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  “Here, girl.” Kendra patted her thigh, and the dog came to her, wagging the ever-moving tail, to sit at Kendra’s feet and gaze lovingly at her. “Did you hear Selena mention that new box of biscuits?”

  Lola thumped her tail on the grass, then stood and coughed again, a great hacking cough.

  “Are you all right, Lola? Need some water? I’ll run in and get a bowl. I’ll even bring a treat, if you wait right here. . . .”

  Kendra grabbed the old crockery bowl that she left just inside the back door, and filled it with water from the hose. “Come on, now, and take a drink.”

  Lola drank from the bowl, then sat on her big haunches and focused on the biscuit that was being held up for her. She took the treat, but laid it on the ground and choked yet again.

  “What’s wrong, girl?” Kendra frowned, becoming more concerned. But just then a rabbit darted out from under the holly bush and Lola felt compelled to give chase.

  Kendra watched the dog take off, then walked to the front of the house to check on her newly emerging gardens.

  It wasn’t until Kendra rounded the side of the house less than five minutes later, after stopping to pull dandelions from a newly planted bed, that she found Lola laying on the grass in the backyard. At first she’d thought the dog was sleeping.

  But when she walked past, she saw that the dog’s eyes were open and her tongue was hanging out one side of her mouth, her chest rising and falling rapidly and unevenly.

  “What’s wrong, girl?” Kendra bent down on one knee.

  The tail thumped weakly.

  “Oh, Lola,” Kendra said under her breath. “You’re sick, aren’t you?”

  Whimpering slightly, Lola tried in vain to stand. Her legs lacked the strength to support her nearly one hundred pounds.

  “You stay, girl. Stay.” Kendra paused. The dog was too big for her to lift. “We’ll have to get Dr. Mark to come for you. Stay right there. . . .”

  Kendra rushed to the house for the phone.

  It was a long twenty minutes before Mark Traub, the young veterinarian from the local animal hospital, pulled into her driveway. Kendra sat on the ground next to Lola and rubbed the back of her head and tried to reach Selena on her cell phone. The only message she could think to leave was “Call me. Now.”

  “Hey, Lola,” the vet said softly as he approached. “No, no, girl. Stay right there. Kendra, let me take a look at her. . . .”

  “Mark, I think she just had a seizure,” Kendra told him, her voice shaky.

  After a quick examination, the vet looked up and said, “I need to take her into the clinic. You’re going to have to help me get her onto the gurney.”

  “Of course, whatever you need.” Kendra bit her lip and looked down at the big sweet dog, whose eyes were now closed, her breathing more erratic. “What do you think happened?”

  “I’ll need to run some tests to be sure, but off the top of my head,” Mark said as he headed to his van, “I’d say it looks like she’s been poisoned.”

  Chapter

  Seven

  Adam stood to one side of the entrance to the cave and watched as the crime scene investigative team prepared to move their equipment on to the next. The sun had just started to come up, he’d been there since the day before, and couldn’t remember for certain when he’d last eaten. And to make his disposition just a little more sour, he’d called Kendra at the hotel to see if she wanted to grab some breakfast with him before she left, only to find out that she already had.

  He rubbed the back of his neck hoping to erase some of the tension that had grown out of fatigue and frustration. The hours spent in the park had yielded little that appeared promising. Cigarette butts and beer cans littered the area, likely remnants from the last teen party to have been held here but nothing that could be connected with their UNSUB. There were footprints up and down the path that, in the absence of rain, could have been there for days. So far the caves had given up nothing of any substance.

  “You think maybe he was scoping this place out to use in the future?” Miranda asked as she walked toward him and peeled off her gloves.

  “No. I think he killed Karen Meyer here. We just haven’t found the right cave.”

  “You look pissed off,” she noted.

  “I’m starving and have a massive headache and pretty young women who should be around to dance at their children’s weddings are dropping like flies. Other than that, things are swell.”

  “I heard they were bringing in some sandwiches, up in the park. Why don’t you run up and grab something to eat? You can grab something for me while you’re at it.” She glanced at the sun rising over the trees. “At least we’ll be able to work without those damn floodlights in our faces for a while.”

  “That might help the headache,” he grumbled.

  “I have aspirin in my car. Help yourself.” She searched her pockets, then handed him her keys. “Look in the glove box. And if the food wagon is more than a rumor, bring me something really good.”

  “Preferences?”

  “Protein. And something to drink. Anything wet will do. Within reason, of course. You know what I like.”

  Adam pocketed the keys and headed up the narrow path that rose gradually to the main walk above, ever conscious that he was following in the footsteps of a killer. At the top, he stepped under the yellow tape strung between trees and looked over his shoulder, back down the path. There was no way their killer could have spent time here without leaving something of himself behind. Unfortunately, finding it and separating it from the bits and pieces left by others was time-consuming. It could take days to distinguish a cigarette butt tossed by the killer from those tossed by the junior high kids who sneaked down to split the six-pack that someone had stolen from an unsuspecting parent. There was simply too much debris in the area.

