The Surviving Girls

by Katee Robert

  “Space to work.” She glanced over as another car crawled up the road. “Saul’s smart enough to know your scents aren’t the ones he’s looking for, but there’s no reason to muddy the water.” Lei gave something resembling a smile. “And, really, the only one who’s likely to be making mistakes is me. I need to be able to focus on him with minimal distractions. Normally, I request the other searchers give me a good fifty feet.”

  “That’s not an option this time.” Fifty feet might not seem like a lot, but with bushes and tree roots and the trees themselves blocking the other searchers’ views, the unsub could stage an ambush and hurt or kill Lei before Dante could reach her.

  She nodded. “I know.”

  Two men got out of their car. Even in hiking clothing, these two wouldn’t be mistaken as anything other than cops. It was in the tight set of their shoulders and the coldness of their eyes as they took in everything and processed it. The taller one, a black man with a shaved head, stepped forward and held up two sealed bags. “We have the requested clothes.”

  “Hold tight on that.” Lei gave herself a shake and stepped forward. “Those are a backup. Wait here, please.” She shot Dante a look. “This might take a while, and it’ll probably be boring.”

  “We’ll follow your lead.” And they’d keep her safe in the process. He didn’t think for a second that they’d find live women at the end of this search, and from the tense expressions on every cop there, they all agreed with him.

  It’s not always about happy endings. Sometimes it’s just about getting closure for the families left behind and ensuring the unsub isn’t free to kill again.

  Cold comfort, if ever there was such a thing.

  Cases like this—with high kill counts and exceedingly manipulative unsubs—were almost enough to make Dante second-guess his decision to join the FBI. They made him wonder if maybe he should have followed in his father’s footsteps and gone to college to be a brain surgeon.

  Lei turned to where Saul lay and shrugged into her backpack. Instantly, he went from being a bored dog to high alert, his eerie gray eyes focused entirely on her. She moved off the road and toward the first access point. “Saul, search.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  There was nothing quite as pure as a search. Lei’s entire world narrowed down to Saul, watching his body for his sign that he’d caught a scent. Decay worked in strange ways, the chemical breakdown starting roughly four minutes after death. There were a lot of factors that went into how fast a body would decompose, but it hadn’t rained in a week, and it wasn’t nearly warm enough to speed up the process, either. The initial murders had taken place two days ago, which meant if these two girls had been killed with the first three victims, the bodies were still plenty fresh.

  Saul’s nose was good enough to pick up the scent regardless, but an extra couple of days would have made a big difference in the strength of the odors. Ultimately, it didn’t matter. The killer had two girls, which meant it wasn’t as simple as tossing a body over his shoulder and hiking in the woods. He had to have traveled the same path a few times, and even with planning, that would leave evidence.

  It also meant at least one of the bodies would have been left for a period of time.

  Saul scratched at the dirt near what looked like a game trail. His sign. She motioned to the cops and then moved to him. “Search, Saul.”

  He trotted into the woods, his body language intent. What little hope she had of finding the girls alive died. They were gone, and their killer had brought their bodies this way. She followed Saul, keeping one eye on him and the other on the surrounding area.

  There were plenty of popular hiking trails in the area, especially considering how close they were to the coast and the massive population that sprawled from Seattle up to Bellingham. This wasn’t one of them. They were too far from any kind of view, too deep into the Mount Baker–Snoqualmie National Forest to interest even the most avid hikers. The only people who came out here were park rangers and people up to no good.

  The trees crowded her, and even though she could hear the footsteps and low murmurs of the cops behind her, the feeling of being well and truly alone permeated the area. It could have been just her and Saul out there, doing the one thing they were trained to do. She checked her watch. Saul had to take regular breaks, but they were covering ground faster than she’d anticipated.

  Too easy.

