” the deputy had said, “and each time we do, she says she’s there of her own free will and she feels safe in her home. She said you have a very active imagination and that—”

“And when he kills her, whose fault will it be? Yours? Do I get to sue you for not doing your damned job?”

As soon as she’d spoken the words—and even before the deputy had shaken his head and walked away—she’d regretted uttering them. She knew they would never take her seriously again, and the next time Alex put his hands on her mom, it might be the last. She’d studied the domestic violence statistics in class, and she knew her mom was in grave danger of being violently killed.

Jennifer hesitated before exiting her truck. A shudder reverberated up and down her spine. What if her mom was dead inside the house right that very moment? What would she do? Who would she call first? And what about her stepsisters? They hadn’t answered her text messages either, but that wasn’t new. They rarely corresponded with her. They acted like she was a lamp in the house—they only pulled her chain when they needed something.

Her heart racing in her chest, Jennifer finally stepped outside and slowly approached the front door. Although she had lived there since she was seven, she never quite felt at home. That was especially true since she’d moved out, and instead of using her key, she chose to knock. She waited for several long seconds before knocking a second time, this time harder.

“Come on, Mom,” she whispered, “answer the door.”

After knocking a third and fourth time without a response, she finally selected her key to the house and shoved it in the knob. With hands that shook, she slowly pushed the door open.

“Mom?” she called out, hesitating in the opening. “Are you in there? Hello? Anyone home?”

When no one answered, she stepped inside and shut the door. Her eyes immediately went to the broken dishes on the kitchen floor. She lurched forward, racing straight for the master bedroom.

“Mom!” she screamed as she ran. “Mom, where are you?”

When she burst through the bedroom door, she was both relieved and enraged. Her mom was alive, thankfully, but she had been beaten to a pulp and was curled up in her bed. Jennifer rushed to her mom’s side, kicking something across the floor as she did so. A quick glance told her it was her mom’s cell phone, and it had been destroyed.

“Mom! What happened?” Tears of anger burned down her cheeks like molten lava. “What did that piece of shit do to you?”

“I’m…I’m okay, sweetie,” her mom said weakly. “I just need to rest. When I wake up, I’ll be fine again.”

Jennifer reached for the lamp on the nightstand and gasped when the light splashed across her mom’s face. Her mom blinked against the brilliance, but Jennifer didn’t know how she could even see through the slits in her eyes. There were multiple cuts and bruises across her face, and there was a hole beneath her lower lip where it looked like a tooth had come through.

“Mom, when did he do this to you?”

“It was just a misunderstanding,” her mom said, trying to sound convincing. “He found out that I paid off your truck and he thought it was from our joint account. He didn’t realize I’d been saving up my own money—”

“What?” Jennifer screeched. “He beat you for paying off my truck?”

“No, no, he didn’t mind me paying it off,” she said quickly. “He thought I’d stolen money from our joint account. I’m supposed to ask before touching that money.”

Jennifer brushed tears from her cheeks and tilted her mom’s head slightly. “Mom, what’d he hit you with? What’d he do to you? There’s no way he punched you with his hand. He can’t hit that hard. He’s a wuss.”

“It’s okay, honey, I’ll be—”

“Damn it, Mom, he’ll kill you next time!” Jennifer screamed, her eyes frantically searching the room. That’s when she saw it—a bloody iron. “My word! Did he beat you with an iron? Mom, don’t you see? He’s going to murder you!”

“Honey, it’s okay. He said he was sorry. It won’t happen—”

“That’s it!” Jennifer jumped to her feet. “If you won’t do anything about it, I will!”

“Honey, what are you going to do?” asked Georgia as Jennifer stormed out of the master bedroom.

Jennifer could barely hear her mom’s voice over the rage that roared inside. She went straight to the living room where Alex kept his guns. She knew there were bullets in all of them, because she remembered someone asking him once if he kept all of his guns loaded. His smartass response had been, “Was Mary a virgin?”

“You’ll get to ask her yourself,” she muttered aloud as she studied the long guns resting against the rack he’d built into the closet. Her eyes fell on the Tommy gun. She had seen him shoot it in the woods a couple of times when he was showing off, and she knew how to use it. She also knew that the round magazine was called a drum, and that it held a bunch of bullets. Was it fifty or a hundred? She couldn’t remember, but she had watched him load it once before and he had put at least two full boxes of ammo into it.

“What’re you doing?” her mom called from the master bedroom behind her. “Jesus, Jennifer, what’re you doing?”

“I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch,” Jennifer said, snatching up the rifle and whirling toward the door. “Last night was the last time he ever lays a finger on you!”

The Tommy gun was heavy, but Jennifer was on the college volleyball team and she lifted weights, so she knew she could handle it. She drove straight to the school, trying not to speed or attract any undue attention to herself. When she reached the school, she pulled right up to the front steps and pushed open her door. She had graduated from Central Magnolia, so she knew they kept the door on the far left unlocked, and it was here that she intended to go.

She stepped out and was about to run around her truck when she came face-to-face with two uniformed officers. They were standing behind a patrol car and they were smoking. They looked as surprised and afraid to see her as she was to see them. No one moved for a long tense moment. Finally, the woman officer turned and ran north around the front of the building, screaming as she went. The man officer threw down his cigarette and followed, reaching for his radio as he did.

Jennifer knew she didn’t have much time to find Alex before she would be arrested, so she sprinted up the large concrete steps and pushed through the door on the left. Unlucky for her, lunch was happening and the hallways were crowded with students. She panicked for a brief moment, not knowing what to do next. Alex had a classroom in the school and he also taught in the shop building, but there were several hundred students between her and those classrooms, and a dozen of them had stopped to gawk at her, their eyes and mouths wide, as though not believing what they were seeing.

Jennifer knew she was going to jail for carrying a gun onto school property. She had come too far to turn back now. If she didn’t go through with her plan, Alex would surely kill her mother. For when he found out she had stormed onto school property with his gun, he would know what she’d intended to do. He would know her mother had told her about the beating and he would punish her mom for it. Even if the police found out about this latest beating and put Alex in jail, he wouldn’t be in there forever. He would eventually get out and track her mother down. He would kill her as surely as Jennifer was breathing, and there was nothing the police could do about it. As good as they were, they couldn’t be everywhere at once, and they couldn’t put a twenty-four/seven guard on her mom every day of the year. No, the only way her mom would truly be safe was if Alex were no longer walking the earth.

But how would she get to him? How could she get to the back of the school without being stopped? Finally, it came to her—the active shooter drill they had done when she attended the school! Gunshots would force everyone into their classrooms and help clear the hallway. She turned the muzzle upward and fired a couple of shots into the ceiling, flinching at the ear-splitting explosion within the enclosure. Still, there was no turning back, so she began screaming for everyone to take cover. She didn’t have to say it twice. Students and faculty members must’ve paid attention during the drills, because the crowd immediately dispersed, flooding into the open doorways on either side of the corridor.

The hallway before her now clear, she ran forward, heading straight for Alex’s classroom, firing shots as she ran and screaming his name. His was the last classroom down the main hallway to the north, and a quick glance inside told her it was empty. She turned the corner and came face-to-face with a couple of jocks who seemed confused. They had apparently just entered the rear end of the school and hadn’t been privy to the earlier gunshots, so she obliged them. Before the shell casings hit the floor from her latest gunshots, they had already dived into the nearby boys’ bathroom.

Jennifer continued running south until she reached the next intersecting hallway that extended east to west. She hooked a right and hit the rear door on a dead run, the weight of the large rifle making the muscles in her arms burn. She wasn’t sure if she could continue holding the gun up for much longer.

Just as she burst out onto the sidewalk that stretched from the school to the shop, Alex was exiting the metal building and heading for the school, a curious expression on his face. He must’ve heard some ruckus and was going to investigate. When he saw Jennifer running toward him, he gasped out loud. Jennifer lowered the muzzle and snapped off several shots, but missed. Alex turned and bolted into the shop, screaming like his life depended on it.

Seeing Alex scared and fleeing filled Jennifer with a confidence she had never known. She fired two more bullets and raced into the shop, zig-zagging around some benches and tools, and coming to a lurching stop near a band saw. There, standing with his back to the wall and his hands folded in front of him, was Alex. He was crying.

“Please,” he begged, “I know I messed up. I’m so sorry! It’ll never happen again. Please tell me what you want. I’ll do anything! Anything at all!”

The words were spilling from his mouth like water from a breached dam, but they sounded muffled in her ringing ears. With great satisfaction, she glanced down and saw that the dam in his bladder has also broken. She smiled and lifted the rifle to her shoulders, aiming directly at the urine stain on the front of his pants.

“Go to hell, Alex,” she said and pulled the trigger as fast as her right index finger could move. She was close to him and she was able to see the holes and blood instantly appear in his thighs, groin, and belly. The more he screamed, the faster she pulled the trigger, and then he just slumped to the ground, his eyes and mouth wide. Jennifer lowered the rifle and fired some more. Suddenly, and without notice, a freight train slammed violently into her back. She thought she saw a funnel of red mist explode from the front of her chest, but it was impossible to be sure. Her legs buckled and she fell hard. She knew her eyes were still open, but she couldn’t see anything.

She’d had surgery once to repair her knee, and she remembered how it felt to be put to sleep. She felt the same now—only there was pain, confusion, ringing ears, and the smell of gunpowder. Footsteps pounded the ground. She knew they were growing closer, but they seemed to be getting farther and farther away as she slipped from this world and into the next.

CHAPTER 9

Georgia Porter’s Home

“The last I saw of Jen,” Georgia Porter said, “she was running out of my room saying she was going to kill Alex. I…I couldn’t walk very well, so I slid out of bed and crawled to the living room. That’s when I saw Alex’s gun closet door open. I knew then that Jen wasn’t just talking. I knew she meant what she said. I wanted to call Alex to warn him, but he had busted my phone last night. He did it so I couldn’t call the police.”

Georgia chuckled, but immediately winced and clutched at her ribs. “Isn’t it ironic?” she said weakly. “Alex destroyed my cell phone so I couldn’t call for help, but that one action prevented me from calling to warn him that he was about to be killed.”

Dawn placed a hand on Georgia’s arm as she lowered her head and began to cry again. When the woman looked up, her eyes were pleading.

“What happened to Jen?” she begged. “Who killed her?”

Guilt tugged at my every fiber as Dawn explained that an officer had made entry into the shop building and shot Jennifer while she was actively engaging Alex with gunfire.

Before Georgia could ask her next question, I excused myself and stepped out into the sunshine. It was too beautiful a day for a young woman to lose her life, especially when she was apparently avenging her mother. While none of us would ever know what was going through Jennifer’s mind, that she was desperate was obvious. The fact that she hadn’t hurt a single student was now weighing heavily on me. While that was a great thing, it didn’t make me feel very justified in my actions. If I were to save a life, I’d like to know that it was worth saving. That was not the case where Alex was concerned. The bastard deserved what he got, and since he was already done for by the time I’d shot Jennifer, her death had truly been in vain.

Wanting to take my mind off of what I’d done, I called the sheriff. His voice was unexpectantly jubilant when he answered.

“What’d y’all find out?” he asked.

I told him what we’d learned.

“Hold up—this Alex Porter was a wife beater?”

“Yep.”

Sheriff Chiasson was quiet for a long moment. “And the girl you shot was avenging her mother?”

“It appears so.”

“Damn, London,” he said, as realization seemed to set in, “you had no way of knowing that. We don’t have crystal balls, and you know what they say about hindsight.”

He couldn’t see me, but I nodded. “What about the kids?” I asked. “Any of them hurt?”

“Not a one,” he said. “I’m in the office now looking at the surveillance footage. It’s obvious that all the time we spent running drills with them was well worth it. Even if this girl had been intent on killing kids, she wouldn’t have gotten very far. Within seconds of her firing the first shot, the hallways were clear and all the kids were hunkered down in classrooms or offices.”

I sighed heavily, wondering if I should’ve challenged Jennifer before putting a bullet in her. I shook my head, immediately dismissing the idea. I had no way of knowing that it had been too late for Alex, and I had no way of knowing what he had done. At the time, I also had no idea how many dead students and faculty members might have been strewn about the school. Had I known there were no other casualties, would I have acted differently?

Before I could answer myself, I quickly shook my head to clear it, realizing I was heading down a dark path. Such questions and doubts might cause me to hesitate at a pivotal moment on a future sniper roll, and that would be unacceptable. Instead of arguing with myself, I decided to refer back to my mental training. I had followed the law and had followed departmental policy. The shooting had been justified and my actions had been intended to save lives. The fact that a young woman with her whole life ahead of her had been killed was unfortunate, but that was out of my control. It was her own fault for bringing a rifle into the school and killing a teacher—

“Did you hear me, London?” asked the sheriff, his voice louder than it had been earlier.

“What’s that?”

“I said we caught Lester and Patricia on tape running for their lives,” he said. “They were on a smoke break at the same time the shooter drove up. They could’ve stopped her right there in the parking lot, but they ran like cowards. That girl looked so scared to see them that I think all they had to do was yell at her and she would’ve put down the gun.”

I gritted my teeth. Had they done their jobs, Jennifer might still be alive. I might not have had to kill her. “Did you fire them yet?”

“Yeah, they’re toast. I’ve got deputies at their homes right now recovering all of their gear. If I have my say, they’ll never work in law enforcement again.”

“That’s good.” I hated to see people lose their jobs, but those two were not cut out for law enforcement work.

“Oh, and the coroner’s office called and said the autopsy will be tomorrow morning at eight,” the sheriff continued. “Are y’all good with that time?”

“Yeah, we’ll be there.”

I ended the call and sat in my truck until Dawn was done. When she joined me, she told me she’d tried to get Georgia to agree to going to the hospital, but she had refused.

“She used my cell phone to call her sister,” Dawn said. “The sister is supposed to come over and help with the girls. Hopefully, she’ll force Georgia to get some medical treatment. I can’t be positive, but I think she’s got a broken rib or two and some broken bones in her face. Her nose is crooked and she can only breathe through her mouth. She’s a mess.”

“Did she say what he beat her with?”

“Yeah, he took an iron to her.” Dawn grunted. “It’s a wonder he didn’t kill her.”

I gritted my teeth and tried to push those details from my mind. Changing gears, I told Dawn about the autopsies. She jotted the information down, and neither of us spoke on the drive back to the school. The students and teachers had all left the scene, and traffic wasn’t as congested as it had been earlier. Jennifer’s truck had been removed and the spot in front of the building was vacant. After parking, Dawn and I exited.

Our team of detectives was wrapping up the scene investigation inside the school. Abraham Wilson stopped to tell us that they had recovered thirty-two spent casings and had been able to account for every shot fired.

“She was shooting ball ammo,” he explained as we stood outside the principal’s office. “We found seven intact projectiles and twenty-five flat pieces of lead. We’ve got the scene measured and photographed, and we collected everything. We’re done here.”

“Good job,” Dawn said. “Who’s helping with the scene report?”

“Rachael’s showing me the ropes on this one.”

In addition to being one of my snipers, Rachael Bowler was also a detective. Being a rural parish with a populace south of 100K, we didn’t have the need for a full-time SWAT team, so all of our tactical team members served on a voluntary basis. Rachael was an experienced detective, but this was a complicated scene for anyone. Due to the length that Jennifer had traveled and the multiple hallways she had navigated, it had taken a bit longer to document the area inside the school versus the one inside the shop building.

Dawn was checking over Abraham’s notes to make sure they hadn’t missed anything when a voice boomed from the office.

“London, get in here.” It was Sheriff Chiasson. “You need to see this.”

I entered the office and walked to where he was bent over the surveillance monitor with Chuck Wayne. I scowled when I saw Jennifer Porter rush through the rear door to the school and push her way into the shop. The current camera view had filmed her from behind. As she disappeared inside the shop, Chuck switched cameras and the new view showed the front of her as she entered. If she had shown fear when she’d encountered the SROs, that fear was gone by this point. On her face in that scene was an expression of dogged determination.

Chuck switched cameras again and we saw her confront Alex in the same corner where we’d found the two of them. Alex was saying something, but there was no audio so we could only guess that he was begging for his life. Suddenly, Jennifer opened fire on him. She was still pulling the trigger when the front of her shirt moved slightly, as though plucked by invisible fingers. A hole appeared where one had not been a split second earlier, and the fabric instantly turned red. A shocked expression suddenly appeared on her young face. When I saw it, a tinge of guilt tugged at my heart.

As we watched, the rifle fell from her grasp and she collapsed to the floor. A moment later, I came into view and removed the rifle from her reach.

“As you can see,” Chuck was saying, “you took her out while Alex Porter was still alive and she was still pumping lead into him. This is as clear cut a case of justifiable homicide as any I’ve ever seen.”

I only nodded. Dawn joined us and they replayed the footage, stopping after the medics arrived and called it.

“It looks like we’ve got everything we need,” Dawn said. She turned to the sheriff. “I imagine the school won’t open tomorrow.”

“No, they’re gonna close for the remainder of the week and make a decision on Friday about next week.” He turned to Chuck. “Finalize your report as soon as possible and get it to the DA’s office. If they grand jury this thing, I want it done ASAP.”

Chuck tapped the screen on the monitor. “After they see this, there won’t be any reason to convene the grand jury.”

“Do it,” I said. “Bring it before them. I want this thing settled and ruled on.”

“Okay, then,” the sheriff said. “I’ll get with them.”

CHAPTER 10

Dawn and I arrived at the coroner’s office early the next morning, but Jennifer’s body had already been stripped and prepped for the autopsy. I’d attended many autopsies of both men and women and was immune to the process, but I didn’t want to look upon the nude body of Jennifer Porter. It somehow felt wrong, considering I was the one who had landed her on the cold aluminum table upon which she lay.

“What I want to know, London,” Dr. Ally Fitch began when Dawn and I settled into a corner of the autopsy room to give her and her assistant room to work, “is did you intentionally aim for the heart or was it just a lucky shot?”

I didn’t know how to answer the question at first. Nothing about the case felt lucky to me. Finally, I shrugged. “If you’re asking if my bullet went where I wanted it to go, then yeah, it did.”

Dr. Fitch wasn’t done. “So, did you intentionally aim for the heart?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“How’d you know where it was located from the back?” she asked, her brow furrowed. “And how do you aim for something you can’t see?”

“It’s no different than a hunter shooting at a deer,” I explained. “Good hunters study the anatomy of their prey to ensure a good kill shot, and it’s no different for snipers. I’ve spent a lot of time studying the human anatomy. When targeting a suspect from the rear, I imagine where the heart’s supposed to be, quarter that spot with the posts of my scope, and put the bullet dead center.”

“I see.” Dr. Fitch nodded slowly. “You usually make head shots. What was different about this one?”

I explained how the head hadn’t been an option, considering it had been concealed behind parts of a band saw.

“Well, whether you target the head or heart, you make my job a lot easier,” she said. “The cause of death is always plainly obvious.”

“Like my boxing coach used to tell me,” I said wryly, “never leave it in the hands of the judges.”

Waving her autopsy technicians Blake and Starla forward, Dr. Fitch began the autopsy. I recognized Starla immediately. She was the cheating wife of Captain Anthony Landry, who had been like a father to me before he was killed in the line of duty five years earlier. I didn’t like Starla, but I didn’t let it show.

Dr. Fitch didn’t waste time with the autopsy. Once she was done, she told us what we already knew—Jennifer had died from a gunshot wound to the heart. She pieced the heart together as best she could and showed us the back of it.

“That quartering thing you do really works,” she said, “because it’s about as close to the center as you can get.”

I wasn’t impressed, and only nodded.

“Do you also quarter the head?” she asked.

“I only quarter targets when I don’t have a precise aiming point,” I explained, my mind on the young woman whose body lay splayed open on the autopsy table. “With the head, I usually aim at the tip of the nose, the ear canal, or the base of the spine, depending on how they’re facing me.”

Dr. Fitch had more questions, but I told her we had to leave. She smiled. “It’s all fascinating. You’ll have to take me to the range someday and show me what you do. I see ballistics from the inside. It would be nice to understand what happens before the bullet hits the body.”

“Anytime,” I said. “Maybe you can come watch us one day during sniper training.”

“I’d like that very much.”

“You need to take me to the range,” Dawn mocked with a laugh once we were back in my truck. “I’d like that very much, Mr. Sniper Man!”

I shot a sideways glance at her as I cranked up the engine and drove away. In all my years, I had learned a thing or two about a woman’s intuition, and the most important lesson I’d learned was never to question it. “She didn’t mean anything by it, did she?”

“Given half a chance, that woman would climb you like a mountain, and she’d probably let you bring your rifle along for the ride.”

“No way!” My face instantly felt hot. “She’s married.”

“Are you doubting me, London Carter?” It was her turn to cast a sideways glance. “If it’s one thing I know, it’s women and their games.”

I couldn’t argue, so I only shook my head and continued driving. I sure hoped she was wrong, at least for the sake of Dr. Fitch’s husband and her kids.

I forgot all about our conversation and groaned when we arrived at the criminal operations center. There were three news vans in the parking lot and several reporters were huddled together near the front door. A cameraman was shooting the parking lot, and he turned the camera on us as we dismounted and approached the side entrance. He had a right to film whatever he wanted in the public view, but I didn’t have to like it.

Once inside, we found the other detectives huddled around the sheriff in the conference room. We stepped inside to see what was going on.

“What’s up?” I asked. “Are y’all having a press conference?”

“We’re not,” Sheriff Chiasson said, “but Abraham is.”

I noticed a jovial mood amongst the detectives, and that was never the case when the media came crawling around.

“What’d you do?” I asked Abraham, genuinely curious. “Who’d you piss off?”

He lowered his head sheepishly. “Somehow, they found out about the book I wrote.”

“You actually wrote it?” I remembered hearing the previous year that he had been offered a book deal in connection with his harrowing experience in the Blue Summit Mountains, but that had been the last I’d heard of it. I had no clue he’d actually written it.

“Yeah,” he said. “I wrote it under a pen name hoping to keep it on the down low as much as possible, but the local media found out about it somehow.”

“Hold up a minute,” I said. “When did you have time to write it? I don’t remember ever seeing you working on it.”

Three years earlier, Abraham’s girlfriend, Joy Vincent, had gone missing in the Blue Summit Mountains of Tennessee. Abraham had set out with a couple of friends, intent on finding her. After a long and harrowing ordeal, where he had been forced to tackle bears, wild rivers, and dangerous weather, he had succeeded in finding and rescuing Joy, along with several others. However, he had lost one of his friends—a Mathport native—along the way. Abraham himself had nearly been killed, but he had shown true grit and had led Joy and the others to safety.

“I worked on it at night and on my lunch breaks,” Abraham explained. “I received the proofs a month ago. It’s set to come out in June.”

“What happens now?” Dawn asked. “Are you gonna get rich and abandon all of us for a life of luxury? You just transferred to the bureau. You can’t just walk away now.”

Abraham laughed. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m a cop by trade. I just wrote the book as a warning to others that a killer is still out there somewhere. I didn’t do it for fame or fortune.”

“What’s the book called?” the sheriff asked.

“The Seventh Taking.”

They continued talking excitedly as Dawn and I made our exit to finish wrapping up the case on our end. Chuck and Rachael had already submitted all of the evidence and turned in their reports, and all that was left was for Dawn to write a report detailing her findings and for me to complete an after-action report relating to my use of force. Everything had to be submitted to the district attorney’s office as soon as possible, so they could convene a grand jury and settle the matter legally.

As for my conscience, I didn’t know how long it would take for that to be settled. I would always know that my actions were justified, but I didn’t like that I’d been forced to kill that poor girl who was only trying to protect her mom.

CHAPTER 11

On the following Monday morning, I received a call from Nelly Wainwright, who was an assistant district attorney for the Magnolia Parish DA’s Office.

“Hey, London,” she said, “I just wanted to let you know we’re convening the grand jury on February 15. You’re welcome to testify if you want. We’ve already received Captain Chuck Wayne’s report and the surveillance footage from the school. It’s a slam dunk justifiable homicide, so it’s really up to you if you want to participate.”

“I’ll be there,” I said. “What time?”

“Ten in the morning.”

I thanked her and dropped my handset to the cradle. I had just picked up a new burglary report from a stack on my desk when Dawn stuck her head around the wall of my cubicle.

“Wanna go for a ride?”

Always game, I said sure and stood up. “Where’re we going?”

“We’re investigating the Rapture.”

I stopped walking. “The Rapture? Like, in the Bible?”

She glanced over her shoulder as she continued sauntering away. “Precisely.”

Not sure if she was pulling my leg or not, I followed her outside. She knew better than to head to her cruiser. When we went somewhere together, we usually took my truck. As the sniper commander, I was on call twenty-four/seven, and all of my sniper gear was in my truck. I had learned the hard way to never travel without my rifle, even when going out of state.

“Where to?” I flipped off the heater. Although winters in Louisiana were rarely brutal, the temperature had dropped from high sixties two days ago to mid-thirties this morning, so I’d run the heater earlier to take the chill out of the air.

“Wears Well,” she said.

“Is that where the Rapture happened?”

She nodded, but offered no other explanation. Wears Well was a clothing store located in the same shopping center as Bestman’s Market. It was located in Gracetown and was about fifteen minutes away in current traffic.

It was almost noon and I was feeling my stomach start to grumble. I figured after we solved the Rapture, we could grab lunch at the Mexican restaurant next door. I mentioned it to Dawn.

She nodded again and said, “I can eat a salad.”

“A salad?” I echoed. “Why in the hell would you do that?”

“We’re getting married in five months. I have to make sure I can still fit in my wedding dress.”

I scoffed. “You’ll never gain weight.”

“Would you love me if I did?”

“Absolutely,” I said without hesitation. “I’m not in love with your weight, I’m in love with your boobs.”

She feigned shock and decked me playfully across the arm. “Men have it easy,” she said with a grumble. “Y’all show up to the tuxedo shop a week before the wedding and pick out some random tux to wear. Women have to find their wedding dresses several months in advance and they have to make sure they’re still the same size they were when they picked it out. It’s not fair.”

“You don’t have to wear a dress,” I offered.

“Oh, I can’t wait to hear this.”

I knew she thought I would say something sexual so, instead, I said, “You could wear a navy blue pant suit.”

She laughed so hard she snorted. After she stopped laughing, she bent over and snatched her camera and notebook from the floorboard. I turned into the parking lot and drove toward the line of shops. I parked one spot away from the handicap parking spot in front of Wears Well and we stepped out of my truck. I hated when able-bodied people took up a handicap spot. It made me want to give them a reason to use it.

I glanced up at the name of the store as we approached the business, wondering where the owners had come up with it. Did the “well” in the name mean that it was good or satisfactory, like their customers wore the clothes well? Or was it referring to a hole drilled in the ground to hold water?

I was still pondering this when we stepped inside the business. I frowned as I scanned the interior of the building. As far as I could see, there were intermittent piles of clothes scattered about the floor. Most of the piles were near racks or pedestals, and they all seemed to contain a complete set of clothes. One pile contained a dress, a wide belt, a pair of sandals, and some kind of shoulder wrap. In another pile were jeans, boots, a leather belt, and a sweater.

A woman who I presumed was the owner stood with a patrol deputy behind a counter several yards away. We were out of earshot, so I leaned toward Dawn and whispered, “Are they trying to say each of these piles represents a customer who disappeared? If so, that’s bullshit. This is staged.”

Dawn only smiled and greeted the owner when we drew closer. “Mrs. Wears? I’m Dawn Luke and this is London Carter. We’re detectives with the Magnolia Parish Sheriff’s Office.”

The woman, who wore a red sweater and green dress pants, nodded and reached out to shake Dawn’s hand.

“I’m Regina Wears,” she said. “I own the shop with my husband. We’ve only been here a year and didn’t really know who to call. We moved here from Texas, where my husband’s brother was an officer. We usually called him for everything and he would tell us what to do.”

“You’ve come to the right place,” Dawn assured her. “We’ll treat you like family.”

I had smiled inwardly when she mentioned her last name. I had solved the mystery. When it was my turn to shake her hand, I did so and asked, “So, the Rapture happened here?”

“The Rapture?” A quizzical expression fell across the shop owner’s face and she scanned the shop. “You know, it kinda does look like that, doesn’t it?”

The deputy, who I recognized as being Arlene Eiland, raised a hand. “I apologize,” she said. “That’s how I characterized it when I called Detective Luke. To me, that’s what it looks like, except with mannequins.”

“Oh,” I said, looking around. There were other mannequins in the store, but they all had clothes on them. Had someone switched the clothes as a prank? “Were those piles of clothes on those mannequins?”

Mrs. Wears shook her head. “Those clothes were on my female mannequins. Someone removed the clothes and stole all of them. Every last one.”

Dawn chewed her lower lip. “So, someone disrobed all of the female mannequins and stole them?”

Mrs. Wears nodded.

“But they left all the clothes behind,” Dawn continued, “and they didn’t touch the male mannequins or their clothes?”

“Right,” Mrs. Wears agreed.

I grunted. “So, only the female mannequins went up in the Rapture.”

“No,” said Mrs. Wears, smiling despite the pressure she was probably under. “They went out the back door. It was pried open.”

“Do you have an alarm system or security cameras?” Dawn asked.

“No, we haven’t gotten around to it. The last year has been a whirlwind for us. We set up the business first and just started getting around to unpacking the house. We’re still living out of boxes.” She shook her head. “I know that security should’ve been a priority, but we talked to some of the other businesses and they said they’ve never had any problems with thefts or break-ins.”

“They weren’t lying. This is a safe area.” Dawn’s face scrunched up. “Have you had problems with anyone since moving here?”

“No, everyone’s been great.”

“Have you seen any strangers hanging around the place?”

“To be honest, nearly everyone here is a stranger to us, as we are to them.” Mrs. Wears was thoughtful. “I really don’t remember anyone coming in here looking suspicious.”

“Did anyone ask about the mannequins?” Dawn tried. “Maybe to see if you were willing to sell them or ask where you had gotten them?”

“No, but they were left behind by the previous owners,” she said. “That’s actually why we bought this place. We figured the clothes racks and mannequins were an added bonus, and the fact that the locals already associated it with the clothing business was icing on the cake. It’s saved us a ton in advertising dollars.”

“What happened to the previous owners?” Dawn asked. “Is there any reason to think they might want some of their stuff back? Maybe they opened another shop somewhere?”

“They were elderly and told us they were retiring,” Mrs. Wears said. “Even if they weren’t, I don’t think they were the type to steal.”

Dawn pursed her lips, indicated Arlene with a nod. “Did you find anything on your walk-through?”

“I cleared the building but didn’t do much else. I figured they’d want a detective to come out here, so I didn’t touch anything.” She pointed toward where one of the mannequins had been stolen from the front of the store. It was the one with the jeans and sweater. “I walked up to that pile of clothes to see what was going on, but I didn’t approach any of the others in case y’all wanted to check for shoe prints.”

“Good call.” Dawn glanced at me. “What do you want—the back or the front?”

“I’ll take the back,” I said, and headed for my truck to retrieve my own camera and notebook, as well as my fingerprint kit. When I returned to the store, I handed Dawn one of the brushes, a can of powder, and a pack of lifters. With that, we parted ways, me heading to the back of the building and her moving toward the nearest pile of clothes.

I heard Mrs. Wears tell Dawn that she was lucky, because the cash drawer was full of money. “Had they only opened the bottom drawer, they would’ve found it and gotten away with more than two thousand dollars in cash.”

CHAPTER 12

When I reached the back of the store, I found that the door had been destroyed near the knob and then pried open. After taking several pictures, I dusted the wall, knob, and door for prints. I scowled when the process revealed several smooth smudges amongst the cloud of black lava dust. I twirled my brush around the finger marks, but could locate no ridges whatsoever.

“Shit,” I muttered to myself, “he was wearing gloves.”

As I continued processing the door and the surrounding area, my mind returned to Jennifer Porter. I wondered about her childhood. I wondered about the events that had led to her mom getting together with Alex. What had happened to her real dad? How would he feel about Alex beating Jennifer’s mom, his ex-wife? Would Jennifer’s life have turned out differently had her mom and dad not gotten divorced? Surely, she would not have been killed by me at the school eleven days ago.

Once I had finished working the area around the door, I moved outward in a semi-circle, searching the concrete carefully. The burglar had dropped nothing. Once I reached the edge of the grass, I stood and glanced out at the field behind the shopping center. There were no drag marks through the grass, so I was certain a vehicle had been involved. Due to the number of mannequins stolen and the amount of time it must’ve taken to undress them, the criminal or criminals would’ve needed a truck or large SUV.

Across the field from the back of the store was a large neighborhood of potential witnesses. While our best bet might’ve been the immediate houses facing the rear of the building, residents from up and down the neighborhood were known to walk their dogs, jog, or bike up to the shopping center and around it during the early morning hours, so we would have to conduct a thorough canvass of the area.

I was surprised there were no pieces of mannequin on the ground. Surely, the criminal or criminals must’ve jostled the old dummies around while loading them, and it would not have been unusual to lose an arm here or a toe there. This told me one important thing: they were careful—very careful.

“Thirty-seven ladies gone,” called the woman I loved from behind me.

I turned to see Dawn standing in the doorway holding her notepad. There were black smudges on her face and I smiled.

“Did you put any powder on the furniture?” I asked. “It looks like you’re wearing all of it.”

She grunted and brushed a hand across her face. “Did I get it?”

“Nah, you just smeared it.” I pointed toward her forehead. “There’s a bunch up there on the right side, and then you’ve got some on your left cheek, and on your chin.”

She took another stab at it, but missed.

“Come here,” I said. When she moved closer, I rubbed away most of the powder, but couldn’t get all of it. “That’ll have to do for now. So, we lost thirty-seven women, eh?”

“Yep.” She glanced down at her notes. “Thirty-five were out in the show room and two were in the back of the shop. I dusted the floors around each of the ones in the show room, but got nothing. Either the suspect’s shoes were bone dry or he was wearing socks.”

I nodded my understanding. Most detectives searched for shoe impressions in mud, sand, snow, or blood, but many didn’t even attempt to recover latent shoeprints from floors and other smooth surfaces. Over the years, I had recovered a number of shoeprints from doors that had been kicked in, from floors inside of crime scenes, and even from a toilet once where the suspect had stood on the seat to search the top of a cabinet for drugs.

Although we’d had luck in the past, I had to admit they were hit and miss, and our best chance of finding them was when a suspect walked through rain or dew.

“I’ve got nothing out back,” I said. “I think the suspect was wearing gloves.”

Dawn chewed on her lower lip, lost in thought. She had noticed several of the houses behind the shopping center. “How far to the nearest houses?”

“About sixty yards,” I said. “If they have motion cameras, they wouldn’t have picked up anything, because the range on them is usually eighty to a hundred feet.”

Dawn nodded. “And if we find some that film continuously, all we’ll see is movement and possibly headlights, but not much else.”

“We might get lucky and pick up the shape of a vehicle,” I offered. “If nothing else, we’ll get a timeline.”

Having decided on it, we picked up our gear, Dawn gave her information to the owner, and we set out for the neighborhood. I took one side of the street and Dawn took the other, going door-to-door like Jehovah’s Witnesses—only, we were asking to view surveillance footage and searching for witnesses, rather than doing the witnessing.

I saw Dawn disappear inside one home just as a homeowner offered to let me see his footage from his cameras. They were mounted on the back patio of his home and they faced the store. I got on my radio and told Dawn where I would be. She responded immediately to let me know she was Code 4, which meant everything was cool. While I knew she could take care of herself, I still worried about her. Good cops got killed almost every day, and I knew any one of us could get taken out at any moment.

I followed my homeowner inside and attempted to view his cameras, but had no luck. Unbeknownst to him, the DVR was fried and was no longer storing footage, relegating his system to an overpriced monitor. After a bit of cursing, he told me how grateful he was that I’d stopped by.

“Thank God I didn’t find out the hard way,” he said with a shake of his head. “If somebody would’ve broken into my house and I didn’t catch them on tape, I would’ve been mad as hell.”

I smiled, thanked him, and walked back outside. I continued my canvass, as did Dawn, but the remaining residents had motion sensor cameras, and the store was too far away to trigger a response. When we met back at my truck, I asked if the one house she’d entered had what we needed. She shook her head from side to side.

“Not really, but a little,” she said. “It records on a continuous loop, but it’s not facing the back of the clothing store. It does face the store to the south of it, and at two minutes after one in the morning you can see a faint splash of red lights against the building. It lasts about eight seconds. Forty-three minutes later, you see another red glow, but it only lasts a second.”

I was thoughtful. “What are you thinking?”

“There was no splash of headlights prior to or after either of the red glows, which leads me to believe his vehicle was blacked out when he arrived,” she explained. “I think he turned his vehicle around and backed into place. He then broke in, stole the mannequins, and cranked up his vehicle at a quarter to two. He pressed the brake when he started the vehicle, and that’s when the second red glow happened.”

“He must be some gigolo,” I mused aloud. “He undressed thirty-seven women in under an hour and they didn’t even fight back.”

“Thirty-five,” she corrected. “The two in the back of the shop were already nude. But you’re right, he was busy. To have done this so fast, he must’ve come into the store before. He knew the lay of the land.”

I nodded my agreement. “Too bad we don’t have surveillance from inside the store.”

“Let’s check the other businesses,” she said as she slipped into the passenger’s seat. “I know Bestman’s has a camera facing the parking lot.”

So saying, we headed in that direction and visited every business in the vicinity, but we had no luck. Our suspect remained a ghost. Apparently, he had taken great care to avoid the areas under surveillance. We were dealing with a cunning burglar, and that didn’t set well with me. Something seemed off about the whole incident.

“Why would someone go to such lengths to steal a bunch of mannequins?” I asked Dawn when we drove out of the parking lot and headed toward the detective bureau. “Most burglars are dumb. They might wear gloves or masks or turn out their headlights, but how many of them know where every camera is located in any given shopping center? That’s a lot of precaution just to steal plastic women.”

“What’s more important than how he did it, is why,” Dawn said slowly. “Why on earth would someone steal a bunch of mannequins? It makes no sense unless they were going into the clothing business. You got any other ideas?”

I had no clue, so I only shook my head and drove in silence. What we didn’t know at the time was that we would ask ourselves that same question often over the next five days before finally getting the answer—and when we did, it would only lead to more questions.

CHAPTER 13

It was nine in the morning on the following Saturday and I was dry-firing my sniper rifle on the floor of my living room while Dawn went over the details of our wedding.

“The only problem with having it in Tennessee,” she muttered, mostly to herself, “is that we won’t be able to have any seafood.”

When my shot broke, I immediately bolted another round, moved the crosshairs on target, and pulled the trigger again. I repeated the process three more times and then rolled onto my back to study my beautiful brown-eyed bride.

“Are you telling me there are no seafood restaurants in all of East Tennessee?” I asked.

“There’re a few options, but none look authentic.” She was staring intently at the computer in her lap. “What if we did a breakfast menu? It’s kind of hard to screw up eggs.”

I was about to suggest hiring a caterer from Magnolia to travel with us when her cell phone rang. Her brow furrowed when she glanced at the screen.

“The office?” I asked.

“It’s the radio room,” she said. “I’m not on call, so I wonder what they want.”

I rolled back to a prone position to resume my dry-fire practice while she answered.

“Hey, this is Dawn,” she said. “What’s up…?”

Her voice droned away as I slipped into my mental bubble and shouldered my rifle. I took a breath and slowly exhaled, waiting for my normal respiratory pause. Once I’d reached it, I centered my crosshairs on my target—a picture of a man holding a girl hostage that was stapled to a tree two hundred yards away—and narrowed my focus to the crosshairs. I was about to pull the trigger when my left leg shook violently from a strong nudge by Dawn’s foot. It destroyed my sight picture, but nothing more. I had trained myself for just such occasions, and my trigger finger didn’t budge.

“Had you done that to anyone else,” I said jokingly, “they would’ve killed the hostage.” I turned once again to look up at Dawn. We had been together long enough for her to learn that I could drown out the entire world when doing sniper work, and she knew she had to put the boot to me to get my attention.

“We need to go,” she said, already standing and heading for my bedroom to get dressed. “They found one of the women.”

I blinked. “You mean one of the mannequins?”

“Yeah,” she called over her shoulder, ripping off her shirt in the process. “A farmer saw what he thought was a nude body in a ditch off of Plymouth East Access Road. He got the hell out of there and called 9-1-1. Arlene was the first deputy on scene. When she saw that it was a mannequin, she told dispatch to call us right away.”

“So, it’s an alien abduction and not the Rapture,” I mused.

“You think?”

“As far as I know, the Rapture doesn’t return people,” I said, quickly pushing the bolt forward on my Accuracy International sniper rifle. Next, I shoved the loaded magazine into the port and secured my rifle in its Pelican case. I then joined Dawn in my room—pausing for a moment to watch her put on her bra—and threw on a pair of jeans and a Polo shirt. I grabbed a light jacket and followed her through the living room and out the door, snatching up my Pelican case as I rushed past it. Once we were loaded in my truck, I backed out the driveway and headed for Plymouth East.

Dawn got on the phone and made some calls while I drove. I barely listened as I tried to figure out what we might find once we arrived at the scene. I couldn’t understand why someone would steal a bunch of mannequins just to throw them away. Of course, the call had been about a single mannequin, so it was possible the thief or thieves had lost one in transit. If one had fallen out of the vehicle, it might serve as a breadcrumb of sorts. Of course, a single breadcrumb would tell us nothing. Plymouth East wasn’t a large community, but there were more than 1,000 residents, dozens of streets, and hundreds of homes back there. Unless the mannequins were propped up on someone’s front porch, finding them would be no easy task.

“We’re heading for the shortcut road,” Dawn said, pointing toward the left as I crossed the bridge. “Arlene said she’s about 600 yards past the curve in the shortcut. She’s on a dirt road to the east.”

Although it was called the Plymouth East Access Road and we referred to it as a “shortcut,” it didn’t come close to reaching Plymouth East. It served only to connect Highway Eighty to Plymouth Highway. It was used mostly by cane farmers to access their fields, and also locals who wanted to avoid the traffic light at the bridge.

As soon as I turned onto the road and headed east, I could see Arlene’s patrol cruiser in the distance. The road curved toward the south at about the one-mile mark. Instead of following the bend, I went off road and took the uneven dirt trail that continued eastward. There was a large canal to our left and cane fields to our right. Even before we reached Arlene, I could see her looking into that canal.

“This is pretty far off the main road,” I muttered. “Why would they come all this way to throw away a stolen mannequin?”

“I don’t know, but I’m guessing we’re about to find out.” Dawn removed her seatbelt and prepared to jump out as my truck rolled to a stop behind Arlene’s cruiser.

I was reaching for the door handle when I caught sight of the nude mannequin through the thin weeds. It was resting on its back on the opposite bank of the canal, a couple of faded planks by its side. One arm was extended skyward while the other was down at its side at what appeared to be a normal angle. Both smooth and perfectly tanned legs extended straight from the torso and appeared in good condition.

To any unsuspecting farmer, this could easily have been mistaken for a naked woman. Hell, it had been mistaken for a woman. Luckily for the farmer, he hadn’t noticed the dozens of bullet holes that littered the mannequin’s not-so-realistic-looking breasts and flat torso. Otherwise, he might’ve really freaked out.

I, myself, wasn’t happy about the bullet holes. Although it was a mannequin and it hadn’t felt an ounce of pain from the gunshot wounds, it was now damaged goods. Minus the bullet holes, it might’ve been returned to Mrs. Wears in decent condition. Whatever excitement she might feel at our having recovered one of her items would quickly diminish when she saw the condition in which we found it.

“She’s dead,” Dawn joked with a grunt. “It’s officially a homicide investigation now.”

CHAPTER 14

Dawn immediately snapped a few photos when her boots hit the dirt. I walked around to the front of my truck and studied the ground first. It hadn’t rained in a couple of days, but the ground was still a little soft from the last downpour. Except for the tracks from Arlene’s cruiser and those of the large tractor tires, the ground was clear, which told me whoever had deposited the mannequin here had done so before the rain two days earlier.

“They stood here to shoot the mannequin,” Arlene was saying to Dawn when I joined them at the edge of the canal. “I took some preliminary photos of the spent hulls. I counted eight of them.”

I glanced where she was pointing and saw an assortment of green and red twelve-gauge shotgun hulls. By the looks of them—coupled with the size of the bullet holes in the mannequin—they were buckshot rounds, probably double-aught.

There were no shoe impressions in the mud, but I wasn’t expecting them.

“Where’s the farmer who found her?” I asked, surveying the fields around us. Off in the distance to the south there was a tuft of dust rising up from the earth, and I could see at least one tractor cutting across the field in that area.

“That’s him on the tractor,” Arlene acknowledged. “He was pretty shaken up, even after I told him it was a fake. He said people are still freaked out from when that woman was found crucified back here. His voice trembled when he talked about it.”

“What’s his name?”

“Brody Boudreaux,” Arlene said. “He doesn’t own this stretch of fields, but he uses the road to access his land. He said he was just driving by heading east and happened to glance to his left. He said he saw bare legs and women’s breasts, and he jerked his tractor around and got the hell out of here.”

“Did you ask if he’s seen anyone hanging around this area?” Dawn asked.

“I did, but he didn’t. He said he used to have problems with kids rutting up his fields, damaging his equipment, and shooting up the street signs and his barns, but he said it’s been a while since he’s had any trouble.”

I glanced at Dawn. “Are you done taking photos?”

When she nodded, I told her I’d retrieve the mannequin. There was a dirt road on the opposite side of the canal that would get me to within a dozen yards of the mannequin, and it was there that I headed. I drove my truck in reverse for two hundred yards until I came to a dirt-covered culvert that acted as a bridge and provided access to the opposite side. Once I’d crossed over, I headed for the mannequin. The road was soft in places, but I didn’t need to shift into four-wheel-drive. I did, however, switch to rubber boots when I reached the end of the road.

As I made my way through the tall dead weeds toward the mannequin, I looked over in Dawn’s direction and saw her collecting the spent shotgun hulls. Arlene was jotting down some notes while Dawn worked.

There were no discernible shoe impressions in the mud on the walk to the mannequin, and I surmised the suspect or suspects had simply flung the mannequin from the opposite side of the canal, and it had come to rest on its back against the sloping northern bank. As it were, the canal was only about ten feet wide, and just about anyone could’ve flung the mannequin that distance.

I picked my way carefully down the northern slope, not wanting to end up in the slop that made up the bed of the canal. When the mannequin was in arm’s reach, I grabbed it by the hair and gave a gentle tug. It moved easily and I continued pulling until it was solidly on dry ground. I saw Dawn photograph the earth that had been beneath the mannequin from across the ditch. I couldn’t see it as well as she could, so I asked what it looked like.

“Just a bunch of blast holes in the mud.”

I nodded. It had definitely been shot here. I then lifted and turned the mannequin to check it over. I was able to confirm that, aside from the muddy feet and the bullets holes, it was undamaged.

I turned toward the canal and shook my head. Why on earth would someone steal mannequins just to throw them in a canal and shoot them up? And where were the others? I glanced up and down the canal, and then all around me. The fields were barren so I could see for miles. While there were forests and swamplands to the east of us, the area between Plymouth East and Highway Eighty and north to Highway Twelve made up more than 4,000 acres of sugarcane fields. It was an impossible amount of space to search for the other thirty-six mannequins. Dirt roads snaked up and down and crossways among the cane fields, and one could get lost in all of the confusion.

“What’re you thinking?” Dawn asked from across the canal.

“I’m wondering how in the hell do we find the other women.”

She scanned the distant horizon to the north, and then the south, and then turned back to me. “I guess we start driving around and see what we find.”

