LITMIR.BIZ

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up to be a detective with the county?” Rocky asked Jack. “Good going.”

      Forget the past. They both had to shake off this feeling of déjà vu. They’d been boys back then. Now they were men—and the men assigned to work these newest killings.

      Jack nodded. “And you just happened to discover this body, too?”

      Rocky shook his head. “I just got back into town. Jack Grail, this is Devin Lyle.” He nodded toward her. “She found the body. She flagged me down in the road.”

      “My house is over there,” Devin said, pointing through the trees. “I heard a noise and ran out without my phone, and when I...when I saw her, I ran for the road to get help. I guess I should have gone back in and called, but...I just ran for the road,” she finished lamely.

      Jack turned his attention to Devin. As he spoke to her, the crime scene techs got to work and the night seemed to come alive with flashes as pictures were taken.

      Rocky waited while Jack talked to Devin and let his mind wander.

      Jack looked good. Funny, Rocky had always thought that he’d wind up flipping burgers by day and smoking pot by night.

      Finally Devin’s interview was finished and an officer escorted her back through the woods to her house.

      “So I heard you’re a fed, like you planned,” Jack said.

      “Yeah. And it’s good to see you, Jack. Bad circumstances, but it really is good to see you.”

      Jack grinned. “You, too, Rocky. Last I heard, though, you were working the mean streets of L.A.”

      “I just transferred to a new unit.”

      “We have a unit here?” Jack said, frowning.

      Rocky smiled. There were field offices all over the country, with the one in New York City being the largest. “I was assigned to a behavioral unit out of Boston, but we go all over.”

      “And you were sent here?” Jack asked him. “To work this case?”

      Rocky wasn’t sure the assignment was official yet—whether Adam Harrison had cleared the way for FBI involvement—but he decided to be honest.

      “I read about the woman in Swampscott,” he said.

      Jack looked grave as he lowered his head and nodded. “Yeah. Freaked me out,” he admitted quietly. He looked at Rocky again. “None of us ever got closure, did we?” he asked.

      “Not me, that’s for sure,” Rocky said. He studied Jack. “That why you became a cop?”

      Jack nodded. “Yeah—worked my way up from the streets to make detective.” He hesitated. “I study the old case sometimes. Okay, a lot of the time.”

      He looked at Rocky with an odd mixture of emotions, shrugged and started toward the crime scene. He turned back. “You coming?”

      Rocky followed him. They hunkered down by the body and the medical examiner.

      “Dead about four hours—give or take thirty minutes. Not too cold tonight, but not hot, either, so I think we’re looking at just about five o’clock,” the M.E. said.

      “Broad daylight,” Jack muttered. “Sexual assault?”

      “No. Probably pretty quick—merciful, under the circumstances. Looks as if she was standing here when her killer came from behind and slashed right across her throat. See the pattern of the blood spray—almost a straightforward gush. Then he just laid her down and arranged the body.”

      Jack looked at Rocky. Neither of them spoke. Everyone knew how Melissa had died. She’d had her throat slashed. That much had leaked out; though, as far as he knew, only he, Jack and Vince, along with the cops and medical personnel who had worked the case, ever knew the details of the killing. With law enforcement and the powers that be afraid of both repercussions on the Wiccan community and that the investigation could be compromised, all the specifics had been kept quiet by the police, rather than let out for any would-be copycats to act on.

      At the time, they’d all been so stunned and devastated, they’d never even spoken of it among themselves. They’d prayed and they’d waited for the murderer to be found....

      And waited.

      The killer eluded all efforts by the police to discover his—or her—identity.

      Back then, the cops had talked about cults. Maybe they’d do the same now.

      Within the hour, the body was on the way to the morgue. The crime scene unit continued to comb the woods, and Rocky stood with Jack by the side of the road.

      “Shit,” Jack muttered, looking at Rocky. “I don’t study this kind of stuff—you know, the psychology of a killer. I guess you do. But my wife watches those shows all the time.” He paused and looked at Rocky a little sheepishly. “My wife—Haley.”

      Rocky smiled. “Congratulations. I’m sorry I missed it. I guess I should have come home more.”

      “We sent you an invitation to the wedding.”

      “I never saw it. I was probably working out west and it never reached me.”

      “Yeah, well, anyway, Haley is hooked on all the crime shows. She’s relentless—trying to tell me how to be a better cop all the time. I guess it doesn’t hurt. But how could this be the same guy? Melissa was killed, what? Almost thirteen years ago? I thought serial killers escalated, getting more violent and killing more frequently.”

      “Usually. But there have been cases where a killer starts, stops, then picks up years later. Sometimes it turns out he was in prison for something else, but sometimes he just loses the urge until something happens to trigger it again. No one has ever really cracked the puzzle of the human mind. We can look for patterns, we can base our investigations on what we’ve learned, but we’re surprised all the time. This looks like the same killer, but we don’t know yet that it is.”

      “Copycat?”

      “Possibly. Are you lead on the case in Swampscott?” Rocky asked him.

      Jack nodded. “They’ve taken everything else off my plate. They want this one solved.” He shook his head. “Nothing to do with Melissa. It’s just my job.”

      “So,” Rocky said, “tell me about her.”

      “Carly Henderson,” Jack said. “She was a redhead. We found her in the same kind of situation, small patch of woods in a semiurban area. She was a local. I don’t know who this woman was, but I’m willing to bet she’ll prove to be local, too.”

      “Like Melissa,” Rocky said.

      “Like Melissa,” Jack agreed.

      * * *

      “I definitely need a dog,” Devin said, leaning back against the door. It was locked and bolted. She’d checked the back door and the windows, too. She still felt on edge. “A giant dog. Or maybe an attack cat—like a tiger.”

      I just found a woman with her throat slashed!

      She suddenly wondered at her own courage—or stupidity—in running into the road. She might have flagged down the killer instead of an FBI agent. A normal person would have run back to the cottage, locked the door and called the police.

      But what if the killer had hidden in her house?

      At least she knew the killer wasn’t inside with her now. The young officer who had walked her back had made a thorough search. He’d gone into her closets and looked under the beds. And the cops would be nearby, searching the scene, for a while, she knew.

      Poe squawked.

      Her hands, she realized, were still shaking.

      She could still see the woman all too clearly in her mind’s eyes. Lying there. Dead.

      Poe

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