  Adam snagged a bottle of water from the van that was just setting up to dole out food and drinks to the weary investigators and continued on to Miranda’s car for the aspirin that he hoped would dull the pounding between his ears. He leaned against the side of the car while he tossed back the capsules and watched the gathering news crews, ignoring the attempts of several reporters to get his attention. He polished off the water and flipped the bottle end over end into a trash can that stood about ten feet away before returning to the van to grab a couple of sandwiches and a few cold cans of soda—diet for Miranda.

  As he descended the path to the caves, he recalled how, years back, when he’d been at the Academy and dating Portia, the Cahill sisters had pulled the old twin switch on him—more than once. He’d always found them out, though, before he’d caught on to the mirror-image thing, because Miranda would not touch sugared sodas, and Portia could not tolerate artificial sweeteners. In the end, the three had become friends, and he’d come to admire their skills as agents as much as he’d once been taken by their beauty. He’d personally requested that John include Miranda in the team he was sending up from Quantico to work on this current investigation. She was one hell of an investigator, he was thinking as he walked back down the path toward the caves.

  A small scrap of fabric clinging to the low branch of a shrub caught his eye and he leaned down to inspect it. It was pale green, nearly the color of the new leaves, and may have escaped notice for that reason. He called to one of the investigators who was headed toward him, and watched while the tiny scrap was picked from the branch with tweezers and placed into a plastic bag that was then marked.

  Adam had just started back down to the caves when the cry went up.

  “In here!”

  It had been over an hour before Adam made his way into the cave. Due to the confined nature of the area, the crime scene investigators had closed it off to all except the most necessary personnel. In a case such as this, where there had been little physical evidence to date beyond the bodies of the slain women, contamination was not to be risked. So Adam waited along with his fellow FBI agents and members of the local police department until the scene had been car
efully processed. Once inside the cave, he’d been grateful that the investigators had been concerned more with thoroughness than with appeasing the feds.

  Blood was splattered on both the walls and the ceiling of the cave, so much so that in the glow from the lights, the walls almost appeared to be on fire. Pools of red, still sticky, covered the floor like a ragged carpet. Droplets were found toward the back of the cave, but nothing near the savagery close to the entrance.

  “How do you read it?” one of the local homicide detectives asked Adam as the photographer began to do his job, the flash from his camera sending jolts of light through the narrow space.

  “None of our victims had wounds that would account for all the blood you see in here. The smaller pool of blood on the floor at the back of the cave, that could have come from Karen Meyer. But the blood on the walls, the floor, the ceiling . . . that didn’t come from any of the three victims.”

  “So you think that . . .”

  “Yeah,” Adam said wearily. “We’re missing a body.”

  The body didn’t stay missing for long.

  Before the day had ended, Julie Lohmann, or what had remained of her, was found beside the stream that flowed through the back of the park.

  “She just doesn’t fit the pattern at all,” Miranda had noted. “Nineteen years old, unmarried, no children. No connection with any of our previous victims. No similarities either. What are the chances there’s more than one killer?”

  “None,” Adam said, shaking his head. “It’s the same guy.”

  “What do you think happened here?”

  “My guess would be that Julie was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Adam replied. “I think maybe she stumbled onto our man while he was in the process of either killing Karen Meyer, or while he was preparing to dispose of the body.”

  “It must have really pissed him off. It takes a lot of rage to do what he did to her. I never saw so many stab wounds,” she said softly, then, almost as if thinking aloud, asked, “What would she have been doing here alone?”

  “Meeting someone,” Adam supposed.

  “Her boyfriend,” one of the officers told them as she walked past. “They just picked him up and took him to the station. He called to report her missing a few hours ago. We’re on our way to his apartment right now.”

  “It wasn’t him,” Adam said.

  “I guess we’ll need a little evidence of that, won’t we?” The officer tossed over her shoulder.

  Adam shook his head and turned back to Miranda. “You might want to take part in that. Don’t let the poor guy get railroaded. This is our man, Miranda. This was his spot. His killing ground. He’d be territorial. I’d bet my life on it.”

  “Then I’m on my way.” Miranda turned to leave. “You staying here?”

  “Yes.” He gazed back down to the stream. “There’s something I want to check out.”

  Adam picked his way down the steep, stony path, then paused, midway from his starting point, and tried to imagine the scene that had played out here just twenty-four hours earlier. Tried to imagine what would have been going through the killer’s head after he’d finished with Julie Lohmann.

  Up until now, he’d been so organized. Methodically stalking his victims, learning their habits, so that he’d know the best and most expedient time and place to strike. He’d been efficient in his taking, efficient in his killing, never losing total control. Until he met up with Julie Lohmann.

  The more Adam thought about it, the more certain he was that the young girl’s murder had been little more than an impulse their UNSUB couldn’t resist. She’d clearly been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Had she perhaps arrived on the path as he’d been carrying Karen Meyer up toward the parking lot?