I glanced down at the mannequin and studied the holes in its breasts and torso. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the person who shot it up hated women. I was about to drag it to my truck when something caught my eye. I squinted and leaned closer.

“Stop looking at her boobs,” Dawn hollered, to which Arlene burst out laughing.

I laughed, too, but didn’t avert my eyes. Something seemed off about the shot pattern. “Dawn, are there eight spent hulls over there?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“And are they definitely double-aught buckshot?”

“Yep.”

“Two and three-quarter-inch shells?”

“That’s affirmative,” she sang out.

“Huh.” I dragged the mannequin the rest of the way to my truck and propped it up against the tailgate. I then set about to count the individual bullet holes. There should’ve been eight .33-inch diameter pellets in each shotgun shell. Thus, assuming none of the pellets had missed, there should’ve been sixty-four holes in the mannequin. But there weren’t. Instead, there were seventy.

“What’s on your mind?” Dawn asked, her hand held to her forehead to block the sun. “Is something wrong?”

“There’re seventy bullet holes in this mannequin,” I explained. “Six of the holes are a hair smaller than the shotgun pellets, and they’re situated in two seven-inch triangular patterns in the stomach, with one being a little higher than the other.”

I glanced over at Dawn and watched as her face scrunched up.

“So, what?” she asked with a shrug. “Maybe they used two guns? Why does it matter?”

I considered her question for a moment and then shrugged myself. “I guess it doesn’t, but they look like thirty-caliber rounds. I think the stomach shots were made with a rifle—a .30-06 or a .308.”

Dawn stepped back and surveyed the ground around her feet. She moved some weeds around, squatted in a few places, and then stood and shook her head. “I don’t see any other casings.”

“They probably would’ve fired from a distance,” I suggested, “and that could’ve been from anywhere. It’d be like finding that proverbial needle.”

“Well, let’s get out of here,” she said. “We need to drive some of these cane roads to see if we can find more of them.”

I nodded and tossed the mannequin in the bed of my truck. I was still mulling over the meaning of the five extra bullet holes when I met Arlene and Dawn at the dirt-covered culvert that served as a bridge.

“I can drive around if y’all want,” Arlene offered. “We’re not busy, and I’d love to help.”

“Please,” Dawn said. “We’d appreciate the extra eyes.”

Arlene nodded and drove off, heading back to the shortcut road. Dawn jumped in with me and we followed Arlene. When we reached the paved road, she continued straight toward Highway 80, so I turned south to drive deeper into the cane fields along the shortcut road. I drove slowly, leaning out of the driver’s window while Dawn leaned out of the passenger side, each of us scouring our respective sides in search of more mannequins. We made it all the way to Plymouth Highway without seeing anything.

Having searched the main drag, I whipped my truck around and headed back north. I turned right onto the first dirt road I came to and began methodically searching the network of roads and ditches on that side of the shortcut road. It was a long and painstaking process, and the sun was directly above us by the time we made it back to the original canal from which we’d recovered the mannequin.

Dawn got on the radio and called Arlene to see if she’d located anything. I could tell by the frown on Dawn’s face that the answer was no. She thanked Arlene and told her to call it a day. She swiped her thumb across the screen and sighed.

“It’ll take weeks to search this entire area,” she said. “I’ve got a dozen felony cases on my desk that need my attention, and I know you have the same. What do you say we—”

“Hey, look down there,” I said, pointing toward where we’d found the mannequin. “Is that what I think it is?”

CHAPTER 15

Dawn turned and looked where I pointed. She leaned forward and squinted. “Is that a boy? Yeah, it is! It looks like he’s searching for something. He’s looking for the mannequin!”

“Yep!” I had already turned my truck onto the dirt road and was heading east. The boy, who wore faded jeans and a Saints hoodie, jerked his head in our direction when I got to within 200 yards. His eyes widened and he whirled around. He was holding something in his hands—a long pole of some sort—that he dropped immediately. Like most horror movies, the boy began to run directly away from my truck, rather than jumping into the ditch to the left or darting across the cane fields to the right. I slowed my truck so as not to panic him any more than he already was.

“Why’s he running?” Dawn asked.

“Maybe he thinks he’s in trouble for trespassing,” I suggested.

“Or, maybe he thinks he’s in trouble for looking at a naked mannequin.” The corner of Dawn’s mouth curled into a grin. “I bet he’s wondering what happened to his girlfriend.”

The little boy was pumping his arms like pistons and running for all he was worth. I stopped my truck near where we’d found the mannequin and stepped out quickly.

“Hey, little buddy,” I hollered, “why’re you running?”

He didn’t slow down or turn his head, so I reached back into my truck and blew the siren. That scared the kid half to death and he dove headfirst into the mud, skidding to a stop about thirty yards away.

“It’s okay, little man,” I called out with a chuckle. “I’m a cop and I need your help.”

The boy rolled quickly to his feet and it looked like he was about to run away again, but then he saw Dawn. His eyes widened and he just stood there staring like he’d seen an angel step down from a cloud. I smiled. Dawn’s beauty was legendary.

“I’m London and this is Dawn,” I said in a friendly tone as I picked up his fishing pole and began walking toward the kid with Dawn following me. “What’s your name?”

“Bill…Billy,” he said, still staring at Dawn. “Billy Reed.”

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Eight.”

I handed him the pole when I reached him. “You’ve been doing some fishing?”

He took the pole and nodded. “Yes, sir, but nothing was biting.”

“What were you looking for back there?” I shot a thumb in the direction of my truck. “Back near the ditch?”

“I…I wasn’t looking for nothing.” Billy’s face turned a darker shade of red than it was from him running. “I wasn’t looking for nothing.”

I cocked my head to the side. “You weren’t looking for a mannequin?”

He gulped and shook his head to get his bushy brown hair out of his eyes. “Um, no, I don’t think so.”

“It’s okay if you were,” I explained. “You might actually be able to help us with something.”

“There might even be a reward in it for you,” Dawn offered, reaching into her back pocket and coming out with a twenty-dollar bill. “You help us find out what happened to that mannequin and the reward money goes to you.”

Little Billy’s eyes lit up as he stared at the money. He nodded his head and licked his lips, but then frowned. “What’s a man-a-kin?”

“It’s a life-size plastic human—like one of those crash dummies,” I explained. “What do you know about it?”

He gave a knowing nod. “Oh, yeah, I know about it. Teddy and Tommy Toups were shooting it with their shotguns one day. I heard the noise when I was fishing, and by the time I got here, I saw them driving back toward the shortcut road. When I got over there”—he pointed toward the spot where we’d found the mannequin—“I saw the naked dummy in the ditch.”

“Are they the ones who put it in the canal?” I asked.

Billy scrunched up his face. “I’m not sure. I never walked this way before, so I don’t know if it was already in the ditch. I just know they were shooting something, so I came this way to check it out. At first, I thought they were shooting a snake or something, but when I got to where it was, I saw it was a…a naked dummy.”

“What day was it that you first saw the naked dummy?”

“Um, it was Wednesday…last Wednesday.”

“What time?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Was it in the morning or afternoon?”

“It was after school sometime,” Billy said. “It was almost dark. I had gone fishing and was walking back home when I heard the shooting.”

“And are you sure it was Teddy and Tommy Toups?” I asked.

“Yes, sir, I saw their truck. It’s a blue truck with big tires on it. It looks like one of those monster trucks.”

“Who does it belong to?”

“It’s Tommy’s truck.”

I nodded. Although I’d never had any dealings with Teddy or Tommy, I’d heard the names before. They’d gotten into more than their share of trouble, but it was mostly small stuff like damage to property, trespassing, and hunting out of season.

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” I asked.

The boy was thoughtful. “Yes, sir, there is something more. When they drove past me that day, I saw another one of those dummies in the back of their truck. Maybe more. Well, I saw some legs sticking up, anyway. I didn’t really see the whole thing, so I don’t know how many they had.”

I glanced at Dawn and she nodded.

“These are our guys,” she said. “We’ve got them.”

Dawn handed Billy the money and I offered him a ride home, but he only smiled and shook his head, hurrying away like the money was burning a hole in his hand.

CHAPTER 16

Before going after the Toups boys, Dawn and I stopped by Betty Jo’s to get a fried chicken meal for me. Next, we stopped at some health shop to get a smoothie for Dawn, and then we finally headed to the criminal investigations division to run histories on the boys and to check for warrants.

“They’re both clean,” Dawn said from around her thick straw. “No warrants.”

I only nodded as I continued wolfing down my three-piece chicken meal, complete with mashed potatoes and coleslaw. The CID building was quiet, which wasn’t unusual for a Saturday, and we were able to do our research in peace. Dawn located the most up-to-date address on Tommy and Teddy, which—no surprise to either of us—was the same address as their father, Matthew.

“There’s a flag on the address,” Dawn said, pointing to the red alert flag next to the address on our records system. She clicked the flag to expand the message, and a man’s picture popped up. “It’s Matthew Toups. He’s got a warrant for domestic abuse battery.”

I was about to say something sarcastic when I remembered Jennifer Porter, and how she had killed Alex for beating her mom and then I had killed her. I suddenly lost my appetite and began picking up my food wrappings.

I had replayed the shooting in that shop building a million times in my head over the previous two weeks. Each time I did, I came up with the same logical conclusion: Jennifer had to be taken out. I didn’t have the benefit of hindsight. I was forced to deal with the information in front of me and make the best decision under those circumstances. While I was astutely aware of all of it, I didn’t feel any better. I would’ve given anything to give Jennifer back her life.

I glanced at the calendar hanging from Dawn’s desk. The Grand Jury hearing was a month away. While I thought I was sure what the outcome would be, one could never be overconfident. Once the members of the jury heard Jennifer’s reason for killing Alex, they might claim she had acted with justification, which would make what I did criminal.

I balled up my trash and tossed it in the nearest trashcan. I would accept whatever ruling they handed down, but part of me was hoping for some kind of punishment. I felt I deserved it. What I had done felt wrong…it felt criminal.

“London, what’s wrong?”

I blinked and looked down at Dawn, who was staring up at me with a befuddled expression on her face.

“I was just thinking about Jennifer.”

She frowned. “You did what you had to do.”

“Yeah, but it still feels wrong.”

She took my hand and squeezed it. I squeezed back and waited for her to print out a copy of the warrant for Matthew Toups. While the warrant had nothing to do with Tommy or Teddy or the theft of the mannequins, it would give us legal cover to be on the property, and they couldn’t simply tell us to get the hell out of there.

Once we had the warrant in hand, we made our way out to the parking lot. It had grown overcast while we were inside and the temperature had dropped a little, so I pulled a light jacket from the back seat of my truck before driving out of the parking lot and heading toward Plymouth East.

According to Matthew’s rap sheet, he liked to resist arrest, so Dawn called Arlene to see if she was still in the area. She was, and Dawn asked her to standby at the corner of Eighty and Plymouth.

“If he fights, we’ll need a caged unit to hold him in while we deal with the sons,” Dawn explained over the phone. I couldn’t hear Arlene’s response, but Dawn nodded and began describing the house and property. “The house is located at 118 Bucking Drive. It’s gray with wooden siding and it stands off the ground about three feet. There’s a red metal building to the left of the house, and that’s probably where the mannequins are being stored. According to the satellite image I pulled up, there’s a purple tractor-trailer without the trailer parked in front of the metal building. I think they call that bobtailing or something. Anyway, there’s no telling if it’s there or not. Also, there’s an old RV and an old bus behind the metal building.”

Dawn paused for a second and then nodded. “Yeah, pull up to the metal building and cover it while we take the house. The driveway leads directly to the metal building, so we’ll have to veer right to get to the house while you maintain a visual on the shop.”

By the time they had finished strategizing, I was turning onto Plymouth. Arlene fell in right behind us and we cruised down the highway. As I drove, I couldn’t help but check the ditches and empty fields that lined the right and left sides of the road, ever searching for the remaining mannequins. After the day we’d had, I knew I would probably be looking for them in my sleep. With luck, we were about to find the rest of them and we would be able to put the case to bed.

After traveling a little more than four miles on Plymouth Highway, I saw the sign for Bucking Drive and slowed my truck. I glanced in the rearview mirror. Arlene was still right behind us and I saw her release her seatbelt. Dawn and I did the same as I eased onto the street and headed north, driving past the first house on the right. Next, we drove by two empty lots on that side of the street. There were only two houses on the left side. The first was directly across from the one on the right, and the second was across from the two empty lots, but after that, the left side opened up into empty fields.

“I can see their house from here,” Dawn said, pointing ahead to the right. “It’s the fourth one after that next empty lot.”

I nodded and looked ahead, trying to see everything on the property at once and before we arrived. Everything looked almost identical to what we’d seen in the satellite view, except for the blue pickup truck that was parked in front of the old RV. Little Billy had described it well, and I was sure it was Tommy’s truck.

As I was approaching the target house, I realized I could access the front yard from the neighbor’s driveway, which was directly to the south. Without hesitating, I jerked the steering wheel to the right, accessed the shell driveway, and then shot across the lot and brought the front of my truck to a stop near the southwest corner of the wooden structure.

Before I could shut off the engine, Dawn was out the door and heading for the rear of the house. I was just dropping to the ground when Arlene’s marked cruiser skidded to a stop in the shells in front of the metal building. That was when all hell broke loose.

A woman who had been sitting on a white wooden chair on the front porch screamed and threw a plastic ashtray in my direction and headed for the screen door. I didn’t have a search warrant and she wasn’t wanted, so I wasn’t about to chase her into the house, but I didn’t have to—the house came to me.

Before I could reach the steps, three large men came barreling out of the house, cursing and screaming as they tried to squeeze through the door at the same time. The first man who made it through was Matthew. He was shirtless, spewing hate, and wielding a small baseball bat. I didn’t know if he realized I was a cop at first, but I saw a brief moment of surprise in his eyes when Arlene rushed forward from the metal building in full police uniform. The surprise turned to determination and he continued moving toward me.

I didn’t even bother trying to climb the steps to reach the porch. Instead, I stepped to the right and grabbed a handful of Matthew’s blue jeans and gave a violent jerk just as he swung the bat at my head. I felt the wind from the blow as it narrowly missed me, but that was nothing compared to the sound of his heavy body landing on the wooden porch.

Tommy, who had been next out the door, tripped over his dad and went spilling off the porch to my left and directly into the hands of Arlene, who grabbed him by the hair and guided his face to the dirt. He fell in a heap, and she put a knee on his back and told him to stay put.

Dawn had heard the ruckus and appeared around the northern side of the house just as I was dragging Matthew from the porch by his legs. It was right then that we all heard the universal sign for oh, shit!—the ominous racking of a pump-action shotgun.

CHAPTER 17

Matthew Toups had just crashed to the ground at my feet and I had dropped a knee on his back when I looked up to see Teddy leveling a twelve-gauge shotgun at my face. His hands were trembling, and that was more worrisome than if he had been calm, because his finger was white on the trigger and the slightest pressure could send enough lead my way to sink a pirogue.

“Let go of my daddy or I’m gonna blow your guts all over the front yard,” Teddy said through gritted teeth—well, what was left of them. He had the grin of a hockey player.

I heard two pistols clear leather and knew that Dawn and Arlene had their weapons on Teddy, but it wouldn’t do much good. Even if they shot first, it was all over for me. Teddy would pull the trigger and cut me in half. They realized it, too, because no shots were fired.

“I’m with the sheriff’s office,” I said calmly, pushing aside Matthew’s flailing arms and keeping him pinned to the ground. “We’ve got a warrant for your dad. He beat up your mom a while back and never went to court. We’re not here to hurt him. We’re just gonna take him in and—”

“I dropped them charges!” came a shrill voice from the other side of the screen. “I told them assholes at the DA’s office that I didn’t want him getting in trouble!”

Teddy took a deep breath and adjusted his grip on the shotgun. “Let my daddy go now!”

“Teddy, look at me,” Dawn said, her voice sounding deadly calm. “Come on, Teddy, I need you to focus on me. Talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Teddy’s eyes didn’t waver from mine. “Get off of my daddy or I’m gonna blow your guts all over the yard! I’m not messing around! Get off of him now!”

I could see in Teddy’s eyes that he was serious. He was in his mid-thirties and had never amounted to anything, and that made him dangerous. It meant he had nothing to lose. When Dawn had run his name earlier, she hadn’t found so much as a vehicle registered to him—ever. The man had never owned anything of substance that we could find. It seemed he had always relied on his mom and dad for everything, and that presented quite a problem. If he thought his entire livelihood was being dragged away with his dad, he might become desperate and do something stupid—like sending me to face Jennifer Porter in the afterlife. Hell, just pointing a gun at a cop was stupid and desperate enough without having to pull the trigger. But he had to know if he fired a shot he would be killing himself. As though she and I were thinking the same thing, Dawn spoke up again.

“Teddy, so help me God, if you don’t put that gun down, I’m going to shoot you, and you’ll most likely die.”

Teddy shifted his feet. “If he doesn’t get off my daddy, he’s the one that’s gonna die!”

As I watched Teddy, I realized he was very afraid, but it didn’t seem he was afraid to die. No, it seemed he was afraid of what might happen to his dad, and that gave me an idea.

“Arlene,” I called out, never taking my eyes from Teddy’s, “do you have Teddy in your sights?”

“I’ve got him,” Arlene muttered, all of her focus seemingly being on Teddy. “If he sneezes, I’m sending a bullet right through the gap in his front teeth.”

“Dawn,” I continued in a conversational tone, “point your gun at Matthew’s head—right where his brain stem is located.”

I saw a look of confusion fall over Teddy’s face. It was the first time he took his eyes off of me, and he did so to look in Dawn’s direction.

“I’m on him,” Dawn said, but the acknowledgment was unnecessary. I could already tell by the sheer horror in Teddy’s expression that Dawn’s gun was pointing right at his dad’s head.

“Good.” I nodded and snatched up Matthew’s left wrist. “If Teddy shoots me, kill his daddy.”

Although my attention was turned away from Teddy at that point, I knew he was shocked by what he’d heard because of the loud gasp that escaped from his mouth. Without looking back at him, I calmly cuffed Matthew’s hands behind his back and then dragged the large man to his feet. When I made eye contact with Teddy again, I noticed the muzzle of the shotgun was dangling in defeat.

“Go ahead and put it down,” I said to Teddy. “We don’t want anyone getting hurt out here today.”

With an idle nod, he dropped the shotgun to the porch. Arlene immediately swept forward and took possession of the shotgun while Dawn mounted the porch, spun Teddy around, and shoved him roughly against the wall. In a quick motion, she holstered her pistol with one hand while producing her cuffs with the other, and Teddy was soon joining his dad in the back seat of Arlene’s patrol cruiser.

Once the men were secured, I returned to the porch, where Tommy was sitting on the steps, a somber expression on his face. He wore baggy sweatpants and a dirty jacket. I could hear his mom crying from somewhere on the other side of the screen door, but she hadn’t reemerged since first fleeing inside the house.

“Tommy,” I began once I reached him, “this was a lot harder than it had to be. Is there a reason y’all came out fighting?”

“We…we didn’t know what was going on,” he said shakily. “We thought we were being robbed.”

“Robbed?” I shot a thumb toward Arlene’s patrol car. “By the sheriff’s office?”

“We didn’t see the cop car at first,” he explained. “We just heard my mom scream and we saw your truck coming through the yard. It looked like you were gonna crash through the house.”

I nodded, letting him think I was willing to go along with that story. I glanced toward his truck. “Do you have anything illegal inside the truck?”

Tommy shook his head.

“What about the shop?” I asked.

“What about it?”

“Is there anything illegal in there?”

“No.” He shook his head again. “We don’t do nothing illegal. My daddy makes a good living driving a truck, and we don’t need to steal nothing.”

“I didn’t say anything about stealing.” I shifted my feet. “Why’d you feel the need to bring that up?”

Tommy blinked. “Huh?”

“When I asked if there was anything illegal inside the shop, why’d you automatically think I was talking about stolen property?”

“I don’t know. Isn’t that what it means when you say something’s illegal?”

“I see your point.” I hesitated for a moment, giving him time to sweat a little. “Say, Tommy, speaking of stolen things, what would you say if I told you somebody saw some stolen property in the back of your truck?”

“Not in the back of my truck!” He shook his head violently from side to side. “I don’t steal nothing.”

“Has anyone else ever driven your truck?” I asked. “Like, maybe you loaned it out to someone and they might’ve been hauling stolen goods in it?”

“That’s impossible. Nobody drives my truck but me.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a key ring. When he extended it toward me, I couldn’t help but notice the black grime under his thick fingernails. “This is the only key to my truck and I keep it on me at all times, even when I’m sleeping.”

“So, then, it had to be you with the stolen property.”

“I already told you that I never stole nothing before. Honest to God.”

“Yeah, but you don’t mind damaging other people’s property, do you?”

“That was a long time ago and it was because I was doing donuts in the cane fields. My daddy paid for the damage and the fine and I did some community service.” He wiped his nose on his jacket sleeve. “That’s the last time I been in trouble.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “What about the stolen mannequin that was in the back of your truck? And the one y’all shot up in the canal near the shortcut road?”

“Hold on a minute,” he began with a snort. “You’re talking about those naked dummies?”

“Yep.”

“Oh, man, no, we didn’t steal them things. We found them.” He let out what might’ve been a sigh of relief, but it sounded more like the rasping breath of a dying person. “You can ask Teddy. We found them in the fields. I can show you exactly where they were. If they were stolen, it wasn’t us who took them.”

I studied him for a long moment. He seemed to be telling the truth, but it was possible he was a good liar. I glanced over at Dawn. She was studying him, too.

“It’s kind of convenient for you to all of a sudden claim you found them, isn’t it?” Dawn asked. “I mean, that’s what I would say if I got caught with stolen property in my possession.”

We hadn’t searched the premises yet, so we didn’t know if they had any of the mannequins in their possession, but I knew Dawn was baiting him. It worked, because he didn’t deny it.

“No, ma’am, I’m saying it because it’s true.” He turned his head and hollered for his mom.

“You don’t have to scream at me, I’m right here,” she called from somewhere inside the screen door, not making any attempt to exit the house. “What do you want?”

“Didn’t me and Teddy tell you we found those naked dummies in the sugarcane?”

“Yeah, y’all did.”

Tommy looked back at Dawn as though the matter was settled. “There, I told you so.”

“How many did you find?”

“Oh, I think we got six or seven of them, but not all in one day.”

“What do you mean?” Dawn asked.

“Well, we found the first one close to Highway Eighty in a dry ditch, we found another one in the middle of the fields nearby, and then we found all the rest of them about a half mile from the corner of the shortcut.”

“Did y’all take everything y’all found?”

“All except for one. It was already damaged, so we shot it with the twelve gauge.”

“Do you still have them?” she asked. “All of them?”

“Yeah, we got them,” Tommy said with a nod. “They’re in the shop. I can show you if you want.”

CHAPTER 18

While Arlene kept an eye on Teddy and Matthew, Dawn and I grabbed latex gloves and a camera from my truck and followed Tommy to the metal building. The front doors were open and I caught sight of some of the mannequins before we entered. I scowled when we got closer. Sure enough, there were seven mannequins leaning up against the far wall, but every one of them was covered in bullet holes.

“Damn it, Tommy,” Dawn said in frustration, “did y’all have to shoot all of them?”

“Oh, we didn’t shoot these dummies,” Tommy said. “That’s how we found them.”

I approached the mannequins and studied the bullet holes with interest. If it hadn’t been Tommy or Teddy who’d stolen the mannequins, then who? And why shoot them full of holes?

“Tommy,” I began, not taking my eyes off the mannequins, “are you sure you and your brother didn’t shoot these mannequins?”

“I’m positive,” he said. “We just shot one of them, and we left it in the ditch. That’s the only one we left behind. And it’s not like we damaged it first. It was already full of holes, so we thought it was okay to shoot it some more.”

I stepped closer and began shuffling the mannequins around, moving one here and another there, arranging them against the wall from left to right and shoulder-to-shoulder in the order I thought they should go. Once I was done, I stepped back and surveyed my handiwork.

“What is it?” Dawn asked, looking over what I’d done. “Is there some method to this madness?”

“It’s a progression,” I said, pointing to the mannequin on the far left. “There’re six holes in each mannequin, except for the one on the far left, which has fifteen holes in it, and the last one on the right, which only has four.”

“Why are those two different from the rest?”

I pointed to the series of five three-shot groups on the first one, which were all over the place. The first group was low in the pelvis area and to the right, the second a little higher but still to the right, the third was closer to centerline but still low, the fourth was far left, and the fifth was centered on the mannequin, but low on the stomach.

“This mannequin was used to try and sight in the rifle,” I explained. “The mannequin we recovered must’ve been the second one, because those groups are a little farther to the right and a little higher. This one”—I pointed to the next mannequin in my arrangement—“would’ve been next, because the six bullets are directly between the breasts, which is apparently the preferred aiming point for this shooter, because every shot in the rest of the mannequins are between the breasts.”

“And the last one?”

“I’m not sure,” I admitted.

Dawn’s brow furrowed. “London, what’s going on here?”

“You see how wide the shot groups are in the first few mannequins?” I asked. “They’re seven to eight inches in diameter.”

Dawn nodded.

“It’s like an archaeological dig,” I explained. “You can study the progression of a civilization by examining the artifacts you find along the dig. Here, we can study the progression of this shooter by examining his shot groups on each target. The more he shoots, the better he gets. Look at the last couple of mannequins. Those groups are now consistently in the five-inch range, which is decent, depending on his distance to the target.”

“How far away would he have to be for those groups to be decent?” Dawn asked.

“A sniper with minimal training can shoot five-inch groups at 500 yards.” I pointed to the shot groups on the last mannequin. “If this person is shooting these groups from any closer than 500 yards, he’s not very good or he’s using a cheap hunting rifle.”

“Why’s he doing this?” Dawn pressed.

I ignored her question and turned to Tommy. “When did y’all find the last group of mannequins?”

“Last week,” he said. “We found them all in one place, next to the one we shot up. They were all in the ditch right next to the bank, like pushed down in the grass. The one we shot up was all the way on the other side of the ditch, like it had been thrown there. That’s the one we saw first. In fact, I don’t think we would’ve seen the others if we hadn’t seen that one.”

“What day was it last week?”

“Um, I’m pretty sure it was Wednesday.”

“Why’d y’all keep them?”

“I don’t know.” Tommy thought about it for a moment and then shrugged. “They just seemed cool to have, you know? It’s not every day you find those kinds of dummies hanging around. I don’t even think you can buy them in the store. I thought we might be able to sell them at a garage sale or something, but my mom had the idea to use them for Halloween. We do a haunted house every year and—”

“Were there any vehicles in the area when y’all found the mannequins?” I asked. “Either the first time or the next or the last? Any vehicles or people hanging around?”

Tommy scratched his thinning hair. “Come to think of it, there was a truck on the shortcut road last week when we found the rest of them.”

“What was the truck doing?”

“It was parked on the elbow of the road when we first turned off of Eighty to head home, but then it took off before we got there.”

“What did this truck look like?”

“I don’t know. It was too far away to get a good look. I think it was a dark color, but that’s about all I know. It kind of took off in a hurry, like it was scared or something.”

I mulled over what he was telling us. “You said y’all were heading home, right?”

He nodded.

“Then how’d y’all see the mannequins if they were in the ditch?” I asked. “The one we found couldn’t be seen until we were right on top of it, and that road’s not on your way home.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Tommy said, shifting his feet. “When we reached the elbow of the shortcut, we saw one of those dummies standing up in the field, so we drove to check it out.” He glanced at Dawn and then at the ground. “At first, from the distance, we thought it was a naked woman, but when we started getting closer, we saw it was another one of those dummies.”

A picture was starting to form in my head. “When you say the dummy was standing up, what do you mean?”

“Um, it looked like it was standing up on its own, but when we got closer, we saw this board pushing against it to hold it up.” He nodded, as though remembering. “It looked like somebody propped it up there as a prank or something.”

I glanced up at the last mannequin, the one with the five bullet holes in it. Suddenly, it all made sense. I turned to Tommy. “Do you mind stepping outside for a minute?”

He started to turn, but then hesitated.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Um, what’s gonna happen to my daddy and brother?” he asked. “Can y’all let them go?”

“No, they’re going to jail,” I said. “Your dad took a swing at me with a baseball bat and Teddy pointed a shotgun at me.”

“But they were defending our house.”

“They can tell that to the judge.” I indicated the door. “Now, can I have a minute alone with my partner?”

He muttered something under his breath, but turned and stormed out of the shop. I walked to the door and watched him to make sure he wasn’t heading for Arlene’s cruiser. He wasn’t, so I reentered the shop and waved Dawn over to the last mannequin.

“You see those four holes in the chest?”

Dawn nodded.

“There would’ve been six, but Tommy and Teddy interrupted the shooter,” I explained. “They saw the truck near the bend in the shortcut, and that very spot is 500 yards from where the mannequins were found. It all fits. We need to get back out there and look for spent shell casings. If we’re lucky, he left so fast that he didn’t have time to pick them up.”

“But what’s he doing?” she asked. “Do you really think he stole all of those mannequins just to destroy them?”

“That’s not why he stole them.”

“No?”

“No.” I thought it over for a few seconds and could come up with no other reason. “No, he didn’t steal them just to destroy them. He’s using them as training aids.”

“Training for what?”

“He’s gonna murder someone—a woman—and he’s gonna snipe her from 500 yards.”

CHAPTER 19

After Arlene left to transport Matthew and Teddy to the detention center, Dawn and I loaded all the mannequins in my truck and then headed back to the shortcut road. I scanned both sides as I drove, no longer searching for mannequins, but for homes with surveillance cameras facing the road. We needed to catch our suspect’s vehicle on camera, but that would only be possible if the suspect had headed toward Plymouth East once he reached Plymouth Highway, but I knew that was a long shot. The more likely choice would’ve been for him to head west and jump onto Highway Eighty. If he had taken that route, we were out of luck, because there were no houses on that stretch of road.

I slowed my truck to a stop when we reached the bend in the road—or, as Tommy had referred to it, the elbow. I stepped out and walked to the shoulder, studied the ground and then looked to the east. I held up a thumb, closed my left eye, and gauged the distance to the area where we’d located the mannequin in the canal. It was definitely 500 yards.

Dawn joined me and asked if we should walk a grid.

“It wouldn’t hurt,” I said, lowering my hand. We then began walking shoulder to shoulder, searching every inch of the road side. Keeping in mind the shots had been fired several days earlier, we moved brush, branches, trash, and anything else that might’ve covered up a spent shell casing. We had almost run out of real estate and I was starting to feel a little worried when Dawn stepped away from me and knelt to the ground.

“Hey, look over here,” she said, holding up an empty egg carton that someone had possibly thrown from a passing vehicle. “Here’s a spent shell casing—a .308 caliber.”

I cursed out loud.

“What is it?” she asked. “You don’t sound happy about this.”

“I’m not.” I squatted next to her and shook my head as I looked at the casing. It had rolled into a crack in the dirt after being fired and had remained unobserved until now. Since we’d found a casing, we now knew definitively that he had fired from that position. However, since we’d only found one and we knew at least four had been fired from that spot as recently as three days earlier, it could mean only one thing—the shooter had policed the rest of the brass before fleeing to escape the curious eyes of Tommy and Teddy Toups. I cursed again. “I really wanted to be wrong about this.”

“What were you hoping for?”

“I don’t know, but not this.” I slowly turned and searched our surroundings out to 500 yards, looking for the slightest hint of a human with a rifle. Did he know we had found his training grounds? Was he out there right now glassing us? We needed to find out who he was and what he was doing. I turned back to Dawn. “I guess I was hoping the shots had been fired from much closer to the mannequins, like twenty yards or so. That would’ve meant I was wrong about the murder plot, but I wasn’t. Whoever this shooter is, he’s been training for a long-range shot. If we don’t find out who he is in a hurry, a woman’s gonna die.”

Dawn nodded and walked to my truck to retrieve an evidence bag and some latex gloves. When she returned, she recovered the casing and packaged it. While she did that, I headed out on foot down the mud road, searching for more spent casings. Nearly fifty shots had been fired at the mannequins we had recovered. If we couldn’t find another spent shell casing, it would mean that the shooter had been picking up his brass as he trained, and that didn’t bode well for us. Unless his rifle had been used in another crime, the spent casing we found would prove useless. If the shooter did make a kill and picked up his casing, we might never be able to link him to the training grounds, and we might never be able to solve the case.

I called Sheriff Chiasson as I searched the cane road and explained what had happened out at the Toups’ residence.

“They pulled a gun on y’all?”

“Yeah, but everything turned out okay.”

The sheriff sighed and was silent for a moment.

“Matthew and his family have always been crazy,” he said. “I remember once when I was a patrol officer—”

“Sheriff, I don’t mean to cut you off,” I said, “but I think the mannequins were stolen to use as a training aid, and I think the man who stole them is preparing to murder a woman. He’s training himself to take shots from 500 yards with a rifle, and he’s getting better with every mannequin he shoots.”

“What?” The shock was evident in his voice. “Who’s he planning to kill?”

“We don’t know that yet.”

“But…are you sure?” he asked. “Do you have any evidence?”

“Nothing but a spent casing and a bunch of shot-up mannequins.” I stopped walking when I reached the culvert that I’d crossed earlier. “And a gut feeling.”

“Should we put out a press release?”

I imagined for a quick moment what that might sound like, and then shook my head. “I don’t think that would help. We have no clue who he’s targeting or if it’s even in our parish. Hell, we don’t even know if this is a man.”

“What if it’s just a hunter using them for target practice?” he offered. “Or some kids being mischievous?”

“Hunters don’t train to shoot women between the breasts,” I countered, “and I don’t know any kids who train to shoot human targets at 500 yards. There’s definitely something fishy going on.”

“Could he be a former police sniper? Or former military sniper?”

“Nah, he’s not that good.”

“Not that good?” the sheriff echoed. “You said he’s shooting women mannequins in the chest from 500 yards! That sounds pretty damned good to me.”

“He’s only average, at best, but that’s good enough to be dangerous,” I said. “With a sniper-grade rifle, match ammo, and free online videos, it would be easy for a fellow to teach himself to make torso shots at that distance.”

“Shit.” The sheriff paused for a long moment. “Do you have any leads at all? Any ideas?”

“We’ve got one shell casing and the mannequins.” I turned and looked back toward my truck, where Dawn was waiting. “With luck, we’ll find our suspect’s prints or DNA on some of it.”

“Okay, keep me posted.”

I pocketed my cell phone and took a last look around. I knew we wouldn’t find any more casings. Whether our suspect was teaching himself from a book or videos, he’d already learned one of the cardinal rules of sniper work: leave no sign behind. Luckily for us, Tommy and Teddy had interrupted his training on the previous week and he’d lost track of the one spent casing. I was hoping we’d get lucky again.

CHAPTER 20

Once Dawn and I had gotten back to the detective bureau, we’d written supplemental reports on the incident that occurred at the Toups residence and then faxed them to Arlene at the jail. She had contacted us when she’d received them and told us the judge had set Teddy’s bond at $175,000, while Matthew’s was half of that.

“They can’t afford the twelve percent, so they’ll probably stay inside until their trial,” Arlene had said. “Teddy practically begged me to tell you he was sorry, but Matthew said he would kill you when he got out.”

I had grunted. “He can try.”

After ending the call with Arlene, we had spent the rest of the afternoon in the evidence processing room. First, we processed the large surface of the spent shell casing for prints, while swabbing the edges for DNA. There were no prints, not even smudges, and this led us to believe the suspect wore gloves. If we were right, the swabs would also come back clean. Next, we began processing each of the mannequins. We located between five and a dozen prints on each mannequin, but I was certain they would come back to Tommy and Teddy—maybe even Matthew.

“I’ll pull their prints from AFIS,” Dawn said. “As soon as I have them, I’ll compare them to what we’ve found.”

“I bet we’ll be able to account for all of them.” I sighed. “This guy’s covering his tracks. He’s very careful.”

“How do we find him?”

I looked over at her and laughed, and it wasn’t because of the volcanic powder smudged on her face, but because she was asking me what to do. She had been a detective much longer than me, and she had forgotten more than I knew about the job.

“You’re the expert,” I said. “If anyone can figure this out, it’s you.”

“You’re the sniper expert, and that’s what we’re dealing with. You know how he thinks and operates. You know what it takes to train yourself to become an expert marksman. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“He’s no sniper. If he murders someone, he’ll just be another nut with a gun.”

“And if he doesn’t kill anyone?”

“Then I’ll be happy to say I was wrong.”

“You’re not often wrong,” Dawn said with a grunt, walking to the AFIS computer, “but I hope you are in this case.”

I began filling out the evidence submittal forms as she did her thing with the fingerprints. The police radio had been droning on in the background all afternoon, but things seemed relatively quiet for a weekend. That all changed around five-fifteen when a dispatcher got on the horn.

“Headquarters to 112, what’s your twenty?”

There was a sense of urgency in the dispatcher’s voice as she asked Lieutenant Jim Marshall for his location. I stopped what I was doing and glanced toward the corner table where the base radio was located. I noticed Dawn had done the same.

“Leaving Popeye’s north,” came Marshall’s reply. “Whatcha got?”

“A caller reported seeing a body in a ditch off of Highway 11 north of Chateau,” the dispatcher said. “It’s near Barrios Oilfield Supplies.”

“Ten-four, I’m en route.”

I snapped my head around to look at Dawn. “Another mannequin murder!”

She nodded and jumped to her feet. We quickly secured all of the evidence and then raced out into the parking lot. Chateau was the parish seat of Magnolia and was our most populace area. Although Highway 11 to the northeast of the city was not as well travelled as the portion of highway to the southwest, if our shooter drove through the city, we would have him dead to rights. There were surveillance cameras everywhere.

As I pulled out of the parking lot and headed north, Dawn said, “There’re hundreds of acres of cane fields north of Chateau. This fits our guy’s M.O. It has to be him.”

“Yep, we might get lucky.”

Dawn reached over and turned up the volume on my police radio. We were both eagerly awaiting Jim’s arrival at the scene. The Popeye’s was a little more than two miles from the supply shop, and we didn’t have to wait long to hear from Jim again.

“Headquarters, I’m ten-ninety-seven,” he called, letting them know he had arrived at the scene. It was obvious by the tone of his voice that he had heard about the mannequins we’d located earlier in the ditches of Plymouth East, and—like us—he was probably thinking someone had found another one.

“How long has Jim been on the job?” I asked Dawn as we raced north on Highway Three.

“Hell, it has to be thirty-three or thirty-four years. I don’t know for sure, but I know he’s well past his maturity date.”

I grunted, remembering how Lieutenant Marshall had been threatening to retire for years. He had actually started the process two years earlier, but then everything changed when his wife had beaten him to it. Instead of joining her, he’d decided to remain on the job until he died. He’d said his wife would have made him work harder at home than he did on patrol, so he figured he’d stay on the job and die well-rested.

I glanced at Dawn. I couldn’t imagine feeling that way about her. We weren’t even married yet, and I couldn’t wait to grow old and retire with her. If I had it my way, we would—

“Oh, shit, Headquarters!” Lieutenant Marshall suddenly cried over his radio, interrupting my thoughts. “Get me an ambulance ASAP! There’s a body in the ditch! I don’t know if she’s alive or not, but there’s a lot of blood. It looks like she’s been hit by a car. Hurry! Get me some help!”

CHAPTER 21

As soon as I’d heard Lieutenant Marshall’s cry over the radio, I had flipped the switch on my lights and siren and drove to the northern part of the parish in record time. I had hopped onto Highway Eighty, where the traffic was lighter. We were turning onto Highway Eleven when Dawn received a call from Sheriff Chiasson. She switched it to speaker.

“Did y’all get there yet?” he asked.

“A few minutes out,” Dawn replied.

“I called Jim. He says it’s Gayle who was hit.”

Dawn and I traded glances. I didn’t recognize the name, and neither did she.

“Gayle?” Dawn asked.

“Yeah, Gayle Barrios—Truck Barrios’ daughter.” The sheriff let out a long sigh. “Truck’s one of our biggest supporters, and he’s a good friend. I’m heading to his house now to make the notification myself. Let me know when y’all pull her from the ditch. I don’t want him seeing his daughter like that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Dawn…”

“Yes, sheriff?”

“Find the son of a bitch who hit her.”

“Yes, sir.”

I frowned. While we hadn’t arrived on the scene yet, I already doubted that she had been hit by a car. It was too coincidental that a woman was found dead or injured in a ditch in the same type of area where mannequins with bullet holes had been turning up in ditches. The two had to be related.

Highway Eleven was a four-lane highway for a little over two and a half miles before turning into a two-lane road, and we had made excellent time until we reached the bottleneck. Traffic was at a standstill. I cautiously made my way around the last car in the long line and sped forward. However, I hadn’t gone far when I had to veer roughly onto the shoulder to avoid a head-on collision with an impatient driver who had turned around in traffic and was heading back toward the city.

I was too busy trying to tightrope the narrow shoulder, so Dawn cursed out the driver for me. Before long, we arrived on the scene and stopped behind an ambulance that was parked behind Lieutenant Marshall’s marked cruiser. A despondent Jim Marshall was standing in the middle of the road staring toward the ditch, where the heads and shoulders of two medics could be seen hovering over what had to be Gayle Barrios. She was out of sight from our vantage point, which made me wonder how a passerby had seen her. I glanced over at Jim. His large frame was slumped slightly forward and his face was pale.

I scowled as I stepped from my truck and followed Dawn to where Jim stood. He looked over at us and shook his head.

“Who would do something like this, y’all?” He indicated the ditch. “They ran her over like a dog or a deer and just left her here to die.”

“She wasn’t hit by no car, L.T.,” one of the medics called over a shoulder. “She’s been shot, and it looks like some kind of rifle was used. The bullet went through and through. We didn’t move her, but when I lifted her shirt to put the leads on her back, I saw the bullet hole. It looks like the kind of exit wounds I get when I shoot a deer with my .30-06.”

A searing pain shot through my gut and I felt the hair on my neck stand on end. My worst fear had just come true.

Without wasting another second, I quickly scanned the horizon in all directions. To the northeast was the open road. The nearest house was eighty yards away and it was on the same side of the road as Barrios Oilfield Supplies. Forty yards farther, and on the left, the barren cane fields turned to forest. To the northwest were open cane fields that stretched for almost 1500 yards. The shooter could’ve been standing anywhere along that stretch and taken the shot. To the left of the fields were a few houses, and a shot could’ve come from there as well. I then turned to the south and my eyes narrowed when I saw a water tower looming ominously above the world.

I felt Dawn turn to look at me as I rushed back to my truck, but I didn’t offer an explanation. At that very moment, any one of us could have crosshairs trained on our chest or head.

With the smooth dexterity born of a million repetitions, I removed my Accuracy International sniper rifle from its case and dropped to a kneeling position near the rear bumper of my truck. Cranking my scope to its highest power, I quickly attained proper eye relief and glassed the dome of the water tower. A large black and blue sign that read Welcome to Chateau was painted across the white surface. I quickly searched within the dark lettering for any openings. I knew there was a hatch somewhere on the exterior of the dome, but a quick scan of the entire surface told me it wasn’t open. There were two possible spots that could be the hatch and I studied each one carefully, but there was no movement from either area.

Next, I made a careful inspection of the roof of the dome and then down the neck, but found nothing. A cell tower was located to the left of the water tower, but a quick scan up and down the giant digit protruding from the ground showed it to be free of a shooter. I was reaching for my radio when I heard a thick Cajun voice call out from behind me.

“Hey, London, you need my help?”

I knew without looking that one of my newest snipers, Andrew Hacker, had walked up. In addition to being a sniper, he worked as a patrol deputy on Lieutenant Marshall’s shift.

“Yes!” I pointed toward the water tower. “Can you set up right here and keep an eye on that water tower? It’s about 440 yards out. I’m not positive the shot came from there, but it’s the highest point around here and the most likely spot. I need you to cover us while we process the scene.”

“Sure thing!”

I maintained my visual on the tower until Andrew returned with his rifle and took my place. When I stood, I saw two deputies stretching crime scene tape across the road southwest of the scene. I nodded my approval and called Headquarters on my cell phone. I asked the dispatcher who answered to send a couple of deputies to guard the base of the tower until I could break free from the scene.

“We need the entire area secured,” I said. “I’m pretty sure the shooting came from the tower, and we need that place preserved until we can process it.”

“Ten-four,” the dispatcher said, and began relaying my request over the radio to several deputies who were making their way to the northern part of the parish from the central sector.

Once the word had been put out, I secured my rifle in my truck and joined Dawn. She was photographing the body in the ditch when I walked up. Jim had roped off the road to the northeast with yellow tape and the two medics were packing up their gear.

I stopped beside Dawn and got my first glimpse of Gayle Barrios. She was lying head-first in a prone position in the ditch, with her feet extending upward at an awkward angle away from her body. It appeared as though she had slid down the embankment head-first and died in that position.

Gayle wore a thin dark blue blouse that had a jagged hole torn through the back. There was a dark, irregular-shaped stain soaked into the fabric around the bullet hole. To the untrained eye, it might be mistaken for water or sweat against the dark color, but I knew it was blood.

I cursed under my breath. I wouldn’t be able to see the front of Gayle’s body until we finished documenting her position with photos, sketches, and measurements, but I knew the bullet had entered directly between her breasts—exactly like the mannequins.

Dawn pointed to some claw marks and a trail of blood in the earth along the graveled shoulder of the road. They led from the base of the mailbox to where Gayle rested.

“It looks like she dragged herself into the ditch,” Dawn said. “My guess is she was approaching that mailbox when she was shot. I checked the box and it’s got today’s mail inside. Gayle must’ve realized she’d been shot. It seems like she was trying to take cover in the ditch. Unfortunately for her, that first shot was enough to kill her, and her movement probably delayed her discovery. It’s almost impossible to see her from a passing car. She would’ve died either way, but we might’ve received the call faster had she stayed where she fell.”

I glanced toward the road and then back at her, remembering how I couldn’t see her when we first drove up. “That’s a good point.”

“What is?” Dawn asked.

“It’s impossible to see her from the road in a passing car. You’d have to be walking or riding a bike to see her.” I pulled out my cell phone and called Headquarters again. Julie, a long-time dispatcher, answered on the first ring.

“Hey, London, we’ve got two deputies en route to the tower,” she said. “They should be there within minutes.”

I thanked her and then asked about the complaint that was called in about the dead woman.

“What about it?” Julie asked.

“Do you have a name of the complainant and do you know if they were on foot or riding a bike when they found the woman?”

“No, they didn’t leave a name.”

“They?” I echoed. “Was it a man or woman?”

“Amber took the call, and she said it was hard to tell. Want to talk to her?”

“Please.” It took a few seconds for Amber to get on the phone. When she did, I asked if she could tell if a man or woman had made the call.

“I couldn’t really tell,” she said. “The voice sounded muffled, like they were talking through a rag or something.”

“Did they sound like they were trying to intentionally disguise their voice, or did it sound like they were wearing a mask over their face? Or could you even tell?”

“It sounded like both,” she said. “It sounded like they had on some kind of mask, but it also sounded like they were trying to change their voice. Like, it seemed as though they were trying to make it sound manlier—gruffer—and they seemed to be doing it intentionally.”

“So, do you think it was a woman trying to sound like a man?”

“I don’t really know for sure. It was hard to tell.” She took a breath. “I’m really sorry. I guess I should’ve gotten more—”

“Don’t apologize,” I said quickly. “You did great. Do you remember exactly what they said?”

