I followed the killer's trail back to the road, being careful to watch for cars as we neared it, dousing the light when we heard one. We checked for disturbed earth, both on and beside his route. We hunted until the ground blurred and the trees shimmied, and I started stumbling over my own feet.
When I tripped over a fallen tree, Jack grabbed my arm, jerking me back to my feet.
"Baby's not here," he said.
"She has to – "
"Think about it. Already dug one hole. Why dig two? She's here? Gotta be in that hole."
"But I looked – " I stopped. "Under Sammi."
He nodded.
We returned to the site. Checking beneath Sammi meant fully uncovering and moving her body. I crawled over the hole, keeping my knees on opposite sides of her body and, wearing a fresh pair of gloves, I brushed away the final layer of dirt. When I was done, I backed off the shallow grave and looked down at her.
"What's wrong with this picture?" I murmured.
"You tell me," Jack said. "You're the cop. Were."
I jumped at the sound of his voice, having forgotten, yet again, that he was there. I told myself it was just that he was so quiet. The truth was, it wouldn't have mattered if he'd kept up a running commentary for the past few hours. My attention was focused entirely on Sammi.
"She's dressed," I said. "Fully dressed."
Some sexual predators did reclothe their victims. Behavioral experts saw that as a sign of remorse, the killer's twisted attempt to put everything back together, give their victims some final dignity. It was also often a sign of an opportunistic kill, where an inexperienced killer saw the perfect victim and acted on impulse. Yes, a beautiful teenage girl walking down a wooded road at dusk did make the perfect victim. But one with a baby stroller? A baby whose screams could give him away? And no inexperienced killer would have covered his tracks so well.
"Pants zipped, button done up, belt fastened," I mused. "I don't think he ever undressed her. So this isn't what it seems."
Jack only grunted.
I shook my head. Questions could wait.
When I reached to turn Sammi, Jack got on the other side, wordlessly helping. We lifted her and laid her to the side. I sifted through the disturbed earth.
"Destiny isn't here," I said.
Another grunt.
I turned to Sammi. Her hands were tied behind her with rope. I checked her feet. As I expected, there was no signs of binding. She'd been gagged, her hands bound, then shoved into the forest to the killing site. A gun at her head. Her killer forcing compliance by threatening to hurt Destiny? I pushed the scene from my head.
"Just because she wasn't raped, doesn't mean it wasn't sexual," I said, working it through. "He could get off on torture, mutilation… But there's no sign of that."
I lifted Sammi's shirt and saw only a bruise on her shoulder. The splotches of blood on her shirtfront probably came from her nose, judging by the blood-soaked gag.
"Her nose looks broken. He hits her, she goes down, she's crouched over, nose streaming blood into the dirt back there. Then he subdues her and drags or carries her here. But why punch her in the nose? That's a fighting blow."
"Incapacitating."
I glanced back at Jack.
He shrugged. "Gotta stop someone from fighting back? Three spots. Two for a woman."
I nodded. "Nose, solar plexus, or, on a man, the groin. One sharp wallop and you deliver blinding pain. But if it's sexual, he'd pull a knife or beat the crap out of her. Maybe when she attacked him, he lashed out on impulse, right hook going straight for her nose. Point is, if that's where all the blood comes from, there wasn't any torture or mutilation. And how did he kill her?"
"How's her throat?"
Strangulation. Right. I checked.
"No marks, which doesn't completely rule it out, but…"
My gaze kept sliding back to her broken nose. Something wasn't right. Yes, it was definitely broken, but the angle was wrong. It was almost as if -
Using a tissue from my pocket and dew from the grass, I cleaned the strip of skin between Sammi's nose and her gag. There it was, an undeniable bullet hole, complete with muzzle burns. A gun pressed to her upper lip, trigger pulled.
"CNS shot," Jack grunted.
A bullet through the central nervous system. "But that's – That's not a thrill kill. That's… a professional hit."
A line of sweat dribbled down the side of my face. I swiped at it.
Why would anyone want Sammi dead?
In a passionless, efficient murder like this, the reason had to be equally cold and calculated. A professional hit is done for two reasons. First, you've wronged some very powerful people. But Sammi was just a kid living in small-town Ontario. She couldn't possibly have pissed off anyone with the clout to order a hit.
The second most common reason for hiring a professional killer is more common, and the one I won't deal with. Murder for personal gain. Have your wife killed for the insurance money. Your business partner for his shares. Your parents for your inheritance. Your romantic rival for a woman. But Sammi had nothing. The killer hadn't even emptied her wallet. Then, the truth hit me so hard I gasped.
Something was missing.
"The baby," I whispered.
Chapter Twelve
After we reburied Sammi the same way the killer had left her, Jack drove us back to the lodge. If I thought there was any chance he'd let me walk, I would have tried. Riding with him might mean having to talk about what we'd found, and I couldn't bear that.
I didn't need to worry. He never opened his mouth. Yet somehow that silence was worse. It sat, between us, a vacuum of words unsaid, sucking up the air in the cab. I inched as close to the door panel as I could get, staring out the side window, ticking off the seconds until the drive ended.
The landscape flew past so fast I wasn't even sure what road we were on. The truck jerked and swayed, struggling to keep a grip in the dirt. My head slammed into the seat as the tires found every rut. I knew if I looked over at Jack, I'd see him clutching the wheel, praying he could get us back before I broke down into tears, wondering how in God's name he'd been stupid enough to get mixed up with me again.
When we reached the lodge parking lot, he slammed on the brakes so hard, I'd have a seat belt bruise come morning. Then he just sat there, the engine idling, making no move to turn it off.
I reached for the door handle.
"You're not gonna call the cops," he said.
A statement, not a question. Informing the police was a perfectly logical next step, but my chest tightened at the very thought. Excuses rose to my lips. Maybe I'd left some trace evidence. An anonymous call was too risky – they'd figure the killer had an attack of conscience. And it'd fall under the White Rock OPP jurisdiction. Those guys couldn't find a killer if he left a blood trail to his house.
Excuses, and poor ones. Jack had made sure I'd left nothing. As for the call, he could make it, using any accent from a pay phone in Peterborough. And whatever I thought of the White Rock OPP, they wouldn't ignore a body.
What stopped me from making that call was the memory of Amy's death. My father and the other police thought they had an airtight case. They'd arrived on the scene moments after Amy died, before Drew Aldrich had a chance to run or hide evidence. And they had me, an eyewitness. They'd been so confident of a guilty verdict that they hadn't allowed me to testify in court, saving me from the hell of cross-examination.
Aldrich's defense had ripped their airtight case to shreds. My father and Amy's had rushed to the scene not as cops, but as grief-crazed relatives of the victim. They'd tried to follow procedure, but emotions had been running high and mistakes were made. What really happened, the attorney had argued, was kinky teen sex turned tragic.
Amy and Drew had sex. She'd wanted him to choke her – the jury got a lesson on breath control sex play. The innocent younger cousin looked in, saw what looked like her cousin being strangled and raped, and ran for help. Amy realized she'd been seen and, fearing punishment, lashed out, explaining cuts on Aldrich. He'd instinctively tightened his grip and accidentally killed her. Then her father and uncle, believing the younger cousin's story, fabricated evidence to support it.