  Adam retraced his steps back to the parking lot, looking for a spot where Karen Meyer’s body may have been dumped while Julie Lohmann was dealt with. He stood near the shrub where earlier he’d found the shred of fabric. Stepping off the path several feet to the left, he knelt down and studied a soft impression on the new growth of weeds that had sprung up over the past month. He leaned forward to study small drops of red-brown that speckled the ground. If, as he suspected, the killer had been surprised on the path by Julie while carrying Karen’s body, he might have tossed his burden in an effort to catch his new prey. Later, after killing Julie, he’d have come back to get Karen to finish carrying her to his car so that he could dispose of her at what Adam suspected was a previously determined spot.

  Returning to the top of the trail that led down to the stream where Julie’s body had been found, her chest slashed open by an unknown number of wounds, her face battered beyond recognition. Adam closed his eyes, trying to see what the killer had seen.

  Had he stood right here, on this very spot, holding her in his arms, before making his way down the path to the stream? Adam followed the path down toward the water, stood near the blood-covered rock where Julie’s body had been left, like an offering. Why would he have brought her here? Why not leave her in the cave? Had he planned on using the cave again for his future victims, his chosen victims? Did he see Julie’s murder as an aberration, a distraction he needed to clear out from his space?

  Why carry her all the way down to the stream? Why not dispose of her when he disposed of Karen?

  Too much blood, Adam thought. There had been too much blood.

  Had he carried her down to the stream to wash her off? But she’d been covered with blood when they found the body.

  Ah, but maybe he’d washed off himself. Maybe the trip down that steep path was to serve a dual purpose. To dispose of Julie’s body in a place that hopefully wouldn’t be found for several days. And to clean himself of her blood.

  Adam walked downstream until he reached a spot where the water pooled. There, on the flat rock that overlooked the deep water, he found traces of pale pink water still in the shallow crevices. Closer inspection found several other rocks with similar pools containing darker pink liquid. Their UNSUB had washed off after he’d carried Julie Lohmann’s bloody body down to the stream. And unless Adam was mistaken, he had washed his clothes as well.

  Which would explain why Karen Meyer’s clothes were damp when they found her.

  Adam sought out a CSI and directed her down to the rocks to take samples of the pink water. Then taking a sample of water from the stream in a vial he borrowed from the investigator, Adam set out for the medical examiner’s lab.

  Well, damn her. Damn her anyway. She shouldn’t have been there. It was her own fault. She shouldn’t have gotten in my way.

  He stared at the live picture on his television while unconsciously rubbing his elbow where he’d scraped it on the rocks in the stream where he’d washed up after he’d dropped her there. The blood actually came out of his shirt quite nicely—he had soaked it good right away—and the jeans had washed up okay, too. It had been so convenient, having a source of running water right there.

  Still, he didn’t like having his plans disrupted. It confused him, threw him off course. Made him lose control.

  Things never turned out well when he lost control.

  But what a lovely kink she’d thrown into the mix. She wasn’t his usual type, but he had to admit, change was good every once in a while.

  And the television coverage had been outstanding, especially considering that this was, after all, a rural area and shouldn’t be expected to present the news with the same level of excellence that one would demand from the networks. But that little redhead from the station in Lancaster, well, she was a real pro, wasn’t she? He was tempted to write to the station to congratulate her on a job well done.

  He chuckled out loud now and increased the volume as he watched the lead investigator from the FBI drone on and on about the case and what it all meant, then swelled with pride watching the lovely Kendra display her sketch. She’d done quite a good job. Perhaps a bit too good, he noted, not above giving credit where it was due. But it was only as he’d expected. After all, she was
the best, wasn’t she?

  Still, as accurate as the portrait was, did she not know him?

  The news anchor spoiled his reflective mood commenting that this latest victim did not fit the established profile of the Soccer Mom Strangler.

  The Soccer Mom Strangler!

  Was he serious?

  “Oh, this is too rich.”

  That they had to give him a name, well, that’s what those media types did, wasn’t it?

  The Boston Strangler. The Green River Killer.

  The Soccer Mom Strangler.

  It made a man proud.

  And wasn’t it lovely? Wasn’t it fun, to have so many scrambling around? Sort of like a reverse game of Hide and Seek, where he was It, but instead of him doing the seeking, all the other players were out looking for him.

  Of course, they’d never find him, of that he was certain.

  Perhaps it might be time to think about raising the stakes a little. Give them all a little something to think about.

  He leaned back in his chair, pondering the best way to do that.

  He needn’t rush. He had all the time in the world. Something clever would come to him.

  It always did.

  He changed the channel but turned off the sound, though his eyes remained fixated on the screen upon which a commercial for some exotic piece of exercise equipment was being hawked by a woman wearing little more than a bikini. He barely saw her.

  In his mind, a different kind of drama was playing out. As he stared at the screen, he visualized darker scenes that were running over and over and over in his head.

  Karen Meyer coming down the path, taking her customary shortcut through the park to her cul-de-sac on the other side of the woods as he watched from behind a stand of laurel.

  Would tonight be the night?

  It is almost dusk. He hears her calling to someone from the top of the path. He peers out through the dense branches as much as he dares, straining to hear what the voices are saying. Someone is offering Karen a ride home. He holds his breath, waiting for her response.