“Well, they just said they saw a body in the ditch off of Highway Eleven,” she explained. “They said it was near Barrios Oilfield Supplies. That’s about it. I asked if they were sure it was a body and they said they were positive. I asked if they had stopped to check, but they said they hadn’t. When I asked for their name and contact information, they just told me to hurry up and then ended the call.”

“Shit!” I muttered.

“What is it?” Amber asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Not at all,” I said in a reassuring voice. “I just think the murderer might’ve called it in.”

“Oh, no! Why would they do that?”

“I’m not sure.” My mind began to go over the possibilities, but none of them brought me any closer to figuring out who had done this. “Amber, can you pull the recording and make a copy for Dawn and me? You can email it to us.”

“That’s just it,” she said. “We don’t have a recording.”

“What?”

“Yeah, they didn’t call on any of the emergency lines,” she said. “They called on one of the unrecorded lines.”

“I’ll be damned.” I thanked Amber and ended the call, shaking my head as I did so. Lots of people had access to our unrecorded lines, so that alone did nothing to narrow down our suspect pool. However, it did tell me something about the killer—he or she was being very careful, and that was consistent with the habits of the person who had stolen and shot the mannequins.

CHAPTER 22

When I ended my call with Amber, I told Dawn what I’d learned. She cursed under her breath. “This gets better and better,” she mumbled.

I nodded and indicated Gayle with a nod of my head. “How long ago do you think she was shot?”

“She’s still warm to the touch and very flexible, so it hasn’t been long.” She bent closer to examine the blood stains on the ground. She moved a tuft of grass that protruded up from a tiny pool of blood and then nodded. “I’d say she hasn’t been dead longer than an hour.”

I surveyed the crowd that was starting to gather on opposite ends of the crime scene. Not only had people left their cars to walk to the edge of the yellow tape on their respective sides of the scene, but residents had also left their homes to see what was going on. Could the killer be among them? Would he or she be that careless after all of the other precautions he or she had taken? The Toups boys were sure they had seen a man on the shortcut road, but from the distance they’d seen him, was it possible they had been mistaken? I knew it was possible and I knew we needed to document everyone at the scene.

“Dawn,” I said out of the side of my mouth, “we need pictures of the crowd. I’m gonna grab my camera from my truck and approach the crowd on the other side. As soon as you see me lift it, start shooting this side. Let’s see if we can scare some rabbits out of the bushes.”

She nodded her understanding and continued her examination of the scene while I sauntered off toward my truck. Shielding the camera with my body, I turned it on and adjusted the setting to the burst mode. Once I had it firmly in my hand, I came out like a gunfighter, spraying the crowd with automatic shutter fire. To my surprise, not a single person seemed bothered that I was photographing them. They just stood there staring past me, trying to catch a glimpse of the woman in the ditch. Most of them held up their cell phones and videoed everything that was taking place.

I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see a short bald man with thick glasses pushing his way to the front of the group. I recognized him as Larry Wells, a reporter with the Daily Magnolia Times. He was a pesky little dude, like a bionic gnat that was resistant to Skin So Soft and 100% deet.

“Sergeant Carter,” Larry hollered when he noticed me, “is this murder related to the Mannequin Slayer case?”

“The what case?” I asked.

Larry aimed the mic of his tiny digital recorder in my direction. “The Mannequin Slayer case—you know, the case involving the man that’s going around killing mannequins. Is this part of his handiwork? Do you have a lead on his identity? Can we expect an arrest soon? Has the victim been identified?”

I wanted to ask where he’d heard about the mannequin case, but I wasn’t about to confirm anything. My job didn’t involve media relations—if it did, I would quit—so I ignored him and turned away from the crowd with a shake of my head. His next question stopped me dead in my tracks.

“Is it true you killed the young girl at the school last week?” he asked, his tone accusing. “Is it true she was only there to kill her abusive stepfather?”

I slowly turned to face him. He gulped, and I realized my expression was hard. A hush had suddenly fallen over the crowd and I felt all eyes on me. I took a breath and relaxed my features. After a long moment, I nodded slightly. Someone gasped. Larry’s mouth fell open, as though he weren’t expecting an answer. And if he had been expecting one, he probably thought it would be a denial.

Without saying another word, I tossed my camera in my truck and headed back to the primary scene, my thoughts suddenly returning to that fateful day. I saw Jennifer’s face as clearly as I was looking at the road at my feet. I would’ve given anything to go back to that day in the workshop. In an instant, I had perceived a threat and taken decisive action. I had acted in accordance with years of training and experience. Under the eyes of the law, I had been totally justified, but that did nothing to ease the aching in my chest.

When I met up with Dawn again, I took a breath to clear my mind and then asked if she’d noticed anyone suspicious on her end of the street. She shook her head as she placed her camera in the crime scene box at her feet. “No one cared that I was photographing them. I even had a few idiots pose for the pictures and throw fake gang signs.”

“Same here.” I turned back toward the body of Gayle Barrios. I was grateful that Lieutenant Marshall had moved his cruiser across the highway to block the crowd’s view of her body. Although she was hard to see in the ditch, I would not want even the slightest chance of my family member’s body being exposed to the public in that manner. All it took was one irresponsible dumb ass and her picture would be floating around the internet forever and ever.

While Dawn began sketching the scene, I squatted low and studied Gayle more carefully. I gauged her height between five-five and five-seven, which would put the bullet hole between her breasts around the four-three mark. I straightened and snatched a measuring tape from the crime scene box. Standing in the spot where the blood trail and claw marks began, I placed the dumb end of the tape against the ground and extended it out to four feet, three inches.

Standing directly behind the tape, I lined up the top of it with the center of the water tower to gauge the angle, which was approximately five degrees. I then turned and completed the angle in the opposite direction, eyeballing the spot where it would meet up with the ground. It was almost forty feet away from where the bullet would’ve impacted Gayle’s body, but after allowing for a tremendous loss of energy, I guesstimated a runway between ten and thirty feet from impact. Lieutenant Marshall’s truck was twenty yards away, so it afforded me lots of room to work.

Detectives Rachael Bowler and Abraham Wilson arrived a few seconds after I’d begun to search for the projectile, and I directed them to Dawn.

“I think she’s about ready to start measuring the scene,” I said. “She can use some help.”

They both nodded and went right to work. Meanwhile, I got on my hands and knees and conducted a meticulous search that consisted of six-inch imaginary grids. The shoulder of the road was uneven and bare in places and the gravel was a mix of colors, including gray, making it the ideal place for a tiny piece of lead to disappear.

I had crawled about twenty feet when I saw a severely distorted pebble that looked different from the smooth ones I’d been seeing. Sure enough, it was a mangled piece of lead and most likely the projectile that had penetrated Gayle’s body.

“Damn it!” I muttered, bending close to inspect it. The killer, whoever he or she had been, had apparently used a boat tail hollow point bullet instead of a typical hunting bullet, which meant we would only recover tiny fragments of the round and not nearly enough to later compare to a rifle—if we ever made an arrest and recovered the murder weapon. Had a good hunting cartridge been used, the base of the bullet would’ve remained intact and we would’ve been able to easily match it to a rifle later.

The choice of cartridge also meant we were dealing with someone who wanted to emulate a sniper. While the shooter was average, at best, he or she wasn’t taking his or her lessons from hunting books or videos—they came from the sniper community or some other precision shooting community. Hunters didn’t use boat tail hollow point bullets because of the lack of penetration, and law enforcement snipers didn’t use hunting ammo because of over-penetration issues. I shook my head as I continued searching, not liking where the evidence seemed to be taking us.

I found several more slivers of lead and marked the location of each so Dawn and the others could map them out in the crime scene sketch. Once that was done and I was satisfied the shot had come from the water tower, I turned my attention in that direction.

CHAPTER 23

After stopping briefly to let Dawn know where I was headed, I strode to my truck and asked Andrew if there had been any movement from the water tower.

“Nothing,” he said. “I haven’t even seen a bird in that airspace. If he was there at some point, he’s long gone now.”

I nodded. “Okay, come with me. We’ll check it out.”

Andrew quickly unfolded himself from his kneeling position, placed his rifle in the back seat of my truck, and then climbed in with me. After turning my truck around in the road, I waved for a deputy to lift the crime scene tape and push the onlookers back so we could leave the scene. Larry Wells shouted questions at my closed window as I crept past the crowd, but I didn’t even look in his direction.

“The crowd seems to be getting thicker,” Andrew said. “There were about thirty people when I first got here. I bet there’re over a hundred now.”

He was right. The sooner we could wrap up the investigation at the scene, the better. The crowd wasn’t rowdy, but word of what happened would spread like a wildfire across a dry cane field, and the longer Gayle’s body was out there, the better the chances were that someone might get a picture of her.

I scanned both sides of the road as I drove to the water tower, but saw nothing of interest. After travelling about 300 yards, we came to a bridge that crossed Bayou Onion, which was a five-mile waterway that snaked from east to west and merged with other bayous on either end. It was about seventy feet wide and could handle a decent sized boat, so I paused on the bridge and considered the possibility that the killer had come and gone on the water. I leaned to my right and checked the bayou to the west, but there were no signs that a vessel had been through there in a while. I turned left, but a line of cars obstructed my view.

Andrew realized what I wanted and gave a nod. He dropped to the road, made his way around the front of my truck, slipped between two stopped vehicles, and leaned on the opposite railing.

The driver of one of the trucks nodded his head at me. “Is it true someone got shot?”

Knowing that information was not top secret, I nodded.

“Who is it?” he asked.

I pursed my lips. “You know I can’t say that.”

He shrugged. “It was worth a try.”

When Andrew rejoined me, he shook his head. “It doesn’t look like anybody’s been through there in a while. There’s even algae on the water that hasn’t been disturbed.”

I continued the drive. To our right, trees, underbrush and vines grew thick along the shoulder of the road, while the left opened up into cane fields. I stopped when we came upon the water tower. There was a six-foot cyclone fence surrounding it. A shell road led from Highway Eleven to a double gate situated on the nearest side of the square-shaped fence, and two SWAT deputies were stationed near the gate guarding it. They had cleared a section of highway in front of the tower, and it was in that open area that I parked my truck.

I grabbed a handful of latex gloves, and passed several to Andrew. I then led the way down the shell road. Jack Charlet, one of the SWAT deputies, had his Dodge Charger parked across the road and he shook my hand when I reached him.

“The gate’s locked,” he said, shooting his thumb in that direction. “We jumped the fence when we first got here and checked the door to the tower. It’s locked, too.”

I pondered that information as I studied the outside of the tower. The outer surface was smooth and the base was bell-bottom-shaped, so there was no way to traverse it from the outside. I scowled. Was I wrong about the shooter’s location? I couldn’t be. The tower lined up perfectly with the victim’s original location and the spot where I’d found the projectile.

“This has to be it, right?” Andrew asked, rubbing his square jowls. “I took a good look around and it’s the only high ground from where the shot could’ve been fired.”

I nodded my agreement. After mulling it over for a moment, I had an idea. I pulled out my phone and called dispatch. Julie answered again.

“What’s up, London?” she asked. “Are you ready for the coroner’s office?”

“Yeah, you can send them this way,” I said. “Dawn and all shouldn’t be too much longer. Also, I need someone from the parish to come out here to the water tower. I need the keys to the gate and the access hatch.”

“Hold the line.”

I did, and after about five minutes, she came back on.

“A supervisor will be there in ten minutes,” she said. “He’s coming from the opposite side of town. I also called the coroner’s office. They’ll have a wagon out there within the hour.”

I thanked her and relayed the information to Andrew and Jack.

“Do you still need us here?” Jack asked. “We were running some interdiction when they called us. It’s a paid detail, so we need to get back to it as soon as we can.”

I told him we were good and thanked him for the help. Once they had driven off, I began ambling toward the highway so I could get a better look up at the water tower. I was staring down at the ground as I walked, and then abruptly stopped. I stared for a moment, trying to make sure of what I was seeing.

“What is it?” Andrew asked.

I scanned the ground around me and shook my head. “We didn’t drive over this patch of ground, and neither did Jack, right?”

Andrew nodded and pointed toward the driveway. “We turned in over there.”

“Then who disturbed this rock?” I pointed down to a triangle-shaped hole in the ground where a rock had previously been. The matching rock was several inches to the west, with the bottom turned up. I looked toward the highway. It was about eight feet from where I stood. There was no way a vehicle had run this far off the road. I nodded. “Someone definitely ran through here and away from the water tower. They kicked up this rock as they ran.”

“You think it’s the shooter?”

I squatted and looked at the triangle-shaped rock more closely. There were still loose specks of dirt attached to it. The first good blast of wind would blow it clean.

“It’s definitely fresh,” I said. “If the shooter didn’t kick it up, it’s either someone with him or someone who heard the shot and ran for their lives.” I pointed past the rock to the thick trees and underbrush on the opposite side of the highway. “And that’s where they headed.”

I noticed Andrew’s hand move closer to his pistol. “Do you think he’s hiding in there?”

“If he is, we’re screwed.”

“What’re we gonna do?”

I sat motionless for a long moment, trying to penetrate the thick foliage with my eyes. If a passerby had heard the shot and took out running in that direction, there was a good chance the shooter had claimed a second victim. If the shooter had kicked over the rock as he fled from the scene, it could mean that he was on foot. Otherwise, it would’ve been better to park a vehicle behind the water tower and then speed off as soon as the shot had been fired.

If the shooter were on foot, the best way to remain unseen would be to bed down near the scene and wait for all the commotion to end. It’s the last thing first responders would expect. What I knew so far about our suspect was that he was evolving over time. His accuracy had improved, so he was either reading books or watching videos on sniping or long-range shooting. If he was studying marksmanship as it related to sniping, he was no doubt studying other aspects of the profession, such as fieldcraft and stalking. If he had learned to make his own Ghillie suit, he could’ve crossed the street and immersed himself in the thick underbrush, where he could remain invisible to almost anyone passing by.

By the time I spoke again, I had painstakingly studied a large swath of area along the tree line. I didn’t detect a shape or color out of place, and the only movement had been an occasional rustle of a leaf or blade of grass from the calm wind. As it were, the sun was beginning to set, and it would be too dark to see anything soon. If we were going to move, we’d have to do it right away.

“I’m gonna cross the road and try to find this asshole’s trail out of here,” I told Andrew. “Grab my AR-10 and take cover. If he shoots me, I want you to fill him so full of bullets that his great-grandma will die of lead poisoning.”

Andrew didn’t say a word. True to his training, he immediately jumped into action.

CHAPTER 24

As soon as I crossed Highway Eleven, I dropped to a squatting position and studied the ground in front of me. I smiled to myself. While our suspect might be putting himself through school, he was still a rank amateur. When making his escape, he had tried to stick to the short grass on the shoulder of the road until he’d reached a windthrown tree that crossed the canal to the west, but a smashed blade of grass here and a disturbed pebble there highlighted his route.

Once I reached the tree, I was able to find a few boot scuffmarks on the dried trunk, and there were even a few places where the brittle bark had broken free under his weight. As I made my way across the tree, I kept my head on a swivel and my hand near my pistol. Andrew would not be able to see through the trees and to the opposite side of the canal, so there was little chance he would be able to kill the gunman if he took me out—and that didn’t bode well with me. If I was to be taken out, I wanted my murderer to travel with me to the other side so I could exact my revenge.

On one hand, I felt like I deserved whatever might be coming my way. I had lived by the sword my entire adult life and I’d always known it was possible I might someday die by the same sword, but I never thought I deserved it. However, ever since I’d struck down that young and innocent woman, I wasn’t so sure. Everyone paid for their sins, and I knew I’d someday pay for that one. I just didn’t know if it would be before Dawn and I got married or afterward. Would it be before I sired a child? While I was starting to grow fond of the idea of married life and becoming a father, I didn’t know if I wanted to leave behind a fatherless child. I had lost my dad and the rest of my family, and it had been damaging. I didn’t want the same fate to befall my offspring—

A dove suddenly burst from the underbrush to my left and shot toward the sky. While I was not one to start easy, my heart jumped to my throat and nearly choked me. I paused and took a breath, cursing myself silently for losing focus, even for a moment.

I quickly regained my bearings and saw that I had made my way to the opposite side of the canal. I looked left and right before stepping down from the windthrown tree. I found myself on a dry dirt road that skirted the edge of the canal and wrapped around a large plot of barren cane fields. By the time spring rolled around, the field would become alive with fresh stalks shooting up from the fertile ground, but at the moment, it looked like a wasteland.

I heard movement behind me and turned in time to see Andrew making his descent from the fallen tree.

“I lost sight of you,” he explained. “I didn’t like that.”

I nodded my thanks and pointed to a faint set of tire tracks on the dusty ground. The dust was not deep enough for tires to leave behind tread patterns, but it did offer evidence that a vehicle had been through there.

“It’s recent,” I said, pointing toward the setting sun. “He could’ve followed this road all the way to the city and no one would’ve seen him because of the trees lining the highway. There’s no telling where he went and where he is now.”

“Want me to start driving around looking for him?”

I nodded. We didn’t have a description of the vehicle, but it wouldn’t hurt for someone to follow the same path the suspect had followed. “Jump on this dirt road and follow those dirt tracks as far as you can,” I said, reaching for my keys. “You can drive my truck to yours. I’ll search this area before it gets dark and then I’ll walk back to the scene.”

“Nah, keep your truck. I’ll walk to my unit.”

I thanked him and began searching the dirt road carefully. There were four tire indentions that were deeper than the trail, and I knew this was where the vehicle had been parked while the shooter committed his murderous act. I pulled out my cell phone and photographed the tracks, with plans to come back and measure the wheelbase and track of the vehicle as soon as I met up with Dawn again. It could later become a crucial piece of evidence.

Next, I searched both sides and the rear of where the vehicle had been parked, looking for anything that might’ve fallen when the shooter had beaten his hasty retreat. It was easy to see that the ground was clear, but it was a different matter in the underbrush. The sun had dipped behind the distant trees and shadows were growing longer, so I quickly returned to my truck to retrieve a flashlight.

As I was crossing the highway again, I saw the coroner’s van approaching, so I called Dawn.

“Are you done with the scene?”

“Yeah,” she said wearily. “I called the coroner’s office about twenty minutes ago. I’m hoping they get here soon.”

“They’re arriving now.” I paused when I reached the fallen tree. “What’s wrong?”

“Truck Barrios refused to stay with the sheriff and he showed up here in a rage.”

“Oh, shit!”

“Yeah, we had to hold him back.” She sighed. “It was really sad. He was bawling like a newborn, flailing his arms and trying to pull away from us to get to Gayle. I wouldn’t have cared, but we hadn’t finished documenting the scene.”

“Isn’t he a big man?” Although I’d never met him, I’d once heard that when he was first born one of the nurses had commented that he was as big as a truck, so his dad rolled with it, making it his official name.

“He’s big and strong,” she said. “Thank God Jim was here. He was too strong for Abraham and me to control. We would’ve been forced to hurt the man if Jim hadn’t wrapped his arms around him and taken a seat on the ground.”

A chuckle escaped my throat at the image of Jim grabbing a man and squatting to the ground. It was probably the first time in twenty years he’d been forced to put his hands on someone.

“Is Jim okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, everyone’s fine. Mr. Barrios finally settled down. After Abraham and Rachael cleared the office, Jim took him inside to wait. That’s where he’s at now.”

I gave Dawn a quick rundown of what I’d found so far and how Andrew was tracking the vehicle. “When you’re done, can you meet me here?” I asked. “I want to measure the wheelbase and track of the getaway vehicle.”

She told me she would and we ended the call.

I once again picked my way carefully across the fallen tree, except this time I used my flashlight to penetrate the thick underbrush that grew under and around the giant trunk. When I reached the portion of the tree that spanned the water, I quickened my pace. If anything had fallen in the drink, it would take black water divers a month of Sundays to recover it—if at all. The murky water and soft mud of the south Louisiana swamps had been known to swallow up entire vehicles and never give them back.

Once I was over land again, I continued my search. I paused often to push branches or vines away to make a hole big enough to allow my beam of light to stretch all the way to the ground. I had almost run out of real estate when my light glinted briefly off of something that lay deep beneath the thicket.

I immediately stopped and shined my light back and forth in the same area, trying to relocate the shiny object. After almost a minute of fruitless searching, I finally saw the glint again. I was ready for it this time, and held the light on the exact spot while I slowly lowered myself from the tree trunk and into the chest-high underbrush.

Once my feet were firmly on solid ground, I eased myself to a crouch, pushing picker bushes and thorny vines away from my clothes and face on my way down. Finally, I pulled a latex glove over my right hand and forced it through a gnarled entanglement of underbrush and crept around on the forest floor until my fingers bumped against something smooth. When I scooped it up, I knew instantly by the shape and size that it was a live cartridge—a .308 bullet.

A live cartridge wasn’t as valuable to me as a spent casing, but I would take anything at that moment. I eased my hand back through the underbrush and turned my palm upward after I’d pulled the cartridge free.

“No shit!” I said out loud. Everything was falling into place, and not in a good way. As I’d figured, the suspect was using boat-tail hollow-point ammunition, which police snipers used almost exclusively. If the killer was using match grade ammunition, then he must’ve gotten his hands on a quality rifle. He was obtaining training from somewhere and he was making shots out to 500 yards. He had practiced on gender-specific life-sized mannequins, and in a similar location as the one he’d chosen for his actual kill. He was picking up his spent casings and hadn’t left behind any fingerprints or DNA. He had planned his escape route carefully and had managed to come and go undetected. He was doing everything right, and that was scary.

I didn’t know who the killer was or why he had murdered Gayle Barrios—if, indeed, it was a he—but I knew one thing for certain: things were only going to get worse.

CHAPTER 25

After dragging a large log across the road on either end of the tire impressions to preserve the evidence, I made my way across the downed tree and looked up to see a white truck parked near my own. When I saw the logo for the Magnolia Parish Government printed on the driver’s door, I remembered the parish worker who was supposed to meet me at the water tower to unlock the gate and hatch. I gave him a wave and started to stride across the highway, but headlights stopped me in my tracks.

I waited on my side of the road until the vehicle pulled up beside me. It was Rachael Bowler’s unmarked unit. When the passenger side window buzzed down, Dawn smiled up at me and asked, “Need a ride, stranger? I’ve got candy.”

I smiled at her joke, but only briefly. “How’s Mr. Barrios?”

“He’s a wreck.” The playfulness left her expression. “The sheriff and Jim are with him. I think they plan on staying with him for a while.”

I glanced at the headlights behind Rachael’s unit. I could make out a white van and it looked like a man was driving it. “Is that the coroner’s investigator?” I asked, indicating the vehicle with a nod of my head.

“Yeah, he’s bringing her to the morgue. He said Dr. Fitch will do the autopsy first thing in the morning. Of course, it’s only a formality at this point. We know what killed her.” Dawn placed a finger between her upper breasts. “She was shot right here. I’m pretty sure it hit her heart directly, but even if it didn’t, the energy from the round destroyed everything in the vicinity.”

I was glad the driver wasn’t Starla. I turned back to Dawn. “Did you find anything in the office?”

“Nothing suspicious,” she said. “There was no evidence that anyone went through the place, so it looks like a hit-and-run shooting.”

“That makes sense. From here, it looks like the killer fired the shot, raced across the highway, and disappeared into the cane fields. He didn’t hang around to take one of those selfies that people are always doing nowadays.” I shot a thumb in the direction from which she’d come. “Did you take anything from her work station?”

“We took the Rolodex, her cell phone, and her purse to review at the office,” she said. “Mr. Barrios is pulling the phone records from the business for us. He also gave us a list of friends and acquaintances. Hopefully, we’ll be able to pull something from that rubble. Maybe get lucky and find someone with a motive to want her dead. If we can just get a name, we might be able to start connecting the dots.”

I nodded and straightened. Someone had gone through a lot of trouble to kill this woman. Only, I didn’t really believe the killer had spent all of his time and energy training to kill one woman. If my gut was right, he was just getting started.

“What is it?” Dawn asked, a quizzical expression on her face.

I shared my thoughts with her and Rachael. Dawn grunted.

Rachael said, “God, I hope you’re wrong.”

“Me, too.”

“Where’re the tire marks?” Dawn asked. “We need to get this done so we can start combing over everything we picked up. If you’re right, we need to find him fast, before he can kill again.”

“The tracks are on that cane field road opposite the canal,” I said, shooting a thumb over my shoulder. I then pointed toward the city along Highway Eleven. “When you reach the curve in the highway, keep straight on that extension road. There’ll be a culvert bridge right past the intersection. Once you jump over, just head back this way. I put a log in the road so Rachael doesn’t run over the tracks.”

“Gee, thanks,” Rachael said with a playful smirk.

I stepped back and they drove off. I waved at the coroner’s investigator and stared at the back of the van as it drove by, wondering why the bastard in the tower had killed that poor woman.

I heard another vehicle approaching and turned to see Abraham’s unit pull up and stop in front of me.

“Need help?” Abraham asked.

“Sure,” I said. “Pull in behind that parish truck, and let’s go see if we can’t find some fingerprints or DNA.”

He nodded and whipped his unit onto the shell road while I walked across the highway and shook hands with the parish worker. He introduced himself as Seth Pills.

“I didn’t touch anything,” he said, his voice shaking a little. “They…they told me not to do anything until I talked to you.”

I nodded and held out a hand. “Can I have the keys to the padlock?”

“Yes, sir.” He handed me the thick key ring he was holding. “It’s the one with the blue rubber coating.”

Abraham walked up holding a flashlight, and he followed me to the gate. Seth didn’t even attempt to join us. He seemed spooked, and I was fine with it. I didn’t want him touching anything or trampling the ground where we walked. I had already checked the pathway leading up to the gate earlier and hadn’t found anything of evidentiary value.

After donning a pair of latex gloves, and working by the glow of Abraham’s flashlight, I shoved the key in the lock and turned. Nothing happened. I pulled the key out, reinserted it, and tried twisting it again. Still, nothing happened. I wriggled it back and forth, but it was stuck.

“Hey, Seth,” I called over my shoulder. “Are you sure this is the right key?”

“It’s the one with the blue rubber coating,” he called, making no attempt to approach us.

“Can you come here?” I asked.

He didn’t answer, but I heard his boots trudging through the loose shells. I turned away from the gate so he could see the padlock with the key still in it.

“Is this the right key?” I asked. “It’s the only one with the blue rubber coating.”

“That’s the right key,” Seth said, his face twisted in confusion, “but that’s not our padlock.”

CHAPTER 26

“What?” I blinked and stared at Seth. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, that’s not our padlock.” He shook his head for emphasis. “I don’t know what’s going on, but we used silver padlocks on this water tower, and that one’s gold.”

“Is it possible someone else changed the locks?” I asked. “Like, maybe your supervisor?”

“I’m the foreman. I run all operations in the field. My boss sits in an office. He never gets out.” He shook his head again. “No one else has keys to the water towers. In fact, I bought those locks myself. I got the three-pack so we could use the same key for the gate, the door, and the hatch.”

“No way,” I mumbled, looking back down. Had our killer changed the locks? It’s what I would have done if I wanted to climb a water tower and not be disturbed while I planned a murder. “Seth, do you have bolt cutters in your truck?”

“Yes, sir.” He didn’t wait for me to request them. He abruptly turned and hurried away. I heard metal banging against the bed of the pickup, and when he returned, he was holding a pair of cutters big enough to snap a railroad spike in two.

Within a second, I’d snapped the shank and carefully removed the lock. Abraham retrieved several evidence bags from his unit and held one open.

“If he changed this lock, he probably changed all of them,” he offered.

I nodded. “Exactly what I’m thinking.”

Once we were inside the fenced enclosure, Abraham and I carefully pushed our way through the tall weeds, searching the ground as best we could with our flashlights, while I lugged the large bolt cutters with us.

“Why hasn’t the grass in here been cut?” I asked Seth. “Y’all usually do a good job keeping up the parish grounds.”

“This tower has been under maintenance all winter long,” he called from the shell road. “We’re having a hard time finding a part for the pump.”

I nodded, but didn’t say anything. Although it was January and cool, mosquitoes buzzed around us and dug their tiny needles into every exposed piece of flesh they could find. I ignored them and didn’t stop until we reached the large metal door located on the exterior wall of the tower. It was secured with the same type of padlock we’d seen on the gate.

I pursed my lips and made a quick snap with the bolt cutters. Abraham searched the ground carefully while I removed the lock and placed it in an evidence bag.

“It doesn’t look like he left anything behind,” he said with a grumble.

“That seems to be his M.O.”

The heavy door protested angrily when I pulled on it, and it let out a long groan when I forced it open an inch. I moved to the crack in the doorway and checked it for booby traps. I was putting nothing past this killer. He was putting a lot of effort into covering his tracks, so it wouldn’t be a leap to think he would want to blow up any evidence he might’ve left behind.

“It’s clear,” I said, and put my shoulder into the door. Once it was open, I searched the open space inside the tower carefully before entering and taking a wide step to my left. “Let’s take the long way around to the ladder. He might’ve left behind some boot prints.”

Abraham nodded and followed my lead. When we reached the ladder, I shined my light up into the darkness overhead, my right hand hovering next to my pistol. I knew the suspect was gone, but I didn’t trust him.

“I’m going up,” I said, shoving my flashlight in my back pocket. “Can you light the way?”

“Sure.” Abraham aimed his beam of light up to the catwalk above and I began my careful ascent, using one hand while holding the bolt cutters in the other.

After what seemed like forever, I reached the landing at the top and made my way to the chute. I pulled out my flashlight and searched my surroundings. Sure enough, there was a gold padlock holding the chute in place. As I cut it, I wondered why the killer would lock up behind him. Was he planning to return to that spot and kill again? Or was he hoping we would see the padlock and assume he hadn’t entered the water tower?

Whatever his reasoning, he had done it, and we needed to gather whatever evidence we could find. I pushed the chute open and was hit with a sudden gush of cool wind. I squinted and stared out at the vastness before me. I could see for miles. It was an awesome view, but I didn’t have time for sightseeing. I quickly located the supply shop by the lights pouring from the window. I didn’t have my rifle, but I could see movement through the glass with my naked eyes.

I heard voices echoing from the bowels of the tower and moved back to the ladder. When I looked down, I saw Rachael and Dawn talking with Abraham. They each had a crime scene box in one hand and they were gloved up and ready to work.

“Want me to join you up there?” Dawn asked, craning her neck to see me. “I can swab the rungs on my way up.”

I hesitated.

“What?” Dawn asked. “You don’t trust me?”

“No, it’s not that. I just don’t want you falling and getting hurt. Your wedding dress wouldn’t look good with a back brace and leg casts.”

“I’m coming up,” she said, grounding her box and removing a number of DNA evidence recovery kits from inside. Shoving most of them in her shirt, she approached the ladder and began swabbing the first rung within hands reach.

While she did that, Abraham and Rachael began dusting the smooth metal floor in search of shoe patterns. Me, I had nothing to do at the moment, so I walked back to the hatch and stared out into the night, wondering where the killer was and what his next move might be. There was no doubt in my mind that he would kill again, and unless we figured out how he was choosing his victims, there was no way we could stop him.

CHAPTER 27

It was almost ten o’clock by the time we finished processing the interior of the water tower. Abraham and Rachael had managed to recover one partial boot print, but that was the only definitive piece of evidence we’d found. We had swabbed several dozen spots for DNA—most of them coming from the area around the hatch, which is where the killer would’ve spent most of his time—but we were less than optimistic that they would turn up anything. Our fingerprinting efforts suggested he was once again wearing gloves, so the only chances of him leaving DNA behind would’ve been through bodily secretions. While it was cool in the tank during the evening hours, I figured it would’ve gotten warm in there during the day, and there was a good possibility the suspect had dumped some sweat in his sniper hide.

“Is that everything?” Dawn asked before shoving the last of the DNA swabs into her shirt and preparing to make the final descent. She and I must’ve made half a dozen trips up and down the ladder in the hours that we had been there, bringing packaged evidence to my truck and retrieving investigative tools and supplies.

I took one last long look around, as though I might suddenly see something that we had both missed during our painstaking search of every inch of the place. I sighed. “Yeah, we’re done here.”

Seth Pills had made his exit two hours earlier, but he’d left a pair of padlocks for us to use on the gate and the exterior door. Since he hadn’t had a third lock in his possession, I could only pull the hatch closed and turn the bolt.

I followed Dawn down the ladder and we locked the door on our way out. We had just walked through the gate when Abraham approached us from his unit. There was something in his hands, but I didn’t realize what it was until he held it up to the light.

“What if I leave this game camera behind?” he asked. “It’s brand new. I got it in the mail this morning and I was gonna use it for my deer stand, but I can put it on one of those trees”—he shot a thumb toward the woods north of the water tower—“and see if we can capture the suspect in case he comes back to the scene.”

I loved the idea and told him so. I also told him to fill out a requisition form for the camera. “I’ll send it to personnel and have them reimburse you for the camera.”

“It’s not a problem,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll donate it to the department.”

“That had to be an expensive camera,” Dawn protested. “There’s no way we’re letting you give it away.”

Abraham had an odd look on his face. I cocked my head to the side. “What’s up?” I asked.

He waved me off. “It’s okay, really. I can donate it.”

I suddenly remembered the book he had recently written. While our law enforcement salaries were modest, we would never get rich chasing bad guys, and a new officer like Abraham, who had a truck note, a hefty apartment rent, and other bills, couldn’t easily afford to give away $200 game cameras—unless he had a supplemental job or worked a lot of details.

“Abe,” I began slowly, cocking my head to the side, “that book’s got you doing well for yourself, isn’t it?”

His face flushed. “I…I’ve been blessed.”

I stepped up and slapped his shoulder. “Good for you!”

Abraham thanked me and then asked if there was something else he could do to help with the case.

I scowled. “Other than digging into Gayle Barrios’ background, I wouldn’t know what else to do.”

“If you want,” Dawn offered, “can you go up and down Highway Eleven in the morning and check with the businesses that are open to see if any of them have cameras facing the road? If you can check back with the closed ones on Monday morning it would be a huge help.”

He nodded. “What kind of vehicle are we looking for?”

“The Toups boys claim they saw a truck where the mannequins were shot, but we don’t know anything about it except that it might be dark colored.” Dawn took a breath. “Even if we don’t know the type of vehicle, we still have to preserve whatever footage is available for later. You never know what might become important down the road.”

“I’ll get on it first thing.” He hesitated. “What about tonight? I’m available if y’all need anything else.”

“We’re good for now,” Dawn said. “Get some sleep while you can. If you want to attend the autopsy, meet us at the coroner’s office tomorrow at nine.”

That caused his eyes to light up and he nodded enthusiastically. I smiled as I watched him hurry toward the trees with his game camera. He was a good kid and a motivated officer. We needed more like him on the force.

After locking the gate, Dawn and I left and headed to the detective bureau. When we arrived, we each gathered up an armful of evidence and carried it through the bureau and into the evidence section so we could log everything in. We needed the swabs to go to the lab as soon as possible, as they were our only hope. If our killer hadn’t left a drop of sweat, saliva, or skin cells behind, and if he’d never been incarcerated before, we were screwed.

After my arms were empty, I left Dawn in the evidence section and headed back to my truck to get the last of what we’d recovered. My cell phone rang as I made my way through the dimly lit corridor and toward the door that led to the bureau. I recognized the number immediately—it was Jerry Allemand, my most experienced sniper.

“Hey, Jerry, what’s up?” I asked, punching in my code to open the bureau door.

“Damn it, London, are you seeing this shit?”

“Hello to you, too,” I said with a chuckle. “What shit am I supposed to be seeing?”

“The news!” I detected a sense of urgency in his voice. “Haven’t you been watching the news?”

“No, I’ve been in a water tower processing a crime scene.”

“Your face is plastered everywhere! It was on the nine o’clock news and then again at ten, just to make sure the whole world saw it. They’re saying you’re the one who killed that Porter girl in the school.”

I grunted, remembering the question Larry Wells had posed to me earlier in the evening. “I mean, they’re not wrong.”

“Yeah, but that shit’s not supposed to be released! Some rat bastard gave you up and I’m going to kill them when I find out who it is!”

“Well, you’d have to kill me,” I said, pushing the electromagnetic door release and stepping outside. “Larry asked me pointblank and I told him it was me.”

“Well, he had no business asking,” Jerry said, the venom thick in his voice. “Where are you right now?”

“I’m at the detective bureau. Look, Jerry, it’s not a big deal—”

“The hell it ain’t! This is some top-level shit. Did you happen to look at social media tonight?”

“You know I’m not into that fantasyland garbage.”

“Well, people are calling for your head,” he said. “They’re calling you a murderer, saying you killed an innocent girl. Some are saying you should’ve used a TASER or beanbag gun. Others are calling for you to be executed.”

I paused near my truck door. “Really?”

“Yeah, and the craziness is sweeping across the ’net like lung cancer. You need to watch your back—”

At that very moment, I heard the heel of a boot scrape against the concrete. I turned slowly and came eyeball-to-eyeball with a large revolver, and the face on the opposite side of that handgun was anything but friendly.

“I’ll have to call you back,” I said coolly to Jerry. “Something’s come up.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?” Jerry’s tone was laced with exasperation. “You need to get your ass in hiding until we can figure out how to put a lid—”

I ended the call and carefully slipped my cell phone in my left pocket, making a show of keeping my hand away from my pistol. The man who held the revolver was average height and build, and he was dressed like a used car salesman. His finger was pressed firmly against the trigger and his eyes were wild, but I wasn’t impressed. It was the second time I’d had a gun pointed at me that day, and it was starting to piss me off.

“What do you want?” I asked, my voice betraying the impatience I felt. There was something vaguely familiar about the man, but I couldn’t place him. I was almost sure I’d seen him before.

“You…you’re London Carter.”

“I am.”

“It’s fate,” he said, his voice trembling slightly. “It’s fate that I found you here.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I saw you on the news. They said your name was London Carter and they showed your face and they said you worked as a detective for Magnolia Parish.” He paused and rubbed the sleeve of his left arm across his nose. “I came straight over here and parked at the motel across the street. I was just sitting there trying to figure out what I was supposed to do, when I got a sign.”

“A sign?” I asked skeptically.

“Yeah, it was a sign from God.” He wiggled the muzzle of the revolver in front of me. “I was about to leave when you drove up in that truck. I wasn’t positive it was you until you stepped out with that lady cop, and that’s when I knew I was supposed to stay here and finish the mission—I was supposed to kill you.”

I nodded my understanding. He was too far away for me to grab his gun hand, but many years of living by the sword had taught me that action was quicker than reaction, and I liked my odds against him with the quick draw. I would get him talking and then bide my time. If I could get him to look away from me for a split second, I knew I could get my gun out and shoot him between the eyes before he even knew what was happening.

“I understand you feel obligated to do God’s will,” I said in a conversational tone, “but do you mind if I ask why God wants you to kill me?”

“You have to pay for what you’ve done!”

“And what did I do?” I asked, wondering if this visit was related to the news story Jerry had just told me about, or if I was staring into the eyes of the man who had killed Gayle Barrios.

“You…you murdered my daughter!”

My shoulders drooped as I suddenly realized I’d never seen this man before in my life. No, the reason he looked familiar was because he looked just like his daughter, Jennifer Porter.

My gun hand relaxed. I knew instantly that I would not kill this man. I just couldn’t. I had already inflicted too much pain on his family.

CHAPTER 28

“Sir,” I began, knowing that I would have to talk my way out of my present dilemma, “what should I call you? I know Jennifer was a Porter, but—”

“She’s not a Porter!” The man’s eyes narrowed and he shoved the gun closer to my face. “Georgia forced her to take that bastard’s last name. She told the court all kinds of lies about me, all the while knowing it was that piece of shit Porter who was the bad one. Jennifer’s no Porter and she never will be. She’s a Boudreaux through and through.”

I nodded slowly, hoping Dawn wouldn’t pick that moment to step outside. If she did, she might startle him into pulling the trigger, and if not, she might end of shooting him. I wanted both of us to survive this encounter. “What’s your name, sir?”

“I’m…I’m Jarrett.” He shifted his grip on the revolver, but it remained pointed at my face. “I…I know what you’re doing, and it’s not gonna work. I’m here to kill you for murdering my daughter. You can deny it all you want, but the news showed your face—”

“No, I won’t deny it,” I said, cutting him off. “I did kill Jennifer, and I’m really sorry. I wish things would’ve worked out differently.”

His eyes widened a little and then his face broke out into a slow scowl. “So, you admit it?”

I nodded. “I made a mistake. Had I known why she was there, I wouldn’t have shot her.”

Jarrett seemed confused at first, as though he didn’t know what to do with that information. “I…I thought you would deny it,” he finally said. “I thought you would beg for your life.”

“Nah, I won’t beg for anything,” I said with a grunt. “My mom and dad were younger than me when they died, so I consider myself lucky to have gotten this far.”

Jarrett snarled and cocked the hammer on the revolver. “Well, this is as far as you’re gonna go. You murdered my daughter, and you’re gonna die for it.”

His finger was still on the trigger, and now that the hammer was cocked, I knew it would only take a breath of air to make it go off. My odds of drawing against him were greatly reduced, because it only took about four pounds of pressure to pull the trigger with it cocked, and about fifteen pounds of pressure in double action.

“If you have to try and kill me,” I said evenly, “can you at least wait until I finish my investigation? A woman has been murdered tonight by a man with a rifle. He sniped her from almost 500 yards away. As sure as we’re standing here, he’ll kill again—unless I can stop him.”

“You want me to just let you go?” His chuckle was ugly and hateful, and I didn’t blame him for the way he felt. “And then what? You’ll agree to come back and stand in this exact spot and let me put my gun to your head once you’re done with your case?”

I glanced around the parking lot. It was late and several cars had passed since we’d been standing there, but no one seemed to notice what was happening in the parking lot. Still, there were houses all around us, and a shot would not go unnoticed. “I would suggest a more secluded location to meet next time.”

“You must think I’m crazy. If I let you go, you’re gonna call your buddies and have me arrested for attempted murder of a cop, and then I’ll go to jail forever. I won’t make it out of town. Hell, you’ll probably have them murder me like you murdered my little girl.”

“I’m a man of my word,” I said. “If I tell you I’ll let you go, that’s exactly what I’ll let you do.”

He studied me for a long moment. “And then you’ll just let me put my gun to your head again and kill you? Just like that? What, are you suicidal or something?”

“I didn’t say I would let you kill me,” I said coolly. “I said I would let you try.”

“Let me try?” He laughed that wicked laugh again. “You’re in no position to stop me.”

“That’s debatable,” I said, but no longer felt as confident as I had before he’d cocked the hammer. I didn’t want to kill the man and I didn’t want to die, but it looked like my number was about to be punched, and there was nothing I could do about it.

He shook his head and straightened his arm, preparing for the recoil of the shot that was about to come. “No thank you. Jennifer was all I had left in this world, and you stole her from me. She was my only reason for living, and now I’ve got—”

Jarrett’s words died on his tongue. His face contorted violently and in a wicked way just as a cone of red mist exploded from the left side of his head. Before his body began crumbling to the ground, I heard the boom of a rifle from somewhere in the distance to my left. A few seconds later, porch lights began coming on all around that part of town, and startled cries came from several different homes. I heard one man holler for someone to call 9-1-1.

I sighed heavily as I stared down at Jarrett Boudreaux’s motionless body. His life had been taken so suddenly that he never knew what hit him. Hell, I barely knew what had hit him. I’d fully expected him to pull the trigger and drop me where I stood.

It was then that I realized my Beretta was in my hand. I had made a play for my pistol and had gotten it halfway up, but I hadn’t fired the shot that killed the man. It would never be known if I would’ve made it or not, but one thing was clear—even if I had gotten my pistol up in time to fire the first shot, and even if that shot would’ve gone through his head, I would still be dead. Only a high-powered rifle round to the cranial vault would produce an instantaneous no-reflex kill shot, and that was exactly what someone had done. Anything less would’ve caused him to reflexively pull the trigger, and he would’ve shot me through the face.

I took a deep, cleansing breath and thanked God that I was still alive. That had been way too close. While I had been as cold as ice during the entire incident, I was now starting to feel the human body’s normal responses in the aftermath of a life and death situation. I took another deep breath to slow my racing heart and holstered my pistol. I could feel my right hand trembling a little, but that was to be expected. I took my time exhaling, making a slow count to four as I did so. It only took a few breaths and a few seconds to calm my racing heart and settle my nerves.

Afterward, I stared down at what was left of Jarrett Boudreaux and said, “I’m sorry for killing your little girl.”

Of course, he didn’t respond. What remained of his blood and brain had oozed from the gaping hole in the left side of his head, making a mess all over the parking lot.

As I looked down at him, I decided right then and there that I had better let go of the incident, or I would hesitate on some future call—just as I had earlier by not drawing my pistol when his hammer was down—and I would either endanger the lives of my fellow officers or fellow citizens, or I, myself, would end up like the formerly distraught father.

I took another breath and nodded. I had done my job in the school that day. My training had not failed me. I had not failed me. Everything had worked according to plan and, while tragic, it had all been justified. No one in my situation could have guessed that Jennifer had not already taken the lives of any children prior to storming the workshop, and no one could have known she had only been avenging her mom’s beating. She had made the reckless decision to enter a school with a rifle and start shooting. It would’ve been a lot easier to pick up the phone and—

The door behind me suddenly burst open and I turned to see Dawn standing there holding her Glock in a two-handed grip, staring intently at me. “What’s going on?” she asked. “I heard on the base station that there was a shooting at our office!” She glanced down and her face twisted in shock. “Who in the hell is that?”

Without saying anything at first, I glanced toward my left and scanned the rooftops of the buildings across the highway. I was pretty sure I knew what had happened and who had saved my life, and it was confirmed when I was unable to detect movement or a figure in the darkness. I had trained my snipers to remain unseen and unheard, and—other than the booming shot that had sent a 168-grain boat tail hollow point bullet into the cranial vault of Jarrett Boudreaux—my sniper was adhering to his training.

“That’s Jarrett Boudreaux,” I said, turning to indicate the dead man at my feet. “He’s Jennifer Porter’s real dad, and he was here to kill me.”

Dawn gasped. “Are you shitting me? How’d he even know it was you? And how’d he know how to find you? And who killed him?”

“He knew because it’s all over the news,” I explained. “Apparently, Larry Wells broke the story earlier today. It was on the nine o’clock news and then again at ten for good measure. As for who saved my bacon…” I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and redialed the last number that had called me. I saw a hint of movement on the roof of the auto parts building that was located 150 yards away from us, and a tiny glow appeared from the darkness.

When Jerry Allemand answered the call, I pressed the speaker phone button and said, “Thanks buddy.”

“I ain’t never been a best man before,” he replied, “and by God, ain’t nobody stealing that from me.”

“How’d you know something was up?”

“I heard it in your voice,” he explained. “So, I grabbed my gear and hauled ass to town. I was about to pull into the parking lot when I saw that man standing there with a gun in your face. I knew things would go south in a hurry if I drove up, so I made the block, accessed the roof on the parts place, and took that bastard out as soon as I quartered his ear canal.”

“You couldn’t have timed it better,” I admitted. “He was about to send me to the other side.”

“Jerry, thank you so much,” Dawn blurted.

“It’s no problem, Sarge,” Jerry said. “I didn’t want you walking down the aisle alone, and I’d be too afraid to take London’s place.”

I cocked my head to the side. “Too afraid that I would come back and get you?”

“No,” he said, “I’m afraid of her.”

CHAPTER 29

Before long, the entire area was alive with activity. A dozen deputies arrived minutes after the shooting and took over the entire block. Abraham arrived almost as soon as the first deputies had, and he had immediately begun protecting and documenting the scene. Detectives Rachael Bowler, Doug Cheramie, and Warren Lafont showed up within the hour, and two of them headed for the auto parts building to secure that scene while the other stood by with Abraham.