  Sweat beaded along her hairline and made her shirt cling to her skin. Tension bled into her body as she turned a slow circle, surveying the area. “Saul, hold.” They were at a bottom of a shallow ravine, the ridges rising roughly ten feet on either side of her. It wasn’t a great distance, but the incline was sharp enough so that she couldn’t see much over the top. A great spot for an ambush.

  Saul whined, ready to get back to the search. Lei turned and met Dante’s gaze. “It’s not likely that he could have hauled a body up there, even if he wanted to.” The job would take two people and waste a whole lot of energy. “But . . .”

  “Nothing to stop him from doubling back.” Dante nodded. He spoke softly to the rest of the cops. The other four backtracked to where the ravine started and split, the detectives from Seattle heading up one side and Clarke and Isaac going up the other. Dante rejoined Lei and nodded. “We can keep going.”

  It was possible they were trampling evidence, but she hadn’t been lying when she touted Saul’s skill. If the killer had doubled back with the body for some reason, he’d find the trail. All these games. All this wasted time.

  She wanted to call Emma and check in. Hearing her friend’s voice would go a long way to reassuring her that this wasn’t some kind of bait-and-switch trap designed to separate and destroy them.

  Focus on the search. Focus on Saul. Emma can take care of herself.

  She had to believe that. Any other possibility would cripple her, and there were two missing girls who depended on her to bring them home—one way or another. Stop being so goddamn selfish for once in your life. She took a breath and then another. She despised that snide voice, hated that it dragged out the dark poison inside her and forced her to acknowledge it.

  Easy enough to comfort herself with the good she was doing in the world when there was nothing at stake. She might make a living out of finding the dead, but the dead would never hurt her. They wouldn’t barricade her in a room and do unspeakable things to the people she cared about. They wouldn’t hunt her down and try their damnedest to kill her.

  The first time she was faced with real stakes—real danger—and all she wanted to do was rush back to the fortress she and Emma had created to reassure herself that the one person she cared about in this world was safe. The only person who really knew what she’d gone through that night and the months—years—afterward when she’d crawled her way back to something resembling normalcy. Her parents didn’t get it, though they tried their best, and she never doubted their love for her. Emma’s parents didn’t even try. All she and Emma’d had in those darkest of days was each other, and their easy friendship had deepened into something true and lasting.

  And maybe more than a little codependent.

  Focus.

  “Saul, search.” She spoke through gritted teeth. They were well past the hundred yards from the access point. She’d known it was a possibility, but every step they took ratcheted up her tension and threatened to distract her.

  Saul didn’t have that problem. He followed the trail through the ravine, and when it ended, he led them north. Lei fell back a little, her paranoia fluttering in time with her breath. “It’s too easy. Saul’s good, but he usually loses the trail a time or two in the process. It’s like this guy dragged her on the ground to ensure we went exactly where he wanted us to, like good little pawns.” She hated feeling manipulated. This bastard had them backed into a corner, and there was no way out but through. They couldn’t abandon the search just because he wanted them to search.

  The girls. Remember the girls.

  Dante touched the gun he
had tucked into a shoulder holster. “Feels like we’re a day late and a dollar short.”

  “Yes. And there’s going to be hell to pay as a result.” Lei kept following Saul, forcing her leaden legs to move. There was no overt reason for the dread threatening to send her spiraling into despair. It wasn’t a search like any other, but she’d been on the trail of monsters in the past. She and Saul had found victims of serial killers, abusive spouses, and—the ones that kept her up at night—child predators. There was nothing this killer could have done that she hadn’t seen before.

  That was the problem, though. She had seen it before.

  She stumbled to a stop, silently cursed herself, and pushed forward again. You are stronger than this. You have to be.

  “Lei.” Dante’s voice stopped her.

  She started to snap that she was fine, but he wasn’t an idiot, and she was about as far from fine as a person could get. “Yeah?”

  “We’ll get him. One way or another, we’ll get him.”

