by Burton, Mary
It was Sheriff Greene who had come to see her in the hospital and told her she owed it to herself to hold her son at least once. And when she still had hesitated, he had asked the nurse to bring the baby to her.
Sheriff Greene had laid Matt in her arms. Her boy had been a squawking, fussy bundle with a red face and dark hair that already looked like it needed to be cut. He wasn’t much to look at. And she had fallen head over heels in love with him.
Brooke was still pissed at Greene for his mishandling of the DNA, but no matter what, she could never hate the man.
She set the picture back on the nightstand. The shutters outside rattled in the wind. She rose up and went into her son’s room, sat on the edge of his bed, and rubbed his back until he sat up.
He yawned. “What’s going on, Mom?”
She pulled another cheek swab from her pocket. “Open wide, sport. Need a quick swab.”
He complied, and as she sealed the swab back in the case, he asked, “What’s that for?”
“Just a crazy ancestry project, buddy. No worries. Go back to sleep.”
When he rolled over and went back to sleep, she hurried down the front stairs and out the front door. She stood in the fresh air for a moment and drew in deep breaths. Jesus. Was this a hornet’s nest she really wanted to kick?
Footsteps pounded the ground behind her, and in an instant the seconds slowed. Her hand reached for her weapon. Her body braced for an attack. A flicker of movement caught her peripheral vision. A ski mask appeared right before a right cross connected with her jaw. Pain radiated through her skull and her brain short-circuited. She staggered and then dropped to her knees. She fumbled for the stock of her weapon, but the assailant grabbed it from her.
He then yanked her back, slamming her body into a tree. The pain rocketed through her body. She fell to the ground and instantly he was on top, pinning her midsection. He shoved a damp cloth against her nose and mouth.
She held her breath, still flailing her legs. She could hear his steady, even breathing as her own heart raced and her lungs burned for air.
“Breathe,” he ordered. When she didn’t comply, he lifted his weight and then slammed it against her midsection, knocking the air out of her. Agony rocked her body.
“Let it go,” he sang softly in her ear. “Let it go. Don’t want to wake up Matt, do you?”
He had been watching her. He knew about Matt. Knowing her son could be in danger lit twin flames of fear and anger.
“Give in to me,” he ordered. “Give me this win, and I’ll let Matt live.”
But he wouldn’t kill her right away. He would take his time with her. Her submission now could not only buy her son his life but could also give her time later to find a way to escape.
Memories of garish purple bruises around Beth Watson’s neck sent chills down her spine. She didn’t want to die at all, especially like that. There was so much in her life she had to do.
But she inhaled and took the chemicals into her bloodstream. She felt lightheaded, and the seductive wave of the drugs washed through her body, dulling the sharp pain burning in the side of her head.
As her muscles gave way, she heard him chuckling.
The pain receded, and what little light there had been from the moon faded to total blackness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Thursday, November 21, 7:30 a.m.
When Macy and Nevada arrived in Roanoke at the Western District Office of the Virginia State Medical Examiner, neither spoke as they showed identification and donned paper gowns and latex gloves before they entered the large autopsy room containing the remains of Beth Watson. Classical music played on the overhead speaker.
Dr. Squibb was gowned up and inspecting his instruments as a technician wheeled in a gurney and placed it against the stainless steel sink attached to his workstation. The tech locked the gurney wheels and then positioned the instrument table closer to the doctor.
“Thanks for working us in, Dr. Squibb,” Macy said.
“Of course,” Dr. Squibb said. “If you don’t mind, we need to get started. We’ve got a full caseload this morning.”
“Whenever you’re ready,” she said.
The technician clicked on an overhead light that glistened on the sharp instruments. Dr. Squibb pressed a button with his foot, which activated the overhead microphone.
The doctor stated his name, as well as Nevada’s, the tech’s, and hers. “These are the remains of Elizabeth Jean Watson, born June 3, 1999. Today is November 21, 2019, and it is 8:02 a.m.”
The technician carefully removed the sheet to reveal the pale body of Beth Watson.
Macy’s chest tightened as she thought about her own near-death experience. How close she had come to being dissected on a medical examiner’s table just like this one.
Dr. Squibb cleared his throat. “The subject today is female. She appears to have been a healthy weight and fit.”
The doctor moved to the top of the gurney and rotated the patient’s neck to the right and displayed the black-and-blue bruises that ringed her neck. The doctor inspected the markings more closely. In several spots, the bruises mirrored large fingers.
“Can we see the x-ray images?”
The technician clicked on a computer screen, and the victim’s neck appeared. The doctor studied it. “The hyoid bone is broken.” This delicate bone often snapped during strangulation. “However, the bruising on her neck shows different states of healing, meaning she wasn’t just strangled once but multiple times over several days.” The confirmation was no surprise, but it was necessary.
“Can you determine how many times she was strangled?” Macy asked.
The doctor rotated the neck several times and then asked to see the x-ray image of the sternum. “Three, maybe four times.” No one spoke for several beats before the doctor continued. “Note there are hairline cracks in her sternum. He performed CPR on her.”
