“He beat her first,” Reinhold says, clicking a photograph. “The killer was angry. Why?”
Hensel points at the bruising around the girls neck.
“Notice the ridging around the ligature marks. As if the killer strangled her with a thin piece of rope.”
“Maybe twine,” Tipton says, his face green.
Pulled into the examination, Darcy lends an observation. Her voice cracks, causing everyone to look at her.
“Sorry.” Darcy swallows the lump in her throat. “She wasn’t his type. That’s why he beat the girl and tossed her away.”
“We only have two girls to construct the profile from,” Fisher says, brushing a fly off his face. “This girl’s hair is dark like your daughter’s, while Sandy Young’s is lighter.”
“No need to refer to this girl as if she’s a Jane Doe. Her name is Emily Vogt.”
“What?”
“The girl. She’s Emily Vogt.” Darcy fires a glare at Tipton. “She went missing outside Atlanta. I believe that’s what you said. I told you the cases are related.”
Fisher clears his throat.
“You said this girl isn’t his type. How do we determine what his type is when we only have three kidnappings to go on?”
Darcy waits for Reinhold to answer. When the profiler doesn’t, Darcy clears her throat.
“We have seven girls, not three. Four from ten years ago, three this week. They’re all between the ages of twelve and sixteen, thin and pretty. Emily was too heavy for him.”
Darcy cringes at the callousness of her words, but the heavy thighs on the dead girl set her apart from the others. Including Nina Steyer.
“Isn’t that the age range the Full Moon Killer targeted?” Filmore asks.
Hensel nods and sneaks a look at Darcy, who clamps a hand over her stomach.
“You okay?”
“I feel sick, Eric.”
“No reason for you to be out here. Head back to the vehicle. I’ll meet you in a few.”
The clumped earth tries to trip her up as Darcy staggers toward the barn. When she passes the farmer, the man’s gaze locked on the dead girl in his field, a van clambers into the driveway. The CSI team piles out to collect evidence. Soon the poor girl will lie upon the medical examiner’s table, and her parents will face the horror Darcy dodged.
She closes the door and slides down in the backseat, the shuffling feet and measured voices of the crime scene techs outside the windows as they make their way toward the field. A cold Darcy can’t shake follows her into the rental while she rests her head against the seat back. The phone hums inside her jacket. She’d silenced the phone before examining the body. Recognizing Leo Vescio’s number, Darcy raises the phone to her ear.
“Leo?”
“Agent Gellar, we have a deal.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The light through the hallway seems wrong. Tainted and soiled.
Jennifer’s eyes blink open to the shadowed bedroom. Twisting onto her side, she forgets the chains and yells when the links tangle around her midsection and dig into her ribs. When she rises onto her knees and lifts her head, she notices boards cover the bedroom’s windows. The harsh light bathing the hallway tells her it’s daytime. Her eyes stop on the girl across the room, bound and unmoving. Dirt and dust mar her light-colored hair, the strands slick with sweat and matted to her face. The girl’s chest rises and falls too quickly, breath unsteady and garbled as if dragged over broken glass.
This must be Sandy Young. Jennifer overheard her mother and Laurie talking about the kidnapped girl. She knew the FBI was in town, helping Sheriff Tipton search for Sandy. That gives Jennifer a sliver of hope the authorities will find them.
Without a window view, she can’t recognize the landscape. But they couldn’t have gone far last night. Her captor is strong, but carrying a hundred pounds of dead weight for several miles is unrealistic. She thinks hard, tries to recall sounds and smells while she eased in and out of consciousness. The strange floating sensation returns to her. Weightlessness. Drifting on the wind.
And colliding against rocks.
The scents of rubber and fresh water come back to her. Yes, she was inside an inflatable raft. Which means the kidnapper could have taken her a long distance. How far does the stream extend past the falls? Without a map as a guide, she can’t know if she’s a few miles or ten miles from Laurie’s house.
Sandy groans. Pitching glances into the hallway, Jennifer crawls toward the girl. Her chains rattle and grate. If the kidnapper is inside the house, he’ll hear.
“Sandy,” Jennifer whispers. “Sandy Young.”
If the girl hears, she doesn’t acknowledge. She lies on her side in a fetal position, hands tucked between her knees as she faces the opposite wall. Jennifer struggles forward. Sandy’s sweat-beaded body curls beyond Jennifer’s fingertips. She strains against her bindings, reaches for the girl’s shoulder. If only the girl awoke and rolled a foot to her left. But like Jennifer, she’s at the edge of her boundary, the chains stretched taut.
“Wake up. We need to find a way out of here.”
A door creaks open down the hall. Footsteps.
Jennifer scurries back to the wall as the shadow grows across the hallway floor. The footsteps stop outside the door. He breathes and listens, patient. The floorboards squeal when his weight shifts. As Jennifer falls back against the wall, the chains clink together. She senses his smile a moment before he steps into the bedroom.
His face hides in darkness with the light at his back. But as he strides into the room, the gray dimness of the room pulls his face together. He’s the same unmemorable man from last night. His face is plain, no discernible features which make him stand out beside the scar. If he entered a room with a dozen people, he’d be invisible, the man no one recalled talking to. Yet he’s familiar. Jennifer ponders where she’s seen him, then she recalls the man in the mall watching her and Hunter. Yes, it’s the same man. She’s certain of it.
“You’re awake. I hope you had a good night’s sleep.”
Jennifer pulls her hands to her chest and neck. His grin displays too many teeth. The kidnapper slides down the wall and sits beside her. His gaze moves over Sandy’s prone form, and sadness touches his eyes.
“She’s sick,” Jennifer says. “You should let her go so she gets help.”
“No help out here.” His stare is blank. “Nobody but us. There’s nothing to do now but wait.”
“Wait for what? Sandy is dying.”
His head swings toward Jennifer.
“You know her name. How is that possible? You’re not from Scarlet River.”
Without another word, he pushes himself to his feet and kneels beside Sandy. Placing a hand on her hip, he brushes the hair from her face. The girl shivers and mutters in her sleep, asking for her mother. The man looks back at Jennifer.
“Time grows short for Sandy, but we don’t need her. It could be just the two of us. He doesn’t need to know. Nobody does.”
Who is he? She remembers the kidnapper referencing another man last night. A father figure, she senses. Someone who holds sway over him. Then his hands slither over Sandy’s chest.
“Get away from her, you piece of shit!”
Jennifer’s vitriol spins his attention back to her. There’s a new aggression to his step when he approaches. She screams when he digs his hand into his pocket. Instead of removing a knife, he produces a key. He jiggles the key into the padlock, and the lock springs open. Jennifer sighs, the pressure and weight of the links finally off her body. Before she works the feeling back into her hands, he slaps a handcuff over her wrist and uses the other cuff to rip her to her feet. She bites her lip when the force almost yanks her shoulder out of socket.