Captain Chuck Wayne had arrived almost as soon as Abraham had, and he had begun spearheading the efforts on the ground. He had received word from the sheriff to call in an outside agency, and he had contacted Sheriff Tyler from Interior Parish, which bordered Magnolia to the north, and Tyler had agreed to send a team of detectives to Payneville immediately.

Dawn, Jerry, and I had been sitting in the conference room waiting for someone to interview us when Sheriff Chiasson stormed through the door. His face was redder than I’d ever seen it, and I thought he was going to have a stroke right there in front of us.

“How in God’s name did this happen?” he bellowed, looking directly at me. “Is it true that Jennifer’s dad got your name from the news media?”

I nodded. “That’s what he told me.”

“It was that piece of shit Larry Wells that floated London’s name on the wind,” Jerry said, spitting out the name like he’d gotten rattlesnake venom in his mouth. “If you give me the word, I’ll track him down and murder him myself.”

Sheriff Chiasson paused for a moment, seemingly confused. He blinked and then shook his head. “No, Jerry, you can’t murder the man.”

“Can I at least beat his ass when I see him again?” Jerry wanted to know. “Like, if he steps on my shoe”—he winked twice—“can I lay his ass out? Or when I hear him say something about my momma, can I drop him?”

“That’s between you and him.” The sheriff slumped to the chair at the head of the table and drummed his fingers angrily. “Can y’all think of any charges we can put on Larry? Solicitation for murder? Inciting a felony? Conspiracy?”

I shook my head. “Sheriff, he was only doing his job. He reported the news, and he did so accurately.”

“Bullshit!” The sheriff pointed a finger in my direction. “You’re only here right now because we got lucky. By publishing your name to the public, that piece of shit put a target on your head. Have you seen the frenzy it started on social media? People have been calling for your execution ever since the story hit the nine o’clock news. He’s responsible for starting this firestorm. He needs to go down!”

“He’s not responsible for what some assholes say on social media,” I said. “It’s no different than when we published the name of that one child molester a couple of years ago and he was shot dead by the victim’s cousin when he bonded out.”

“Hold on a minute!” The sheriff shook his head emphatically. “That’s not even close! The piece of shit pervert deserved to die, and I’m glad the cousin killed him. As for you, you ran toward gunfire and took out a murderer before she could kill more people. You saved lives that day!”

While I’d resolved the shooting within myself as I’d stared down at Jennifer’s dead father, I was still able to view the incident practically. “Sheriff, I didn’t save any lives that day,” I explained in a matter-of-fact tone. “Jennifer was able to kill the one person she had gone there to kill. She hadn’t planned to hurt any of the children in the school. Had I been thirty seconds later, I might’ve found her sitting on the sidewalk crying.”

“You can’t say that for sure,” Sheriff Chiasson insisted. “Had there been other kids in that shop, they might’ve been hit by one of the stray bullets. Had the ceilings not been made of reinforced concrete a mile thick, one of those bullets might have killed a kid upstairs. Hell, she might’ve tried to escape and then killed first responders in desperation. No one knows what might have happened. We just know what did happen—your swift actions stopped a murderer in her tracks.”

He said it with a finality that told us he didn’t want to hear any more about it.

I just shrugged and asked him about Mr. Barrios. “How was he when you left him?”

“Jim drove him home and I followed them so I could bring Jim back to his car. Truck’s wife was at the house, and so were some of his brothers. I talked to one of them. He said they’d stay with him through the night and longer if necessary.” The sheriff sighed heavily. “I just can’t imagine what he’s going through.”

Jerry, Dawn, and I all nodded in unison.

“About that,” the sheriff continued, “how’s the investigation coming?”

“I was just starting to dump her cell phone when I heard the call over the radio,” Dawn said. “I heard a muffled boom outside, but I thought it was a door slamming or something. I had no clue London was about…” Her voice trailed off as she swallowed audibly and bit down. She didn’t continue, and the sheriff nodded his understanding.

I reached for Dawn’s hand under the table and gave it a squeeze. “Why don’t you go back to it?” I offered. “Jerry and I will give our statements and then I’ll come help you.”

She nodded and got up quickly. I thought her eyes were a little misty, but I didn’t bring attention to it.

“Sheriff,” Jerry began when Dawn had left, “do I get a paid holiday while this shit is getting investigated? I hear the weather’s nice in Florida right now, and my complexion could use a layer or two of copper toning. If you don’t mind, I’d like to request three weeks.”

“No.” Sheriff Chiasson remained stone-faced. “I’m reassigning you to the jail pending the Grand jury hearing.”

“What?” Jerry’s eyes bugged out. “That could be a month or two!”

The sheriff began laughing and Jerry relaxed.

“Damn, Sheriff, I was about to turn in my badge.” Jerry shook his head, but he was smiling.

There was a knock at the door and Chuck Wayne stuck his head in. “Sheriff, the detectives are here from Interior. They’re ready for London and Jerry.”

CHAPTER 30

Sunday, January 17

Despite being up until six in the morning, Dawn and I made it to the coroner’s office a little before nine. Dr. Ally Fitch opened the door for us herself and led us through the hallway and into the autopsy room, where Gayle Barrios was lying naked on her back. Her body had been cleaned and prepped for the autopsy.

“If I didn’t know better,” Dr. Fitch said, her brown eyes boring into mine, “I’d say this was your handiwork. One shot kills are not common except in your sniper circle, and this wound looks like the exact opposite of the one you sent here two weeks ago. Jennifer’s entry wound was through the back, this one is through the front, but both bullet paths followed the same general track.”

“This is a bad one, Doc,” I said. “We’re pretty sure the killer stole a bunch of female mannequins and has been training on them.”

“Really?”

I nodded and explained about the burglary and then the subsequent recovery of the mannequins from the Toups boys. She listened with keen interest as she began to make the Y incision in Gayle’s chest, being careful not to damage the entry wound. Dawn was snapping photos as I talked and while Dr. Fitch and her assistant, Blake, performed the autopsy. I noticed Dawn take a close-up of the entry wound. It was my first look at it, since I hadn’t hung around the scene when Dawn had flipped the body over, and I noticed it was about two inches to the left of centerline and several inches higher than a strawberry birthmark on her stomach.

“I’m a little insulted, Doc,” I said, keeping my tone serious. “That looks nothing like my handiwork. I would’ve put the bullet right down the middle.”

She laughed and repeated her wish for me to take her to the shooting range. Remembering what Dawn had mentioned, I quickly said, “Yeah, and you should bring your husband, too. I’ve never met him and I’d like—”

“And you never will.” She straightened and pushed her face shield up with the back of her left hand. “We’ve been separated for two months now and we’re getting divorced. I’ll spare you the details and just quote a Carrie Underwood song: Next time he cheats, it won’t be on me.”

I was stunned, but tried not to show it. When I looked up, Dawn gave me that told you so look, and I only nodded.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I mumbled. I indicated Gayle’s body. “Anything you can tell us about this one?”

“Nothing that you don’t already know. Cause and manner are obvious. I’ll check to see if she had diseases or other internal injuries and run a full toxicology on her.” She shook her head. “Unfortunately, there’s nothing here to help you determine who killed her. It’s like the bodies you send in. When there’s been no contact between the suspect and the victim, there’s nothing to transfer.”

Dawn finished taking the photographs she needed and then asked about Gayle’s clothes.

“They’re in an evidence bag,” Blake said, shooting a thumb toward the back of the building. “I’ll grab them.”

When Blake had gone, Dr. Fitch asked about Jarrett Boudreaux. “I’m doing him next. Are y’all staying for that?”

“No, the Interior Sheriff’s Office is handling that one,” I said. “It was an officer-involved shooting.”

“Really?” She shook her head. “I wasn’t aware. Starla was supposed to be taking calls, but she didn’t show up for work last night and she didn’t show up today. She didn’t even bother calling to say she wasn’t coming in, and it’s not the first time she’s pulled this. I swear, I’m at my wits end with her. If she doesn’t watch it, she’ll find herself looking for another job. I need people I can count on.”

“Did I do something wrong?” Blake asked from the doorway behind us, holding the clothes in his outstretched hands. He looked from Dr. Fitch to me, his eyes wide. “Do I need to look for another job?”

“No, no, not you,” Dr. Fitch said with a shake of her head. “I was talking about someone else.”

When Blake handed Dawn the clothes and then left the autopsy room, Dr. Fitch turned to us. “If you know of anyone who’s looking for a job, let me know.”

I immediately thought of Lily Pierce, the daughter of one of my former snipers. Although her father and brother had both been killed a few years earlier, Lily had moved on with her life and was thriving. After graduating high school, she had attended college and accomplished in three years what most kids did in four, and she was set to graduate in a few months. She had originally planned on becoming a biologist, but her plans had changed once her dad had been killed. She was heading to law school instead, and I figured a summer job at the coroner’s office would be a great experience for her.

“I’ll talk to Lily Pierce,” I said. “She’s been working as a secretary for Ash and Kat Law Firm between classes, but I’m sure she’s learned all she can at that place by now. She might like a change of pace and some medicolegal experience.”

“Give her my number. I might hire her as a backup in case Starla pulls this stunt again, and if she does, I’ll be able to fire her on the spot and already have her replacement.” Dr. Fitch indicated the freezer, where Jarrett Boudreaux was no doubt resting. “What happened with my other tenant?”

I explained everything. When I was done, she grunted and said, “I guess I’ll be home early today. Thank God I’m paid a salary. If I worked by the hour, all of these one-shot no-reflex kills as you call them would cut into my overtime.”

I smiled, but didn’t comment. Dawn and I were heading for the exit when Dr. Fitch stopped us.

“London, I’m serious about that date.” She turned to fully face me and give me her undivided attention. “I’d love to see how your gun shoots.”

I didn’t know how to tell her no, and stood there stammering for a moment. Thankfully, Dawn rescued me. With a twinkle in her eye, she said, “He’d love to take you to the range, but it would have to be after the wedding.”

“Wedding?” Dr. Fitch cocked her head to the side. “What wedding?”

“Oh, London’s getting married in a couple of months.”

“No way!” She dropped her hands to her side and stared wide-mouthed at me. “Who’s the lucky girl?”

“I’m the one who’s lucky,” I said, wrapping an arm around Dawn. “I’m marrying Dawn.”

Dr. Fitch gasped, and then burst out laughing. “Damn, Dawn, you watched me slow-dance into that wood chipper and didn’t even try to warn a sister.”

Dawn was laughing, too, and quite hysterically. There were tears falling from her cheeks, but they were happy ones. She hadn’t cracked a smile since I’d almost been killed on the previous night, and I was glad to see her laughing again.

CHAPTER 31

Dawn and I picked up some Bavarian cream-filled chocolate éclairs and milk from a local doughnut shop and headed straight for the detective bureau in Payneville. I paused for a second to stare down at Jarrett Boudreaux’s dried blood on the concrete near the detective entrance, and shook my head.

“I guess he’s in a better place,” I said. “What man would want to live after his only child was gone?”

I felt Dawn’s hand grip my arm. “I would’ve felt the same way had he killed you.”

I kissed her on the forehead, punched my code into the keypad, and pushed through the door. Once we were seated at our cubicles, we began poring over the information Dawn had recovered from Barrios Oilfield Supplies. I started thumbing through the Rolodex while she began reviewing the files and folders from the forensic dump she’d performed on Gayle’s cell phone.

I found nothing of interest in the Rolodex, and rolled my chair across the aisle to Dawn’s cubicle, which was directly across from mine. “Anything?” I asked.

“Nothing so far,” she said, and pulled a flash drive from one of the USB ports on her desktop. “This is a copy. Start going through her text messages. I’m going through her photos right now. She took some recent nudes, and I’m sure she didn’t do it for herself.”

I nodded and rolled back to my side of the aisle and inserted the flash drive. Once I opened the Mobile Device Forensic Report, I scrolled down a page to where it listed the contents. I drummed my fingers on my desk when I saw two different types of messages, not knowing which ones I was supposed to view. I leaned back in my chair. “Dawn, am I looking at MMS or SMS messages?”

“Both,” she said, without turning around. “The MMS messages will include pictures, and we definitely need those, but we also need to see the regular text messages to know what she’s been up to in her final hours.”

I returned to my computer and accessed the SMS messages first. No surprise, the last entries were dated the previous day. A quick scan of the “Party” column showed that most of the messages were to and from people she knew, because their names were saved. However, there were a few strings of messages where only the telephone number was listed. I moved back to the top and read the first message, which was actually the last she’d received. It had been received late in the day and would not have been read by her.

Pops: Where r u? I need you to pick up some Taaka on your way home.

I frowned. That poor man. I wondered if he would try to go after the killer once we identified him—well, that was if it was a he and if we were able to find the bastard.

The next few messages pertained to some piece of equipment that someone name Pablo needed to purchase in order to complete some work that he was doing. Gayle had responded that she’d have to order the part and it wouldn’t arrive until the following week. That seemed to satisfy Pablo, so I moved to the next string of messages, and then the next and the next. They all pertained to work and there must’ve been sixty or seventy of them between the noon hour and the time of her murder.

“Damn, Dawn, Gayle must’ve gotten a thousand messages a day,” I said. “I bet that business was rolling in the dough.”

Dawn only mumbled something, and I knew she was waist deep in her own work, so I decided to stop interrupting her.

I ran out of time stamps for Saturday and hadn’t found anything interesting, so I went into Friday. In the early morning hours, I finally found a promising exchange between Gayle and someone named Bitch. I leaned forward and read it with interest.

Gayle: Gurl, I went and done it!

Bitch: WTF??? Tell me you didn’t!

Gayle: Oh I did!

Bitch: I need the deets!!!

Gayle: He lasted all of thirty seconds. Had the nerve to ask me if I liked it and when I didn’t answer he asked me how a real man knows when his woman’s satisfied. When I asked how, he said a real man don’t care. Needless to say, another one added to my blocked list. Two months wasted. I guess it’s back to sheart.

Bitch: OMG! So sorry, sis! As usual, I’ll help you bury the body.

Gayle: I’ll call in a sec.

Bitch had sent an angry-faced emoji and the conversation had ended. When I cross-referenced the date and time with her call log, I saw that Bitch had called her right after the last text message.

“Dawn, I think I’ve got something,” I said, enlarging the screen. “It looks like she had a date Thursday night and it didn’t end well.”

“Bad enough to murder her?”

“I doubt it, but people have been killed for less.”

In a flash, Dawn was by my side in her chair and leaning her chin on my shoulder. “Where? Show me.”

I pointed out the conversation and waited while she read it. She leaned back when she was done and chewed on her lower lip. After a moment, she said, “There’s a picture of her and some dude in a bar on Thursday night. It’s dark and grainy and the guy’s hard to see, but I think he’s important. We need to identify him.”

I nodded my agreement and continued scrolling through text messages. Dawn slid back to her desk and she told me she would check the MMS folder.

“Look for a number with 5599 as the last four digits,” I said. “The last message she sent to that number was saying that he’d better delete her pictures, and if he showed them to anyone, she would have him sent to prison for revenge porn.”

“Got it.” A few seconds later, Dawn said, “A week ago, she sent him three photos of her bare breasts. You can’t see her face, but I recognize the birthmark on her stomach.”

“Do you have a name on him?” I asked. “She didn’t have his number saved with a name.”

“No, I don’t have anything. She never calls him by name, and he doesn’t say her name either.”

“It makes sense,” I said. “I never say your name in our text messages.”

“Yeah,” she said idly. I could almost hear the wheels in her head turning.

I read through a host of messages between her and the mystery man, but I didn’t learn anything more than he worked as a contractor and he was from New Orleans. They had planned on meeting at Twisted Long Necks—a bar that Dawn and I knew well—and were supposed to go eat afterward. The text messages between them had ended when Gayle said she was in the parking lot at Long Necks, and that had been around six o’clock on Thursday night. I was certain they were together afterward, since there were no more messages between them. The very next—and last—message came when Gayle told him to delete her nude photographs or he was going to prison.

I rolled over to Dawn and told her what I’d found, but I was puzzled about something I’d read in the message exchange between Gayle and Bitch, so I posed the question to Dawn.

“What do you think Gayle meant when she said she’d have to go back to shearts?”

“She’s talking about the dating website,” Dawn said with a laugh. “The long name is Soldering Hearts, but they call it S-Hearts and pronounce it like sharts. I guess they think they’re being clever.”

I grunted as I watched her work. “I’m more of a Farmers Only dot com man, myself.”

Dawn just shook her head and continued scrolling through the phone records. She opened a file titled Web History, but it didn’t offer much. She then tried Web Bookmarks, but met with the same results. She paused for a second, and then sprang from her chair, almost crashing into me in the process. “I need her phone.”

“It’s already secured in the evidence locker,” I reminded her.

She cursed and stood over me for a long moment. “I guess I could call Cindy to unlock the box. She wouldn’t mind coming out on a Sunday, and she only lives a few minutes from the office.”

Cindy Folse was our evidence custodian. She was a pleasant person and always happy to help.

“While you do that, I’ll start calling Gayle’s list of friends,” I suggested. “We need to find out who’s the bitch.”

Dawn dropped back in her chair and called Cindy, while I began working my way down the list of friends and acquaintances that Truck Barrios had provided. The first number didn’t answer, and the next three hadn’t spoken with Gayle in over a month, but the fifth one worked with her and knew a little more.

“Is it true she was killed at work—near the office?” Kelly Reid asked. “That’s what Mr. Truck said.”

“Yes, ma’am.” As I explained as much as I could about what had happened, I heard the door to the bureau open and Cindy soon came around the corner. She saw that I was on the phone and smiled a greeting. Dawn got up and headed to the evidence room with her.

When I finished, I asked Kelly if she knew anything about the men in Gayle’s life.

“Um, she doesn’t really have any,” she said. “Her dad put her in charge of the company a few years ago, and she hasn’t had much time for a love life since. I’ve offered many times to work on Saturdays for her, and so did Sam, but she would say it’s her responsibility. She’d always tell us we needed to be home with our spouses and children. I once asked her how she was supposed to find her own spouse and have kids if she worked so much, but she would only laugh and say she was a feral cat. She said she would never be domesticated.”

“Do you know anyone who wanted to hurt her?” I asked.

“Oh, Lord, no! Everyone loves Gayle. She was so charismatic and so good at her job. Her dad used to say she could sell guns to a liberal, she was that good.”

“We’ve been going through her cell phone looking for any clues that might tell us who killed her,” I explained. “We found this one text message where she and another woman named Bitch is talking about a date she had gone on.”

Kelly chuckled. “That’s her best friend, Ashley. Gayle would call her Bitch and she would call Gayle Miss Bitch—”

A choking sob cut Kelly off and I asked if she was okay. It was a few seconds before she responded, and when she did, I could hear that she was sobbing.

“It’s just…it’s hard talking about Gayle in the past tense,” she explained brokenly. “I’ve known her for so long. I’ve spent every working day with her for…for years. I’ve never lost anyone close to me. I mean, even my great-grandparents on both sides are still alive. I…I don’t know how I’m supposed to deal with this. How do I go back to work knowing she’ll never be there again?”

After a moment, I said in a low voice, “It’ll take time. You’ll never get over the hurt, but the sting will lessen over time.”

“Have you ever lost anyone close to you?”

I frowned. “Yes, ma’am.”

Kelly was silent again. It took about three minutes—a full boxing round—for the sobs to subside. When her breathing seemed even again and it didn’t sound like she was crying anymore, I asked if she knew Ashley’s last name.

“Burke…Ashley Burke. I don’t have her number or anything. I only know her because she comes to the office sometimes and Gayle talked about her a lot.”

“I have the number,” I said gently. “What about this Sam fellow you mentioned—do you have his number, address, and last name?”

Kelly said she did and gave them to me. She stopped me as I was ending the call. “Please be gentle when breaking the news to Sam,” she said. “He really liked Gayle. He’ll take it the hardest.”

“He doesn’t know yet?”

“No.” She sighed. “He called earlier and asked if I’d heard about a murder near the business, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him.”

I thanked her and ended the call. When I turned around, Dawn was standing there holding Gayle’s cell phone in her gloved hands. She turned it so I could see the screen. There was a picture of a shirtless man wearing over-the-ear headphones, sunglasses, and fingerless gloves who was aiming his cell phone at a gym mirror. It appeared that he thought he looked cool. The name on the profile was JimRat.

I studied the man and wondered if he was our killer. Hell, was he even the man in Gayle’s text messages? I was hoping Dawn would tell me she had more information—like, a real name—but she shook her head when I asked.

“At this point, he’s just an anonymous douche bag on a dating website,” she said. “If we can’t identify him through his phone number or through one of Gayle’s friends, I’m afraid he’ll just be another asshole on the wind. New Orleans is a big place with no shortage of pricks, so we’ll have our work cut out for us.”

CHAPTER 32

I sat beside Dawn as she began scrolling through the messages between Gayle and JimRat on the dating website. Gayle’s user name was PartsGirl, and neither of them seemed eager to divulge too much information to the other. JimRat said he was from New Orleans, PartsGirl said she was from the swamps, and then they talked mostly about how they had been looking for love in all the shitty places, so they’d decided to try online dating. Although JimRat said he was trying it for the first time, a look at his limited profile showed that it had been created three years prior. PartsGirl hadn’t seemed to catch that small but significant discrepancy.

“There’s nothing here that we can use,” Dawn said with a grumble. She pointed to the last message from JimRat. “After she got his cell number, they quit communicating on the website.”

Not only had their messages been limited on the dating website, but they had also not texted much. According to the forensic dump on Gayle’s phone there were dozens of calls between them in the two months since JimRat had first solicited PartsGirl, but they had rarely texted.

“If he is her killer, he knows what he’s doing.” I indicated the messages on the dating site. “He was careful not to give away any personal details there or in the few text messages between them. We can assume his first name is Jim, but even that might be to throw people off. His whole profile seems shady.”

“Huh, just the fact that he’s posting a shirtless selfie of himself should’ve been enough to make Gayle steer clear,” Dawn said. “And what’s with the goofy earmuffs he’s wearing? His mom definitely doesn’t love him. Otherwise, she would’ve slapped him in the mouth and ripped those things off of his head on his way out the door.”

I chuckled, but then stopped when a thought occurred to me. “What do you think the chances are that a judge would sign a search warrant for his dating profile? It’s a paid site, so he would have his real name and a credit card associated with his account. Not only would we be able to identify him, but we’ll also be able to see the other women he’s dated. Maybe they can help shed some light on what kind of person he is.”

“I already know what kind of person he is,” Dawn mumbled idly. She leaned forward and began reading something. Her lips were moving, but no words were coming out.

“What is it?” I asked.

“You can leave reviews on the people you date on S-Hearts,” she said, shaking her head, “and Gayle wasn’t playing when she reviewed this asshole. This could spell his motive to kill her.”

When Dawn showed me the review, I read it with mouth agape. Gayle had apparently written the review the same night she’d told him to delete her photos, and she had not spared the man. She’d shared the same information she’d texted to Ashley about his lack of staying power and crude joke, and then she’d mentioned his personal hygiene was less than desirable, but that was mild compared to her parting shot, which read, I’m on my way to the clinic. I think JimRat gave me an STD that latex couldn’t prevent.

“Hell hath no fury,” I said and leaned back in my chair, trying to work through the possibilities. “You think he killed her because of the review?”

“This would probably be motive enough,” Dawn acknowledged, “but why would a guy from New Orleans steal mannequins in Magnolia Parish and then use our fields as his training grounds? And if he murdered Gayle because of the review, why was he training to kill her the day before their date? Did he know he would suck and she would leave a bad review?”

My shoulders drooped. It seemed as though we were trying to fit a .500 S&W magnum round into a .357 cylinder—it was totally impossible—but could it all be a coincidence? A new man comes into her life two months prior to her murder, and they go on their first date two days before she was killed. How could it not be connected?

Of course, I had to admit that Dawn was right. Unless he already knew he was going to kill Gayle when he first started communicating with her. If that was the case, then he was finding his victims through the dating website.

“I’ll write up an affidavit for a search warrant and fax it to the duty judge,” I said, turning toward my desk.

“Why don’t I do it while you keep calling Gayle’s friends and associates?” Dawn suggested. “Even if we do get the warrant, it’ll take days before the service provider can get the records to us—if they retain that kind of information.”

I liked her idea and said so. As she began pulling up a blank affidavit on her computer, she told me that we should have DNA results from the swabs we’d recovered from the mannequins within a day or two.

I jerked my head around. “What?”

“Yep,” Dawn said with a nod. “Cindy took everything to the NOPD lab yesterday.”

“But how?”

“When I was working Gayle’s murder scene, I realized it might be connected to the mannequin murders, so I called Cindy and told her we’d need to expedite submitting the swabs to the lab. I figured she’d do it first thing Monday morning, but Girl don’t play. She pulled some strings and hand-delivered the swabs yesterday evening. It turns out you’re not the only one with an insider in New Orleans. And you know what else?”

“What?”

“She’s heading there now with all the swabs we recovered yesterday.”

I was relieved. The sooner the swabs were processed, the sooner we might be able to locate our killer, and with luck, we would be able to find him before he struck again—if he planned on striking again. I wasn’t convinced JimRat was our mannequin thief, but I was convinced our mannequin thief had killed Gayle Barrios. I didn’t know if the mannequin thief had a motive to kill Gayle, but we now knew that JimRat did. However, the most troubling detail was that the killer had begun training long before JimRat had his motive for murdering our victim. We didn’t know how long the killer had been training, but if I had to guess, I would say it wasn’t long after he’d acquired the mannequins.

I glanced at the long list of friends and acquaintances. Of them all, Sam Prince and Ashley Burke seemed the most promising, so I dialed Ashley’s number next.

“Oh, my God, I’ve been waiting for someone to call me,” she wailed in a hoarse voice when I introduced myself and told her why I was calling. “It…it’s my fault she’s dead, and I know who did it!”

CHAPTER 33

City of Chateau

Abraham Wilson arrived at the corner of Highways Eleven and Eighty early on Sunday morning and began checking the open businesses for surveillance footage. He began on the right side of Highway Eleven and worked his way to the northeast. It took him two hours to view footage from seven businesses with cameras that faced the highway. Nothing jumped out at him from what he viewed. Dozens of dark-colored pickups drove by, and he made notes on each one he saw, but none of them looked promising.

Abraham drove across the highway and began working his way back to the southwest. All of the restaurants along that stretch of highway were on the right side and most of them were open, so he figured he’d retrieve lots more footage. He just didn’t know how helpful they would be.

He didn’t waste as much time viewing the footage during his subsequent contacts. Instead, he focused on obtaining copies to be viewed later. By eleven o’clock, he had reached the last business on that side of the highway—it was a convenient store at the corner of Eleven and Eighty—and he paused when he stepped outside, wondering what to do next. All morning as he worked, he had been thinking about the game camera he’d mounted to a tree near the water tower. He didn’t want to check it too soon, because it might spook the suspect if he or she returned to the area while he was checking it, but he was curious to know if the killer had returned to the scene. He had set the camera up at night, but he thought he had a good handle on the area. If he was correct, he should be able to park somewhere northeast of the wooded area and approach the camera from the rear and in the shadows of the trees.

Nodding, he made up his mind and headed for his unmarked cruiser. He pulled onto the highway and sped off, his mind racing as he did so. What would he find on the camera? Would he catch the suspect returning to the scene, or would he find it blank? He reminded himself not to be overly excited if he checked it and saw that it had recorded some files. After all, they were in the swamps, and there was an unlimited amount of critters stalking around at night.

Abraham didn’t pass any cars as he headed north, but that wasn’t abnormal for a Sunday in that area. He slowed as he approached the water tower and surveyed the area carefully. There were no cars and no pedestrians that he could see, so he continued past the patch of woods and pulled into the entrance to a trailer park just over the bridge. He stepped out of his cruiser, secured it, and headed back in the direction from which he had come, but on foot.

He was in good shape and made the return trip at a brisk pace. Once he was back on the opposite side of the small bridge, he immersed himself in the thick patch of woods. His going was much slower, thanks to the tangled briar patches and dormant blackberry bushes he encountered along the way, but it wasn’t long before he was within view of the tree upon which the game camera was fastened.

Pausing for a long moment to ensure that no one was around and no vehicles were approaching, he finally covered the distance between himself and the camera and quickly opened the small door and pressed the menu button. His heart leapt in his chest when he saw that there were eighty-six files.

“It could be just a ’coon,” he reminded himself quietly, but quickly accessed the first file, which would’ve been the last one recorded. He frowned when he saw his unmarked cruiser flash by in the viewer screen. He hadn’t realized the camera’s field of view was wide enough to capture the highway. “Shit. I’ve probably got eighty-six useless videos of cars whizzing by.”

With a shake of his head, he began reviewing the videos, reversing his direction and starting with the first one of the night, which showed him walking away from the camera. The next six were of opossums, deer, and a raccoon. Each video lasted thirty seconds, and he watched them from beginning to end to be sure he didn’t miss anything. Two cars passed during the night, but traffic really picked up when daylight came. He had reached the twenty-fifth one when he scowled and leaned closer to the screen. It appeared the vehicle—a dark-colored F-150—had slowed down when it drove past the water tower, but it didn’t stop.

Wondering if it meant anything, Abraham advanced to the next video, which showed the same truck heading in the opposite direction, but travelling at a slower speed than any of the other cars he’d seen. It seemed to be hugging the opposite shoulder. The tint on the windows was nearly black, so Abraham couldn’t see inside the vehicle at all.

The video ended before the truck was out of sight, and the next video began with the empty roadway. The intervals for the recordings were set at five seconds, and Abraham realized the truck’s movement had triggered the camera, but had disappeared from view before the recording began.

The thirty seconds of empty road had almost ended when the front of a vehicle came into view. Abraham quickly advanced to the next video, and that’s when his heart began to pound in earnest. The truck was driving slowly on the opposite shoulder of the road, and it came to a complete stop when it was in front of a windthrown tree that lay across the canal.

“Come on, get out of the truck,” he coaxed, but the video ended before anything more could happen. The next video showed the truck parked there for the entire thirty seconds. No one exited and no movement could be detected through the dark windows.

As he clicked to access the next video, Abraham reached for his cell phone to call London, but the footage began playing and he saw that the truck was gone. He cursed out loud. He thought for sure that the man would exit the vehicle, but he’d had no such luck. The next video showed the same truck heading back toward Chateau. He looked through the remaining videos, but the truck never returned.

Pulling a spare SD card he’d brought along, he swapped the cards and made the walk back to his cruiser. Once inside, he pulled onto the highway and drove to the exact spot where he’d seen the truck stop. He remembered London saying he’d recovered a bullet on the opposite side of the canal. Was it possible the suspect was looking for that bullet? He wouldn’t have found it, because it was secured in the evidence locker, so what would he have done after making that discovery? Would he have given up, or would he have continued searching? And if he continued the search, would he have done so on the other side of the canal?

Excitement burning in his chest, he raced forward until he reached the culvert bridge that crossed the canal. He hesitated, wondering if it was best to go on foot or by vehicle. He decided to take his vehicle, just in case he encountered the truck, but he paused long enough to retrieve his AR-15 from the trunk. The killer had used a rifle to murder Gayle Barrios, and he didn’t want to approach him or her with just his sidearm.

Once the AR-15 was leaning against the seat beside him, he drove slowly across the bridge and peeked around the row of thick trees that lined the western bank. He sighed when he realized the road was empty. He stepped out of his cruiser and studied the ground in front of him.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, dropping to his knees beside an ant pile, “he’s been here.”

A tire track had clipped the edge of the ant pile, and it hadn’t been long ago, because the ants were still bustling about trying to make repairs. Hurrying back to his unit, he turned right and drove to the end of the cane road. He exited and checked the edge of the tree line, searching for any sign that the killer had exited his truck. London had been there the day before and it was obvious someone had rummaged through the area, but some of the disturbances looked fresher than the others.

Abraham pulled out his cell phone and, this time, made the call to London. It rang several times before going to voicemail, which didn’t surprise Abraham. London and Dawn were busy working the case and he was sure they were neck-deep in interviews and evidence. After leaving a message detailing what he’d found thus far, Abraham turned to survey the expanse of barren fields that stretched as far as the eye could see, wondering where the killer could have possibly gone.

He was about to turn away when something caught his eye in the distance. It was subtle, almost too subtle to notice against the brilliance of the day, but it was there, alright—a thin trail of dust rising up to the sky. It marked the passage of a vehicle, and that vehicle was far away and heading toward the city. While he couldn’t make out the vehicle, Abraham believed it to be the suspect’s truck, but he wanted to take a closer look to be sure. He didn’t want to sound the alarm prematurely, as that might unnecessarily endanger the lives of his fellow officers if it turned out to simply be a cane farmer making his rounds.

Speeding forward, Abraham rounded the bend at the end of the dirt road and headed toward the rising dust trail, which extended casually forward. He would have to travel half a mile before accessing the same road the vehicle was on, but he thought he could catch up quickly if he pushed it. Once he got behind the vehicle, he would decide whether or not to call for reinforcements.

As he sped along the dirt road, he realized he was leaving behind his own trail of dust. The vehicle he was pursuing must’ve also noticed, because the head of the trail was growing at a more rapid pace—much too fast for it to be a farmer making his rounds. Gritting his teeth and gripping the steering wheel, Abraham put more pressure on the accelerator, driving much faster than would’ve been advised on the bumpy and uneven road. He didn’t slow down until he approached the intersection of the road the suspect was on, and even then, he slowed only enough to avoid losing control when he made the turn.

Once he was on the road leading to town, he let his horses run. It was a shell road and in much better condition than the dirt one he’d just turned off of, so he was able to make better time. Before long, he caught up to the dust trail and found himself enveloped in a thick cloud of blindness that only offered about twenty feet of visibility. He had seen enough of the road to know it was a straight shot to town, so he kept his eyes on the white shells and his foot on the accelerator. He was in a Dodge Charger with a police package, so he knew he could catch up to any F-150 out there and he wasn’t worried about the truck reaching town before he caught it.

Not daring to take his eyes off of the road, he refrained from calling for backup. He would do that once he had the truck pulled over. He was fairly certain he was chasing the killer, or, if not, someone who had committed another crime. Either way, he prepared himself for a confrontation at the end of the chase, but he wasn’t prepared for what actually happened.

All of a sudden, the dark cloud of dust cleared and he found himself shooting forward on an empty road.

“Shit!” He stomped the brake pedal and brought his unit to a stop, his head on a swivel as he did so. Apparently, the suspect had turned onto one of the many dirt roads that crossed the shell road and was now behind him, leaving Abraham at a grave disadvantage. Working the gear shift and steering wheel like his life depended on it, Abraham whipped his cruiser around and faced the cloud of dust behind him. He looked to the left and right, searching desperately for a moving vehicle or a cloud of dust, but he saw neither.

“Where in the hell are you?” Abraham asked, cursing himself inwardly for losing the suspect. At that moment, he regretted not calling for backup. Not wanting to fall deeper into regret in case something more happened, he picked up his police radio and called in his location. He informed the dispatcher that he was possibly on the trail of the murder suspect. He was about to ask for a deputy to cover Highway Eleven and another to head his way on Eighty, when he saw something through the thinning dust to his left.

He squinted and leaned forward. There was a dark blotch in the middle of the barren fields about 1,000 yards away. There seemed to be some kind of ball extending from the top of the object. It looked to him like the old bubblegum lights that used to be mounted on vintage police cars. He was still trying to figure out what the object was when something clanked against the front of his Charger. Nearly three seconds later he heard what sounded like the distant clap of thunder.

“Shit!” he hollered out loud. “He’s shooting at me!”

Abraham snatched his AR-15 from the passenger seat, grabbed his radio, and then opened the door. Just as his left foot touched the ground, a second bullet blew out one of his headlights, and then a third smashed through the windshield, not far from where his head had been a second earlier.

Taking cover behind his unit, he quickly called out on his police radio that shots had been fired. He then pulled his rifle to his left shoulder and began sending bullets down range. There were no houses beyond the suspect—only fields and a thick stand of woodlands—so he didn’t have to worry about hitting innocents, but he knew the chances of him actually taking out the suspect were nil. He wasn’t sure how much a .223 round dropped at 1,000 yards, but he figured it was a lot, so he aimed about seven feet above the shooter’s head.

Abraham grunted as he saw his rounds kick up dust at around the 600-yard mark. He started raising the muzzle of his rifle even higher when something smacked against the side mirror of his cruiser and then struck him in the chest, dropping him.

CHAPTER 34

Ashley Burke rambled on. “It’s that new guy she was dating! He’s a piece of shit! She’s been talking to him for a couple of months. She met him online. She wasn’t sure how she felt about him. He was cocky and a bit of an ass, but…but I told her she should go for it.”

Ashley took a quick breath and continued, speaking almost too fast for me to keep up.

“She was a strong woman—too strong for most guys. She intimidated a lot of men. You know how it is. Most men don’t like it when a woman is richer than them. They want to feel like the real breadwinner. Well, not many men made more money than Gayle, but this guy—his name was Jim—he wasn’t one bit bothered by how much she made or how strong-willed she was.”

She paused for another brief second and I tried to squeeze in a question, but she cut me off.

“It was me who told her she should do it. She was a little bothered by how much of an ass he was and she said so, but I told her to go for it. I told her that she might’ve finally met her match. I said she had nothing to lose. I said she should meet him for one date—make him drive down to her—and see where things went. It seemed like harmless advice, but that’s when everything went to hell! It’s all my fault, don’t you see? Had I never told her that, she would’ve pulled the plug on the whole thing. Had she not listened to me, she’d still be alive today!”

“Okay, Mrs. Burke,” I said softly, “why don’t you take a deep breath and try to relax.”

Ashley took a deep breath, but it was far from relaxing. It sounded more like a snort, and considering how bad her voice sounded, she was either a heavy smoker or she had been crying all night. My money was on the latter.

“Ma’am, do you know this guy’s last name?” I asked.

“No…no, sir. All I know is his first name. It’s Jim and he calls himself JimRat on that dating site. Gayle never told me what his last name was and I never asked. I now know I should have.” She sniffled loudly into the phone. “The date was bad. He had sex with Gayle and then told her to leave. He…he was such an asshole, just like Gayle knew he was. And that’s the only reason Gayle gave him a bad review. After the review went up, he called the business and told her she was dead if she didn’t take it down.”

I sat bolt upright in my chair. “He threatened her?”

“Oh, yeah, she had blocked him on her cell phone, so he looked up the number to the business and called her there. She said he was so angry that it sounded like he was spitting when he talked. She said she laughed at him and told him to go to hell. That’s the kind of girl Gayle was. You didn’t piss her off and you definitely never threatened her.”

“When did he call and make the threat?” I asked.

“That was Friday morning.”

I nodded as I studied the phone records in front of me. Much of what Ashley had just told me was consistent with what we’d found in the text messages, which would add credibility to the information she’d just provided. The threat on Friday made this Jim prick look good for the murder, but it didn’t make sense that he was the shooter in the tower. The tower shooter had swapped the locks on the gate, door, and hatch, which spoke to some degree of planning. He or she had also stolen the mannequins to train for the shot, which also required some aforethought. The Jim prick hadn’t known he’d wanted to kill Gayle until after she had posted the bad review on him. Or had he?

When it seemed that I’d paused for too long, I asked, “When was the last time you saw or spoke to Gayle?”

“Oh, I saw her Friday for lunch, and then we had a few drinks in town that night,” Ashley said. “That was the last time I saw her or talked to her. We were supposed to hang out again on Saturday night, but—”

Ashley’s words were choked off when she broke down in sobbing fits again.

I apologized for upsetting her and waited patiently for her cries to subside. When she seemed to have control of her emotions again, I asked if she knew Sam Prince.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Sam worked with her. He loved Gayle. He would do anything for her. I used to joke with her that she’s been looking for love in all the wrong places, and that there was a good man right there in her shop, but she would only laugh. Sam wasn’t her type, I guess.”

“Do you think he would know anything about this mystery guy?”

Ashley paused for a moment before answering. “I mean, he knew Gayle was dating someone, but he wouldn’t know more than I knew. JimRat never went to the office or anything, and I know Gayle wouldn’t have confided in Sam like she confided in me.”

I was thoughtful, wondering if I should even bother calling Sam. There was the possibility that Sam overheard conversations between Gayle and JimRat, and I mentioned that to Ashley.

“Oh, that’s a good point,” she agreed. “In fact, that’s how Sam found out Gayle was dating someone again—he overheard her talking to him on the phone. He confronted her about it later in the break room.”

“Confronted her?” I asked.

“Yeah, Sam was overly protective,” Ashley explained. “Every time Gayle was dating somebody new, Sam had to know everything about the man. He acted as though he had to vet the dude. He was more protective than her own dad.”

“Did Sam have a thing for Gayle?”

“He did ask her out once, but that was a while ago. Gayle told him that she didn’t date her employees, and that seemed to be the end of it. Besides, I told her I’d better never find out that she’d lowered her standards to the likes of Sam.”

My cell phone buzzed in my pocket, but I ignored it. My mind was forging ahead, trying to work through a new idea that had come to me. “Ashley, how long ago did Sam find out about Gayle seeing this new fellow?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “A couple of months ago—right when she first started talking to him.”

“Was he mad about it?”

“Mad? I mean—” She sucked in her breath. “You don’t think Sam killed her, do you? I mean, there’s no way! Sam loved her. He would do anything for her.”

“No, I’m not saying that at all,” I quickly said. I didn’t need her running around saying we thought that Sam Prince was the killer. “I’m just trying to cover all of my bases.”

“Oh, okay.” She sounded relieved. “Gayle was close to Sam. She trusted him more than any of her other employees. Besides me, he was her closest friend.”

“Did she confide in him?”

“Sure, but like I said, he wouldn’t know more than I did about the men she dated. She didn’t really talk about her dates with Sam, because she knew it bothered him.”

“Do you know what kind of vehicle he drove?”

“Um, he’s got a truck.”

“What color?”

“Dark blue, I believe.”

I glanced down at my notes and put an asterisk next to Sam’s name. If he was obsessed with Gayle, there was a chance that the new man in her life had been the last straw. He was familiar with the area and knew that the water tower overlooked the business, and he would’ve had two months to plan the kill. He was also from Magnolia, which meant he probably knew about the clothing stores in the area, unlike JimRat.

“Detective Carter?” Ashley asked, her voice cautious. “Are you still there?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said quickly. “Thank you for your time. Please call if you think of anything else.”

She said she would and I hung up the phone. I pulled out my cell and saw that Abraham had called. I pressed the button to return his call, but it went to voicemail. I stood to walk to the base station so I could call him on the radio, and that’s when I heard a brief static and then a voice calling out that shots had been fired. The voice—it was Abraham!

CHAPTER 35

As soon as we heard Abraham’s call over the radio, Dawn and I raced for the parking lot. I drove out of there like our asses were on fire. Dawn turned up the police radio and we listened anxiously for the next traffic from Abraham. At one point, his radio keyed up, but all we heard was explosive gunfire. That only caused me to drive even faster.

Long before we reached Chateau, several deputies came on the radio and said that they had arrived in the area.

“I see his vehicle,” one of them said. “It’s in the middle of a field northeast of town.”

“Do you have a visual on Abe?” boomed the sheriff’s voice. I could hear his siren blaring in the background, and I knew he was racing to the scene.

“Negative, sir,” replied the deputy. “I’m still a half mile out.”

My mind instantly went to the missed call and I mentally kicked myself in the gut.

“He tried to call me,” I said to Dawn, “but I ignored it because I was in the middle of the interview with Ashley Burke.”

“That’s what you’re supposed to do.”

She was right and I knew it, but I couldn’t help but second guess that decision. If Abraham had stumbled upon the identity of the killer and—God forbid—something happened to him, we might never know what he wanted or what he had found.

I shook my head to clear it of the negative thoughts. We were still ten minutes away when I heard a strained voice come over the radio.

“I can see an officer down, Headquarters!” It was the first deputy who had responded earlier. “I need an ambulance ASAP!”

My heart fell to my boots.

“Oh, no,” Dawn said. “Not Abraham!”

I would’ve been more optimistic had Abraham gone up against nearly any other suspect. The killer we were chasing was dangerous with a rifle, and Abraham would’ve been severely outgunned if he had stumbled upon him out in the cane fields. I didn’t know the circumstances surrounding the confrontation, but the fact that Abraham had been alert long enough to radio that shots had been fired would’ve normally been good news. It would’ve meant the suspect had missed his first shot. I frowned. Apparently, he or she hadn’t missed the next shot or shots.

We hadn’t travelled five more miles when the original deputy came back on the radio.

“I’m ninety-seven, Headquarters.” There was a sense of urgency in his voice, and we could hear movement that indicated he was peeling himself from his cruiser. A long minute passed before he came back on. “Be advised, 224 is alert. Keep rolling the medics, but injuries aren’t life-threatening.”

I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath until that very moment, when I expelled a lungful of air in a gasp of relief. Dawn gave a shout of joy beside me. I backed off the accelerator a little. I still wanted to get there in a hurry, but there was no need to push it.

I followed the instructions the deputy gave headquarters for the ambulance to find them, and we turned onto the cane road right behind the sheriff. The dust was heavy on the shell road and the sheriff’s speeding Tahoe didn’t help. I had to maintain some distance between us in case he stopped abruptly.

As I drove, I scanned our horizons, searching for a shooter. I couldn’t understand how Abraham’s wounds weren’t life-threatening, but it must mean the suspect was no longer in the area. Otherwise, he or she might’ve finished him off—especially if he possessed some information that might help to identify the killer.

Before long, the sheriff’s taillights splashed brightly against the cloud of dust and I slowed my truck to a stop behind his. Without waiting for the cloud to drift off, Dawn and I dismounted and hurried to the action. A patrol cruiser was parked behind Abraham’s unmarked Charger on the shell road, and an ambulance was parked in the dirt beside the road. When I saw Abraham, my heart sank for a split second. The front of his shirt was covered in blood, and it looked much worse than what the deputy had said. However, when I looked up at Abraham’s face, I relaxed. He was smiling and talking.

The sheriff reached him first and looked down at where he sat on the ground, his back against the bumper of his Charger.

“Son, are you okay?”

“Yes, sir,” Abraham said. “I got lucky.”

“What did I tell you about that sir shit?” Chiasson bellowed.

“Sorry, sir,” Abraham said with a mischievous smirk.

I ignored the banter and dropped beside Abraham. One of the medics began cutting his shirt off.

“What happened?” I asked. “Was it our killer?”

“I’m pretty sure,” he said with a nod of his head. “I checked the game camera and saw a pickup truck—it was a dark-colored F-150—stop on the shoulder of the road across from the water tower. I couldn’t see inside because of the dark tinted windows, but it looked like the person was searching for something.”

“The missing bullet!” I said, remembering the bullet I had found on the opposite side of the canal.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Abraham said. “I crossed over the canal and drove to the downed tree where you found the bullet. No one was there, but I found a disturbed ant pile. And then I saw some dust in the distance. I think he was across the canal while I was checking the camera and he must’ve hauled ass from that point, because the truck was a good distance away. I began chasing it. I was catching up to it on this road, when it doubled back under the cover of the dust and pulled off of a side road. When I cleared the dust, I realized what he’d done and turned around. That’s when I came under attack.”

I pointed to the wound in his chest that was now visible, thanks to the medics removing his shirt. The blood made it hard to see the wound clearly, but it didn’t appear to be serious.

“How in the hell did you survive a direct hit to the chest?”

Abraham shook his head in awe. “I don’t really know. The last thing I remember was shooting around the side of my car and then getting hit in the chest. I must’ve passed out, because when I came to, I was on my back and mosquitoes were biting me.”