“Just like Tobi Turner,” Nevada said.
“The bone evidence of both victims is almost identical,” Dr. Squibb said.
Macy tapped her fingers against her thigh, drawing in a breath as if she were somehow breathing for them both.
Dr. Squibb held up the victim’s right hand. The edges of the nails were jagged.
“Where did he keep her?” Macy asked, more to herself.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
The remnants of the dreams clawed out from the shadows, sending rippling chills through her body. “Has the dirt on the bottom of her feet been analyzed?” she asked.
“We sent a sample over to the lab,” Dr. Squibb said. “It’s a priority.” But that still meant it could take months. Television had conditioned the public to believe that lab results happened in a matter of hours, days at most. In reality, the state labs were swamped with DNA and blood samples from an endless number of cases. It was common for test results to linger for months in the lab queue.
The doctor began with the external examination, noting that Beth Watson weighed one hundred and sixty pounds and was five foot nine inches tall. There was minor bruising on her ribs, knees, and shins, and restraint marks ringed her wrists and ankles.
“You’ve sent her blood off for testing?” Based on the condition of Beth’s bedroom, which showed no signs of a struggle, Macy suspected Beth had been unconscious when the killer had taken her from the house.
“We’re running the standard toxicology screen analysis,” Dr. Squibb said.
Dr. Squibb noted there were no signs of drug use, nor were there scars from old injuries or surgeries. She had four tattoos, the most prominent being the image of a galloping horse on her right shoulder.
As the doctor lifted her right arm, he found two arching marks that resembled upper and lower teeth.
“Did he bite her?” Macy asked.
“Appears so.”
“Can you tell if a front tooth was chipped?”
“They don’t appear to be.”
“He may also have gotten it repaired,” Macy said.
The technician photographed the marks and made a notation on a printed diagram representing a human body.
Macy squashed down a jolt of anger. “Did you recover any hair, fluid, or fiber samples from her body?”
“We collected semen samples and three hair strands.”
The doctor reached for the scalpel and drew it across the right side of her chest just above her breast, and then over the left side of her breast, joining the two incisions in a V shape. The blade tip then continued down her chest and over her abdomen, creating the classic Y incision. It was a savage but necessary final act.
For the next hour Macy and Nevada watched in silence as the doctor sliced through the thin layer of fat separating skin from bone. Bone cutters snipped through the ribs on both sides of her chest, allowing him to remove the breastplate and set it aside. The heart, lungs, and internal organs were now exposed. Over the next three hours he examined and weighed her internal organs. In the end, he determined she’d been perfectly healthy.
By the time Macy and Nevada left the autopsy room, a weight had settled on her shoulders, reminding her it was her job to eradicate the perpetrators.
“I want this guy so bad I can taste it,” Macy said.
“You’ll have to get in line behind me.”
When she and Nevada got into his vehicle, she checked her messages and found one from Andy. She dialed her number. “Andy, what do you have?”
“You have two more hits. A woman matching the description you gave me was strangled to death in 2015, and another in 2017.”
“Where?”
“The 2015 murder occurred in Charleston, West Virginia, and the 2017 murder occurred in Bluefield, Virginia, which is less than sixty miles from Deep Run.”
“Was there DNA?” Macy asked.
“There was, but it was badly degraded in both cases,” she said. “The bodies of both women weren’t found for months after they vanished.”
Her heart raced faster. “Were their remains buried?”
“No, they were both dumped on the side of the road. In that part of the world, the side of the road isn’t always a neat shoulder. It can be a drop off the side of a mountain.”
“What about red rope?”
“Discovered bound to the hands of the 2017 victim.”
“Who’s the local law enforcement contact?”
“Sheriff Wade Tanner,” Andy said.
“Do you have a phone number?”
Andy rattled it off. “I also have a possible hit in western Maryland, but I’ll know later today. The locality’s application was incomplete.”
“Andy, in any of the cases you mentioned, were there teeth marks on the victims?”
Papers shuffled and then she spoke. “In Atlanta, the victim had a significant bite mark on her upper right arm. Should I add that to the list?”
“Yes. And thank you, Andy. I appreciate it.” She glanced toward Nevada, feeling the first easing of the pressure that had been building in her since she’d walked out of Ramsey’s office. “Did you hear?”
“I did.”
She looked up Bluefield on her phone. “Mercer County borders Virginia. We can be there in less than two hours.”
“I know Sheriff Wade Tanner. I worked a bureau case in his jurisdiction seven or eight years ago. Let me call him.”
He dialed Tanner’s number, but she could hear the sheriff’s clipped, deep voice on his recorded message. Nevada left a message.
Macy was making progress, but would she nail him before he killed again?
Brooke’s head pounded when her eyes fluttered open. She tried to sit up, but pain shot through her body, sending her backward to the stained carpet. She lay for a moment, her heart beating fast as she tried to collect herself.
Where was she?