  It should have felt like a false promise, but when Dante spoke with such quiet confidence, she almost believed him. Ultimately, it didn’t make a damn bit of difference. They’d gotten Travis, and that hadn’t stopped the nightmare. It had only postponed it. The only way to truly end it was to follow through on her promise to Emma and end the threat once and for all.

  But murder was still murder, and neither Dante nor the rest of the cops would be willing to look the other way if she cold-bloodedly cut down their suspect.

  Shelve it. Breathe. In . . . one, two, three . . . out . . . one, two, three.

  She focused on her deep inhales and exhales as she followed Saul through a gap in two trees and stopped cold. “Saul, hold.” Instantly, he lay down. He looked at her expectantly, but she could only stare at the scene in front of them.

  They were in a small clearing—possibly the same clearing in the picture the Feds had retrieved from Travis—and before them lay two girls. They were on their backs, their hands demurely folded over their stomachs, their eyes closed.

  They could have been sleeping if not for the ragged gashes to their throats.

  That was bad, but it wasn’t enough to have her stomach trying to force its way out of her mouth. No, it was the fact that looking at those two dead girls was like looking into the past. The blonde wore a cheerleader uniform from the University of Washington, just like Emma had back when they were in college. The Chinese girl wore a yellow sundress that could have come from Lei’s closet when she was eighteen. Bright and pretty and completely out of place in this clearing.

  Dante stopped next to her. He didn’t touch her, didn’t do anything but offer support with his proximity. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too.” She swallowed past her dry throat. “I have to reward Saul.”

  “Don’t go far.”

  “I won’t.” She could feel eyes on her, and it made her skin crawl. The problem was that Lei couldn’t tell if it was someone standing in the trees and watching her or the cops now looking at her like she was some kind of plague carrier. Even Isaac didn’t approach as he moved to the bodies to examine them.

  Lei dug the bright-red ball out of her backpack and threw it for Saul, her mind a million miles away. The first trio of murders had re-created the originals, but these two were specifically geared toward Emma and Lei. Everything from the search to the victims themselves . . . It was a lot.

  How the hell did he find two doppelgängers in the same sorority in Seattle, of all places?

  The coincidence seemed astronomical, no matter how much planning went into it. Saul bounded back with the ball, and she threw it again, making sure to keep him in sight. The rules of the game kept changing, and she couldn’t take anything for granted—not even her dog’s safety.

  She pulled out her phone and cursed at the lack of service. Emma is fine. I’m sure Emma is fine. She’s most definitely fine. Wouldn’t it be a stroke of genius to draw them out here and then attack while they were too far away to help and Emma couldn’t call out for reinforcements? Lei held her phone up, but the bars remained stubbornly empty.

  “Emma is fine.”

  She jumped. “Isaac, I didn’t hear you come up.”

  “Yeah, I noticed.” He smiled, but not like he was particularly happy about something. “I know she doesn’t think much of me, but I put two people on the house to keep her safe. Whoever this sick fuck is, he won’t touch her.”

  If there was anything positive resulting from Isaac’s crush on Emma, it was that he felt invested in her safety. His people weren’t exactly elite soldiers, but maybe an obvious police presence would be enough to deter the killer from trying anything.

  She hoped.

  Lei pressed her lips together. “I’ll feel better when we get off this mountain.”

  “Me, too.” He searched the trees as if expecting an attack at any moment. “I’ve run through these parks since I was old enough to be unsupervised. I’ve never worried too much about anything worse than a fall happening—until now.” He dragged his hat off his head and smacked it against his thigh. “Screw this bastard for taking away that feeling.”

  She almost pointed out that the dead girls behind them were more important than his feeling safe, but Lei managed to keep her mouth shut. Isaac wasn’t a bad guy, but he didn’t have much in the way of empathy. Everything came down to how it affected him and the people he cared about. He might not be ready to launch a vendetta because of the two strangers who had died, but this killer had threatened Emma and made Isaac feel unsafe, and that would provoke a response.