Dawn pointed to the driver’s side mirror of his Charger and then at a long furrow along the rear quarter panel. The furrow ended where the bullet entered the metal and then punched through the brake light.

“The bullet that hit him went through the mirror, into the panel, and out through the brake light,” Dawn explained. “That must’ve slowed it down enough to save his life.”

Abraham glanced around in the shells behind him and came up with a busted radio. “When I woke up, I reached for my shirt pocket to get my radio, but it was gone. I found this”—he lifted the radio so we could see—“on the ground with a hole through it.”

I scowled. A rifle round would’ve blown through all of that soft metal and still killed Abraham. “How far away was the shooter?” I asked, looking in the direction from which the shot had come.

“He was about 1,000 yards away,” Abraham said. “I aimed about seven feet high, but I still missed him.”

“That explains it,” I said, finally satisfied.

“Explains what?” Sheriff Chiasson asked.

“It explains why Abraham’s still alive,” I said. “At 1,000 yards, the energy of a fired .308 boat tail hollow point bullet is reduced to the energy of a .357 magnum being fired at point blank range. Thankfully, the distance, the metal from the car, and Abraham’s radio were enough to zap the remaining energy from the bullet.”

“It didn’t take all of the energy,” Abraham said with a groan. “I feel like my sternum’s cracked.”

“It probably is,” said the medic who was tending to him. “We’ll have to take you in for x-rays and to make sure there’s no internal damage.”

“I’m good with that.” Abraham glanced up at me. “If I’m ever in that situation again, how high should I aim with my AR-15 to hit a bastard at 1,000 yards?”

“Zeroed at 100 yards, our .223 rounds will drop a little more than 400 inches at 1,000 yards, so you’d have to aim somewhere around thirty-three feet above your target,” I explained. “You’d also have to compensate for wind drift, but there’re a ton of variables, so that’s a whole ’nother class. As an example, if there’s a ten-mile-per-hour crosswind, that bullet would drift almost a dozen feet at 1,000 yards. The values change with the direction of the wind, and other variable include the speed of the wind.”

Abraham shook his head. “That’s a lot to remember.”

“Yep,” I said with a smile.

CHAPTER 36

While Dawn and I wanted to follow Abraham to the hospital, we all had work to do. Every detective from our parish and the Chateau Police Department were called out to comb the surrounding cane fields in search of evidence. The cane roads were flooded with every available deputy and police officer within the parish. Abraham had swapped SD cards on his game camera, and the sheriff had ordered one of the other detectives to retrieve it from Abraham at the hospital and produce still shots of the suspect’s vehicle.

The photos had been blasted out to every law enforcement agency in Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi, along with details about our murder case and Abraham’s shooting. The entire tactical team was called out and they began doing roving patrols, searching for any vehicle that matched the one the suspect had been driving.

As for Dawn and me, we continued chasing the evidence, and that evidence took us to the doorsteps of Sam Prince.

When Sam answered the knock, he didn’t look surprised to see us. I asked if he knew why we were there, and he nodded somberly.

“It’s about Gayle.”

Remembering what Kelly Reid had said about Sam not being aware of the murder, I asked how he knew about Gayle’s passing.

“One of my friends who lives in Chateau told me about it and then I called Kelly and confronted her for lying to me.” He shook his head. “I still can’t believe it’s true. I just talked to Gayle on Friday. She…well, things seemed so normal.”

“Do you know anyone who would want to hurt her?” Dawn asked, studying Sam’s expression carefully.

Sam shook his head, but then hesitated before saying anything. When he spoke, he sounded resentful. “There was a new guy in her life, and from what she said, he wasn’t very trustworthy.”

“What did she say about him?” Dawn asked.

“That’s just it, there wasn’t much to say. He didn’t tell her much of anything. She didn’t know his real name, she didn’t know where he lived, and she didn’t know where he worked.”

“I thought he told her he worked as a contractor,” Dawn countered.

“Right, but he never told her where or the name of his company, if he even owned one.” Sam folded his arms across his chest. “Where I’m from, contractor is usually code for con man.”

I glanced around the property while Dawn continued questioning Sam. His was a small brick home with a single-car garage. The door was closed and the driveway empty, so I couldn’t see what kind of vehicle he owned.

Sam answered all of Dawn’s questions without hesitation. It was clear that he adored Gayle, but it was also painfully obvious that he didn’t approve of her choice of men. While he didn’t say it was her fault that she’d been murdered, he did say he had tried to warn her about meeting men on dating websites.

“I kept telling her she needed to be with someone she could trust,” he said. “Someone she knew for years—someone with no hidden agendas or ulterior motives.”

“Like you?” Dawn asked.

His face flushed red, but he nodded. “I…I would’ve been good to her.”

“Did it make you mad when she dated other men?”

Sam’s face hardened. “What are you saying?”

“I’m not saying anything,” Dawn said coolly. “I’m asking questions. Did it make you mad when Gayle ignored your advances and dated other men?”

He hesitated, and I studied him with interest. He lived on the west side of Chateau, so he could’ve easily fired those shots at Abraham and gotten back home in time to be having that conversation with us. However, he didn’t seem as amped up as I would expect someone to be after getting involved in a shooting with a cop—unless he had also been preparing himself mentally for his murders.

“No, it didn’t make me mad,” Sam finally said. “And I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re after. I loved Gayle.”

“When did you stop loving her?” Dawn asked.

“Excuse me?”

“You said loved, as in the past tense. So, when did you stop loving her?”

“I never stopped loving her.” He stammered for a moment. “I guess…I guess it’s just that she’s gone now and I don’t know what to do. I just feel lost without her.”

I cocked my head to the side as I looked at the man. The one positive thing about Sam being our killer would be that his target selection had been specific and so had his motive. Unless another woman rejected him, there should be no more killings, and that would be a relief if we weren’t able to immediately take him into custody for Gayle’s murder. On the other hand, if Sam hadn’t been the killer and Gayle had been selected at random, then I knew there would be another murder—and another, and another, until the killer was captured.

“What kind of truck do you drive?” Dawn asked suddenly.

“A Silverado 1500.”

“What color?”

“Blue.” Sam looked from Dawn to me and then back to her. “Why?”

“What shade of blue?” Dawn asked.

“Midnight blue. Why?”

“Do you mind if we look at it?”

“Can you tell me why first?” Sam asked.

“Why does it matter?” Dawn’s brow furrowed. “Did you do something wrong?”

“No!”

“Then do you mind showing us your truck?”

With a sigh, Sam removed a key ring from his pocket and pressed a button on a small remote. There was a lurching sound from the house and the garage door began to open.

I ambled toward my truck when I saw the grill of a Silverado 1500 peeking out from under the opening door. I called the sheriff and asked if he was with Abraham.

“Yep, he’s right here,” the sheriff said. “They’re about to take him to x-ray.”

“Ask him if it’s possible the vehicle he saw was a Chevy Silverado.”

I heard the sheriff ask the question and I heard the immediate response. There was no way.

Although Sam drove a blue Chevrolet, that didn’t necessarily rule him out as the killer. Many a person had borrowed or rented a vehicle to commit a crime, and I wasn’t ready to dismiss him from the suspect pool just yet, so we continued our investigation of him.

CHAPTER 37

Sam Prince’s alibi defense for the time of Gayle’s murder appeared to be a solid one, and a volunteer search of his house and truck didn’t turn up a shred of evidence to suggest he was involved in the shooting. He told Dawn he was offended that we would suspect him of harming the woman he loved, but said he would do anything to help find her killer—and that included helping to clear his own name.

He was not able to offer more information on JimRat, so Dawn and I headed back to the detective bureau to apply for a search warrant for the mystery man’s dating profile. While Dawn worked on typing up the affidavit to submit to the duty judge, I contacted the NOPD to see if they could dig up anything on JimRat, and then I called the rest of Gayle’s friends and acquaintances. Each call was a dead end and I grew more and more frustrated as the day wore on, worrying that time was running out for an unsuspecting woman somewhere in the area.

Throughout the afternoon, I had been in touch with the sheriff and he’d kept me up-to-date with the goings on out in the field, which turned out to be nothing. Our officers had stopped a dozen or more dark blue F-150s, but none had turned out to be our suspect. Nothing had been recovered from the cane fields, and we’d received no leads from any of the neighboring agencies. The only possible lead had been a fleeting glimpse of the suspect’s truck on a convenience store surveillance system, but that was exactly where the trail had died. It had been the last business with surveillance cameras on that side of town, so the suspect had left no further trail for us to follow. If he parked the truck in a garage somewhere and never resurfaced, it was possible he would never get caught.

Dawn was searching for anyone named JimRat on social media when the fax machine rang from the front of the office. She leapt up and rushed to get it. I was right behind her and saw her shoulders slump when she picked up the affidavit. She turned and handed it to me. I looked down and saw that the judge had returned the affidavit and warrant unsigned. A handwritten note across the document read, No probable cause.

“We knew it was a long shot,” I admitted, searching her eyes. I could tell she was already past the warrant and thinking ahead. “What is it?”

“Gayle and JimRat went to Twisted Long Necks for their date,” she said. “That’s where we’re going next.”

I nodded and gathered up my notes and followed her out the door. Since Sam hadn’t panned out as a suspect, we were back to the douchebag from the gym…or everyone else in the area. Dawn told me she hadn’t found anything on social media that looked close to being associated with JimRat. Of course, it was hard to match him by face, considering he wore dark shades and large earmuffs in the only photo we had of him. He also didn’t have any tattoos that we could see, so we couldn’t go that route to help identify him.

Twisted Long Necks was a saloon along the road to Jasper, which was a small town located on the eastern edge of Magnolia Parish. It would take us about twenty minutes to get there, so I called the sheriff on the drive to ask about Abraham and to give him an update from our end.

“Abe’s fine,” he said, his voice sounding gruff. “Joy and his parents are here. They want to take him home after he’s released, but he’s refusing to go with them. He wants to borrow a car from the motor pool and go back to work.”

“I’d expect nothing less,” I said, and then told him where we were in the investigation.

“Do you really think it’s this JimRat dude?” he asked.

I pressed the speaker button and posed the question to Dawn, who had been a detective a lot longer than I had.

“I think the evidence against him is a little thin, but he’s the only lead we’ve got right now,” she said, raising her voice so the sheriff could hear her over the sound of the wind whipping against the exterior of my truck. “If we don’t follow up on this and it turns out to be him, then the next murder will be on us.”

“Do y’all really think there’ll be another murder?”

Dawn and I traded glances. We both nodded, and Dawn said, “I doubt he’d put himself through all that training just for one woman.”

“And he’s getting better,” I chimed in. “He graduated from 500-yard shots to 1,000 yards. That hit he made on Abe was impressive for a novice shooter. Sure, it ricocheted off of the side mirror, but the fact that he even hit the mirror was impressive.”

“Do you think he’s had prior training?” the sheriff asked.

“I’m starting to think so,” I said. “He got really good really fast, so he must have a foundation in long-range shooting. The 500-yard shots were easy enough to attain with a little training, but it gets a bit tricky when you reach out to 1,000 yards.”

Sheriff Chiasson sighed heavily. “Okay, just try to find this asshole before he kills again.”

Dawn punched off and we made the rest of the drive in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts. I was attacking it from a sniper’s perspective, and I knew she was attacking it from that of a detective.

Twisted Long Necks hadn’t changed since the last time we’d been there, despite the fact that the previous owner, Shelton Thomas, had been murdered. I had never met the new owner, and was surprised to see him sitting at the end of the bar on a Sunday evening. I was also surprised by how young he was. One of the bartenders had pointed him out to us and I nodded when we approached him.

“I’m Tookie Thomas,” he said after I introduced Dawn and me. “I own the place now.”

I noticed that he puffed out his chest when he mentioned that he was the owner.

“Any relation to Shelton?” I asked, putting my file folder on the bar and shaking his hand.

“He was my half-brother from a different mother.” He smirked like he thought he was funny. “When he died, it fell into foreclosure, and I was able to swoop in and get it for half the price.”

“Cool.” I didn’t care, but I nodded anyway as I glanced around to see if there were any cameras in the place. There were none. “Say, do you know who was working here on Thursday night?”

“I was here Thursday night,” he said. “Why? What happened on Thursday?”

“A woman and a man came in here and we need to know everything we can about the man.” I pulled a printout of JimRat’s profile picture from the file folder and handed it to Tookie. “This is him. He’s from New Orleans or something.”

Tookie scowled as he studied the picture. He glanced at the bartender who had first greeted us and waved her over. “Hey, Bernice, is this the guy who was giving you trouble the other night?”

She took one look at the picture and nodded. “That’s the asshole. He complained about his beer being hot and his hamburger being cold. When I pointed out that the beer was ice cold and there was steam coming from the burger, he asked me what grade I completed in school.”

“Are you sure this is the guy?” I asked, pointing to JimRat’s face.

“Oh, yeah, I’m positive,” she said. “He was wearing those same ugly sunglasses even though it was dark outside and the lights are dim in here.”

“Did you get his name by any chance?” I asked.

Bernice shook her head. “No, but he was with Gayle Barrios.”

“You know Gayle?”

“Oh, yeah, her dad comes in here all the time.” She frowned. “I heard a little bit about what happened to her. Is it true someone assassinated her?”

“We’re not at liberty to give out any details,” I explained. “You know, so we don’t jeopardize the investigation.”

She nodded her understanding.

I asked what time it had been when Gayle and JimRat arrived and left.

“Oh, I guess they got here sometime around dark. They stayed about two hours, I believe.” She brushed some blonde hair out of her face. “I don’t remember exactly what time they got here, but they definitely left at eight.”

“How do you know they left at eight?” I asked.

“Because that’s what time I take my smoke break every night, and I was smoking when they left.”

“You didn’t happen to see what kind of vehicle they were in?” My heart rate increased a little, hoping we were on the verge of catching a break in the case.

“They were in separate cars,” she said. “Gayle was in her Mustang and the guy was in a truck.”

“What kind of truck?” I pressed.

“It was a truck like my brother drives.” She walked off and retrieved her cell phone. After messing with it a while, she showed me a picture of a young boy squatting next to a white F-150 pickup. “Only, it wasn’t white.”

“What color was it?”

“Navy blue.”

Dawn and I traded glances.

“Bernice, is there anything at all that you can remember about the man or his truck?” I asked, leaning closer. “Did you overhear him say anything at all about where he lived or worked? Were there any bumper stickers on his truck? Like, maybe one with the name of a workout gym or something? Anything at all that you can remember will be helpful.”

“I’m sorry, but nothing stands out.” She frowned. “Gayle did seem embarrassed by the way the man treated me, because she told him something when I walked away, and she left me a big tip. I mean, she always leaves nice tips, but she left a $100 bill that night, and I knew it was because of her date.”

Dawn and I took turns asking more questions, but Bernice was unable to provide anything more than she already had, but that might’ve been enough.

“He’s driving a dark-colored F-150,” I said when we were heading back to Payneville. “That’s another plus in his column.”

“Lots of people drive dark-colored F-150s,” Dawn said. “I’ve been hearing officers stop them all day long, but none of them turned out to be the shooter. And didn’t you say the truck was last seen heading away from Chateau to the north? If he’s from New Orleans, why didn’t he head south on Eighty or Three?”

She had a point, so I only said, “If it’s not him, we need to hurry up and identify him so we can clear him. That way, we can stop wasting valuable time.”

“What else would we be doing?” she asked. “We’ve got no other leads, and we’ve got officers covering all the other angles.”

I sighed. I was driving toward Payneville, but I wasn’t sure what we would do once we got there. Dawn was right—we had no other leads—so I figured we’d head to Chateau and join in with the others on the ground. Maybe we would get lucky and find something out in the cane fields or on the highways.

CHAPTER 38

Monday, January 18

Dawn and I returned to the office at eight in the morning after rotating out to have a two-hour nap, and we found the parking lot full of reporters. Once we’d left Twisted Long Neck on the previous night, we had met with the sheriff and Abraham in Chateau. Abraham hadn’t looked happy, and I knew he wanted to be back in his own vehicle driving around looking for the suspect. Instead, he had been riding shotgun with the boss.

“If Abe insists on being out here,” the sheriff had said with a grin, “then I’m going to babysit him until he heals up. I have to make sure he doesn’t get into any more trouble. I worked with his dad back in the day, and I’m not about to let nothing happen to his boy on my watch.”

Abraham had grumbled some, but I’d reminded him that he needed to be healthy for our wedding. He sighed his agreement, and Dawn and I made our break and joined the forces on the ground as they were patrolling the streets in search of the suspect’s truck. At around midnight, we had begun rotating officers in and out of service in order to preserve our readiness, and we’d gone in for our nap at six.

After pushing our way through the sea of reporters and entering the office, we found Sheriff Chiasson and Abraham in the conference room with a few members of the tactical team. Jerry was standing on the far side of the room, and he had a strange look on his face.

“Hey, London,” he said, shuffling his feet. “How’s it going?”

“Why’re you acting weird?” I asked, looking from him to the sheriff.

Jerry hesitated.

“Go ahead and tell him.” The sheriff waved a hand. “He’s gonna find out on the twelve o’clock news anyway.”

My curiosity thoroughly aroused, I walked closer to Jerry. “What’s going on, man?”

“I…um, I kinda did something.” He hung his head. “It’s bad.”

“Oh, yeah, what’d you do?” I looked back at the sheriff, but he was only grinning. I figured it couldn’t have been that bad if the sheriff thought it was funny.

“I kinda punched someone.”

I blinked. “You punched someone?”

“Yeah, I dropped that reporter that blasted your name all over kingdom come.”

“Wait…what?”

“I was coming in to work this morning and he shoved a mic in my face when I was approaching the side door,” he explained. “I recognized him as the same reporter that almost got you killed, so I decked him.”

Shocked, I turned slowly toward the sheriff. “Is he in trouble?”

“I saw the tape,” the sheriff said, shaking his head. “Larry Wells thrust that mic at him so fast it could’ve been construed as an attack. He said he wanted to press charges, but I told him to go to the DA’s office. I also warned him if he did that, then we would file countercharges for aggravated assault.” The sheriff paused, gave Jerry a wink, and concluded, “Besides, didn’t I say whatever happened short of a murder was between you and him?”

Jerry nodded, but still shot a nervous glance in my direction.

I shook my head, but smiled. “You got away with one, didn’t you?”

“You’re not mad?” he asked, shifting his feet again.

“You punched him because he endangered my life,” I said, cocking my head to the side. “How could I be mad at you for that?”

“Oh, man, London, that’s such a relief!” Jerry wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. “I thought you were gonna kick me off the team for losing my cool.”

“Oh, you’re getting kicked off the team,” I said with a straight face, “but I’m not mad at you.”

Jerry’s face blanched. “What?”

We all laughed, but our laughter was cut short when Cindy Folse burst into the room.

“Dawn,” she said hurriedly and with urgency, “come quick! I just got a call from the NOPD crime lab. They got a CODIS hit on two of the swabs we sent in.”

CODIS was the acronym for Combined DNA Index System, and it housed the DNA profiles of known felons across the country, as well as DNA evidence from unsolved crimes.

I grew instantly excited as I followed Dawn out of the room and into the evidence section. If there had been a hit in CODIS, it meant our suspect was already in the system, and that meant they would be able to give us a name. Although the name alone wouldn’t catch the killer, it would certainly give us an advantage. At the moment, we were chasing a faceless ghost. The name would be a game changer. I half wondered if his first name would be Jim, as Cindy dropped into her chair and pressed the speaker button on the desk phone.

“Hey, Bernice, I’m back,” Cindy said quickly. “I’ve got Detectives Carter and Luke here with me. Want to tell us what you found?”

“Hey, y’all, I’m Bernice Charles,” she said. “As I’m sure Cindy already told y’all, we got a CODIS hit on two of the swab samples y’all submitted. One is from a spent shell casing, .308 caliber, and the other is from a live cartridge, also .308 caliber. The hits come out of Denver, Colorado. They submitted the profiles on behalf of the Fairview Police Department. I looked it up, and they’re a small town outside of Denver.”

I scowled. What on earth kind of connection did Fairview, Colorado have with the deep south?

“Do you have the suspect’s name?” Cindy asked, an ink pen poised over a notepad.

“It didn’t hit on a suspect,” Bernice said. “It hit on evidence from an unsolved crime.”

“What kind of crime?” Dawn asked.

“A murder.”

I groaned out loud. If someone had murdered in Colorado and then again in Louisiana, it was possible we were dealing with a serial killer. And for every case that produces DNA evidence, there are hundreds that don’t, so there was no telling how many victims might have been killed across the country.

“Do you have any other details surrounding the case?” Dawn asked, leaning forward to hear better.

“I have a report number and the case officer’s name, but that’s about it,” Bernice said. “Let me know when you’re ready to copy.”

“Go ahead,” Dawn said, giving Cindy a nod to copy it down.

After reading off the report number, Bernice paused and said, “Oh, wow, this happened five years ago. Um, the detective’s name is Luis Vargas, and his number’s 303-555-2111.”

“Anything else you can tell us?” Dawn asked.

“The contributor is a male,” she said. “I’m sorry. I wish we had more.”

“No, you’ve been a big help,” Dawn said. “And thank you for expediting the analysis. We owe you big time.”

“Cindy keeps my freezer full of fresh shrimp,” Bernice said. “It’s me who owes her.”

Cindy was about to end the call when Bernice stopped her. “Cin, do y’all have a suspect?”

Dawn and I traded glances. “We do,” Dawn said, “but we’re having trouble identifying him.”

“Well, if y’all do I.D. him and get a sample, send it over high priority and I’ll get it processed immediately.”

Dawn thanked Bernice, and Cindy ended the call.

“Who’s the suspect?” Cindy asked.

“Some guy from New Orleans,” Dawn said. “The victim met him on a dating website, but he set up his profile under a fake name. We dumped the victim’s phone, but we can’t find where his name was ever mentioned.”

Cindy threw out some suggestions, but we had tried them all—except for one. She suggested creating a profile on the dating website and contacting the suspect. “We can straight up ask for his name, and if he refuses to give it, we can say we’re down to party, but we don’t trust people who won’t at least provide their name.”

“Hey, that might work,” Dawn said, casting a curious grin at Cindy. “I’ve been in the news a lot over the years, so I might be recognized. Do you want to give it a try?”

“I’d love to!” Cindy was almost bouncing in her chair as she whirled around and accessed the Internet. Dawn told her the name of the website, and her fingers flew across the keyboard as she began creating a profile.

I watched in silence for a while, wondering how we would get his DNA even if we did identify him.

“Hey, Dawn,” I finally said, “the judge won’t sign a warrant for us to get his identity, so how on earth will he sign a warrant for his DNA? His identity is much less intrusive.”

She straightened from where she had been leaning over Cindy’s chair. “You’ve got a point.”

“Once we have his name, we’ll have to conduct surveillance and try to get it the sly way,” I said. “Maybe we’ll catch him throwing away a cigarette butt or a coffee cup and we can pull it that way.”

A queer expression fell over Dawn’s face. “Hold up a minute.”

Cindy stopped typing and twisted around in her chair. “Don’t do it?”

“No, go ahead and do it,” Dawn said, tapping the back of her chair. She turned to me. “I know how we might be able to get his DNA right now—without knowing his identity or stalking him.”

When she told me, I slapped my leg, wondering why I hadn’t thought of it earlier.

“Let’s just hope it’s not too late,” Dawn said. “And you should make the call, because she’d do anything for you.”

CHAPTER 39

While Cindy continued to create a profile on S-Hearts, Dawn and I hurried to my cubicle. I grabbed the handset from my desk phone and called Dr. Fitch’s cell phone.

“Hey, Doc, it’s London,” I said when she answered. “I need a favor.”

“Anything for you,” she said sweetly.

Dawn slugged my arm playfully and mouthed the words, “I told you so!”

“Did you release Gayle Barrios’ body yet?” I asked, ignoring my wife-to-be.

“No, she’s still in the morgue.”

I pumped my fist in triumph. “Good, can you complete a sex crimes kit on her?”

“Why?” There was a hint of skepticism in Dr. Fitch’s voice. “She was shot once in the heart. There was no evidence or mention of a sexual assault.”

“That’s correct,” I said, “but our only suspect had sex with her on Thursday night. We’ve got DNA from a live cartridge that we recovered near the water tower, and if we can match that DNA to the man who had sex with her—”

“It would be proof that he killed her!” Dr. Fitch said, completing my sentence.

“Right.”

She hesitated for a few moments. “Starla didn’t show up for work again this morning, so I guess I’ll have to do it myself. You really need to call your friend, Lily, and see if she’s interested in the job. Tell her she can start today. If you vouch for her, she won’t even need to fill out an application.”

“Sure thing,” I said.

“Okay.” She paused again, and I knew she was thinking. “Meet me at the coroner’s office in thirty minutes and I’ll get it for you. You’ll owe me big time for this one.”

I didn’t respond to her last comment. I only thanked her and hung up the phone. I turned to Dawn. “Do you want the coroner’s office or the call to Colorado?”

Her eyes twinkled mischievously. “I’ll take the coroner’s office. That should really disappoint Dr. Bitch.”

I chuckled and took the sliver of paper from her. Twisting around in my chair, I dialed the number. When a man answered, I asked for Detective Luis Vargas.

“This is Vargas,” he said hesitantly. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m London Carter,” I said. “I’m a detective with the Magnolia Parish Sheriff’s Office in Louisiana.”

He laughed. “Man, when I saw your area code on the caller I.D., I thought it was one of those telemarketers. I was about to confess to killing my parents and asking him to dial 9-1-1.”

“That would’ve been funny,” I said, but then went right into why I was calling. “We got a CODIS hit on a case you worked five years ago.”

I could almost hear him sit up straighter as he asked, “Which one?”

I provided the case number and said, “According to this printout, it involves a murder and sexual assault.”

“Oh, God, that’s Bella Jordan’s case.” He paused for a long moment. Finally, in a breathless voice, he asked, “Do you have someone in custody?”

“No,” I said. “Just by chance, we found a live cartridge at a murder scene. The lab was able to develop a DNA profile on it, they entered it into CODIS, and here we are.”

“What about suspects? Do you have any?”

“We have one, but he’s a ghost. It seems they met on a dating website and he used an alias.” I tapped my computer to life and accessed my email account. “Give me your email address and I’ll send you his profile picture.”

He rattled it off, as though in a daze, and then sat there breathing heavily into the phone. I could tell the case weighed on him, and I understood. A few seconds later, I heard a dinging sound in the background.

“Shit,” he said with a moan. “I can’t see his face. Do you have a picture without those damned sunglasses and the goofy earmuffs?”

“Nope. That’s all we’ve got.”

Luis muttered to himself. I couldn’t understand most of what he was saying, but at one point, he said, “I can’t tell if that’s him.”

“You can’t tell if that’s who?” I asked.

“I had a suspect back when the murder first happened,” he said. “The features are similar, but it’s hard to tell because of the quality of the picture and the glasses.”

“Who was your suspect?” I asked. “Is he still around the Fairview area?”

“No, as a matter of fact, the last time I ran his name he was living in Provo.”

“Utah, right?”

“Yep,” he said. “I call a detective friend of mine who works at the PD there every few months to see if he’s had any similar cases, but so far, he’s had nothing. Now I know why.”

I noticed he had left out the name of his suspect, so I again asked what it was.

He sighed. “Bella was a nurse at a local hospital. My suspect was a doctor who worked with her. On the morning of her murder, one of the nurses overheard him asking Bella out on a date. The nurse couldn’t hear Bella’s reply, but she said it seemed like Bella turned him down, because he looked angry after the exchange. The next thing she knows, she hears that Bella was murdered in her house less than an hour later.”

I could hear Luis’ fingers pounding his keyboard in the background, and I knew instantly that he was running his suspect’s name again. I had an idea why he didn’t want to give me the name. If we were able to make an arrest on our case, then the suspect would enter our legal system and remain there for years. Once he had a lawyer, there was a good chance he wouldn’t admit to anything, and the case in Colorado might never get resolved.

“Look, we can work together on this,” I said, wondering how protective he was of his case. “If we put our heads together, we might be able to come up with something.”

When I got no response from Luis, I asked, “How was your victim killed?”

“She was shot.”

“So was our victim.” I jotted down that detail. “From what distance?”

“What?” he asked, his fingers stopping for a moment.

“From how far was your victim shot?”

“Oh, um, we weren’t able to get an accurate measurement, but it was about fifteen feet. She was shot through the door in her house, and it was hard to say exactly how far the suspect was from the door. Bella was only a few feet from it.”

I grunted.

“What?” he asked.

I thought about withholding any further information until he started coughing up something, but I didn’t have time for games. For all I knew, the suspect was out there at that very moment planning his next murder.

“Our victim was killed from about 400 yards away,” I explained. “It was a sniper-style attack. And get this—he stole a bunch of female mannequins and began practicing on them to hone his skills. We were able to recover a spent casing in his training area, and the DNA from it matched up with the live cartridge from the murder scene.”

“How would he leave a live cartridge at the scene?” he asked skeptically. His fingers had gone back to work on the keyboard, and his mouth worked just as fast. “I don’t understand how it could’ve fallen out of his gun. In all my years of doing this, I don’t think I’ve ever found a live round at a scene. Could it have been planted? That seems more likely than it being dropped. But if it was planted, then how did my suspect’s DNA get on it? This doesn’t make any sense.”

“My best guess is he had a stock pack on his rifle, and as he was fleeing, one of the rounds fell from the loop,” I explained. “A cheap stock pack won’t hold the rounds in place as well as the higher end ones will.”

“Is that a real possibility?”

“Absolutely. I’ve seen it happen at a number of sniper schools. It doesn’t happen with my snipers, because I only purchase the best equipment for us, but it happens with departments who try to cut corners or who force their snipers to buy their own gear.” I paused, remembering a case I’d worked before. “I’ve also seen it happen with hunters. I found a live round in the woods once when I was working an accidental shooting. Turns out, the round fell from the cartridge holder.”

Luis was silent for a few seconds as he worked on his computer. Finally, he asked, “What did your victim do for a living? Did she work in a hospital, library, or vet clinic?”

“No, Gayle Barrios was the manager of her dad’s business. They sell parts to oilfield companies. High-pressure gaskets, valves, piping, nuts and bolts—things like that.” I paused for a moment, but he offered no reply. “Luis, are you gonna tell me the name of this doctor or not?”

“Just a minute,” he said idly, apparently distracted by something he was reading or reviewing.

I was growing impatient. “Look, if this guy killed a woman in your jurisdiction and now killed one in mine, there’s a good chance he’ll kill again, and the sooner we put our heads together, the sooner we can catch this piece of shit.”

“Oh, I guarantee you he’ll kill again,” Luis said. “He killed at least three women in these parts, but he was very careful with the first two. He killed three, maybe five women in the Nashville area before coming here, but he didn’t leave a shred of evidence behind in those cases.”

“If he didn’t leave behind any DNA in Nashville, how’d you know it was him?”

“The M.O. was spot on.”

It sounded like he was once again leaving something out. “How long would he go between kills?”

“In Nashville, he killed every other week or so, and then everything stopped for a year. That’s when the bastard showed up here. He killed his first victim after Thanksgiving, the next one right before Christmas, and then he killed Bella on New Year’s Day.”

“If he was so careful in all the other cases, how’d you get his DNA from the Bella Jordan homicide?” I asked.

“His condom tore.”

CHAPTER 40

I leaned far back in my chair when Detective Luis Vargas mentioned that his suspect’s condom tore. Something didn’t make sense. “Were all the other women raped?”

“Yep,” he said. “In each case I worked, Nonoxynol-9 was recovered, which is also another indicator that they’re all connected. Nonoxynol-9 is a—”

“I know what it is,” I said, my mind still churning. It was a spermicide found in some condoms. The fact that his suspect used a condom when he raped each of his victims spoke to his careful nature, which was consistent with our suspect’s behavior. “Did y’all find any male pubic hairs on your victims?”

“We never found a single hair at any of the crime scenes,” Luis said. “Our coroner believes he shaves off his hair, and that matches my suspect. His head’s always clean-shaven and so are his arms.”

It made sense that a doctor would be cognizant of the different ways DNA could be deposited from the human body, and it made sense that he might use that knowledge to his benefit if he were committing crimes, but I wondered about the possibilities of the cases being connected. Gayle hadn’t been raped, and that seemed to be the motivating factor in the other cases. I said as much to Luis, but he wasn’t dissuaded.

“It’s obvious he’s changing his pattern,” he said. “He’s using a rifle now instead of a 9 mm handgun, so that’s also new. The fact that he’s no longer raping only shows that he’s evolving. He knows we recovered DNA at the scene, because I asked him to submit a sample. He refused, of course, but maybe that’s why he’s not raping anymore. Like I said, he’s evolving. He knows raping can leave behind evidence, so he’s only killing them now.”

“But why?” I asked. “What’s his motivation?”

“Maybe they cut him off in traffic or turned him down like Bella did. Who knows why these psychos do what they do?”

I considered what he said, but wasn’t buying much of it. Most suspects were stupid and not very complex, and their motivations were usually straightforward. If we could figure out why Gayle had been killed, it would be easier to figure out who had killed her, but the supposed break in the case turned out not to be much of one. That the DNA from our casing matched to a possible serial killer and rapist didn’t help to move our case forward—it only complicated things.

Unless…

I suddenly began to wonder if JimRat was actually Luis’ suspected killer. What if the doctor had begun perusing dating websites in order to keep his urges in check? If he had problems with rejection, he could cure them fast on a dating website. A quick glance showed an unlimited number of women—and men—searching for casual relationships, marriage, and good old one-night-stands. With so many willing souls out there, he might no longer feel the need to force himself on women. The fact that he had thrown Gayle out of his bed spoke to him only wanting her for sex, and that seemed to fit my theory.

I did consider something else. Not all narcissists were serial killers, but many serial killers were narcissists, and JimRat sure seemed to possess a few narcissistic personality traits.

In an attempt to establish more of a rapport with Luis, I shared my theory and asked him what he thought about it.

“Is that the picture you sent me earlier?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s possible,” he admitted, “but he could be changing up his pattern so we don’t link him to the Buckle Gap and Fairview murders. But he knows I figured out he was involved in Buckle Gap because of his method of operation, so I think he’s changing things up so his crimes over there aren’t connected with the crimes over here. You don’t have his name, I do—and it’s hard to work a case without a suspect’s name.”

Although he couldn’t see me, I nodded my agreement, and then asked, “What’s Buckle Gap?”

“That’s the town outside of Nashville,” Luis said idly, seeming to be lost in thought suddenly. “Or he could be playing with me.”

“How so?” I asked when he didn’t elaborate.

“He could’ve changed up his pattern intentionally and then planted that bullet to make me think it was a different person who killed Bella.” He spoke slowly, as though working through the details as he talked. “He knows I think he’s a killer and a rapist, but if he links his own DNA—that he thinks I’ll never get my hands on—to a sniper-style murder in Louisiana that doesn’t have a rape associated with it, then maybe I’ll start looking to someone else. Oh, yeah, I think he’s trying to throw me off of his scent.”

Before I could respond, I heard Luis’ fingers stop and he let out a triumphant curse. It was low and it sounded like he wanted to utter it under his breath, but it was just loud enough for me to hear.

“You found him, didn’t you?” I asked.

“What?”

“You found your suspect’s new address,” I said pointedly. “He’s in my jurisdiction, isn’t he?”

His non-answer was all the answer I needed.

“Luis, I don’t know you and you don’t know me,” I said. “I’m not trying to step on your toes or take over your case. I’m just trying to stop a killer before he strikes again. Please help me do that.”

“You don’t understand,” he said. “I promised Bella’s mom I would bring her killer to trial before…before she died. She’s very sick. The doctors don’t know if she’ll last the year. If you arrest him for the crimes he committed there, he’ll never make it to trial for Bella’s murder in time. Her mom will die without seeing justice served.”

“What if I get our district attorney to agree to let y’all try him first?” I asked. Even if he didn’t agree to it, I knew I could have my sheriff call his sheriff or police chief and get the information I wanted, but I didn’t want to go over his head. I’d rather have him as a friend than a foe—and I felt bad for Bella’s mother, although I didn’t even know her.

“If you can get that agreement, I’ll open up my case file to you,” he said. “I’ll give you whatever you need.”

“Give me ten minutes.” After ending the call, I quickly contacted the district attorney’s office and asked for Nelly Wainwright. When I explained what was going on, she put me on hold to get the district attorney on speaker phone with us. The next time she picked up, I heard the booming voice of Ryder Crawford.

“London, Nelly told me what’s going on,” he said. “Why are you pacifying this asshole? Go over his head and get what you need. I guarantee you this: no police chief or sheriff will stand by while his detective withholds information that could save a life. And if he’s captured in our jurisdiction, we’re taking a bite out of him first.”

“I’m not pacifying anyone and he’s not an asshole,” I said, a bit more heatedly than I intended. “Does it really matter who gets a bite out of him first? As long as justice is served and we save some lives, I don’t care who brings him to trial first.”

“Well, I care,” he said. “If we let them extradite him to Colorado, we won’t see him again for a couple of years, maybe longer.”

“We all have a couple of years, but Bella Jordan’s mother doesn’t,” I argued. “She’s been waiting five years already, and she might not make it to the end of the year. How horrible would it be for her to die without ever knowing who killed her daughter? Besides, Detective Vargas will know things about the case that aren’t in his files—hunches and intuition that aren’t factual, but that might still prove helpful—and if I play hardball with him, he might keep that information to himself. Right now, I need all the help I can get—we all do.”

After a brief moment of back and forth between Nelly and Ryder, with Nelly appealing to his human decency, the DA finally relented. “Okay, I’ll do it for the mother,” he said after a heavy sigh. “Tell your detective that they can have the defendant first, but not until we get everything we need to secure a prosecution.”

“I’ll get everything we need,” I promised, and punched off. I then called Luis back. When he answered, I passed on the assurances I’d received from Crawford.

“Okay, our suspect’s name is Dr. Dan Smith,” he said. “I ran a nationwide driver’s license search, and it looks like his most recent address is in a town called Broadmoore. Are you familiar with it?”

“It’s five minutes down the road.”

CHAPTER 41

Dawn’s head was on a swivel as she drove toward the coroner’s office. She studied every dark-colored truck she saw, and even whipped around to follow a navy blue F-150 that drove by, heading south. The truck pulled into the parking lot of a Subway restaurant, and Dawn parked beside it. A woman and a small boy stepped out and walked inside.

Dawn groaned and resumed her drive north. She was about to turn down the street that led to the coroner’s office when her cell phone rang. She picked it up without looking at the screen. It was Cindy and her voice was laced with excitement.

“Dawn, he responded to me!”

“JimRat?” Dawn asked, suddenly excited.

“Yeah!” Cindy said. “I put up a provocative profile picture and sent him a message saying, Hey there hunk, are you as tough as you look? He responded within a minute and asked me if I wanted to find out.”

“Back up,” Dawn said, pulling into the parking lot and shutting off her engine. “What kind of picture did you post?”

“I…um, I went into the bathroom and put on a baseball cap and dark sunglasses. I then removed my bra, unbuttoned my shirt to my bellybutton, and took a selfie. Let’s just say it’s very heavy on the cleavage. I turned it to black and white and lowered my head to make myself even harder to identify. Lord knows, I don’t need this shit getting out.”

“Damn, Cindy!” Dawn laughed out loud. “Way to take one for the team!”

“There ain’t no team,” she said with a huff. “You can tell London about this, but no one else—and only you get to see the picture, you hear me? Or I’m deleting everything.”

“Your secret’s safe with me.” Dawn chewed on her lower lip, trying to decide the best course forward. Finally, she said, “Leave him hanging for a while. You don’t want to sound too eager or he might sense a trap. Once you get him on the hook and y’all agree to meet, ask for a name.”

“I put that I was from Lafourche Parish,” she said. “Should I try to set up a meeting there, or agree to go to New Orleans?”

“No, try to set up something in Lafourche. Good idea not putting that you’re from Magnolia. He might’ve gotten suspicious.” Dawn started to end the call, but stopped. “Hey, Cindy, as soon as I get this sex crimes kit, do you think you can run it to Bernice in New Orleans?”

“For sure,” Cindy said. “I downloaded the S-Hearts app on my own phone and set up the profile there. I decided I didn’t want a picture of half-naked me going on the office computer.”

“Smart move.” Dawn swiped her thumb across the screen and made one more call before exiting her unmarked cruiser and ringing the buzzer.

Dr. Fitch met her at the door and Dawn apologized that it wasn’t London.

“He’s back at the office following up on a lead,” Dawn said. “Otherwise, he would’ve been here himself.”

“Dawn, I’m really sorry about earlier,” she said, her face burning red. “I had no idea you and London were a thing.”

Dawn smiled wryly. She didn’t consider being engaged to be married merely a “thing” but she didn’t object, preferring not to waste time on the subject.

“Look, I just spoke with Lily Pierce,” Dawn said. “She’s in between jobs at the moment and would love to come work for you. She said she can start whenever you like.”

“Can she be here in an hour?” Dr. Fitch asked, her face lighting up. “I can show her around today and get her processed and she can start first thing in the morning.”

Dawn nodded and pulled out one of her business cards. She wrote Lily’s contact information on the back of it and handed it to Dr. Fitch. In return, Fitch handed her the sex crimes kit.

“It’s a pleasure doing business with you,” Dawn said with a nod, and hurried out of the building. Once she was back in her car, she raced toward Payneville, but she never stopped searching for the dark-colored pickup. Over the police radio, she heard a dozen traffic stops involving vehicles that matched the suspect’s, but none of them seemed to pan out.

When she arrived at the office, she first went to the evidence section and knocked on the half door that led to Cindy’s office.

“Hey, Cindy,” she called, “it’s me, Dawn. I’ve got the sex crimes kit.”

After a few seconds, Cindy suddenly appeared from her office and approached the door. She unlocked the knob and opened the bottom half to let Dawn inside.

“It’s on,” she said, keeping her voice low, although they were the only people on that side of the building. She was quivering with excitement. “We’ve got a date scheduled for tonight. At Spahr’s, off of Highway Ninety in Lafourche.”

Dawn’s mind began to race, as she thought ahead. “What time are y’all supposed to meet?”

“Six o’clock.” Cindy put a hand to her bare neck, which was red in places. “I don’t really have to meet him, do I?”

“No,” Dawn said with a laugh. “London and I will be there waiting for him. Did you get his name?”

“No, but I found this on his dating page.” Cindy pulled up her phone and turned it so Dawn could see what looked like the same man wearing the same sunglasses standing outside an old building. He wore a faded tank top with tattered letters, but enough remained for Dawn to read the message: Fist First Fitness.

“What is it?” Dawn asked.

“Well, it was a gym that featured weightlifting and boxing.” She lifted a printout from her desktop and handed it to Dawn with a frown. “I checked with the secretary of state’s website. The business is no longer in good standing, but I found the agent of record’s name and phone number.”

Dawn grabbed the form and scanned it quickly. “Did you—”

“Yep, I called the agent—who happened to be the owner—and he said he would check his records. He said he thought he remembered seeing a bumper sticker that read JimRat in his parking lot. He thought it was different, and he never forgot the sticker, but he doesn’t remember whose car it was on. He promised to pull up his old files and search for everyone named Jim. He said he’d call back sometime today or tomorrow.”

“Did you ask what kind of vehicle the bumper sticker was on?”

“I did.” She smiled triumphantly. “He said it was a dark blue pickup truck. He didn’t remember what kind, but he said it was definitely dark blue.”

“Cindy, you’re the best!” Dawn said, hoping they would learn his identity before they confronted him later in the evening. It was always good to know one’s enemy, and for law enforcement, the easiest way to do that was to run a criminal history check.

“Do you want to sign that over to me?” Cindy asked, indicating the sex crimes kit. “I can take it to the lab right now. Bernice is actually waiting on me.”

Dawn nodded and followed Cindy to a corner of her office to fill out the chain of custody and lab submittal forms. Once that was done, she went to the kitchen, grabbed two bottles of water, two bags of chips, and headed for London’s cubicle. She found him leaning over his desk with the handset pressed tightly to his ear. He was talking excitedly. She only caught the tail end of what he was saying, but it sounded promising.

When her shadow fell over London, he glanced up and waved for her to sit beside him. She did and handed him a bottle of water and one of the bags of chips. He only pushed them to the side and scribbled something on the top of his notepad. He slid it toward her and she read, Dr. Dan Smith is our suspect!

CHAPTER 42

I waved Dawn close as I continued my conversation with Detective Luis Vargas. He had agreed to send me a copy of his investigative file, which he said contained more than 4,000 pages.

“How long will it take for you to scan and copy everything?” I asked after giving him my email address at work. “Time’s not our friend.”

“It’s all scanned and copied already,” he said. “I made a complete digital copy about three years ago and sent everything to the FBI, hoping they could take a look at it and come up with some suggestions.” He grunted. “They’re supposed to be experts at this kind of thing. You know what they told me?”

“What’s that?”

“They said it was most likely a white male in his mid-forties who committed the crimes. Can you believe that shit?” His chuckle was menacing. “Years ago, those same bastards said the serial killer who was murdering college girls in your part of the country was white, but he turned out to be black. They did the same thing with the Beltway sniper, calling him one angry white man, but it turned out to be two black men. And you know where they got the age for the suspect?”

“Let me guess—Dr. Smith is in his mid-forties.”

“You nailed it. Hell, you should apply to be a profiler.” Luis paused and I heard his fingers tapping on the keyboard. There were several quick whooshing sounds, and then he was talking to me again. “Okay, I just sent the files to you. They were all scanned into PDF documents and the files are not humungous, but they are rather large, so I sent them as five separate email attachments. I’ve also included the case information from Buckle Gap, so you’ll be able to see the similarities between their cases and mine.”

I ran my own driver’s license inquiry on Dr. Dan Smith while waiting to receive the files. I scowled when I saw his picture. JimRat seemed to have a full head of hair in his profile picture, but Smith was bald. I moved the handset from my mouth and asked Dawn if the two men looked alike. She shook her head.

“Hey, Luis,” I began, “I don’t think these two men are the same, and if they’re not, I have no clue why Dan Smith would want to kill Gayle. This JimRat fellow has a motive, but I don’t know what your doctor’s motive would be. We don’t even know if there’s a connection between him and Gayle.”

“There’s got to be something,” he said. “Seek and ye shall find.”

I looked up when Dawn tapped my shoulder. “Ask him if he came across anyone who goes by JimRat,” she said. “Maybe that’s how the women are meeting this guy. And although he’s got hair here, he could’ve shaved it. This picture does look old.”

I cocked my head, liking the idea. Murderers didn’t recognize jurisdictional boundaries, and many serial killers had crossed state lines to commit their crimes. The whole “don’t shit in your back yard” thing. I asked about JimRat and offered up Dawn’s suggestion.

“No, we didn’t have anyone by that name come up, but we didn’t think about the dating website angle.” He paused and I heard what sounded like a pen scratching against paper. “I’ll have to pull up their phone dumps again.”

Just then, my computer dinged to indicate I’d received mail. I opened the first file that popped up and scrolled through the pages. It was a massive document, and I knew there was a lot more to come. I didn’t have the hours and hours that it would take to go through every page of the files.

“Will the phone dumps be in these emails?” I asked.

“The files are too large to email. Do you do drop box?”

I glanced up at Dawn, who nodded, and said I did.

“Okay, I’ll send them that way.”

“Luis, it’ll take forever to go through all of these files,” I said, scrolling through page after page. “What do I absolutely need to know? What might help us catch this guy before he kills again?”