Drawing in a breath, she pushed up to a sitting position and rested her back against the concrete. Her throat also hurt, and when she raised her hand to her neck, the flesh felt tender and bruised.
She reached for her weapon and discovered her gun belt had been stripped away, as had her shoes and socks. The pins securing her hair had been removed, leaving her long dark hair to fall past her shoulders.
As she looked around the small room, she was now more pissed than afraid. How could she have been so stupid? She’d heard his footsteps come up behind her, but she’d not reacted fast enough.
Her mind went to Matt sleeping in his bed. Worry and fear swirled around her anger. It was one thing for her to pay the price for not being on guard, but not her kid. Tears burned her eyes before she stopped her thoughts midstream. She was no use to Matt sitting in here crying like a child. This prick wouldn’t have it easy with her.
Gritting her teeth, she pushed to a standing position and felt along the walls until her fingertips brushed over a doorknob. Hope came and went just as quickly as she rattled the knob and realized it was locked.
She considered shouting and pounding, but knew this was what he wanted from her. Fear. And she’d be damned if she’d give it to him. Drawing in a deep breath, she ran her fingers again over her neck. He’d strangled her while she’d been unconscious. Not very sporting, even for him. Out cold, she’d not shown him the fear he craved, so he’d left her alive. For now.
If she was sure of anything, it was that he would return and strangle her again.
One way or another, she had to get ready for him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Thursday, November 21, 1:30 p.m.
Nevada and Macy had arrived in Deep Run when Sheriff Tanner called. After a brief exchange, the two agreed to continue the discussion on a closed-circuit connection in the conference room.
Sullivan poked his head into the room. “Received a text from Deputy Bennett. She says her boy is real sick. She’ll be here as soon as she can.”
“Is there anything we can do?” Nevada asked.
“Probably, but the deputy never asks for help and likely would be embarrassed by it.”
“I’ll follow up with her in the next hour,” Nevada said.
“And this package arrived for Agent Crow.”
Macy opened the package and pulled out the small sample of Beacon cologne. She removed the top and sprayed a light mist on her wrist. She inhaled, hoping she’d smelled this before. She had not.
She handed the bottle to Nevada. “It’s not familiar to me. I think our guy might have changed his scent.”
He sniffed and then recapped it. “It’s not familiar to me either, but I’ll pass it around the office. Someone might recognize it.”
“You never know.”
Fifteen minutes later, the two were sitting at the conference-room table looking at the telecast of a leather-bound chair and the Mercer County seal mounted on the wall behind. Seconds later a man in his sixties settled in front of the camera. He had a white mustache, a cleanly shaved head, and he wore a khaki shirt with the sheriff’s star pinned over his heart.
“Sheriff Tanner,” Nevada said. “Appreciate you talking with us.”
“Glad to help. Apologize for not being around when you called, but as you’ll learn, this job will take you to every corner of the county. How’s it up there in the valley?” he asked.
“Fall came and went fast. It’ll be a long winter.”
“I hear that.”
“I’m joined today by Special Agent Macy Crow,” Nevada said. “She’s working a series of rapes and a murder all connected by the same DNA.”
“Afternoon, Agent Crow.”
“I appreciate the time,” she said.
“Of course.” He rustled through papers. “I pulled the case files you referenced in your message, Sheriff Nevada. I didn’t think anything would come of that ViCAP application I submitted.”
“New details have been entered in the system,” Macy said.
“We found a body in Deep Run.” Nevada opened a tablet and then an email from Tanner. “Agent Crow thinks we have a serial offender who remained active after he left our area.”
Tanner flipped open his file. “Guys like this don’t stop until they’re caught.”
“Who’s your victim?” Macy watched as Nevada opened an attachment. The motor vehicles picture of a young brunette came onscreen.
“Her name was Becky Taylor. I sent you her picture and several crime scene photos about ten minutes ago.”
“I have them right here,” Nevada said. He viewed the image of a woman curled on her side. She was dressed and her hands and feet bound with red rope.
“The medical examiner figured she was exposed to the elements for about five months when found in late April,” Tanner said.
“And the cause of death was strangulation?” Macy asked.
“It was.”
“What about a bite mark?” Nevada asked.
“Upper right thigh,” Tanner said.
The older sheriff glanced at the file, shaking his head. “Becky was nineteen when she was murdered. She was arrested for prostitution and drug charges several times. I did some asking around the trailer park where she grew up. They tell me the deck was stacked against her from the get-go. No daddy and a drug-addicted mom. She was pretty much on her own as soon as she could walk.”
She sounded like Cindy Shaw. “Known associates?” Macy asked.
“They knew her at the truck stops where she did most of her work. Everybody knew of her, but no one could say for sure when she vanished or who she was last seen with.”
The world swallowed up girls like Becky Taylor who turned to the sex trade for so many reasons, including money, acceptance, and even affection. “According to the ViCAP report, the DNA was degraded.”
“That was 2017, so unless you folks at Quantico got more fancy ways of testing DNA, there’s not much to be done.”