  Lei didn’t care about why he helped them, as long as he did.

  Saul trotted up and dropped the ball at her feet with a happy doggy grin. She knelt and dug through her backpack to get the bowl and a bottle of water for him. “You did good, boy.” Once he was happily lapping it up, she sat back and watched the cops process the scene. Despite never having worked together, to her knowledge, the Feds and detectives moved as a cohesive unit. One of the detectives peeled off and headed back for the car—presumably to call out for backup and all the personnel required to process the scene and haul the bodies out of there.

  She felt Isaac looking at her, as if waiting for her to break down into hysterics. “You don’t have to babysit me. This isn’t the first crime scene Saul has found.”

  “It’s different.”

  Yes, it was. These girls were dead because of her, even if it wasn’t her hand that had held the blade. It didn’t matter that the killer was the one playing games. She was more than willing to play. She wanted to scream for him to target her, because at least she knew the attack was coming. If he killed her, maybe it would end. If she was the one who pulled the trigger, then it would definitely end.

  You know better. It doesn’t end until Travis is dead.

  It would be a long time coming. California hadn’t executed a prisoner in roughly ten years. Lei wasn’t exactly an advocate for the death penalty in general—there were too many human errors possible in trials to kill someone over, and reversing a death-penalty sentence was nearly impossible—but she knew for a fact that Travis Berkley was guilty and deserved to die.

  He was only thirty-five. He could live for another forty years—longer, even. Hoping he was shanked in the shower was all well and good, but if it hadn’t happened in twelve years, it probably wasn’t going to. Travis was too smart to get into direct confrontations he didn’t know he could win.

  She frowned. Wait, that doesn’t make sense. Lei pushed to her feet and paced a few steps. Travis didn’t do direct confrontation. He was sly and too smart for anyone’s health, but he was the bogeyman in the closet—he waited until he knew he’d have the upper hand and he’d ambush. This—the mind games and the task of tracking these girls—didn’t fit. It was too in-your-face and showy. The first recent murders weren’t, but everything that came after didn’t fit the profile.

  “Lei?” Dante walked up, watching her closely. “Is everything okay?”

  Isaac
took that as his cue to head to Clarke and offer to help take pictures of the scene and area. Lei was thankful for the slightest bit of privacy. “This doesn’t fit the profile.”

  Something like respect filtered into his dark eyes, and it was like the clouds parted and the sun kissed her face. Lei rocked back on her heels, trying to get control of her response. Dante was gorgeous, no doubt about that, but she had more important things to focus on than the strange feeling in her stomach that roiled whenever he got close.

  Dante nodded. “You’re right. We haven’t had the time to sit down and work one up, and because we were working with a copycat, some of it would mirror Berkley’s original profile. But this doesn’t fit. It’s more than transferring them from the sorority house. He brought them out here solely to play games with you. This is a hoop for you to jump through.” He motioned to the dead girls. “Berkley is smart enough to pull this off, but—”

  “He’s more likely to slip through my window in the middle of the night, murder me, and slip out again without being caught. Everyone would suspect it was him, and he’d get off on the fact that they might suspect it but couldn’t really prove anything. That was what did it for him—being the smartest motherfucker in the room. But he doesn’t need anyone else to tell him that he is. This guy does.”

  “You’re right. It changes the rules.” His shoulder brushed hers, the tiny contact grounding her. She had no right to that comfort, and he probably didn’t even realize he’d done it, but she didn’t care. Lei didn’t have the ability to lean on anyone, and she wasn’t going to start now, but for the first time in more than a decade, she didn’t have to be the strongest person in the room.

  She crossed her arms over her chest and forced herself to move a few extra inches away. “How long until they can move the bodies out?” She’d done her job. She’d jumped through the hoops the killer set. She wanted the comfort of her home’s four walls and locks between her and the rest of the world.

  Stop that. That works for Emma. If you cower now, you’ll never stop.