“All of my victims were murdered inside their homes,” he said. “They all lived alone. They all had garages with some kind of shrubbery along the house. They were all attacked after leaving work. In every case, it appeared the suspect hid in the bushes near the home and waited for them to open the garage door. He then slipped in behind their vehicles and attacked them right when they stepped out. In the first two cases, he killed the victims in the garage. In Bella’s case, she made it inside and closed the door, but Dan shot her through it.”

I kept opening files until I found the one that contained the crime scene photos. While I’d seen a lot of death and destruction in my time, it never got easy to see pictures of women and children who were murdered. As I perused the pictures, I shook my head.

“None of these look like the works of our guy,” I said. “Even if we do get a sample of Dan Smith’s DNA and it matches the profile in CODIS, we’ll need a lot more for a conviction.”

“I agree,” Luis said.

“What about the Tennessee cases?” I asked.

“Exactly the same as mine,” he said. “Single women, living alone, pulling into their garages after work, and getting murdered with a handgun.”

I scanned the titles on the files. “I don’t see any ballistics reports. Were y’all able to match the spent casings and projectiles?”

“He picked up the brass and found every bullet,” Luis explained. “In most cases he fired only one shot, the shot exited, and he took it with him. When he shot Bella through the door, that round lodged in her body, but he went after it.”

“He dug it out of her?” I asked incredulously, sliding back through the photos, trying to find a picture of Bella’s back.

“Yep, he took that bullet, the second bullet, and everything else that we might’ve been able to use to link him to the crime,” Luis affirmed. “I guess he didn’t realize his condom had torn, or he might’ve filled her with bleach and then set her on fire. You know how we’ve always been taught that a suspect brings something to the scene and takes something from it? Well, Dan took everything he brought back with him, except for that last DNA deposit.”

I didn’t like how he kept saying Dan’s name like he was definitely the killer. At the moment, we had no clue if his DNA would even match our samples or the one Luis had recovered.

“Well, there are a couple of connections to our case,” I said, shaking my head when I found the photo of the gash in Bella’s back from where the bullet had been dug. “Our suspect picks up all of his casings and bullets—unless he’s interrupted or drops one—and he’s lived in all three places where the crimes were committed.”

“I think that puts him at the top of the suspect list,” Luis said.

“I can’t disagree with that.”

Luis and I talked for about an hour longer, with Dawn leaning close in order to keep up with the conversation. When I thought I had all I needed for the time being, I thanked him and hung up the phone. That’s when Dawn told me Cindy Folse had been able to entice JimRat into a meeting in Lafourche Parish.

“He’s supposed to be there at six tonight to meet Cindy,” she said. “I figured we’d get there at five and surprise the hell out of him when he shows up.”

I nodded. “I love it.”

She then showed me a picture on her cell phone. “JimRat sent this picture to Cindy. Fist First Fitness is closed, but Cindy did a business search on the secretary of state’s website and found the owner.”

“Really?” I’d always known Cindy as a hard worker who did her job better than anyone else who’d held that position, but I hadn’t realized she had a little bit of detective in her.

“Yeah, he actually remembers seeing a JimRat bumper sticker in his parking lot.” She reclaimed her cell phone. “And get this; it was on a dark blue pickup truck.”

CHAPTER 43

Dawn and I had arrived at Spahr’s in Lafourche Parish at five o’clock and had been backed into the side parking lot for two hours, but there had been no sign of JimRat. I had rolled my window up an hour earlier to try and keep the mosquitoes and the smell of freshly cooked seafood out of my truck. I’d eaten there a few times as a kid and remembered the food being fantastic. We were hungry, tired, and frustrated that we’d wasted two hours on an asshole who seemed to be standing Cindy up.

“We’ll give it fifteen more minutes,” I said, “and then we’re out of here.”

“Crank up the engine so I can put my window down for a few minutes then,” Dawn said. “If I can’t taste the food, let me at least smell it for a while before we go.”

I laughed, but didn’t start the engine. With that smell would come mosquitoes, and I wasn’t interested in having the little blood suckers buzzing incessantly in my ears.

The time ticked by slowly. Dawn had called Cindy at six-fifteen and asked her to message JimRat to see where he was. Cindy had sent the message, but as of thirty minutes earlier, he hadn’t replied. Dawn had also asked Cindy if she’d heard from the former owner of Fist First Fitness, but she said he hadn’t called back yet.

When thirteen minutes had passed, I reached for the ignition. That’s when I got a call from Jerry.

“Hey, London,” he said in a hoarse whisper, “the ’possum has returned to the drey.”

“What?” I asked, moving the phone away from my head and staring at it for a second before putting it back to my ear. “What in the hell are you talking about? And what’s a drey?”

“You know,” he said. “It’s a ’possum’s nest. I’m speaking code to let you know the doctor is home.”

I pressed the speaker button and sat straighter in my seat. I had sent Jerry and Andrew to the address I’d gotten from Detective Luis and asked them to pull surveillance on Dr. Dan Smith. When they’d first arrived, they’d reported that the house was dark and there were no cars in the driveway. There was a two-car garage, but the windows were all shaded, so they couldn’t see inside.

“What’s he driving?” I asked.

“An F-150 pickup,” Jerry said. “And it’s dark blue. He pulled into the garage and closed the door before he got out of the truck.”

“Were you able to see his face?”

“Negative. His windows are tinted and he pulled straight into the garage.”

My heart beat like a drum in my chest. I glanced at Dawn. “What do you think? Do we have probable cause for a warrant?”

She frowned, thought about it for a long moment before shaking her head. “Colorado doesn’t even know if it’s his DNA they’ve got,” she said. “At this point, we’ve got him living in three places where multiple murders were committed and he’s driving the same kind of truck as the suspect. While that seems damning, it could all be one big coincidence.”

“Should we do a knock and talk?” I asked.

“And say what?” Dawn challenged. “Ask if he’ll give us his DNA? He already refused to submit a sample in Colorado, so he’s definitely not giving us a swab. I say we put a car on him in the morning and follow him around, see where he goes. Maybe we’ll get lucky and see him throw out a wad of gum or a cigarette butt. We might even be able to find out where he works.”

“Sounds good,” I said, turning my attention back to Jerry. “Keep an eye on the place and let us know if he leaves.”

“I’m on it, boss. This bastard won’t be able to take a shit without me knowing about it.”

“How’s that?” I scowled, genuinely curious and a little disgusted. Jerry didn’t disappoint.

“I’m set up in the woods behind his house, and I can see right through the bathroom window. The top of the commode is in plain sight. At a minimum, I think I deserve some hazard pay on this one, London. This might get explosive.”

I chuckled and told him I’d send relief his way in the morning. “I’ll be up all night if you need me,” I said. “I’ve got a mountain of paperwork to wade through.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

As tough as it was, Dawn and I left the Spahr’s parking lot without going inside to eat supper, and then we drove back to Magnolia Parish. Dawn checked in with Cindy again as we were pulling into Payneville, but JimRat hadn’t messaged her back, and she hadn’t heard back from Fist First Fitness.

“Do you think JimRat’s our killer?” I asked Dawn.

“It’s hard to say.” She was chewing on her bottom lip. “Now that Dr. Smith has entered the picture, JimRat suddenly doesn’t look so promising anymore.”

I parked my truck near the side door—right where I’d been standing on Saturday night when Jarrett Boudreaux had almost killed me—and turned to watch my wife-to-be mull over the case as she flipped through her notes. I wondered what would’ve happened if Jerry hadn’t shown up when he did. What would Dawn be doing right at that moment? Would she be preparing my funeral? Writing my eulogy? Sitting at home crying?

I cursed under my breath. Since losing my parents and siblings as a kid, I had not allowed myself to get close to anyone. I had started to think that if I loved someone, it would make me weak and vulnerable, because bad people would be able to use them against me. I smiled wryly in the darkness. All bets were off, because Dawn had her hooks firmly inside of me.

In addition to feeling weak, I also knew how much it sucked to lose someone I loved, and I wondered if Dawn would’ve felt the same way about losing me as I’d felt when I’d lost my family. I didn’t want her to ever experience that kind of hurt, and I knew right then I would have to live forever. I would have to do whatever it took to put the bad guys down and keep myself above ground, and that meant never taking a risk like I had on Saturday night.

As I considered those things, I noticed how the surrounding streetlights caused shadows to softly caress Dawn’s face. She looked so beautiful. I found myself thinking ahead to our wedding and wondering if we would solve the present case before then. Come hell or high water, I was marrying her as scheduled, and that meant we had to get to work.

Dawn must’ve felt me staring, because she suddenly looked up with a quizzical expression on her face. “What is it?” she asked.

Without saying a word, I leaned over and kissed her. Her lips were moist and soft and I didn’t want to pull away, but I knew I had to.

Dawn’s breasts seemed to swell. “What was that for?”

“I needed something to wake me up,” I said, and slipped from my truck. She followed me inside the office and we began poring over the 4,000 pages that we’d received from Detective Luis Vargas. I didn’t know what I expected to find, but I was hoping for a miracle.

All through the night, Dawn and I read page after page of the documents in front of us. I printed out the actual investigative reports from each case so we could highlight certain passages we thought might prove useful at a later time, but there was nothing that helped us get closer to identifying the killer.

In the background, we heard the nearly-constant chatter on the police radio. It was quiet for a Monday night, but there was a lot of activity as our officers made traffic stops on dark-colored F-150 pickup trucks and logged building checks and extra patrols. If the driver of a particular truck didn’t violate some type of traffic law, the deputy or detective would log its location and follow it until it arrived at a destination. At that point, the officer would stop and make contact with the driver.

Deputies also logged each time they patrolled a neighborhood, and they made a note of each address where an F-150 was parked. The sheriff had made it clear that he wanted them to put eyes on every house in the parish to see if they could find the suspect’s vehicle, but I made it clear to him early on that it would be nearly impossible, since we knew of no distinguishing marks on the truck we were after. He admitted that was the case, but he insisted on them driving down every street and lane in the parish in order to try and locate our murderer.

By the time the sun was peeking in through the side door, we had made it through a quarter of the documents. While we were far from finished, we decided it was time to take a break. We needed to be well-rested and fed in the event we ran up on the killer, so Dawn and I headed in for a couple of hours of sleep and breakfast.

On the way to my house, I sent Rachael and Ray to replace Jerry and Andrew, and I told Ray to wake me up if there were any developments.

CHAPTER 44

Two hours later…

It was hard to peel myself away from Dawn’s cool, naked body. She moaned as I rubbed her breasts and kissed her.

“To hell with work,” she said. “Let’s stay here and make love all day.”

As tempting as it sounded, we both knew we couldn’t do that, so we rolled out of bed as best we could while staying tangled in a flesh-pretzel and making out. Reluctantly, we pulled apart and dressed for work. I followed Dawn to the kitchen and we started putting breakfast on. We hadn’t eaten much in the previous days, so we made a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs, grits, bacon, and toast, and we wolfed it down with little talking between us.

When we did talk, it was to discuss the pamphlets on the table. We had looked at several houses in the lead-up to our wedding, and we still hadn’t decided which one we wanted to buy. One thing was certain, neither her place nor mine was large enough to start a family, and as crazy as I would’ve thought it a year earlier, I was ready for some kids. I wanted to be a dad.

Dawn stabbed one of the pamphlets and waited as she chewed a mouthful of food. Once she was done, she said, “I don’t want to be anywhere near Seasville. I’m tired of worrying about my house flooding every time a hurricane enters the Gulf.”

I nodded and snatched up the pamphlet. I crumpled it and launched it toward the trash can in the corner. No surprise, I missed. I shook my head. I could put three bullets in a dime at 200 yards, but I couldn’t fit a two-inch piece of wadded-up paper into a sixteen-inch square from twelve feet.

“Our kids won’t play basketball,” Dawn said with a silly grin. I hadn’t seen her that relaxed and happy-go-lucky since we’d begun the investigation into Gayle’s murder. It made my heart swell.

I laughed and was about to ask her about building our own home when Dawn’s cell phone rang.

“Hey, Cindy, this is Dawn,” she said, quickly switching to speaker phone. “Did you hear from JimRat?”

“No, but Bernice called me from the lab a second ago,” she said, her words stumbling over each other. “The sex crimes kit—they got a hit on it.”

“Yes!” Dawn said, pumping her fist in the air, but not for long. She stopped suddenly and held her breath. She could sense the same thing I was sensing in Cindy’s voice—the news wasn’t over. There was more, and from her tone, it didn’t sound good. “Cindy, please tell me the hit is from the same Colorado case.”

“Yeah, it is, but there’s a problem.” Cindy took a haggard breath. It sounded like she needed one. “They developed two DNA profiles from the sex crimes kit. Gayle Barrios had sex with two men in the days or hours prior to her murder.”

I dropped the fork I was holding to my plate. I knew instantly what it meant. Unless we had a known DNA sample from a suspect, and that sample matched the DNA from the bullet, we would never know which man was the killer and which man was some innocent dude Gayle had sex with. We knew for a fact that JimRat had slept with her, but we didn’t know which sample belonged to him.

Dawn ended the call, a stunned expression on her face. “This ain’t good, London. This doesn’t help us at all.”

I nodded my agreement. “I thought we’d either get a hit and know JimRat was the killer, or we wouldn’t get a hit and we’d be able to eliminate him as a suspect.”

“This is a worst-case scenario.” Dawn had also stopped eating and was staring intently across the table at me, but she wasn’t seeing me. She was seeing the giant puzzle that was our case, and she was trying to mentally put the pieces together. Finally, she blinked. “We need to talk to her friends again and find out who else she slept with.”

I pursed my lips, and Dawn noticed.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked.

I nodded. “I think we need to pay Sam Prince a visit.”

“Yep!” Dawn was already standing from the table. “If Gayle was having casual sex with anyone, it had to be Sam, and as much as he liked Gayle, I can see him getting pissed off about her sleeping with some random dude she had met online.”

“You think we can poke holes in his alibi defense?” I asked, thinking back to the conversation we’d had with his mother. “She did seem a little hesitant when she said he was with her.”

“She’s his mother,” Dawn said simply. “Of course she’d lie for her boy.”

I rose from the table, too, but paused with my plate in my hand. “You know, if we were only dealing with Gayle, Sam, and JimRat, this might make sense,” I mused aloud, “but how does Bella Jordan’s case fit into this? Let’s say Sam killed Gayle. What would his connection be to the women in Colorado and Tennessee? And what about Dr. Smith? How does he fit into the equation?”

“As far as we know, there are no connections between Gayle and Dr. Smith,” Dawn said. “There’s still a chance that this Dr. Smith has the worst luck ever, and that the murders have nothing to do with him. Maybe Sam spent some time in those states.”

I dropped my dishes in the sink. Dawn followed suit, her face twisted into a cute scowl.

“What if neither of the men Gayle screwed killed her?” she asked.

“We know one of them is the killer,” I countered, “thanks to the hit from Colorado.”

“We know one of them killed Bella Jordan,” Dawn corrected, “but that man didn’t kill Gayle? What if a third person killed Gayle?”

“I’m not following you.”

“We know for sure that the M.O. for the Colorado killer doesn’t match Gayle’s murder,” Dawn said. “Right?”

I nodded, and she continued.

“Dr. Smith could very well be the Colorado killer, but it could also be true that he had nothing to do with Gayle’s murder. He could’ve had sex with Gayle, just like JimRat did, but it could be a third party—like Sam—who murdered Gayle.”

“But what about the spent casing we found in Plymouth East?” I asked. “The DNA on it matched the live round from the water tower, and it also links up to Bella Jordan’s case.”

“Damn, this is a complicated mess.” Dawn sighed. “Let’s head to Sam’s house anyway. I’ll call Ashley Burke on the drive.”

CHAPTER 45

“Hey, Ashley, it’s Dawn Luke,” Dawn said over the speakerphone as I drove north toward Sam’s house. “I need to ask you a few more questions about Gayle.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said. “I’ll do anything to help find the person who did this.” Ashley’s voice was hoarse. It was obvious that she had genuinely loved Gayle and that she was taking the murder hard.

“Do you know who Gayle was seeing before this JimRat fellow, if anyone?”

“It had been about three years since she actually had a boyfriend. He was a cop. He worked for another parish. I don’t remember his first name, but I think he was an Hebert? I’m not really sure. Over the years, it’s been hard enough to keep track of my own failed attempts, much less Gayle’s.” Ashley sighed. “It’s hard to find a good man.”

“I know what you mean, sister.” Dawn reached over and squeezed my arm. “Between that boyfriend three years ago and this piece of shit from the gym, has she been on any other dates?”

“Oh, yeah, she’s been on plenty of dates, but none of them amounted to anything. Sometimes, she’d go on a date just to be nice, because she didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. She’s even gone to dinner with a few of her customers, but she would warn them beforehand that it was only a friendly meal and it wouldn’t turn into anything more, because she didn’t date customers. One of them asked if she would go steady with him if he quit doing business with the company, but she jokingly said she would never talk to him again if he did that. So, they had dinner that one time and he kept buying from us.” Ashley paused, and I could almost see her taking a walk down memory lane. “Gayle was something special, and every man that came into contact with her recognized it. She was a real catch—and not just because she stood to inherit Mr. Truck’s business. I’m sure some men recognized that and wanted her for the money, but most men saw a smart, beautiful, and powerful woman. Those who weren’t intimidated by those qualities were intrigued.”

We were closing in on Chateau and I slowed my driving so Dawn could get what we needed.

“Ashley, I don’t want you to infer anything from what I’m about to ask,” Dawn began slowly. “These are just routine questions designed to uncover as much information as possible. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Is it possible that Gayle had sex with another man after she had sex with JimRat?” The question hung in the air like a bomb about to go off. When Ashley didn’t respond, Dawn prompted her to say what she was thinking.

“My friend was not a slut,” Ashley finally said, her voice tight, as though trying to refrain from cursing Dawn out.

“I’m not saying that at all,” Dawn said softly. “We all agree that JimRat was a piece of shit. Is it possible that Gayle slept with someone more appealing to her—maybe a former boyfriend—in order to get the bad taste of JimRat out of her system?”

Ashley was quiet—for a little too long.

“So, it is a possibility, right?” Dawn asked.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Ashley finally said. “I’m just saying that there was a time when she did have a bad encounter, and then she fell into the arms of a man who was supposed to be consoling her. That was years ago, back when she was in college. Since then, she has never cried on another man’s shoulder—only mine.”

Dawn glanced at me and gave a nod to let me know she thought it was possible. I was in agreement, and I wondered who the man could be. Had it been Sam, there would’ve been no reason for him to kill Gayle, so there had to be a third man in the equation.

“Can you tell me about any of the more recent dates that Gayle has gone on?”

“If you’re talking about sex, there’s been no one for a long time.” Ashley sounded a bit defensive. “This JimRat asshole was the first in forever, and she would never have thought about it had I not told her to go for it.”

“No, I’m not talking about sex,” Dawn assured her. “I want to know about casual dates. Anyone she may have had lunch or dinner with, maybe gone to a movie with, or some other innocent activity.”

“She’s been on too many of those to mention,” she said. “I couldn’t even begin to tell you the names of all of them.”

“What about those you can remember?”

After letting out a long sigh, Ashley began calling out the names of random men—names that meant nothing to us. After she had gone on for about a solid minute, Dawn stopped her.

“Let me ask you this,” Dawn began, “does the name Dan Smith mean anything to you?”

“Dr. Danny?”

Dawn and I each sat straighter in our seats. Had we been German shepherds, our ears would’ve perked right up.

“Do you know him?” Dawn asked casually, forcing the excitement out of her voice.

“Yeah, I know Dr. Danny. Gayle went on a few dates with him about six months ago. I always liked him. I thought it would be cool if Gayle married a doctor. I thought they made a cute couple, but Gayle thought he was boring.” Ashley’s voice suddenly grew suspicious. “Why are you asking about Dr. Danny?”

“We’re just covering all of our bases,” Dawn said with a wave of her hand. “How’d they meet?”

“Well, Gayle was climbing a ladder at work to get a box down from a top shelf. The valve inside the box wasn’t packaged right and it shifted on the inside, throwing Gayle’s balance off. She fell and broke her wrist when she reached out to catch herself.” Ashley let out a grunt of admiration. “Gayle, she was always tough. She played volleyball in high school and college, so injuries were nothing new to her. She refused to let Kelly or Sam call for an ambulance, even though her wrist was swelling fast and twisted at a weird angle. With her good hand, she opened the box to make sure the valve hadn’t been damaged, finished the order, and then drove to the urgent care. That’s where she met Dr. Danny.”

“Which urgent care was it?”

“The one in Chateau. Just up the road from her business.”

“Is Dr. Danny’s last name Smith?” Dawn asked to be sure.

“Oh, yeah, his name was Dan Smith, but everyone called him Dr. Danny.”

My heart pounded as I drove and listened to Dawn’s interview with Ashley. We were definitely on to something. Now that we were positive Gayle had dated Dan Smith, I was starting to wonder if he wasn’t actually the killer. While we might be able to poke holes in Sam’s alibi defense, I just didn’t know what his connection might be to Colorado and Tennessee. He was a local boy, and had been all his life. However, if Gayle had, indeed, slept with Dan after having sex with JimRat, what would’ve been his motivation for killing her? Was it possible he had found out that Gayle was only using him to get the taste of JimRat out of her system—as Dawn had framed it—and had killed her for it?

When Dawn ended the interview with Ashley, she tossed her cell phone to my center console and cursed out loud. “Damn it, London, Dan has to be our killer!”

I nodded, having come to the same conclusion. “One of the men who slept with Gayle murdered her, and Dan’s the only one with ties to Colorado.”

I pulled my truck to the shoulder of the road and threw it in park. I turned to Dawn. “What now?”

Before she could answer, my phone rang. A quick glance at the screen showed Ray Sevin’s number. I answered immediately.

“Hey, London, the ’possum has left the drey.”

I almost choked on my tongue trying to stifle my laughter. I wanted to ask if Jerry had put him up to saying that, but didn’t. “Where’s he heading?”

“North, but he’s not driving a truck anymore.”

I scowled. “What’s he in?”

“A green Dodge Charger.”

“Can you see what he looks like?”

“Nah,” Ray said, “he’s got dark tinted windows, just like on the truck.”

I thanked him and told him they could pull surveillance off the doctor’s house.

“Try to tail the Charger if you can, but don’t let him know he’s being followed.”

“I’m in the trees,” he said, “so it’ll take me a while to catch up.”

“That’s fine.” My mind was still processing what we’d just learned. “Be safe.”

CHAPTER 46

Forgetting about Sam Prince, I drove straight to the urgent care where Gayle had met Dan Smith. Dawn and I sat there waiting for him to show up. Immediately after getting the call from Ray, I had called the sheriff and requested a narcotics team to intercept and follow Dr. Smith. As usual, the sheriff had asked a lot of questions, and I’d filled him in on all of the recent developments.

“Okay, I’ll have a team tail him,” the sheriff had said when I was done. “How sure are you that this is our guy?”

I’d glanced at Dawn, shrugged, and said, “He’s our best guess at this point.”

He’d grunted and ended the call.

When the narcotics team had caught up to Dan Smith, they’d radioed that he had crossed over to Highway Eighty in Mathport and had turned north. As of their last radio traffic, he had blown through Gracetown and was still heading north, which made us think he was heading for work.

Ten minutes later, our suspicions were confirmed when an ugly green Charger pulled into the parking lot. It was bright and hard to miss. The man who stepped out was tall—about three inches north of where I hit the tape—bald, and wore purple scrubs under a white coat. He was an unassuming man. Without the doctor’s garb, he would’ve gone unnoticed in a crowd.

Dawn and I stepped out of my truck and approached him in the parking lot. He looked up as we drew closer and his eyes immediately fell to our pistols and the badges clipped on our belts.

I nodded and introduced us, stuck out a hand. He hesitated, looking from me to Dawn and then back to me.

“What’s this about?” he asked evenly, leaving my hand extended in the air without shaking it. I pulled it back. I’d hoped to “accidentally” scrape his flesh with my fingernails and recover his DNA. The fact that he hadn’t fallen for it raised my antennae even higher.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions,” I said. “Is there a place inside where we can talk, or would you rather do it out here?”

“I’m late for work.” He glanced down at his wristwatch. “I really have to be inside.”

“It’s about Gayle Barrios,” I said pointedly, watching for a reaction. There was none. I smiled. “Oh, you’re a cool customer, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.” His voice was impatient. “Like I said, I’ve got patients waiting for me inside. I need to go.”

Before I could say another word, he shook his head and began to walk off.

“You dated Gayle Barrios and she was murdered on Saturday evening,” I called after him. “You dated Bella Jordan and she was also murdered. Did you date one of the murdered women in Buckle Gap, too?”

Dan Smith stopped in his tracks and his back stiffened at the mention of Bella Jordan and Buckle Gap. He turned slowly. His eyes had narrowed to mere slits and his jaw was set.

“You’ve been talking to Detective Luis Vargas!” He spat the words. “My lawyer has already warned him to stay away from me and to stop making false accusations. It seems he didn’t heed the warning. I guess I’m left no choice but to sue him for everything he owns and has coming to him—his lowly home, his rusted car, and his meager pension. The man will be homeless by the time I’m finished with him.” He paused and pointed a finger in my direction. “If you don’t want to meet the same fate, I’d suggest you leave me the hell alone!”

“Nice speech,” I said with a shrug, walking forward until I was almost nose-to-nose with him, “but I wasn’t moved by it. At this moment, we have enough evidence to request a search warrant for your DNA. When we get it, will it match up to the murder in Colorado?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he just stared down at me.

“Will your DNA also match the evidence we recovered from Gayle’s murder?” When he still didn’t answer, I faked a sympathetic sigh. “Look, if you didn’t commit the murders, why don’t you come in of your own volition and give us a sample of your DNA? If it doesn’t match, we’ll know we’re on the wrong track, and we can tell Vargas he’s got it all wrong. You can then go on living your life without ever worrying about this coming up again.”

“Oh, I’m not worried at all about this,” he said. “If you want to talk to me again, contact my lawyer first.”

“And who’s that?”

Ignoring my question, he turned and stormed into the urgent care, letting the glass door slam shut behind him.

I quickly got on my phone and called the narcotics team that had been tailing Dan Smith. “I need y’all to keep an eye on the urgent care,” I said. “Dawn and I need to apply for a search warrant. We can’t let him out of our sight.”

Once the undercover car had returned to the area, Dawn and I sped off, heading for the main sheriff’s office in Chateau. I called Sheriff Chiasson on the drive to let him know what was going on.

“Do you think he’s our guy?” he asked.

“Everything’s circumstantial,” I acknowledged, “but all the evidence points to him.”

“Keep me informed,” he said.

I glanced at Dawn. “What do you think?”

“It has to be him. He was in all three places where the murders occurred, and we can prove a direct link to two of the victims.” She nodded. “A judge will definitely sign a warrant for his DNA, and then we’ll know for sure.”

Once we arrived at the main office, we found a secluded area and typed up the affidavit and warrant to search the body of Dr. Dan Smith. Luckily for him, we only needed a buccal swab, which was nonintrusive. A simple rubbing of his inner cheeks with long cotton swabs would do the job. Of course, that was provided the judge would sign the warrant.

For good measure, Dawn prepared an affidavit and warrant to search Dan’s house for the murder weapon, live cartridges, spent shell casings, and the F-150 pickup truck used in the commission of the crimes. We already knew there was a pickup in his garage, so we figured that detail would be icing on the cake.

CHAPTER 47

It was almost noon when Dawn and I hurried to the steps of the Fifty-Sixth District Courthouse. The locals called the old courthouse the “Stanley Five Six DC”, thanks to the Stanley Model 56-816 sixteen-ounce hickory-handled sledgehammer mounted above Chief Judge Rick Landry’s bench. At least once, the Honorable Landry had threatened to take down the hammer and use it on a group of unruly prisoners. As the story went, the prisoners had immediately shut their mouths and behaved.

The hallway was unusually empty for a Tuesday—everyone must’ve headed for lunch early—and we reached the door to Judge Landry’s courtroom in no time. He was still on the bench when we pushed our way inside. Ever aware of what was happening around him, he looked up when we entered, and then turned his attention back to the man who was standing at the lectern.

“Do you understand the rights I’ve read to you?” Judge Landry was asking in his deep southern accent.

The man glanced at a suit standing tall next to him. The lawyer nodded, and the man leaned close to the mic. “Yes, sir.”

“And how do you wish to plead?” asked Landry.

Another glance for confirmation in his lawyer’s direction, and then the man said, “Guilty, Your Honor.”

Dawn and I made our way quietly to the front of the courtroom while the judge handed down the man’s sentence. When he was done, he turned his attention to Dawn and me, waved us forward.

“Do y’all need something?” he asked when we approached the bench.

“Yes, sir,” Dawn said, removing the warrant and affidavit from her file folder. “We need a warrant signed.”

The judge took the affidavit and read it with interest. When he was finished, he scowled. “So, you believe this man is the so-called Mannequin Slayer?”

“We’re not ready to say for sure it’s him just yet,” Dawn admitted, “but we do think we have enough probable cause for the search warrants.”

“I agree, but only about the DNA. The probable cause for the house is weaker, so I’ll deny that until you can develop more evidence. If the DNA from the Colorado crime scene and the bullets y’all recovered match his, then come back and I’ll happily approve the search warrant for the house.” Judge Landry signed the warrant for the DNA and handed it back. “Be careful out there. This looks to be a dangerous man.”

We thanked the judge and hurried out of the courthouse. While Dawn called Cindy and told her to meet us in Chateau with a chain of custody form, I called the sheriff.

“The judge signed the warrant for Dan Smith’s DNA,” I said to the sheriff as we jogged back to where my truck was parked beside the main office two blocks away. “We’re heading to the clinic now to execute it.”

“I’ll meet y’all there with Abraham,” he said. “We’re just around the corner.”

When I pulled out of my parking spot, I hit Highway Eleven and headed toward the urgent care. It was less than a mile and a half down the road, but it took a few minutes to arrive, thanks to the lunch hour traffic. The undercover car was still parked where we’d left it, as was Dan Smith’s ugly Charger.

Dawn and I were getting out of my truck when the sheriff pulled up with Abraham, who stepped out of the Tahoe gingerly. I waited for them to approach us and then indicated his chest.

“Hurts?” I asked.

“I’ll live,” he said. “It’s a lot better than being dead, I’ll tell you that.”

I nodded my agreement and we all converged on the clinic. In the waiting room, Dawn leaned close to the intake nurse and asked to speak with Dr. Dan Smith. There were three patients behind us, so Dawn was trying to be as respectful as possible, just in case Dr. Smith had nothing to do with the murders. Of course, it seemed to be a long shot at that point.

“Um, he’s with a patient right now,” the nurse said, staring around at the four of us. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Only if you killed Gayle Barrios,” I wanted to say, but didn’t.

“No, we need to see Dr. Smith,” Dawn said. “As soon as he’s finished with his patient, send him out. This is important and it’s urgent.”

The nurse hesitated, but finally nodded and disappeared through a door behind the counter. When she returned, her expression was hard. “I’m sorry, but Dr. Smith said he has nothing to say to you. He said if you don’t leave immediately, he will—”

“You can tell Dr. Smith we’re not here with questions and he doesn’t have a choice,” Dawn said, her voice even. “We’ve got a warrant for his DNA. You can either buzz us into that side door so we can swab him privately, or we’ll kick it down and drag his ass to the jail, where it’ll be a lot less convenient for him.”

The nurse gulped and disappeared once again. The next time the door opened, it was Dr. Smith in the flesh. His face was red and his eyes were as narrow as they had been earlier. For a brief second, I wondered if he had resting angry face, but then realized it must’ve been the mention of our return that had thrown him into a sour mood. Of course, I had to imagine that he’d been thinking about us from the moment we left earlier.

“I’ve been in touch with my attorney and he told me not to say a word to you guys,” Dan said, trying to sound authoritative. “I will not speak with any of you and I will not submit to anything until he is here and can be present for the interaction. Now, I demand that you guys leave my clinic at once—”

“Dan, you have two choices, and only two,” Dawn said in a low but deadly tone. “You can either buzz us in and we can do this privately, or you can step out here and we can do this in front of these patients.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “And if I refuse to do either of those things?”

“Then we’ll bust down the door and come after you,” Dawn said. “As you’ve already been informed, we’ve got a warrant to collect your DNA. If you refuse to voluntarily give us a sample, we can strap you down and take it. It doesn’t matter to me which way you choose, but understand this—we’re not leaving here without it.”

Dan was fuming mad. “This is not right! My lawyer said you guys have no evidence against me and you can’t do this.”

Dawn slapped a copy of the signed warrant on the counter. “A judge disagrees with your lawyer. Now, what’s it gonna be?”

The doctor took the warrant and stared at it for a long moment. Finally, shaking his head in anger, he reached down to hit the button for the door. While Dawn and I made our way for it, Sheriff Chiasson and Abraham remained where they were so they could watch Dan. He was trapped and he was desperate, so there was no telling what he might do. As it turned out, he did nothing but open his mouth when we told him to and submitted to the swabs.

We sealed the buccal swabs in the evidence tubes that came with them, and then left.

“What’s next?” Dan asked before we reached the exit.

We stopped and looked back. Dawn said, “If you’re a match, you should get ready for a permanent change of address.”

Instead of responding, he only fixed us with a far-away gaze. I couldn’t tell if he was looking at or through us, but there was definitely something heavy on his mind. I was hoping it was the weight of the women he killed—if, indeed, he turned out to be the murderer.

Dawn and I followed the sheriff and Abraham out into the bright sunlight, and we all waited around until Cindy arrived. Dawn transferred the buccal swabs into her possession, and they signed the chain of custody form acknowledging the exchange.

“Bernice is waiting for me,” Cindy said over her shoulder as she hurried off. “She told me to expect an answer within a few hours.”

We nodded. It would take Cindy an hour to get to the NOPD lab, so we figured we should know something by knockoff time. Knowing we were in for a short wait that would seem like forever, Dawn and I headed to the main office to await the results of the DNA analysis, while Sheriff Chiasson and Abraham went back to patrolling backroads and cane fields in search of more evidence. The narcotics team remained where we’d last seen them, with instructions to tail Dr. Smith if he left the clinic.

At the main office, Dawn made a minor adjustment to the affidavit she had previously prepared for the search of Dan Smith’s residence and property. Anticipating good news from Bernice, she included the fact that the known DNA samples from Dan Smith had matched the samples from our crime scenes and the crime scene from Colorado.

“I just want to be ready,” she said with a smile.

I nodded and sat behind a computer at the corner of the small office. Once I’d logged in with my department user name and password, I accessed my email address and began going through the investigative files from Colorado and Tennessee. I believed the clue to everything was somewhere in that expansive file, but finding it would require a lot of time and a small miracle.

CHAPTER 48

Four hours later

The Mannequin Slayer had positioned himself with the sun to his back. He was roughly one mile from the unsuspecting runner. Even when she got closer, she would never think to look in the deep shadows of the trees for a sniper. If she did, she wouldn’t see him anyway, because he was too well concealed. However, he knew he could never be too careful, so he had used the sun to his advantage.

As he lay there concealed amongst the tall oaks and junipers, he reflected on the word sniper. Could he call himself one? He had looked up the definition in a dictionary and the one he’d read was “a person who shoots from a hiding place, especially accurately and at long range.” By that definition, he was definitely a sniper. Maybe not of the police or military variety, but he was certainly a sniper in the purest meaning of the word.

When researching the topic, he’d read such phrases as “one shot, one kill” and “from afar, I seek and destroy,” and he had lived up to those mantras. Although he had never been the most active kid growing up and he had never participated in any sports, he found that his intelligence trumped it all. The greatest gift ever bestowed upon him was the gift of reading, and with that gift, he had taught himself many things throughout his life. Most recently, he had taken a man who had never touched a firearm in his life and turned him into a real-life sniper.

He stopped his inner monologue to check the progress of the unsuspecting woman. Chari Tucker was reaching the end of her run. He smiled. He loved women with routines. Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, Chari Tucker would drive out to this same nature trail, park in the same spot, and run the same route. It never failed. Rain or shine, hot or cold, sick or not, she ran.

The Mannequin Slayer grunted. To say Louisiana winters were mild was putting it even milder. He could wear shorts and a T-shirt all year long in this climate. Compared to Colorado, Louisiana was summer all year long. Chari appeared to share his sentiments, because she wore extremely short shorts and a thin tank top even on the coldest of days.

He adjusted his scope, licked his lips as he watched the muscles in her legs contract every time her feet struck the running path. Her tanned legs looked good against the green shorts. He liked that her red hat matched her red shoes, but he liked it even more that her green sports bra—clearly seen through her nearly transparent top—matched her green shorts. Her breasts were small, but perky, and they fought the restraints of the sports bra as she bounded up and down.

In the exact spot that she did every time she ran, Chari slowed to a walk. Although his marksmanship skills were increasing with each training session, he was not about to attempt a shot at a moving target. Even the experts agreed that was a bad idea, especially at the distances he planned on taking the shot.

The Mannequin Slayer’s heart started to pound as Chari raised her arms high into the air and tilted her head to the left and right, loosening her muscles. It was almost time. Unbeknownst to Chari, he had placed a surveyor’s flag 400 yards from his sniper hide, and he intended to take the shot when she reached that exact spot.

He took in a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, just as he’d trained himself to do. He talked softly to himself like he’d learned from the books he’d read.

“You can do this,” he whispered. “You’ve done it before. Your rifle is a good rifle. Your bullets are accurate. You, your weapon, and your ammunition are part of one well-oiled machine. One shot, one kill…”

The Mannequin Slayer allowed his voice to trail off and he took in another deep breath. He held it to a mental count of four, and then exhaled slowly, to another count of four. It was almost time. Chari was about a hundred yards from the flag.

His heart began to beat with anticipation. “Come on,” he said to himself, “calm down! You can do this!”

Seventy-five yards now.

The crosshairs jumped up and down in front of his eye. His right hand trembled. He shook it out, trying to steady it.

Fifty yards out.

Another deep breath and an exhale, and then another. Finally, the crosshairs seemed to settle down a bit, as did his right hand.

Twenty-five yards from the flag.

He shifted his position slightly, trying to make his foundation a little more solid. Thankfully, he lay in a thick bed of evergreen leaves, and it was as soft as his mattress at home. When he’d shot Gayle, he had been in an awkward kneeling position. It had not been nearly as steady as the current one, which was prone with a bipod on the fore end and a sack of rice under the butt. That alone should’ve helped to calm him down, but he knew what was to follow. Anticipation sent a tremor up and down his spine. His body shuddered like the walls of a submarine upon exceeding maximum depth.

“Stop it!” he warned aloud. “You’ll ruin the shot!”

After sucking in several more deep and desperate breaths—exhaling them as slowly as he could without making himself feel faint—he rested his finger on the trigger and prepared to break the shot. Chari was three or four steps from reaching the 400-yard mark. Once she reached it, she would walk two or three more steps and then take an abrupt left turn. If she made that turn before he took the shot, she would be moving from left to right rather than straight toward him, and his chances of success would be greatly diminished, not to mention the bullet would do a lot more damage.

The Mannequin Slayer reached his respiratory pause—a term he had learned in a sniper book—just as Chari made it to the flag. She stopped for a brief second, just as he’d hoped she would, to stare down at it. At that very moment, he centered his crosshairs between her small breasts, and pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER 49

4:30 PM

I was working at a station with dual monitors, and I had all three Colorado autopsy reports displayed across the screen, along with the preliminary one Dr. Fitch had faxed over at my request. I was searching for the slightest similarities, but hadn’t found any yet.

I advanced all four reports to the next page and was just starting to compare the information when my cell phone rang.

“This is London,” I said idly without looking at the display screen. I was engrossed in the description of Bella Jordan’s wounds. The first bullet that struck her had punched through a wooden door first, and the forensic pathologist had pulled dozens of splinters from the area surrounding—and inside—the bullet hole.

“London, this is Jules.” There was a hint of excitement in the veteran dispatcher’s voice. “We just received another anonymous call about a woman being dead in a park.”

I was instantly alert. “What?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dawn jerk her head around to look at me.

“Well, the voice didn’t say she was dead,” Julie corrected, “but it did say a woman was on the ground near the running track at Rattlesnake Nature Park. Amber’s not here, but the voice sounded exactly how she had described her call, and it called again on a non-recorded line. It’s got to be the same person.”

I was already heading out the back door with Dawn on my heels. “Have you made any notifications?” I asked.

“You’re the first person I called. Should I call an ambulance?”

“Have them rolling,” I said as I reached for the door handle on my truck, “but tell them not to move the body when they check on her. I need to see her exact position to figure out the shooter’s location. We’re minutes away.”

Julie acknowledged my instructions and was gone in a flash. I immediately called the narcotics team that had been tasked with surveilling Dr. Smith.

“Roger, what’s going on over there?” I didn’t hear his response at first because the Bluetooth function on my truck picked up my phone, so I asked him to repeat himself once it was fully engaged.

“Everything’s quiet over here,” he said. “A few patients have come and gone, but that’s about it. No sign of the doctor.”

I pulled into traffic and switched on my lights and siren. “Are you sure?”

Roger didn’t hesitate. “I’m positive. Dan Smith hasn’t shown his face yet and his bright-ass car is parked right there in front of us.”

“Go inside and see if he’s there,” I said.

“What?”

“Just do it,” I insisted. “Call me back when you have eyes on him.”

Dawn clicked her seatbelt in place as I raced across town. “You think the call’s real?” she asked.

“I do. The first one was, and no one knows about that one, so this can’t be a copycat.”

She took a deep breath and exhaled forcefully. “If this is real and Dan Smith is still at his office, what’re we gonna do?”

I didn’t have an answer for her, so I only shook my head. That same thought was plaguing me. Dan Smith was our only connection to Colorado and he was our only viable suspect. If he didn’t pan out, I didn’t know where to turn.

My phone rang as I was approaching the street that led to Rattlesnake Nature Park. I punched the answer button on my console. “Well?” I asked, almost holding my breath.

“The bastard’s gone!” Roger said. “He gave us the slip!”

“What?” The word came out more accusatory than I had intended. “How in the hell did that happen?”

“I don’t know, but the intake nurse is gone, too. The nurse practitioner said the doctor was feeling ill and asked the intake nurse to drive him home.” He let out a disgusted grunt. “They left through the back door and accessed Black Foot Road.”

“Did they say how long ago he left?”

“About twenty minutes after you did.”

I cursed out loud.

“I’m sorry, London.” Roger sounded sincere. “We were watching the vehicle and it never moved. We never thought he’d slip out the back.”

I ended the call without saying a word, my mind racing. Dan Smith had been in the wind for four hours. If he had killed our new victim right when he’d left the clinic, and then fled the area, he could be in any of the surrounding states by then. He had eluded law enforcement in Fairview, Colorado and Buckle Gap, Tennessee, and it looked like he was now eluding us in Magnolia Parish. It was the closest anyone had come to catching him, but we’d squandered the opportunity.

I called the sheriff and let him know what was going on. He cursed a lot more than I had. “Where are you now?” he asked when he’d calmed down.

“Dawn and I are pulling up at the park,” I said. “If you can get a few teams to surround the area, we might be able to cast a wide enough net to capture this bastard. We also need to send a team out to Dan Smith’s house. Jerry and Andrew are familiar with the area, so I would send them.”

I could hear the sheriff shift his cell phone away from his face as he told Abraham to contact Jerry and have him and Andrew head to Dan Smith’s house to try and intercept the suspect. He then turned his attention back to me. “I don’t like the way you said the word might,” he said with a grunt. “You think he’s slipped away again, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do,” I admitted. “He wouldn’t make the call unless he was safely out of town—like the first time—but there’s also a chance he called it in to lure us into a trap. I’m not taking anything for granted.”

“Okay, I’ll redirect Bravo Team. Where should I send them?”

“Have them spread out over the outer boundaries of the park. I’ll let you know more when we get closer.”

“London, do you think he killed the intake nurse?” Dawn asked after I’d ended the call. “Could she be the one dead out here?”

“I’m not sure.” I gave it some thought as we approached the beginning of the jogging track. If he suspected that she knew anything at all about his involvement in the murders, I imagined he would eventually make her disappear, but I didn’t think he would do so just yet. She was more valuable to him alive, at least at this point. He could use her as a bargaining chip or as a hostage to facilitate his getaway.

There were large pipes buried in the ground at the entrance to the jogging track so vehicles couldn’t drive onto it, and it was here that I parked my truck. Dawn and I dropped from our seats and readied ourselves for what would come next. She grabbed her camera to document whatever we might find, and I grabbed my sniper rifle.

“Stay behind this tree,” I said, indicating the ancient oak nearest us. She did. I sprinted to another one that was twenty feet away, and set up my rifle. I shielded my scope from the sunlight and scanned the distant horizon surrounding the track. I took my time, penetrating the depths of the shadows, searching for anything out of the ordinary. All I saw were trees, luscious fields, and the wide walking track. As I followed the jogging trail from the starting point and out into the distance with my scope, I suddenly stopped and let out a sigh. Lying on the rough path about a mile from where we stood was the body of a woman. There was no mistaking the dark pool that surrounded her body.

Working quickly, I skirted the edges of the tree line and made my way toward the victim. When I was parallel to her, I glassed her with my scope and saw that she was lying on her face. It was hard to be positive from my vantage point, but it appeared there was a jagged hole at the center of her back. If that was accurate, then she had taken a direct hit to the chest. I imagined the shot would be identical to the one that had killed Gayle, in that it would have impacted her directly between the breasts. The life was already gone from her body, so there was nothing anyone could do to save her.

I radioed Dawn to let her know what I’d found, and I advised her and any other responding officers to remain at a distance until I’d deemed the area clear. Since the runner had been heading into the sunlight and she had been hit in the chest, I knew the shot would’ve come from the west, so it was in this direction that I headed.

I moved with painstaking care, always keeping large trees between myself and where I imagined the killer might’ve been. I had seen a red flag in the ground next to the victim, and at that very point the trail had cut sharply toward the south. Had I been the shooter, I would’ve wanted to take the shot before she made that turn, and it was with this goal in mind that I moved forward. As I put distance between myself and the body, I found that there was only one suitable spot from which to take the shot, and it was within a natural alley in the trees that was located about 400 yards from the victim.

Working quickly but stealthily, and stopping often to glass my surroundings, I honed in on that alley. While it might’ve taken an average person less than five minutes to cover the distance from the victim’s body to the shooting alley, it took me nearly twenty. Once I’d finally reached a spot fifteen yards away, I studied the alley from the safety of a large pine.

I sighed when I saw a patch of ground where the thick evergreen leaves had been flattened. To an unsuspecting observer, it might look like the spot where a deer might spend its days resting, but it was in the obvious shape of a human lying in a prone position. Dan Smith—if, indeed, he was our killer—had been to that location more than once, and he had lain in that spot for hours at a time.

Once I was certain he was no longer around, I closed in on the sniper hide and studied it more carefully. At the front end of the smashed down grass, I saw two faint and circular divots in the ground that were about six inches apart. It represented the location of his bipod. When I stood parallel to the spot—so as not to disturb it—and scoped the area of the track, I had a clear shot to the victim. The distance was right at 400 yards, and it was consistent with the shot that had been made on Gayle.

I pulled out my radio and called the area clear. Almost immediately, the airwaves came alive with chatter. Officers who had converged on the perimeter of the park were calling out their locations, and I heard Jerry report that he and Andrew had arrived at Dan Smith’s house. The sheriff’s voice boomed a second later and told everyone to hold their traffic until Jerry and Andrew were code four.

I paused where I was, not moving a muscle. Inwardly, I prayed that they would catch Dan Smith just as he arrived home, and surprise him. That way, he would be in the open and less of a threat, and there would be no chance for a barricaded situation. Instead, Jerry came on to say that the house was locked and there was no sign of life.

“Sierra Two to Headquarters,” he called again a few seconds later, “be advised the garage is empty. I took a peek through the front window. The dark blue F-150 is gone.”

CHAPTER 50

When I returned to the woman’s body, Dawn and Abraham were already there, and I saw Detectives Warren Lafont and Karla Boudreaux approaching at a brisk walk, carrying crime scene boxes with them. I knew they had everything well in hand. There was no need for me to hang around, so I told Dawn I was heading out.

She straightened from the body and studied my face for a long moment. “Where’re you going?”

“I’m going find Dan Smith.”

“Be careful.” Her eyes were troubled. “I’m not walking down the aisle alone.”

I wanted to make a joke about the 80s movie Weekend at Bernie’s, but I thought better of it. Instead, I smiled and gave her a short nod before hurrying back to my truck. Sheriff Chiasson was pacing back and forth near the pipes at the beginning of the track, his cell phone glued to his head. Detective Doug Cheramie was inspecting the lone car in the parking lot. It was a small Chevy four-door sedan, and it most likely belonged to our victim.

“Let me go,” the sheriff said hurriedly into his phone when he saw me approaching. “London, what in the name of God is going on?”

“He struck again.” I stopped and leaned my rifle wearily against my shoulder. “It looks like he gave our guys the slip, retrieved his truck, and set up in those trees back there. He’s been coming here for a while—days, maybe weeks—watching this woman. We need to identify her right away and start digging into her past. This monster slept with Gayle before killing her, and maybe he slept with this woman, too. If we can connect her to Dan Smith, I think we’re on to something.”

“London, he killed Gayle three days ago. How could you say he’s been coming here for days or weeks to stalk this new woman?”

“I’m afraid he’s been targeting multiple women at the same time,” I said slowly. “I’m also afraid this isn’t over. As sure as that poor woman has a hole through her heart, he’ll strike again. In fact, I’m willing to bet he’ll accelerate his kill schedule. He knows we’re on to him. He’s desperate. He’ll want to kill them all and get the hell out of here before we capture him.”

“How many women are we talking?”

“He’s lived here a while, so there’s no telling.” I was thoughtful, then said, “He killed three women in Colorado, but Vargas said there could be as many as five victims in Tennessee.”

Sheriff Chiasson shook his head somberly. “God help us.”

I made my way to my truck and raced out of the parking lot, heading across town for the urgent care facility. I found Roger Bankston standing outside of his undercover car, his face pale and his eyes studying me with worry. Roger was about five-two and probably weighed less than the equipment on his tactical vest, but he was a feisty little dude who took great pride in his work. He wasn’t like most of the narcotics agents with whom I’d worked over the years.

“Damn it to hell, London,” he began, walking to meet me half way. “I’m sick to my stomach over this. Is it true he murdered another woman? I’m turning in my badge. That’s it! I’m done. I can’t believe I let this—”

“Shut up, Roger,” I said, studying the lay of the urgent care. It looked like a house that had been converted into a clinic. A narrow driveway wrapped around the building and apparently provided access to Black Foot Road. A sign on a closed gate warned that access was for employees only, and there was an electronic keypad on the approach to the gate. There was no way Roger could’ve seen Dan leave with the nurse. I turned to him. “There’s nothing more you could’ve done. This ain’t on you—it’s on Dan Smith.”

The frown didn’t leave his face. “Still, I should’ve known better. I should’ve set up where I could’ve at least seen a car leaving from behind.”

“Even if you would’ve seen the car, there’s no way you could’ve known who was in it,” I said. “Now, stop crying about it and go find that dark blue F-150.”

Roger gave a curt nod and hurried off. I turned away and entered the clinic.

A woman with a name tag that said she was Marcy Ledet, a nurse practitioner, was sitting where the intake nurse had been earlier, and she didn’t look happy. The badge on my belt seemed to darken her mood even more.

“Like I told the other officer, I have no idea where they went,” Marcy said. “I didn’t even know they had left. I was with a patient when one of my nurses told me there was no one at the front desk and that she couldn’t find Dr. Smith. I tried calling both of their cells, but they don’t answer. I left messages telling them to call me back, but I haven’t heard anything yet.”

I nodded as I glanced around the waiting room. It was empty. I asked for the intake nurse’s name.

“Autumn.” Marcy indicated the phone in front of her. “Want me to call her again?”

“Sure.”

Autumn must’ve answered, because Marcy immediately began hollering into the mouthpiece. “Autumn! Where in the hell have you been? I’ve been calling you for hours! You can’t just leave your work station without telling someone!” Marcy paused for a second, apparently while Autumn tried to explain, but then shook her head. “I don’t want to hear your excuses. Here, a detective needs to talk to you.”

I took the phone when she handed it to me.

“Autumn?” I began, wanting to put her at ease. I didn’t need her getting scared and hanging up the phone. “This is London Carter. How are you?”

“Am…am I in trouble?”

“Nah, of course not,” I said smoothly. “I just need to ask you some questions. First, where are you?”

“I’m home. Dr. Danny told me I could take the rest of the day off after giving him a ride.”

“Where’d you take him?”

“I brought him home,” she said. “He told me he wasn’t feeling well enough to drive—that he was dizzy and nauseous.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone you were leaving?”

“He said he cleared it for me to leave and that someone else would be taking my place.” She took a breath and I could hear a quiver. “Wait, you said I’m not in trouble, but it sounds like I’m in trouble. Marcy was yelling at me and you’re asking me all these questions like I did something wrong.”

“Look, you’re not in trouble with the law,” I explained. “I’m just trying to find out what he told you. It’s Dr. Danny I’m interested in—not you.”

“He told me he had it covered and we needed to leave right away before he threw up in the office,” she said. “I mean, I’m supposed to do what the doctors tell me to do. My purse was under the desk and there was nobody in the waiting room, so I grabbed my stuff and followed him out the back where I was parked. I didn’t see anybody in the hallway when we left, so that’s why I didn’t say anything.”

“When you drove off, which way did you go?”

Autumn hesitated.

“Autumn, which way did you go?” I pressed.

“For some reason, he told me to go out the back way,” she said slowly. “I thought it was strange, but I didn’t think to ask why. I just did what he said, you know? He’s a doctor and I’m just the intake nurse. I do what I’m told. He said I could have the rest of the day off with pay, so I didn’t think about it.”

I was about to ask another question when she cut in. “I did ask about his car, though, and how he would come to work tomorrow, but he said he would take his truck.”

“Where’d you bring him again?”

“To his house,” she said. “I pulled into his driveway, he got out of my car, he thanked me, and then I left.”

“When was this?”

“Oh, let me see…” She hummed for a few long seconds. “I guess it was about one o’clock. It was probably thirty minutes after those cops came to talk to him. I think that’s why he was sick. I mean, I would be sick too if somebody accused me of something I didn’t do. And they were really rough with him. They threatened to arrest him and everything. He told me he had already talked to his lawyer and he would be suing them.”

I smiled inwardly, wondering what she might say if I told her I was one of the cops who had been there. I didn’t want to upset her, so I kept it to myself.

“So, how do you know he didn’t do what he’s being accused of?” I asked instead, not knowing if she was aware of the full extent of the allegations. She had been in and out of the intake office when Dawn and I had interacted with Dan, so I wasn’t sure how much she had overheard and what parts Dan might’ve told her.

“He’s a nice man,” she said. “Everyone loves him. He wouldn’t do something like that.”

“How do you know what he’s accused of?” I asked. “Did he tell you something?”

“Not really.” The worry seemed to return to her voice. “I mean, I heard some of what the cops said to him and I just thought it was about that woman that was killed down the road—the one he used to date.”

“So, you know about him dating Gayle Barrios?”

“We all did,” she said matter-of-factly. “They dated for a little while and then they stopped. Ms. Gayle came with him to the Christmas party last month, so we thought they might be dating again, but I heard that it was a one-time thing—that he didn’t know who else to ask, so she agreed to go with him.”

I nodded thoughtfully. If they had kept up a casual relationship, it was very reasonable to think she would go running to him after having a bad experience with JimRat. This helped to increase the chances of Bernice matching his DNA to the sex crimes kit.

I suddenly wished I had the name of the victim lying dead on the running track out at Rattlesnake Nature Park. If anyone would know who Dan Smith was dating, it would be the women he worked with. Of course, there was a little detail that was puzzling me. In Colorado, he had killed a woman for rejecting him, so why would he come to Louisiana and start killing women who agreed to have sex with him? The killings were not spontaneous events. Some planning had gone into them. He had replaced the locks at the water tower and had apparently watched Gayle for some time. It was clear to me that he had visited his shooting position in the park on multiple occasions. Where else was he going? Who else was he stalking?

That was when another thought occurred to me. Our killer—most likely Dan—had been stalking women with the intent to kill them, just as he had in Colorado. What if he had been following them throughout their day with plans to kill them in their homes, just as he had in Colorado? And what if something had happened to change his killing method? Based on the smashed down leaves in the park, it appeared he had been following our newest victim for some time. Could it have been prior to the burglary at Wears Well? What if something had occurred in the middle of his planning that had caused him to change his method of attack? He had gone from an up-close and personal murder to one from a distance. But why? What had changed? And had this sudden change caused him to steal the mannequins and begin training to assassinate women from afar?

“Hey, Autumn, do you know anyone else that Dr. Danny was dating?” I finally asked, thinking I had been silent for so long that she might’ve thought I had ended the call.

“No, sir. Gayle was the only one I knew about.”

I was about to hang up when Marcy tapped my arm. I looked down.

“Ask her why she didn’t answer her phone,” she whispered.

While it was more for Marcy’s needs, I was a little curious, so I asked the question anyway.

“I was sleeping and I silenced my phone,” she said. “It’s not often I get off in the middle of the day. When I do, I like to take a nap.”

CHAPTER 51

I keyed up my radio when I stepped out into the parking lot of the urgent care. “Does anyone have eyes on the blue F-150?” I asked, trying not to let my frustration bleed over into my tone.

No one replied.

I glanced up at the sky. It was almost five-thirty and the sun was starting to set. Soon, it would be dark and it would be harder to find the bastard who was running around killing women.

“What’s your twenty?” Dawn called, wanting to know my location.

Instead of using the radio, I called her cell phone. I told her I was still at the urgent care and I filled her in on everything I’d learned from Autumn and Marcy.

“We’re done here,” she said. “There wasn’t much to the scene.”

“Were you able to identify our victim?”

“Yeah, her name’s Chari Tucker. Karla and Doug are en route to notify her parents. She’s twenty-nine and single, lives alone, works at the funeral home, and jogs in the park every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. She works out at a local gym on Mondays and Wednesdays.”

The mention of the gym reminded me of JimRat, but I was no longer thinking of him as a suspect. Still, I asked if Cindy had heard from the gym owner about him.

“Nope, and she hasn’t heard from Bernice yet either,” she said. “I think a judge would sign an arrest warrant now, though. What do you think?”

“Hell yeah,” I said. “We don’t have the murder weapon or anything, but who the hell else could it be but Dan Smith?”

Dawn was silent for a few moments. “I really think it’s him,” she finally said, “but what if his DNA doesn’t match?”

The question was a good one. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to wait a little longer. Bernice is supposed to have the results today, right?”

“I thought it would be in by now,” she said. “We’ll need that evidence to seal the deal, so I think we should wait. I’ll call Cindy and see if she heard anything yet.”

“What about this Tucker lady?” I pulled open the door to my truck and slipped inside. “Is she still there at the scene?”

“Nah, the coroner’s investigator picked her up a few minutes ago,” Dawn said. “I was about to call Dr. Fitch and request a sex crimes kit on Tucker. You know, just in case Dan had a connection to her and slept with her, too.”

I liked the idea, and said so. His previous M.O. had him raping women and murdering them in their homes. His new M.O. had him engaging in consensual sex with them and then sniping them in public. While he might’ve murdered because of rejection in the past, only God knew why he had committed the recent murders. A thought suddenly occurred to me.

“We need to send someone to the victim’s house,” I said quickly. “If Dan had sex with her there, he would’ve left some evidence behind. We also need to send someone to Gayle’s house. It’s a little late, but I doubt anyone’s cleaned up her place yet.”

“Good idea.” She paused and I could hear her scribbling. “I’ll put Doug and Karla on it. What about you? What’re you doing next?”

“I’ll come pick you up and we can head back to the main office,” I offered. “I think the key to solving this case is buried somewhere in the files from Colorado and Tennessee, and the sooner we find it the better off we’ll be.”

“The sheriff can drop me off,” she said, and then asked, “What’re you looking for in those files?”

“I’m not sure,” I admitted.

“Then how will you know when you’ve found it?”

“It’s like what Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart used to say about obscenity: I’ll know it when I see it.”

She chuckled, but it was a hollow sound. There was nothing funny about what was happening. Two women had been murdered and we were no closer to arresting the suspect at that moment than we had been two days earlier. At least we were pretty sure it was Dr. Smith, and that was an improvement, but the bad doctor was in the wind. There was no guarantee we would catch him before he left the state of Louisiana. Hell, there was no guarantee we would ever catch him at all.

I ended the call and headed for the main office. I had barely turned onto Highway Eleven when my phone rang. It was a number I didn’t recognize, and I answered it in a hurry, hoping there had been a break in the case.

“This is London,” I said, my voice betraying the hope I felt.

“Detective Carter?” asked a woman who sounded as though she might have the wrong number.

“Yes, ma’am, this is London Carter.”

“Hey, Detective Carter, I’m Starla Landry’s sister,” she said. “I got your number from the sheriff’s office a while back and told Starla I’d call you if she didn’t straighten up. Anthony had always spoken so highly of you, and after he was killed, I knew we could turn to you if we ever needed anything. In fact, he told us to always ask for him or you when we called.”

I stopped at the light that marked the intersection between Highways Eleven and Three, nodding patiently as she talked. When she finished, I asked what I could do for her.

“It’s Starla,” she continued. “I think she’s using again. I’m listed as her emergency contact at work, and her boss called me yesterday to see if I’d heard from her. I hadn’t, and that was strange, because she usually calls me every day—unless she’s using. I’m afraid if I don’t get to her right away and straighten her out, she’ll lose her job, and maybe worse.”

I was pulling into a parking spot at the sheriff’s office and wanted to rush inside and start digging through the files again, but I refrained. I also refrained from telling her that Starla had already lost her job.

“How long has she been clean?” I asked.

“A little over a year this time,” she said. “She stayed sober only six months the time before that. I thought this time was different. I thought she’d finally gotten her shit together—pardon my French—but then she goes and pulls this stunt.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“I went out to her house to look for her, but she wasn’t home,” she said, her voice starting to tremble as she went on. “That’s not unusual when she’s using again, because she’s normally from pillow to post during those times.”

I sighed, repeated, “What do you need me to do?”

“I…I heard a woman was found dead in the park across town.” Her voice was starting to crack. I didn’t let her finish.

“That wasn’t Starla,” I said quickly. “I can’t tell you who it was, but I promise you it wasn’t your sister.”

“Oh, thank God!” I could almost hear the tears flowing down her face. “I know you’re not supposed to give out that kind of information, and I appreciate it so much! My mom called to tell me about the woman they found. It would’ve killed her if it had been Starla.”

I told her to contact me if she needed anything else, and politely ended the call. I was inside the building and dropping in front of the computer before she clicked off.

CHAPTER 52

Seven miles to the south

It was a little after six in the evening and Deputy Bert Mason was heading south on Highway Eighty a few miles north of Dixie Meadow, which was a small unincorporated settlement located between Chateau and Gracetown. Lester was singing his heart out. Although the night air was a bit cool, he had his windows down. After spending the previous five years working in the dark recesses of the parish jail, it was nice to finally breathe in some fresh air. Day in and day out he had been exposed to the rancid smells of mildew, piss, and foot rot, but never again.

Bert shook his head as he sped forward. If they ever told him he would have to go back to the jail, he would quit on the spot. Never again would he subject himself to such treatment. Not only had it been humiliating, it had been a health hazard. He had never called in sick once when he worked patrol the first time, but he was getting sick every other month in the jail. His wife had begged him to quit, but he knew he couldn’t. If he quit while he was still assigned to the jail, he would never be able to get hired on at another department as a patrol deputy. No, he knew he would have to bide his time and regain his old position. Once that happened and he had worked for six months in good standing, he would seek employment elsewhere.

Bert was approaching a house that was located on his right, and he realized it was rapidly growing closer. He glanced down to check his speed. Ninety-six.

“Shit!” he said out loud, quickly touching the brakes to slow to a more reasonable speed. All he needed right then was for someone to make an I.A. complaint against him. Although everyone did it, such a minor infraction on his second day back to patrol would probably get him bounced all the way back to the jail.

After setting his cruise control to sixty, Bert relaxed and thought ahead to what he might find in Plymouth East. He had been a good deputy before being transferred back to the jail, but the previous sheriff hadn’t taken that into consideration when he’d made his hasty decision to demote him. If Sheriff Burke would’ve just thought about it for one minute, he would’ve realized he was hurting his entire department by making that move. It was hard to quantify the damage Burke had done to the Magnolia Parish Sheriff’s Office by that one decision, but he had died soon after and never lived to see what a colossal mistake it had been.

As Bert thought back to the moment he’d found out about Burke’s death, he remembered feeling a sense of relief—and a little joy. He thought for sure the next sheriff would reinstate him. When that didn’t happen, he decided he would work his way back to patrol, give them a taste of what they had been missing, and then walk out on them.

He smiled as he approached Dixie Meadow. He was about to solve the sniper murder and show them what they’d been missing all along. While the sheriff had everyone wasting time on the highways and cane fields of Chateau, the killers were sitting in Plymouth East laughing their asses off at the law. When Bert first heard about the case, it had been painfully obvious to him that the Toups boys were responsible for the killings. The mannequins used to practice killing women had been found in their possession, yet they had not been charged with anything in relation to the murders.

“How dumb can you be, London Carter?” Bert asked out loud, shaking his head. “Maybe you should stick to training snipers and leave the real investigative work to—”

Bert clamped his mouth shut and whipped his head around as he flew past an old barn occupying a spot on a nearly two-acre patch of land that had been carved out of the fields in that area. He had driven past that barn a thousand times over the years. His dad had once told him that it was an abandoned tractor barn that hadn’t been used in years, and how he and his friends would explore it as kids. Bert himself had explored it when he’d parked there to run radar years ago. It had been empty and dilapidated back then, so there was no reason for his high beams to penetrate the cracks between the boards and reflect off of taillights.

He reached for his police radio while slowing as he approached the next dirt road. He hesitated when he got the mic to his mouth. If he called it in, some higher-up would surely interject and command him to stand down and wait for detectives to arrive—just in case it had something to do with the Mannequin Slayer. If he disobeyed, he would be sent back to the jail.

“Not today,” he said, tossing down his mic. “You bastards aren’t stealing my thunder. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission.”

As Bert pulled onto the dirt road and then reversed onto the highway, he shut off his headlights before heading back toward the old barn. He wanted to surprise whoever was inside. He leaned out of his open window to hear better and allowed his cruiser to idle forward. His heart pounded in his chest. It had been a long time since he’d been in a street confrontation, and the jitterbugs were as bad as they had been when he’d made his first arrest as a rookie.

“Come on,” he said softly to himself, “calm down. It’s probably two teenagers getting it on.”

Thankfully, there was no traffic on that stretch of road at that time of the evening. What made the barn such an ideal hiding spot was the fact that the nearest house to the north was 400 yards away, the nearest house to the south was nearly half a mile, and there were no light poles in the area.

When he reached the dirt road that ran along the southern side of the barn, Bert tapped his brakes and eased onto it. His cruiser creaked as it jostled along the bumpy surface, and he winced. There was no sound from inside the barn and he couldn’t make out any taillights in the darkness. What if he had imagined the quick flash of red? He shrugged. He would know soon enough.

After his cruiser had reached the far end of the barn—rocking gently with the bumps on the road—he eased it to a stop and grabbed his flashlight. He switched his interior lights off and eased open his door. After stepping out, he stood for a long moment beside his cruiser, listening and testing the air with his nose.

Everything seemed clear, so he began to circle the barn from the south. Having visited the place before, he knew he would have to circle a secondary structure at the southeast corner of the barn before he’d be able to see into the opening at the rear. Thus, in order to avoid any loose boards and debris that might give away his position, he made a wide arc around the building.

When he finally reached a spot where he might’ve been able to see into the rear of the barn, he was too far away to take immediate action if he were spotted, so he refrained from turning on his light. If someone was in that barn, he wanted to capture them. He did not want them escaping, because that was exactly why he had been bumped back to the jail five years earlier. Back then, he had been pulling surveillance on a gas station that had been burglarized three nights in a row, and he had just closed his eyes for a few seconds. Next thing he knew, the burglar had already struck and was speeding away in a fast car. He gave chase, but never did catch him. He shuddered as he remembered the tongue-lashing he’d gotten from the sheriff, and quickly pushed the horrible memories from his mind.

Dropping to his knees, Bert began to crawl toward the rear of the barn, lifting and dropping each hand and knee slowly, trying not to make even a whisper of sound. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears as he drew closer to the large mouth of the barn. What if the killer was using the place as his staging ground? Or a place to keep his truck out of sight until the heat had died down on the highway?

Bert scoffed. Surely, someone would’ve checked the old barn after the first shooting and again after the most recent one, right? He scoffed again. No, that would’ve been asking too much. Most of the deputies and detectives weren’t as motivated as he was. If they would’ve seen the red flash of light, they probably would’ve kept on driving, not giving it a second thought. He had to wonder how many such observations had gone unnoticed and how many crimes had gone unsolved since he’d been on the inside wasting—

Bert suddenly froze in place, his right hand poised several inches above the ground. Had he heard a slight rustle from inside the barn? He was moving at the same time he’d heard the sound, so it was possible he had brushed up against something. He squinted and peered into the darkness, trying desperately to distinguish one shadow from another. He thought he could make out a deeper darkness at the center of the open space. Could that be the vehicle? And was that a human shape just to the left of it?

Sweat began to form on Bert’s brow. He hesitated, wondering if he should reach for his pistol. After staying frozen for a long minute and not hearing a single sound except for the beating of his heart, he decided to advance a few more feet. Moving even slower than he had earlier, he crept forward by feeling with his hands and knees. His eyes remained fixed on the shadow that might or might not be a human figure.

He was still a foot or two from where he wanted to be when a vehicle approached from the north. It was a tractor trailer and its large bright lights coated the entire exterior of the barn—including his location—in brilliance.

As quickly as the truck had come, it was gone, and Bert was left exposed and blinded, his night vision burned away. Knowing he had to act swiftly at that point, he snatched up his flashlight and turned it on, aiming the beam toward the rear opening of the barn while simultaneously reaching for his pistol. Almost as instantly as light shot from his flashlight, a ball of orange fire stabbed out at him, and leading the way was a small chunk of lead that packed more than 2,500 foot-pounds of energy.

CHAPTER 53

Broadmoore, Louisiana

Dawn sidled up to the left side of Dr. Dan Smith’s front door and glanced over at the SWAT officer who held a battering ram at the ready. “Hit it,” she whispered, and leaned back to give him room to work. As soon as he smashed the door open, the seven team members filed past them and flooded the house, announcing their authority and commanding everyone to get down on the ground.

Almost as soon as it had begun, the raid was over and Dawn was stepping over the splintered mess on the floor near the door. Two tactical officers appeared from the back of the house dragging a man with them. He was clad in purple scrubs that appeared to have been slept in, and his feet were bare. Dr. Smith’s eyes were bloodshot, and it was obvious he had been drinking.

Dawn called London and he picked up on the first ring. “Did you find any evidence?” he asked.

“Even better—we’ve got him in custody,” she said. “We’re about to toss his house.”

“Are you serious?” London asked incredulously.

“Yep.” Although London couldn’t see her, Dawn nodded. As soon as she’d returned to the main office from the scene of the latest murder earlier in the afternoon, she had typed up a fresh search warrant and affidavit and went back to Judge Landry. While he still had his reservations, he believed there was enough probable cause to search Dan’s house, and he had signed the warrant.

“Just be careful,” he’d said. “Don’t go killing the man before you find out the results of the DNA analysis.”

Dawn had promised to be as gentle as possible, and had assembled a team to head down the bayou right away. London had been so certain Dan was still on the loose in Chateau that he had foregone taking the trip to Broadmoore and remained at the main office to dig through the Colorado case files.

“I can’t believe he’s home,” he said. “Did you find the rifle?”

“We didn’t start searching yet,” Dawn said. “I’ll let you know when we do.”

“Good job,” London said, sighing heavily on the other end. “Thank God he’s in custody. At least he won’t be able to kill again. Hopefully the DNA results will come back while you have him in sight.”

“What about you?” Dawn asked. “Did you find anything in those files?”

“Not so far, but it’s got to be here.” He paused and Dawn knew there was something on his mind. When he spoke again, she could tell that he was deep in thought. “I can’t help but think we’re missing something.”

Dawn opened her mouth to respond when the two SWAT officers were about to have Dan sit on the sofa in the living room.

“Search it first,” Dawn said. “Make sure there aren’t any weapons stashed under the cushions.”

London asked what was going on, and she explained while she watched one SWAT officer pull the cushions back to look under them while the other officer stood beside Dan waiting to seat him on the sofa.

Just then, Detective Melvin Ford pushed open the front door and stepped into the living room. As though struck by lightning, Dan Smith let out a yelp and threw himself to the floor, leaving the stunned SWAT officer staring down at him. Dawn was staring at him, too. Melvin slowly closed the door behind him and asked if Dan had suffered a heart attack.

“What in the hell is wrong with you?” Dawn asked, nudging the doctor with the toe of her boot. With his hands cuffed behind his back, he had fallen flat on his face. “Stop pretending and get your ass up on the sofa.”

“What’s going on?” London asked.

“I don’t know,” Dawn said. “He just threw himself down on the floor like a fool.” Dawn moved the phone away from her mouth. “Dan, get your ass off the floor right now!”

Dan’s eyes were wide as he looked first at Melvin, then at the door, and then up at Dawn. He gulped but didn’t resist when the SWAT officers dragged him to his feet. They sat him on the sofa and told him not to move.

Dawn looked at Melvin. “What’s going on? Why’d you storm in here like you were on fire?”

“The truck’s not here,” he said. “It’s gone.”

“What did he say?” London asked. “Did I hear someone say the truck was gone?”

“Yeah, Melvin said it’s not in the garage,” she said, staring down at Dan. The man was leaning a little to one side to relieve the pressure from his handcuffs. “Where’s your truck, Danny Boy?”

He didn’t answer. He only sat there staring down at his feet.

“It has to be close by,” London said. “He must’ve ditched it and approached his house on foot in case we were watching the place.”

“I’ll have some of the guys check the surrounding area,” Dawn said, and then told London she’d call back when they found something of interest. After ending the call, she gave Melvin a nod, and he turned and headed for the door. When he pulled it open, Dan Smith bent violently forward and again threw himself on the floor. Dawn glanced toward the doorway, frowning. Melvin hadn’t looked back. When the door was closed, Dan worked himself to a seated position and leaned his back against the sofa, electing to remain on the floor.

“Suit yourself,” one of the SWAT officers said with a shrug. “I ain’t picking you up again.”

Dawn was thoughtful as she squatted beside Dan and read him his Miranda rights. Once done, she asked, “Are you willing to give me a statement without your lawyer being present?”

He lifted his head and sneered. “I told you guys earlier that I wanted a lawyer, and that hasn’t changed one bit. And I’m still suing your asses—especially now that you’ve broken into my house and falsely detained me.”

“I see,” Dawn said idly, working through her options. “You know, I’m here on a court order, so that means I have total control of your house. Since you’ve requested a lawyer, I can’t ask you any questions, so there’s no need for you to be inside.” Dawn gave a nod to the two SWAT officers. “Go ahead and escort him out onto the front patio. There’s a swing where he can wait while—”

“No!” Dan began shaking his head vigorously from side to side. “You can’t make me leave my house! I have rights!”

Dawn nodded slowly, staring from Dan to the front door. He was afraid of something out there, but what could it be? Was he working with an accomplice? Someone who might kill him to silence him? Dawn walked to the door and opened it, studying Dan while she did so. He cringed and tried to burrow deeper into the floor.

“Please, don’t make me go out there,” he said, whimpering like a small child. “You can’t do that to me.”

“What’re you afraid of?” Dawn asked.

Dan licked his lips as he stared out into the darkness. He opened his mouth and started to speak, but then clamped it shut. “I want a lawyer,” he said again. “I have rights. You can’t throw me out of my house. You can’t do this to me. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

Before Dawn could utter another word, her cell phone rang. Dan jerked in his skin as though he’d been bit by a rattlesnake.

“This is Dawn,” she said idly, not looking away from Dan Smith. He had started to break out in hives and would not turn his eyes from the open doorway.

“Dawn, it’s Cindy,” said the evidence custodian. “I’ve got some bad news.”

“What is it?” Dawn asked, suddenly alert.

“I just got a call from Bernice,” Cindy said hurriedly. “The DNA doesn’t match. She checked it and rechecked it, but it’s not him—Dr. Dan Smith is not the killer.”

CHAPTER 54

Several minutes later

My police radio sat on the desk beside me as I pored madly through the police reports from Detective Vargas. I had gone through most of his reports from Colorado and found nothing that definitively connected Dr. Dan Smith to those crimes. I then began going through the Tennessee reports, but other than some similarities between the victims and some of the methods of operation at the scenes, there was nothing linking the doctor to any of it.

I was about to give up when one name in one report caught my eye. I was rushing through the pages so quickly that it almost escaped my notice, but when I saw it, it crashed into me like a Mike Tyson punch to the jaw.

“You son of a bitch!” I hurriedly dug through the Colorado files searching for the same name, but didn’t find it. I then called Detective Vargas. I checked the time on my computer as the phone rang. He was an hour earlier than Louisiana time, so I figured he was still awake. He answered on the third ring, and it didn’t sound one bit like he’d been sleeping.

“Detective Carter, I’ve been waiting all day to hear from you,” he said. “Please tell me you’ve got some good news.”

I gave him the name I’d found and asked if it was familiar to him. There was a long pause as he thought about it.

“No, it’s never come up.”

“Does Dan Smith have any siblings?” I pressed.

“He’s not originally from Colorado, so information on his past was hard to come by,” he said. “From what I could tell, he was originally from a small town in Kentucky called Poe Skunk, but I couldn’t get much out of the authorities down there except that Dan’s mom and dad were deceased and he’d left town soon after graduating from high school.”

“Did his parents die before or after he moved away?” I asked.

“I’m not sure about that,” he said. “I got the feeling his family was well connected, because the attitude of the police chief changed when I mentioned Dan Smith. He wouldn’t provide the name of his parents, or even verify that he was from there. I’ve run his name up and down the NCIC system, but I can’t find anyone else named Smith in Poe Skunk. In fact, Dan Smith’s name doesn’t come up associated with that town at all. His first appearance was as a grown man at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I’ve got nothing solid before that time.”

“How long was he in Knoxville?”

“As far as I can tell, he was there until he got his Master’s. He then attended Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville. When he graduated medical school, he started his residency at a Memphis hospital, but then returned to Nashville during his second year. He got his medical license soon after and moved around from hospital to hospital for a few years, living in Buckle Gap the whole time. The murders started not long after he got his license.” Vargas paused for a breath. “It’s all in the reports I sent you. If you look at the file titled Background, you’ll find some handwritten notes toward the back where I detailed everything I could dig up.”

“You sent me half a million pages while I’m in the middle of a double murder investigation,” I said with a grumble. “Forgive me if I haven’t read everything yet.”

“Oh, shit.” Vargas’ tone turned somber. “He struck again, didn’t he?”

“Yep.” I hesitated for a long moment, and then told him my new theory. He didn’t say a word while I talked. Had it not been for his heavy breathing on the other end, I would’ve thought he’d hung up.

“I think you’re on to something,” he said slowly, as though trying to punch holes in what I’d just said, but not being able to. “It makes perfect sense, but like I said, I couldn’t find where he had any siblings.”

“It’s quite possible he changed his name, because it’s easier than ever to do it,” I offered, a new idea occurring to me. I accessed our national search database and entered the name I’d found on the police report out of Buckle Gap, along with the name of the town, Poe Skunk. He must’ve been doing the same thing, because he let out a jubilant shout before my results materialized on my screen.

“You’ve got him!” he shouted. “His name shows up in Buckle Gap, Fairview, and Poe Skunk! He’s definitely our man!”

I didn’t know how our new suspect was related to Dan Smith or if they were working together, but I knew I needed to get my hands on him as soon as possible.

After promising to keep him in the loop, I ended the call with Vargas and sprinted through the back door of the main office, calling Dawn as I hurried to my truck. I almost dropped my cell phone as I cranked up the engine and raced out of the parking spot. When she answered, I told her everything I’d just learned.

“Hold on,” she said, “let me step away.”

I took a left onto Highway Eleven, shot across the Bayou Magnolia Bridge, and then made a hard right onto Highway Eighty, putting all of my weight on the accelerator.

“That makes perfect sense,” Dawn said a moment later, keeping her voice low. “Dan’s DNA didn’t match any of the profiles, and he’s scared to death to show his face outside. I guess he figures he’s a liability.”

“I’m sure he is.” Traffic was heavier than I liked in town, but once I passed up a few cars and was south of the city limits, I was able to coax my truck into a much higher speed. “And it’s the only way his DNA could’ve gotten inside of Gayle.”

Dawn let out a gag on the other end, but quickly recovered. “I’ll make Dan give me his lawyer’s name and I’ll see if we can get him talking. So far, we haven’t found anything incriminating, so I guess the suspect isn’t working out of this house—”

“Hold up, Dawn,” I said, slowing my truck and straining to see up ahead. I was approaching Dixie Meadow and I thought I saw something dark in the roadway. “It looks like someone’s trying to flag me down.”

I slowed rapidly and switched my high beams on. Far ahead in the road, a young man was jumping up and down, waving his arms like a wild man. There was no shoulder on the right side, so I turned on my blue lights and stopped. The young man ran toward my driver’s window.

“Oh, thank God you’re a cop!” he said, his breath coming in gasps. “There’s something going on back there next to that old barn. I…I tried to call 9-1-1, but my battery’s dead.”

I glanced up ahead, wondering if it had anything to do with our case. “Get in and tell me what’s going on.”

The young man—he couldn’t be more than nineteen—ran around the front of my truck and got in on the passenger’s side. After he slammed the door, I sped off and asked him why he was on foot.

“Somebody ran me off the road and I got stuck in that big ditch.” He pointed toward the left side of the highway. “It’s deep and wet. I couldn’t even get out of it in four-wheel drive.”

“How far up ahead are you?” I asked.

“I walked about a mile or two, I guess,” he said. “I was on the other side of that old barn when the car ran me off the road. I yelled at him to stop, but he kept going, so I started walking back toward town. My mom and dad live on the edge of Chateau, so I figured if I couldn’t hitch a ride, I could at least get there in a couple of hours. Anyway, when I reached the barn, I saw a cop car parked in the shells facing this way. The windows were down, but the cop wasn’t inside the car or anywhere around it. I walked to the back of the barn and saw something on the ground. It…I’m not sure what it is, but I got scared and started running this way.”

I scowled. I didn’t reach for the radio just then, because the barn was in view and I wanted to get a handle on what was happening before alerting anyone.

“What kind of vehicle ran you off the road?” I asked as I parked on the northern edge of the shell lot upon which the old barn was located.

“It was a white van,” he said. “A big one. It had the name of a company on the side of it, but I couldn’t see what it was.”

“Magnolia Parish Coroner’s Office,” I muttered. “Blake York ran you off the road.”

CHAPTER 55

After finding the body of Deputy Bert Mason, I’d contacted the sheriff and remained at the old barn only long enough to turn the scene over to him and Abraham Wilson. I had called ahead earlier and had a team of officers converge on the area of the coroner’s office, but I’d told them not to approach the building. I wanted to catch Blake by surprise when he left work, as that would give us the tactical advantage. Whatever the case, we could not let him escape. To do so would be to endanger another unsuspecting woman in our parish.

I turned down School Street and into the parking lot of the Gracetown Middle School, where I eased up beside Dawn’s unmarked Charger. She had called earlier to say she’d gotten her unit from the house and would be meeting me at the school to take Blake into custody. The coroner’s office was located in the same neighborhood as the three Gracetown schools—lower, upper, and middle—and I was glad it was nighttime.

“Do you think he had his way with our victim already?” Dawn asked, a look of utter disgust and contempt on her face. “Or is that what he’s doing right now inside the building?”

I considered her question. I had figured out that Blake was murdering women to have sex with them and I’d explained that to Dawn. We were both as disgusted as we’d ever been about any case or any suspect. If anyone deserved to die for their crimes, it was that psycho.

“I found tire impressions in the soft dirt inside the old barn,” I finally said. “It looked like he was in there having sex with her body when Bert interrupted him. Based on the marks in the dust and shells leading up to the barn, Bert was crawling toward the opening at the rear of the barn when he was shot through the face with a high-powered rifle. It looks like the bullet traveled downward into his neck, through his chest cavity, and exited near his tailbone. He might’ve seen it coming, but he didn’t feel a thing.”

Dawn grimaced, staring in the direction of the coroner’s office. It was out of view thanks to the giant new elementary school building that separated our locations.

“Another thing,” I said, lifting my notepad to show her a diagram of the tire impressions in the old barn. “I measured the wheelbase and track from the barn and they matched the vehicle that was parked opposite the water tower when Gayle was killed. Blake had been driving the coroner’s van when he shot her. We might’ve driven right past him on our way to the scene that day.”

“He was hiding in plain sight.”

I nodded.

Two things had been bothering me since I’d found out that Blake York had been the pick-up man from the Buckle Gap Funeral Home who had transported one of their victims to the coroner’s office. It was a comment I’d made to Blake at Magnolia High and a conversation I’d had with Dr. Fitch after I’d been forced to shoot Jennifer Porter. Dawn could tell something was bugging me, and she asked about it.

“I gave him the blueprint for changing his pattern,” I said.

“What’re you talking about?” Dawn asked, thoroughly confused. “You haven’t trained this guy before, have you?”

“No, but I told him DNA wouldn’t be a consideration in Jennifer Porter’s case because I never made contact with her.” I sighed, remembering everything I’d said. “And then right in front of him, I talked to Dr. Fitch about studying the human anatomy, and she talked about how much easier it was to autopsy a body that had been killed by a sniper’s bullet. He just stood there soaking it all in. If there was no reason to collect DNA from the victims he sniped, his DNA would never be found at a crime scene again.”

Dawn’s brow furrowed. “If Gayle didn’t have that one-night stand with JimRat, we would’ve never gone back for that sex crimes kit.”

“Yep.” I nodded my agreement. “And we would’ve never made the connection between Colorado and here. I’m not saying we would’ve never solved the case, but it would’ve been damned hard.”

“I think Dan Smith knew about the murders,” Dawn said. “He’s definitely connected to Blake York, but he won’t say how until he speaks with his lawyer.”

Dawn hadn’t found a single shred of evidence relating to our cases at the doctor’s house, but she had bluffed him into agreeing to accompany her to the detective bureau. He said he would talk if his lawyer advised him to do so. Unfortunately, his lawyer hadn’t answered the several times he’d tried to call, so Dan was sitting at the office under guard and waiting for a return call.

After Dawn and I were quiet for too long, I grabbed my radio and asked Roger if there was any movement from the coroner’s office. If Blake had done his sick business in the barn with our latest victim, the only thing left for him to do was store her body in a cooler and leave. However, it was taking a lot longer than I would’ve expected.

“I don’t know if anyone’s here,” Roger radioed back. “There’s been no movement since we arrived.”

I cursed out loud. I knew it was possible that Blake had dropped the body off at the coroner’s office and then left before our people had gotten into place, but it would’ve been a long shot. It was at least a fifteen-minute drive from the old barn to where we were, and the young man that had been run off the road had sworn to me it had only been a few minutes since he’d seen the van leave the area. Our people had flooded the area soon after, and had surely arrived in time.

“Do you have eyes on the dark blue truck?” I asked.

“Negative,” Roger said, “but there’s only one way in or out, and we have eyes on that spot.”

“Shit.” I waved for Dawn to jump in my truck. “Let’s do a drive-by just in case Blake gave Roger the slip like Dr. Dan did.”

Dawn locked up her car and was sitting beside me within seconds. I drove down School Street and took a right on Corporate Way. The coroner’s office was flanked to the south by the parish barn and to the north by the AG center, and both buildings towered over it. I drove slow enough that we might be able to penetrate the deep shadows of the property with our eyes, but not so slow as to attract suspicion if Blake was making his exit.

“Can you see the truck?” Dawn asked, leaning across the center console to see past me. “I can hardly see anything.”

“I do,” I said, indicating a freezer trailer that was parked to the right side of the carport. A large awning stretched from the building to the trailer, and it was dark under the covering. “It’s in the shadows beside that trailer. I guess he knew we’d be looking for it after he shot at Abraham. He’s trying to hide it.”

Dawn was about to comment, but then grabbed my arm and squeezed so hard that I was sure she left a mark. “London”—she leaned onto my side of the truck and pointed across my body—“look over there! That’s Lily’s car!”

I jerked my head around and looked where she was pointing. Sure enough, Lily’s car was parked between the carport and the building. I was so shocked that I almost slammed on the brakes, but somehow caught myself. That would’ve definitely given us away if Blake were to exit the building at that moment.

My heart was pounding as I made the block. I tried to keep the quiver out of my voice when I asked, “What in the hell is she doing there?”

“I guess she got called out to help him unload the body.” Dawn licked her lips. “London, we’ve got to get her out of there.”

“If we move in now, we might force a hostage situation.” I parked farther down the road under a large oak tree and called Roger. When he picked up, I described Lily’s car and asked if he’d noticed it when he first arrived.

“Yeah, it was already there,” he said. “Nothing came or went since we parked here.”

I tapped my foot on the floorboard of my truck. At that very moment, Blake could be inside the coroner’s office murdering Lily and doing God knew what to her corpse, or he could simply be doing his job. There was no way to know for sure. Or was there?

I ended the call with Roger without saying another word and called Dr. Fitch. She answered right away and sounded a little tipsy. I cursed under my breath, but greeted her with a smile and a good attitude.

“Hey, Doc, we sent another body to the morgue tonight,” I said once we’d gotten the pleasantries out of the way. “We can’t find the key to her apartment, and we were wondering if her shorts might’ve had one of those small inside pockets like jogging clothes tend to have.”

“Is it an emergency or something that can wait until I get in tomorrow morning?”

“Yeah, it’s kind of an emergency. Blake left not long ago to bring her body to the office, so I was wondering if you could call him and see if he could check the shorts.”

“Sure, give me a few minutes.”

When she was gone, I explained to Dawn that I couldn’t tell her the truth, because she was tipsy and might give something away in her voice. She nodded, knowing we couldn’t risk getting Lily in trouble. After a minute or two of waiting for Dr. Fitch to call back, Dawn asked, “Why didn’t Bert Mason call out on the radio when he stopped by the barn?”

“I have no idea,” I said with a shake of my head. “Maybe he wanted to capture the suspect himself, or maybe he didn’t realize the danger he was in. He might’ve thought he’d caught two people screwing around or some teenagers smoking a joint. Whatever it was, he sure got the surprise of his life.”

Dawn reached over and grabbed my hand. “Promise me you’ll be careful when we take this guy in.”

“Always, Love.”

The longer we waited for Dr. Fitch to call back, the more worried I became. Finally, ten excruciating minutes later, my cell phone rang. I glanced down and sighed in relief when I saw it was her.

“Hey, Doc, what’s up?”

“Um, no one’s answering me.” I could almost see the pout on her face. “I called Blake’s cell phone, Lily’s cell phone, and the office, but I can’t reach either of them.”

Dawn and I traded worried glances.

“When was the last time you spoke with them?” I tried to keep the fear out of my voice, but I was sure I’d done a horrible job of it.

“Well, I spoke with Blake right after I got the call about the jogger being shot,” she said. “I asked him to meet Lily at the coroner’s office and then go pick up the body from the scene. Next, I called Lily and told her to meet Blake at the office. That’s the last I heard from either of them.”

I glanced at Dawn. She shook her head and mouthed the words, “Blake was alone when he picked up the body.”

I was relieved to hear that much and it made sense. There was no way he could’ve defiled the victim at the old barn while Lily was with him. She was a fighter, and she would not have stood for that kind of grotesque behavior. He would’ve been forced to kill her.

I thanked Dr. Fitch and ended the call. I was just putting my truck in gear when Roger’s voice came over the police radio.

“Everyone, stand by,” he whispered. “We’ve got movement near the front door.”

Dawn and I froze in place, barely allowing ourselves to take a breath. I mumbled a silent prayer that Lily hadn’t interrupted anything and that they were simply leaving for the day, but there was a bad feeling in my gut. Too much had happened and I was sure Blake could feel the walls closing in on him.

The radio was graveyard quiet. I was itching to know what was happening, but we couldn’t risk a drive-by. Ever since Lily’s dad had been killed, I’d felt responsible for her safety and I knew I had to be patient and not force the issue. If something happened to her because of a mistake I made, I would never forgive myself.

I was about to key up my mic to ask what was happening when Roger’s panic-stricken voice suddenly came over the radio.

“All units, be advised we have eyes on the suspect,” he hollered, “and he’s got a hostage!”

CHAPTER 56

I immediately keyed up my mic. “Move in! All units, move in but don’t engage!” As I continued barking orders, I leapt from my truck and pulled my rifle from its case. “Let him see y’all. He needs to know he’s surrounded, but for God’s sake, don’t engage him and do not let him leave with Lily!”

“Where’re you going?” Dawn asked as I shoved my radio in my back pocket and pulled on my throat mic.

Holding my rifle in both hands, I quickly explained that I needed her to get back down the street and start negotiating with Blake.

“He’ll try to use Lily to make his escape and then he’ll definitely kill her,” I said, trying to keep the panic out of my own voice. There was no way I could let Lily get killed. The poor girl had been through too much in her young life, and she was all that I had left of Dean. I couldn’t lose her. “Under no circumstances can he leave with her. Distract him and keep him talking until I can put a bullet in his head.”

With that, I sprinted toward the nearest cross street and headed for the back of the parish barn. There was a rodeo arena behind the parish facility, and I reached it within a minute. In my earpiece, I could hear Dawn calling out to Blake. Thankfully, she kept the mic keyed up so I could hear what was going on, but it didn’t sound good.

When I reached the rodeo arena, I raced across the property line, slung my rifle over my shoulder, and jumped a six-foot cyclone fence. I landed as silently as I could in the grass on the other side, and then moved toward a second freezer trailer that was located at the rear of the property. From my vantage point, I could see straight through the opening between the coroner’s office and the first freezer trailer, which was now positioned to my left. In the many headlights from the surrounding police cars, Blake York was plainly visible. He was standing in the open, holding Lily out in front of him like a human shield. It was apparent he had been surprised when Roger and the others had converged on his position.

“You might be able to beat the other charges,” Dawn was saying in a calm voice, “but if you hurt Lily in front of fifteen cops, you’re going away for life—no questions asked. Just let her go and we can talk about everything else.”

“I’m not going to jail today!” Blake hissed. “If you guys don’t back off and let me leave, I’ll kill her right here and now and then I’ll kill myself!”

I was a little more than fifty yards from the standoff and couldn’t hear what was being said with my naked ears, so I was thankful that Dawn was keeping the mic keyed up. Lily was saying something, but her voice was muffled and I couldn’t make out her words. I quickly rested the stock of my rifle against the wall of the second freezer trailer and peered through the scope. I cursed under my breath when I realized exactly what we were dealing with.

Blake York was squatting to make himself the same height as Lily, and he was keeping her head and torso directly in front of his. If I were to shoot him in the back of the head, the bullet would zip completely through him, killing him instantly, but it would do the same to Lily. If I shot him through the body, it would be no different.

I desperately scanned the immediate area, searching for a different angle of attack. I cursed again when I realized that Blake was completely shielded by the surrounding buildings. The AG building protected him to the north and the parish barn protected him to the south. Even if one of my other snipers could get there in time and set up in front of the situation, they would have the same problem I was having—Blake wasn’t exposing enough of his body for us to take an effective shot.

“Blake, you’ve spent too much time trying to stay alive and remain undetected to simply give up now,” Dawn continued. “You’ve done too good of a job to just up and quit. You stumped three different police agencies and the FBI.”

I couldn’t see Blake’s face. If I could, I was certain I would see him grin with pride. Just the thought of that image disgusted me. I searched my mind, trying desperately to think of a way to save Lily.

“I’ll count to three,” Blake said, his voice sounding eerily calm, “and if you guys don’t start backing up, I’ll kill the girl and then kill myself. I’m done talking about it.”

“What’s your hurry?” Dawn asked. “We’ve got all—”

“One!” Blake hollered, interrupting her.

I moved my crosshairs to the back of Blake’s head, but scowled when he didn’t budge. I needed him to move a little to one side or the other, but he knew exactly what he was doing. He couldn’t know I was behind him, but I’m sure he suspected someone had a rifle trained on him. If he was going to die, he was determined to take Lily with him.

“Two!” Blake raised his voice authoritatively.

I licked my lips. A head shot was the only definitive way to end a hostage situation safely. If a head shot didn’t present itself, then a sniper should take the next best one, which was usually to the torso. In this case, Blake had effectively removed that shot from me. As I studied his back, I realized that I did have one option, but I didn’t like it at all. He was holding the pistol pressed tightly against the side of Lily’s head, and since his head was directly behind hers, his entire right arm and the pistol were extended away from the right side of his body. I could shoot his elbow off and it would drop his arm, but the shot might cause his finger to twitch and pull the trigger. Still, I had to do something to save Lily’s—

Suddenly, I had an idea. It was risky, but I was running out of time and options, and I needed to do something. Shooting the gun out of a suspect’s hands was absolutely forbidden, because there was no way to accurately determine what would happen once the soft lead of a bullet struck the hard metal of the gun. One thing was certain; an explosion would occur and shrapnel would fly in all directions, endangering the life of the victim. I wasn’t about to take that chance. Instead, I had my eyes on a different target.

From 100 yards, I could put three bullets inside of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s head on a dime. The distance to Blake was half that, and the exposed pad of his trigger finger was larger than a dime. As soon as he opened his mouth to finish his count to three, I centered my crosshairs on the pad of his index finger and pulled the trigger.

The bullet reached Blake a split second before the report of the shot did, and he gave a startled screech and straightened slightly—just enough to raise his head above Lily’s height. I worked the bolt almost as fast as the action of a semi-automatic rifle, and sent the next bullet through Blake’s cranial vault, dropping him like a bowling ball.

CHAPTER 57

After I dropped Blake, Dawn and some of the other officers rushed forward and whisked Lily away, while others approached Blake with their guns drawn. They quickly holstered their weapons when they realized our suspect was already standing before God, being judged for his awful sins.

One of the patrol officers at the scene checked the transport van belonging to the coroner’s office, and he hollered that he’d found a rifle, a pistol, and a nude body that was positioned with her legs spread open and facing the rear double doors.

I bristled at the thought of what Blake had been doing, and told the deputy to close the doors and secure them.

“Keep the scene secured until Melvin and Rachael get here to work it,” I said. “The sheriff might want to call in another agency to work the shooting aspect of it, so don’t touch anything until y’all hear from him.”

After taking a last look at what was left of Blake York’s head, I offered to drive Dawn and Lily to the school parking lot, so Dawn could drive Lily to the detective bureau. Lily, who was surprisingly calm, insisted on driving her own vehicle to the office.

“I’m fine to drive,” she said. “I never doubted you for a second, Mr. London. I knew you were out there and you would protect me. I’m not bothered by this asshole getting his head blown off. He deserves it for what he did.”

I gulped inwardly, realizing how close Lily had come to losing her life, but quickly dismissed the thought.

“What did Blake do?” Dawn asked, stepping closer in case she would have to comfort Lily. It wasn’t necessary. Lily was battle tested and strong.

“Dr. Fitch called me to help Blake unload a body from the van,” she said, shooting a thumb toward the transport vehicle. “I was inside waiting for him, so when he backed into the parking spot, I walked outside and opened the double doors. It’s what I was taught to do That’s when I saw the dead woman lying on her back with her legs pushed open in a perverted pose. She was on top of the body bag and her clothes were on the floor next to her. I know it’s only my second day on the job, but that wasn’t at all how Dr. Fitch showed me to load up a body.”

Dawn looked at me and bristled. She turned back to Lily and nodded for her to go on.

“Blake suddenly appeared near the open door and grabbed me by the arm,” Lily said. “I punched him in the face, but he spun me around and wrapped his arm around my throat. I was about to rake his shin with the heel of my boot, but I felt him shove a gun under my chin.”

“Did he threaten you?” Dawn asked.

“Oh, yeah, he told me I was gonna die.”

I was shocked by how nonchalantly Lily was recounting the harrowing experience, but I kept reminding myself what she had already gone through in her short life.

Dawn frowned, asked, “What’d he do next?”

“He forced me to go inside and he locked the door behind us,” she explained. “While we were in there, he made me sit in a chair while he paced back and forth trying to figure out what to do. He tried calling somebody named Dan, but he didn’t answer. And then he heard a few cars drive by and that made him suspicious, because he said they never have traffic at that time of night. He kept peeking out the windows, like he was all paranoid. Finally, I got a call on my cell phone, he got a call on his, and then the office phone started ringing. That’s when he really freaked out and decided we needed to get out of here. He put the gun to my head and told me he would kill me if I tried anything. He pushed me out the door. He had already locked it and was pushing me toward his truck when all the cars pulled up and, well, y’all know what happened next.”

“Did he hurt you in any way?” Dawn asked, taking Lily by the shoulders and looking her up and down.

“Not a bit,” Lily said, shaking out her right hand, “but I did bruise my knuckles on his hard head.”

CHAPTER 58

Two hours later…

Dr. Dan Smith sat across from Dawn and me in the interview room rubbing his bald head. “I…I just can’t believe it’s true,” he was saying. “I suspected something, but I just can’t believe it.”

I nodded and glanced at the laptop we’d set up at the edge of the desk. Filling the screen was Dan’s attorney. We had figured out how to use Skype—well, Dawn had—and he’d agreed to let us interview his client, subject to a few conditions.

“Mr. Cohen, can you hear us okay?” I asked after pressing the record button on the Marantz recorder that rested in plain sight on the desk.

“Yes, I can,” said Dan’s lawyer. “Before we begin, I want to state for the recording that, as per the agreement between myself, my client, your local district attorney, the district attorney in Poe Skunk, Kentucky, and your sheriff, the parameters of this interview will be limited. I’ll also ask you to allow for a pause between each of your questions, so I can object if I believe the question might evoke a response that falls outside of those parameters. I may ask you to rephrase a question or strike it altogether. If we refuse to answer any question that wasn’t expressly agreed upon, that doesn’t mean he’s refusing to cooperate, and it can’t be held against him with regards to our immunity deal.”

“That’s all fine,” I agreed, and then turned to Dan. “Okay, Dr. Smith, can you begin by describing your relationship with Blake York?”

Dan swallowed and licked his dry lips. “Blake’s my adoptive brother. After having me at the age of 40, my mom was told she couldn’t have any more kids. When I was about seven, she and my dad realized how lonely I was, and they started talking about trying to adopt a brother for me. They were busy with the family business and didn’t have a lot of time to spend on me, so they wanted me to have a brother to play with. They didn’t want to adopt a baby boy, because I would be almost grown when he was finally old enough to do stuff, so they started looking for someone around my age. That’s when they found Blake in foster care.”

Since we were recording Dan’s entire statement, there was no need to take detailed notes, but Dawn was jotting down the highlights as we went along.

“What kind of business was your family in?” I asked.

He glanced up at his lawyer, who gave a nod. “They ran a funeral home. Um, that…that’s where the problems started with Blake.”

I waited for more. Dan reached for a bottle of water we’d provided and took a long drink from it.

“You see, I used to help my dad prepare the bodies when they’d come in. I would help remove the clothes they died in and dress them in what the family wanted for the funeral. One day, I was changing this young lady that had died of a drug overdose, and Blake came in the room. He wanted to help, so I started showing him what to do.” Dan paused and swallowed. “I…I had stepped out to get some clothes from the closet where we kept them. When I came back, Blake was fondling the lady’s breasts.”

Dan stopped and took another sip from his bottle of water. He was trembling, and I knew what he was about to say couldn’t be good, and it couldn’t be easy. He glanced up at his attorney, who gave a short nod and said, “It’s okay, Dan. I’ve spoken with the district attorney in Kentucky. You’re a grown man. They cannot prosecute you for anything you did as a juvenile, and they are not interested in making any of it public.”

“I understand.” Dan took a deep breath. “So, when I got back and saw what Blake was doing, I told him to stop and that he would be in trouble if Dad walked in. He…he told me it felt good to do it, and he told me I should try it. I…I told him no at first, but then he kept pressuring me and told me how soft it felt, so I did. It was the first time I’d ever felt a woman’s breast, and I think it was his first time, too. It was cold and I didn’t like it, but Blake had this rapturous look on his face.”

I glanced at Dawn. I didn’t know if my disgust was showing on my face, but it was written all over hers. What Dan went on to describe was difficult to listen to. He described progressively worsening behavior with Blake, and how Blake had roped him into participating in some of the obscene and unnatural acts with the bodies of some of their female clientele. After describing the horrific events, he paused for a long moment. When he continued, he did so with clenched teeth.

“I never wanted to go along with Blake, but after I made the mistake of touching that first woman, he would use it to blackmail me. Danny, if you don’t do this, I’ll tell Dad how you touched that lady’s tits.” Saliva sprayed from Dan’s mouth as he spat the threatening words that Blake had spoken. “Without realizing it, I was digging myself into a deeper and deeper hole. It was one that I would never be able to climb out of, not even as an adult. Blake knew exactly what he was doing. He gained more and more control over me.”

Dan paused to wipe a tear that had fallen down his cheek. “I wanted to go to medical school, but I knew that would never be possible with Blake hanging my past sins over my head, so I waited until I was eighteen and changed my name. I told my mom and dad that I was leaving, but I never told them where I was headed and I never told them I’d changed my name.”

By that point, Dan was crying, but I didn’t stop the interview. I already knew where he was headed, and I didn’t feel one bit sorry for him. He had known Blake was murdering women, but he’d kept quiet so Blake would never spill the beans on his perverted childhood acts.

“Blake ruined my life in so many ways,” Dan said when I prompted him to continue. “Because of the things we had done with those corpses, I could never have normal relationships with women. I don’t think he did either. I know he got caught with one of the bodies. He told me about it not long ago. My dad had caught him not long after I’d moved away, and threatened to have him arrested if he didn’t leave town. He told Blake that he could lose his entire business if something like that got out to the public.”

Dan let out a long sigh. “That’s how he found me.”

“How so?”

“When he left Kentucky, he landed in Tennessee. He was trying to find a job at another funeral home one day when he saw a social media post from a Nashville hospital announcing their newest residents. He recognized my picture and showed up at the hospital. It caught me by surprise. I was walking outside to leave for my lunch break when he just stepped out from behind a column. I…I told him to leave and never come back, but—” Dan snarled. “He used the same blackmail tactics from my childhood, only this time he threatened to tell the hospital administrators.”

After Dan provided more information on their reunion and described how Blake had forcibly moved in with him, I asked if he knew what made Blake turn to murdering women.

Dan glanced up at his attorney, who closed his eyes and nodded.

“He…um, he said he liked his women fresher than he’s been getting them at the funeral homes, so he decided to kill them himself so he could take them right after they died.” Dan shifted in his seat. “He asked me a lot of questions about DNA, and how to avoid transferring it from one person to another. I swear to God, I didn’t realize what he was planning at first. I just thought he was making innocent conversation. And then one day I saw him standing in the bathroom wearing this ridiculous outfit. It was a black rain suit that went from head to toe and zipped up in the front. He had the hood pulled tight around his head and the pant legs were tucked into rubber boots. He wore a mask like those motorcycle riders wear to keep bugs out of their teeth, and he had goggles across his eyes. When I saw the latex gloves and the pistol, I knew what was going on. I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t listen. He said if I ever told anybody anything I had seen, he would bring my whole world crashing down on top of me, and he would tell authorities that my dad was the one who got him started on necrophilia.”

Still not feeling one ounce of sorrow for Dr. Dan Smith, I asked if he knew about the women Blake had murdered in Buckle Gap. After a long moment of quiet sobbing, he nodded slowly.

“When they started talking about this killer who was targeting women, I knew what was happening.” His voice was so low we could barely hear him. “I confronted him about it, but he only laughed and said if he went down, I would go down, too. I didn’t know how to stop him, so I moved to Colorado. I didn’t say a word to him. I just waited until he was gone one day, and then I packed up my personal things and drove away. I left a note telling him that the rent and utilities were paid up for a month, but that it was over and he was on his own from that point forward.”

Dan paused and took a haggard breath. “It wasn’t long before that little bastard found me again, and he continued his reign of terror in Colorado. When he killed Bella, I’d had enough. I told him I was turning him in, but once again, he had increased his hold on me. He told me I would go down for accomplice to murder, and he reminded me what he would do to my dad. Once again, like a coward, I kept my mouth shut. When the cops started harassing me, I had no choice but to move again. I knew if they got a warrant for my house they would find out about Blake, and my life would be over.”

“Did you tell Blake you were moving that time?”

Dan nodded. “I told him the police had found his DNA, and I told him we both had to leave. Secretly, I was hoping they’d catch him and he would resist arrest and they’d be forced to shoot him, but I wasn’t so lucky.”

“What happened when y’all moved to Louisiana?” I asked.

“Well, first, when we were still in Colorado, I told him that since his DNA was in the system now, he could never submit a drop of sweat or blood or hair to anyone in authority, or they would connect him to the crimes and he would be sentenced to death.” Dan took a breath before continuing. “The idea of the death penalty seemed to sober him up. I actually suggested that he go back to the funeral homes, because at least he wouldn’t be hurting anyone there and they wouldn’t be doing DNA tests on bodies that were prepped for burial. Instead, he went to work for the coroner’s office. He said it was better, because he had to wear gloves all the time, and that would help eliminate his touch DNA from getting out there. He also started shaving every hair on his body.”

“How long has he been doing his perverted acts at our coroner’s office?” I asked, trying to remember all the females who had been processed through there in recent time.

“He’s been working there for years,” Dan acknowledged. “He would start to tell me things about his experiences, but I told him I didn’t want to hear them. I told him to leave me out of it.”

“Did he tell you anything specific?”

“Oh, he would complain about the bodies not being fresh enough, and he would—”

“Fresh enough?” I interrupted, instantly regretting having asked the question. I knew what he meant, and I certainly didn’t need him to draw a diagram. I quickly dismissed my question with a wave. “I’m sorry for interrupting. Go on with your statement. Ignore that last one.”

Dan nodded and continued. “Blake fantasized out loud a few times about attacking women again so he could be with them when they were still warm, but I kept reminding him about the death penalty. I also reminded him how easy it would be for them to catch him now that they had his DNA in the system. That seemed to help out. It kept him honest, at least for a while.”

“What changed?” I asked. “He’d been quiet for years. What made him start killing again?”

Dan looked up and studied me for a long moment. Finally, he said, “You did.”

CHAPTER 59

My expression never wavered when Dr. Dan Smith mentioned that I was the reason Blake had decided to start killing again. I’d already figured out as much and the words I’d spoken to him echoed loudly and eerily in my mind, but I still needed someone to say it. Without evidence, it was pure speculation on my part. “Go on,” I said to Dan. “Tell us what you know about it.”

“All I know is he said you told him he didn’t have to bag the hands of a woman you shot.” He cocked his head to the side. “I think it was the woman who brought the gun to that school? I remember hearing something about it at work a couple of weeks ago.”

I nodded for him to continue.

“Anyway, Blake said there had been no contact between you and the suspect or the suspect and the victim, so you told him you guys wouldn’t be processing her for DNA. He asked if that was normal procedure, and if the coroner would complete a sex crimes kit in cases of people having been shot like that. Apparently, he’d never been there when they’d performed an autopsy on a woman who had been killed in that manner.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“I told him I wasn’t sure about that one and I told him to ask his coroner. Although I couldn’t stop him, I was no longer going to educate him.” Dan lowered his head and let out a long breath. “I guess he got the answer he wanted, because not long after that, I heard about Gayle Barrios being shot from a far distance. With Blake having a bunch of mannequins that looked like targets and a new rifle, and with the comments he’d made about Gayle, and how he had attacked another girl I liked in Fairview, it was easy to put everything together.”

I picked up on something he’d said. “You mentioned that Blake had made some comments about Gayle. What were they and when did he make them?”

“He actually made them quite often back when Gayle and I were dating,” he said. “It was usually after she’d leave from visiting me at the house. He’d say things about her breasts and her ass. I ignored them mostly, but then one day he asked me if she felt warm or cold to the touch, and that’s when I blew up. We almost got into a fight, but he laughed at me and said he was only joking.”

“What’d you do when you figured out it was Blake who killed Gayle?”

“I knew it was him right away. I had caught him in Gayle’s neighborhood twice when I was dating her, so I knew he was stalking her. I told him to stay away from her or I would turn myself in for everything, and I’d tell the authorities what he was up to.” He frowned and shook his head sadly. “As you guys already know, he didn’t listen. I heard about Gayle Sunday morning at work. As soon as I got my lunch break, I headed home and told him to gather up his rifle and mannequins and get them the hell out of my house. I told him you guys would definitely come after me because of my relationship with Gayle, and that would lead to him.”

“So, he did have some mannequins at your house?”

“Oh, yeah.” Dan nodded. “I woke up one morning and found my garage filled with them.”

“Do you know where they came from?” I asked, relieved that all of the pieces were starting to come together.

“No, I didn’t know and he never volunteered the information,” Dan said. “When I first saw them, I asked where he’d gotten them, but he only laughed at me. I asked where he’d gotten the rifle, too, but he laughed again. I asked what he was planning, but again, he’d only laugh. That very morning, I told him to get rid of the mannequins, but he just laughed and said they weren’t going anywhere.”

Dawn had already run the registration on Dan’s blue truck earlier and we knew it belonged to Blake, so there was no need to ask about it. I leaned over and glanced at Dawn’s notes, trying to decide if we’d covered everything.

Before I could ask another question, Dan frowned and said, “I’m sorry for not cooperating with you when you first came to the clinic, but I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to speak with an attorney to find out what rights I had, and I was also afraid of Blake.”

“Why were you afraid of him?”

“Well, when I got home from work Sunday night, all of his things were gone—the mannequins and all—and I didn’t see him until the next evening. When he came in, he looked desperate, and it scared me.” Dan swallowed, as though reliving the moment. “He…he told me he’d killed a cop from a mile away, and he said you guys would probably come looking for him. He said he was moving out, but that he would be watching me from far away. He said he would follow me everywhere I went, and if he saw me talking to the cops, he would kill me. He…he said not only would he kill me, but he would defile my corpse like he did all those ladies.”

I didn’t bother telling Dan that Blake had lied about killing a cop. Although he was helping us, I still didn’t like the spineless bastard. He had allowed so many women to die, simply because he wanted to protect his career. That was something I couldn’t abide.

“Where did he bring the mannequins?” I asked.

“I’m not sure, but there had only been eight or nine of them left.”

“How many did he start with?”

“Close to forty, I guess. Each day that I’d come home there would be a few less in the garage, and I knew he was using them to practice killing women. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out, especially after he said what you had told the coroner about shooting people from a long distance.”

“Where did he go when he moved out?” I asked.

“I don’t know for sure, but I think he moved in with a girl from work.” Dan glanced up at the ceiling and began drumming his fingers on the desk. “Um, I’m not positive of the name, but I know it was something like Sun or Star—something like that.”

It was only then that I remembered the call I’d received from Starla Landry’s sister.

CHAPTER 60

As soon as Dr. Dan Smith mentioned Starla’s name, Dawn and I jumped up and headed for the door. Sheriff Chiasson and Abraham, who had been watching the interview from the observatory, stepped out into the hallway to meet us.

“I’ll sit with the perverted doctor and let his lawyer know what’s going on,” the sheriff said. “Go check on Starla.”

There was a wistful look in Abraham’s eyes as we rushed by, and I called over my shoulder, “If you don’t hurry, you’ll miss the bus!”

That was all the invitation he needed. He almost ran Dawn and me over on the way to my truck, but we managed to squeeze through the door and into the parking lot without slowing each other down.

Dawn’s phone rang at some point as I drove like the devil toward Starla’s house. I stole a glance at her, wondering if there had been another major development in our case. She switched to speaker and the guy identified himself as the gym owner who had been tasked with trying to identify JimRat.

“I’m sorry for calling so late at night, Detective Luke,” he said, “but Officer Cindy said it was important that I call you right away.”

I could tell Dawn didn’t want to disappoint him, so she agreed that it was important, and she asked if he had found something.

“Yeah, his name is James Fontenot,” he said. “I didn’t remember him, but one of my buddies said he’s actually a boxer now. He’s had a dozen or so pro fights and, from what they say, he’s set to fight for a Louisiana title.”

“If you don’t remember him, how can you be so sure it’s him?” Dawn challenged.

“Because JimRat is part of his email address.”

Dawn grunted, thanked him, and then ended the call. Afterward, she muttered under her breath that JimRat was a piece of shit and she wished he had been involved.

I shared her sentiment, but didn’t voice it. My mind was miles ahead of us, wondering what we would find once we arrived at Starla’s house. According to Dr. Fitch, Starla hadn’t shown up for work on Saturday night, which was the night Blake had killed Gayle.

“Dawn,” I began, working through my thoughts as I talked, “Dr. Fitch said that Starla hadn’t shown up for work on Saturday night. Remember?”

She nodded.

“What if she did show up? What if she was waiting for Blake at the coroner’s office, but she caught him doing something to Gayle?” I was nodding, liking the idea more and more. “What if he did to her what he was trying to do to Lily?”

“You think she’s dead?” Abraham asked from the back seat. “You think he killed her?”

“There was nobody at the coroner’s office to save her,” I said. “If she did stumble upon him like Lily did, then I do think she’s dead. Whatever we find at Starla’s house, it won’t be pretty.”

I wasn’t sure what we would find when we arrived, but everything looked to be in good condition. The yard had been in better shape when Captain Anthony Landry had been alive, and there hadn’t been any mildew on the exterior walls, but it didn’t look like a murder had occurred there.

“I’ll take the back,” Abraham offered.

I nodded. Dawn said she would check the garage, so I headed for the front door. It was locked. I peeked through a crack in the curtain, but nothing looked out of place inside. There were no dead bodies strewn across the floor, so that was a good start.

Captain Landry had been like a father to me before he had been murdered, and I knew a lot about the man. Although I hadn’t spent a lot of time at the new house he had shared with Starla, I did know that some habits never died. I tested that theory by checking under the porch rocker for a key. Sure enough, I found one hanging from a tiny hook screwed into the underside of the seat.

I got on my radio to let Dawn and Abraham know I was going inside, and then inserted the key in the lock. It turned, and I soon found myself inside the foyer. I made my way to the interior door that led to the garage and unlocked it. I then headed for the back door to let Abraham in, the entire time scanning the place and calling out for Starla. I didn’t see her or any signs of a struggle, and she didn’t respond to my call.

Once Abraham and Dawn were inside, we began checking the bedrooms. They turned up nothing. The bed in the master suite had been slept in, and the toilet seat in the bathroom was up. Dawn pointed to some tiny black hairs in the bowl and on the countertop of the sink that appeared freshly cut.

“They found some electric clippers in Blake’s duffel bag when they searched his truck,” she explained. “I’m willing to bet this is from him.”

A thorough search of the master suite revealed that Blake had left nothing behind except for the pile of hair dust. Starla’s things were strewn about everywhere, but she was nowhere to be found. I felt better about the fact that we hadn’t found any blood, but I still didn’t like her odds of being alive.

“Hey, London,” Abraham called from a spare bedroom. “Come check this out.”

With Dawn right on my heels, I followed the sound of Abraham’s voice down the hall. When I turned into the room, I stopped and Dawn ran into me.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

I leaned back into the hallway, looked both ways, and then dipped completely into the room. “The space seems smaller than it should be.”

“Yeah, it looks like the room was cut in half.” Abraham was knocking on the right side of the back wall, trying to find a hollow spot. “There has to be an opening somewhere.”

It was then that it dawned on me—I hadn’t seen a single gun safe in any of the closets. Captain Landry had owned two large fireproof gun safes that he used to keep in two different closets in his old house, and I was sure he’d brought them with him when he had divorced his first wife, Olivia. It would’ve been just like him to build a room to house his safes.

I began feeling the left side of the back wall, working my way toward Abraham, while Dawn moved to the adjacent wall. She approached a large cedar robe and gave it a light shove. It slid over a few inches. I stopped what I was doing and watched curiously as she put her shoulder into it and slid it farther down the wall. I could feel my eyes widen when I saw what appeared to be a six-foot by three-foot cutout in the wall that was outlined in an expensive picture frame.

“Is that a secret doorway?” I asked.

Dawn didn’t answer. Instead, she began tugging at the edges of the frame with her fingers, but nothing happened. When that didn’t work, she gave one side a rough shove. Nothing happened, so she shoved on the opposite side. Lo and behold, the cutout popped away from the wall and creaked open.

“Got it!” Dawn shouted, stepping back so we could see what was on the other side.

I groaned when I saw a large steel door with a keypad attached to it. If Starla’s body was stuffed inside the hidden room, I didn’t know how we would get her out. If I’d known Captain Landry like I thought I had, he would’ve reinforced the walls surrounding his secret room, and we would not be able to easily beat our way through it.

“Anybody want to guess the combination?” Dawn asked, punching in a six-digit code that didn’t work. She glanced over her shoulder at me. “How many possible combinations can there be?”

I didn’t know the answer to her question and I didn’t know the pass code, but I did have an idea. For much of my life, I had used the same pass codes for all of my gun safes, and the only person I’d ever told was Dawn. Taking a chance, I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Captain Landry’s original landline number from memory. While I remembered his phone number like I still remembered my own grandpa and grandma’s, I had a hard time reciting Dawn’s, because I never dialed it. Hell, it was almost impossible for me to give out my own number without looking first, because I never called myself.

Dawn and Abraham both stopped to watch me as the phone rang in my ear. Olivia Landry, who still lived in the home she used to share with Captain Landry, answered on the third ring, offering a cautious greeting.

“Hey, Mrs. Landry,” I began, “it’s London Carter. It’s good to hear your voice.”

“London!” She sounded genuinely happy to hear from me, and I smiled widely at the sound of her voice. “How are you?”

I told her I was fine and that my grandma was also fine when she asked about her. After a brief back and forth, I told her why I was calling. She grew quiet on the other end. I knew the divorce from Anthony and his subsequent marriage to Starla had been very damaging to her, and the wounds were far from healed, even after the many years since they’d gotten divorced. I immediately apologized for bringing back such painful memories, but she told me it was okay.

“What exactly do you need from me?” she asked.

“I was wondering if Captain Landry ever told you the pass code for his gun safes,” I explained. “Starla’s missing and we think the killer might’ve somehow gotten a hold of the code and stuffed her in his safe room.”

As I said it, I realized how ridiculous it sounded. Truth be told, we didn’t have a shred of evidence that Blake had gained access to Landry’s safe, but what we did have had led us to Starla’s house, and I wasn’t leaving until we’d had a look inside.

“Well, if he kept the same code, and I have no reason to think he would’ve changed it,” she began, “you should know it well.”

“Me?” I cocked my head to the side. “How would I know it?”

“It was your birthday,” she said. “You were always like a son to him, and he used your birthday for every device that required a six-digit code. He couldn’t remember my birthday or our wedding anniversary to save his life, but he sure remembered the date you were born.”

I apologized, but she laughed me off. “It’s okay, son. Good luck with your case.”

I thanked her and swiped my thumb across the screen to end the call. Taking a breath, I turned to the safe and punched in my birthday. I gasped when it beeped a welcome tune and the green indicator light lit up.

CHAPTER 61

I turned the dial on the safe door and pulled it open. It creaked loudly, but the noise didn’t drown out the distinct moan that emanated from the darkness inside the room. I reached around for a switch and my hand felt it on the wall. After flipping on the lights, I stepped over the ledge and found myself in a narrow hallway that stretched to the left for a few feet. Almost immediately, I was greeted by an awful stench that threatened to rip my last meal from my guts.

I took two steps and found myself in a large room with two fireproof gun safes—I recognized them as belonging to Captain Landry—buried in the far wall. Lying on the floor in front of them was the nude body of Starla Landry. Her hands and feet were bound, a dirty gun rag was tied securely across her mouth, and her eyes were blindfolded. I saw right away what had caused the stench—she had been forced to relieve herself where she lay, and it appeared she had been there for a while.

“In here!” I shouted over my shoulder. “I found Starla!”

I rushed to her side and had barely reached her when Dawn and Abraham joined me. Dawn told Abraham to retrieve a blanket from one of the bedrooms. While he did that, I knelt beside Starla and removed her blindfold. She let out a guttural cry of relief when she saw Dawn and me kneeling before her. Next, I gently turned her face to the side and untied the gag from her mouth. Once it was free, she began thanking God that it was us and ratting on Blake. Her words were spilling from her mouth a mile per second, and we had to ask her to slow down and repeat what she’d said.

“Blake locked me in here,” she said, taking deep breaths as she spoke. “He…he’s a bad man! What day is it?”

I glanced at Dawn, trying to remember myself. We hadn’t had much sleep since the investigation had begun, and the days had started running into each other.

“It’s Wednesday morning,” Dawn said, working on the rope that bound Starla’s hands together. “Your sister hadn’t heard from you in a couple of days, and she got worried about you.”

Abraham appeared at that moment and handed Dawn a thick handmade quilt. Dawn and I helped Starla to a seated position and gave her the quilt to drape over her torso. We all made a valiant show of ignoring the pile of feces that was only inches from where she sat.

“What happened?” I asked. “How’d you end up here?”

“It was Blake York,” she said, her eyes wide with panic. “Y’all have to find him and arrest him. He’ll be back. He told me he would kill me when everything was all over.”

Dawn put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she said, “Blake’s never coming back.”

Starla looked from Dawn to me with inquiring eyes. When she turned back to Dawn, she asked if we’d arrested him already.

“He’s dead,” Dawn said simply. “Now, tell us what happened between the two of y’all.”

It took a few seconds for Starla to process the information about Blake being dead, but she soon nodded and began talking.

“I got called out on Saturday night to meet Blake at the office,” she explained. “That’s usually how it works. Whoever gets to the office first takes the van and heads to the scene. If two of us get there at the same time, great—we leave together—but if not, the other one waits to help the first one unload the body. There’s usually always someone at the scene who can give us a hand, so that’s not a problem. The main priority is getting there right away. Dr. Fitch never wants to keep y’all waiting.” Starla glanced up at me. “Especially you. Since she’s been separated, she’s done nothing but talk about you.”

I grunted and turned my head. Dawn chuckled and asked Starla to continue.

“Anyway, I must’ve been in the bathroom when Blake arrived, because I never heard him drive up to the coroner’s office,” she continued. “When I got out the bathroom, I sat at the desk in the corner and started playing solitaire on the computer. I was doing that for about twenty minutes when I heard some grunting noises coming from the freezer room. I went to investigate and…and that’s when I saw him.”

Dawn took a breath. “What did you see?”

What she described next made us all sick to our stomachs. I knew Truck Barrios could never be told what Blake had done to Gayle after she’d died, and I knew we would have to swear Starla to secrecy.

“He had this look of utter rapture on his face,” Starla said. “He was so consumed by what he was doing that he didn’t even hear me until I screamed and asked him what in the hell was going on. That’s when everything turned to rage. He jumped off of Gayle’s body and came after me. He didn’t even bother trying to put on any clothes.”

Starla paused and shivered. “He caught me before I could make it to the outside door, and he dragged me back inside by the hair. When we were in the freezer room, he tied me up and started pacing back and forth, talking out loud about what he should do to me. I…I was scared, so I lied and told him I had done things like that, too. He didn’t believe me.”

“What happened next?” Dawn asked when Starla had paused for too long.

“He actually went back and finished what he was doing with Gayle,” she said. “I had to squeeze my eyes and hum to myself so I wouldn’t hear or see anything. I was disgusted and almost vomited, but I managed not to. After he was done, he put her in one of the coolers like nothing had happened and then scooped me up in his arms and drove me here in his truck. He locked me in the safe room and then left. He came back every now and then, and he even brought me food, but I lost track of time.”

“Did you have to give him directions to where you lived?” Dawn asked.

“Oh, no, he already knew.” Starla sighed heavily. “He’s been coming over for a few months now. I…I get lonely, you know? I liked having someone to talk to. He would listen and he seemed interested in what I had to say, which made me think he liked me, but he never made a move on me. I thought it was weird that he never tried to have sex with me, but it all made sense when I saw him with Gayle. At that point, I knew the freak was only into dead women, and it made me feel better about myself.”

I raised an eyebrow when Starla made the last comment, but I didn’t call her on it. Neither did Dawn. Instead, she asked Starla how it was that Blake knew about the safe room.

“We had a hard time finding it,” Dawn said, “and we had an idea it was here. How’d he know about it?”

Starla lowered her head sheepishly. “I told him about it.”

“Oh, yeah?” Dawn asked. “Why would you do that?”

“He asked me where he could get a rifle,” she explained. “He said he wanted to start target shooting, and that he might start doing some long-range competition, so I told him that I had a bunch of old guns from when Anthony was alive. He asked me if any of them had a scope, and I told him a few of them did. Look, you…you have to understand, I’ve been working with him for over a year. We were friends. I thought I could trust him. I never knew he was capable of doing all those horrible things.”

Dawn nodded for her to continue.

“He…he asked to see the guns, so I brought him in here and showed him. Like I said, I trusted him. When he saw the Remington 700 that Anthony had left behind, he asked if he could buy it. He offered me three grand for it, and he asked if I could keep the sale confidential. He said he lived with his brother and his brother didn’t like guns.” Starla shrugged. “I needed the money and I don’t shoot those guns anyway, so I sold it to him. There’re a lot of weapons in those two safes, so I didn’t think Anthony would’ve been upset about me selling one of them.”

He’s probably turning over in his grave, I thought, but didn’t say. Starla paused for a moment to catch her breath, and then she continued, frowning as she spoke.

“I…I didn’t know what he was up to, not even when I caught him with Gayle. I mean, I knew what he was doing to her, but I didn’t know he had killed her in order to do it. It wasn’t until I saw him sitting at Anthony’s old desk over there”—she nodded her head toward a cleaning bench in the corner—“on his laptop that I realized what he was doing. He had a lot of pictures of Gayle Barrios and it looked like he had been following her. It was creepy and scary. I really thought he was gonna kill me and do what he had done to Gayle’s body.”

I glanced around the room. “Where’s his laptop?”

“It’s in the top drawer of Anthony’s desk,” she said, lifting a hand from under the blanket to point it out.

I ambled in that direction while Dawn continued talking to Starla. I found the laptop as she had described, along with a couple of books on police and military sniping. I recognized the books as having belonged to Captain Landry when he was alive. I shook my head. Sometimes, I hated being right.

“Did you know anything about some stolen female mannequins?” Dawn was asking as I opened the laptop and fired it up.

“Um, I knew he had some mannequins, but I didn’t know they were stolen. Had I known that, I never would’ve let him store them in the shed.”

“The mannequins are here?” Dawn asked.

“Yeah, they’re in the back. We have a lot of property behind the house and he would come over and shoot some from time to time. He gave me money to use the property. He said he would have to pay for a shooting range anyway, so he didn’t mind.”

“When did he first bring the mannequins over here?” Dawn asked.

“Beginning about a week ago, he would bring a couple at a time,” Starla explained. “He said he used to go out to the cane fields, but some people caught him shooting and they chased him away.”

I stopped what I was doing and turned to look at Dawn. She gave me a knowing nod. That was why we hadn’t found any more mannequins in the fields—he had started shooting at Starla’s house.

Dawn continued asking questions, but I was no longer paying attention. I had found a file with dozens of photographs of Gayle. It was clear that he had followed her everywhere she went—to the grocery store, to her house, to work, and even to the bar on her date. I leaned close and shook my head when I saw a picture of Gayle walking out of Twisted Long Necks with a dude who wore his shirt three sizes too small. That had to be JimRat.

I closed the folder and clicked on the next one. It contained pictures of Chari Tucker, and most of them were of her at the park jogging. There were a few of her at the grocery store, one of her at the vet with her puppy, and another of her walking out of a white church building. All of the photographs seemed to have been taken from across roads or parking lots, so he had been careful about maintaining his distance from the women.

I told Dawn what I’d found as I shook my head in disgust. What Blake was doing was no different from hunters who used trail cameras to stalk the woods and fields searching for their target buck. The only difference between Blake York and the hunters? The hunters ate what they killed.

I closed out the second folder and saw that there were four more, all of them unnamed. I began searching through them. They all consisted of similar photographs of unsuspecting women who were going about their daily lives as usual, having no clue that they were being targeted for assassination. I was sad that we hadn’t stopped Blake before he’d killed our first two victims, but I was a little relieved that we had gotten him before he’d had a chance to kill all six women.

I closed out the fourth folder and was about to start searching the rest of the computer when I heard Abraham’s voice booming from the narrow hallway. When he appeared in the room, his face was ashen.

“First off,” he said breathlessly, “I found the rest of the mannequins in the shed where Mrs. Landry said they would be. I was in the middle of searching it when I got a call from Rachael. She’s still out at the coroner’s office and she’s been talking to the Lafourche Parish detectives who got called in to work the shooting. They searched the suspect’s truck and the coroner’s van and they recovered a sniper rifle, some ammo, a pistol, a Ziploc bag full of spent shell casings, a camera, and a bunch of clothes.”

“Did they check the camera?” Dawn asked quickly. “Is it the same one that was used to take the pictures of our victims?”

Abraham nodded. The next words out of his mouth made me wish I could resurrect Blake York just so I could kill him all over again, but slowly this time, and with my bare hands.

“The last dozen or so pictures he took on his camera were of you leaving the coroner’s office,” Abraham said, staring right at Dawn. “He was targeting you, too.”

CHAPTER 62

February 15

It was late in the afternoon when I turned onto a bumpy street in downtown New Orleans. I had received word a few hours earlier that the grand jury had cleared me in the on-duty shooting death of Jennifer Porter. Since the district attorney’s office already had the grand jury convened, they allowed the Lafourche Parish detectives who had worked the shooting at the coroner’s office to present the facts of their investigation, and the jury had also deemed that to be a justified shooting. I didn’t give a shit about Blake’s death. That bastard deserved to die, and that was before we’d learned about him targeting my fiancé for his sick games. However, I was still bothered over taking Jennifer’s life. I wasn’t having nightmares over it, but I was still upset that it had happened.

I was also upset with the district attorney for making such a sweet deal with Dr. Dan Smith. He had been aware of his brother’s crimes and had harbored him over the years, and for that, I thought he should pay. Had he cared more about human life and less about his career, he might’ve saved a lot of lives. Although we couldn’t arrest him, I made sure all the nurses and other doctors at the urgent care knew what he had been hiding. Last I’d heard of him, he had packed up his things and was heading back west. I thought it was a good place for him.

After driving a few blocks, I found the building I was looking for and parked on the street. I was about to step out of my personal truck when my cell phone rang. I glanced at the screen. It was Dawn.

“Hey, Baby,” I said, “what’s up?”

“Where are you?” she asked. “I’ve got dinner cooking.”

“I’ll be late,” I admitted.

“No shit,” she said with a huff. “I figured that one out on my own. We need to go over the plans again. I’m still not sure where we’ll put the safe room, and you haven’t told me if you want the gym upstairs or downstairs yet. I’m okay with whatever. I just need to know what you want, and that’ll help me decide where I’ll put my hobby room. We’re getting married in four months. I’d like to at least have the plans drawn by the time we get back from our honeymoon.”

I sighed. Since we hadn’t found our idea of the perfect house, we had decided to buy a piece of property with enough land to have our own private shooting range, and we would build a house at the center of it. The only problem was that we hadn’t found the perfect property on which to build our dream home. One thing at a time, I kept telling myself.

“Okay, I promise to sit down with you when I get home,” I said. “I’ll answer every question you have, and I’ll even meet with the drafter tomorrow to tell him where I want everything.”

“Not so fast,” she said. “You still haven’t told me where you are.”

“I’m in New Orleans.”

Dawn was quiet for a moment. “You can’t be at the crime lab. We already got all the evidence and reports back. Besides, they’re closed now.”

She was right about the evidence and reports. Bernice Charles had been able to positively identify Blake York as the sole contributor of all the DNA evidence we had recovered, and his profile also matched the sample taken from Bella Jordan’s crime scene. Additionally, ballistics analysts had been able to match the rifle that Blake had used to the spent casings we’d recovered in Plymouth East, and the serial number was traced to Captain Anthony Landry’s rifle, confirming what Starla had told us.

Better than all of that, the digital forensics unit from the New Orleans Crime Lab had taken a deep dive into Blake’s laptop computer and they’d found images of every single victim from the unsolved murders that had taken place in Buckle Gap, Tennessee and Fairview, Colorado. Not only had the creepy bastard taken surveillance pictures of each of those women, he’d also taken pictures of their partially nude and deceased bodies. That we had taken a sick predator off the streets was a gross understatement.

“London,” Dawn asked, raising her voice a little, “are you still there?”

I told her I was, and I admitted why I was in New Orleans. It was her turn to let out a long sigh.

“I’ll keep dinner warm for you.”

I smiled and thanked her. Once we ended the call, I grabbed my bag from the back seat and strode through the dark and sticky parking lot. When I stepped through the doors of the building, I was met by dozens of familiar sounds and smells that had marked the best years of my life. I let the door slam shut behind me, and it got the attention of most of the nearby people.

“I’m looking for James Fontenot,” I said in a loud voice, scanning the faces of the boxers scattered about the gym. “Anybody know where I can find James Fontenot?”

A tall fellow with bulging muscles stepped from behind a large heavy bag that he had been beating. Sweat dripped from his face as he glared in my direction. “Who’re you and what do you want?”

“I’m karma,” I said, approaching the boxing ring at the center of the room, “and Gayle Barrios sent me.”

I dropped my gym bag at the edge of the ring and made a show of slipping on my old boxing shoes and pulling on my old gloves. While they were not the same ones I’d worn as a kid and it had been many years since I’d laced them up, there was still that old familiarity about them that had withstood the test of time—like when an old dog meets his or her sibling after years of being apart.

When I stepped into the ring and turned to face JimRat, there was no doubt as to my intentions. The larger man—he must’ve outweighed me by forty pounds—hesitated, but everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and gathered around the ring. Some of them looked curiously at him, and he had no choice but to lace up his own gloves and join me up on stage.

There was no referee, no bell, and no time limit. We were just two strangers in the center of the ring, and we both knew what had to be done.

I let him throw the first punch. It was a hurried right hand that looked to end it all with one shot. It was the first and last punch he threw. With the same cold detachment that I had felt when I’d dispatched Blake York, I beat JimRat like an old dusty rug.

He was game, I give him that, and he took some good shots to the head before resorting to playing defense only. Although his face was covered up, I pounded the outsides of his gloves with thunderous shots that rocked his head from side to side. Every punch I threw was methodical and designed to break down his guard, and a number of them slipped through as I walked him down, backing him across the ring and into the ropes.

Once he was leaning against the rope, I banged away at his body with evil intentions, digging left and right hooks deep into his partially exposed ribs. Although his elbows and forearms blocked most of the body shots, a shovel hook slipped through his guard and landed with a thud. The punch brought a grunt from his throat. He dropped his right hand slightly to protect his ribs on that side, and I seized the moment. Taking a half step back, I slammed my left fist into his temple and followed up with an uppercut to his lowered face. His head rocked to his left and then snapped violently upward, his mouthpiece sailing through the air. He teetered there for a split second, his on his tiptoes, and then he collapsed in a heap at my feet.

As he lay there unmoving, I slowly pulled off my gloves and surveyed the crowd that had gathered around the ring, half expecting to have to fight someone else. To my surprise, not a single person moved forward to help him. In fact, I thought I saw more than a few nods of appreciation for what had just happened.

Without saying another word, I packed up my gear and walked out into the parking lot. As I glanced up toward the Heavens, I nodded and said, “You can rest easy now, Miss Barrios—your case is closed.”

Click here to pre-order the next book in this series…

Click here to visit BJ Bourg’s website and join his mailing list.

NOVELS BY BJ BOURG

London Carter Mysteries

James 516

Proving Grounds

Silent Trigger

Bullet Drop

Elevation

Blood Rise

Rapture

Murderfield

Clint Wolf Mysteries

But Not Forgotten

But Not Forgiven

But Not Forsaken

But Not Forever

But Not For Naught

But Not Forbidden

But Not Forlorn

But Not Formidable

But Not For Love

But Not Forborne

But Not Forewarned

But Not Foreboding

But Not Forespoken

But Not For Blood

But Not Foreknown

But Not Fortuitous

But Not For Fear

But Not Foreseen

But Not For Lust

But Not Forspent

But Not Forsworn

But Not Foregone

But Not For Vengeance

But Not Foregathered

But Not Foredoomed

But Not Foretold

But Not Forfeited

But Not Forearmed

About the Author

BJ Bourg is a former professional boxer and a lifelong martial artist who hails from the swamps of Louisiana. A thirty-year veteran of law enforcement, he has worked as a patrol cop, a detective, a detective sergeant, a police academy instructor, and the chief investigator for a district attorney’s office. He has successfully investigated all types of felony cases and has trained hundreds of law enforcement officers in self-defense, firearms, criminal operations, and many other areas. He retired in October of 2020 and is now a fulltime writer.

Throughout his career, Bourg has served on many specialized units such as SWAT, Honor Guard, the Explosives Search Team, and the Homicide Response Team. He founded his agency’s sniper program and served as its leader and instructor for nearly a decade. A graduate of seven basic and advanced sniper schools, he deployed as the primary sniper on dozens of call-outs, including barricaded subjects, hostage rescue operations, and fugitive apprehensions. He also served as the sniper instructor for the 2001 Louisiana Tactical Police Officers Association’s Conference.

Bourg has been the recipient of numerous awards, including Top Shooter at an FBI Sniper School, the Distinguished Service Medal, and Certificates of Commendation for his work as a homicide detective. He is a public speaker and has also written dozens of articles for law enforcement magazines, covering a wide range of topics such as defensive tactics, sniper deployment, suspect interrogation, report writing, and more. Above all else, he is a father and a husband, and the highlight of his life is spending time with his beautiful wife, wonderful children, grandson, and German shepherds.

Originally from Mathews, Louisiana, he now proudly calls Tellico Plains, Tennessee his home.