LITMIR.BIZ

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buried here.” Chandler’s gaze scanned the trodden-down snow and the poor woman who lay motionless on the gurney.

      “The crime scene investigators will figure that out,” Pescoli said as the rescue helicopter came into view and the news chopper flew to a spot higher in the sky, never quite giving up its vantage point.

      “War to the scientists,” Watershed said.

      “What?” Pescoli frowned.

      “The note.”

      “We can figure that out later,” she snapped, uninterested in the stupid clues the killer had left behind. Now they had a victim who was alive, one they could save, one who could potentially name her attacker.

      To hell with the damned note.

      “Did that copter happen to find the car?” Chandler asked as a basket was lowered. “We’re still missing two cars, assuming this person isn’t Jillian Rivers.”

      “She’s not,” Pescoli said as she noted the victim’s tiny nose and wide mouth. Her hair was short and streaked with shades of blond, a widow’s peak was evident, and her eyes were a brown so intense they were nearly black. She was tall and thin, probably five nine or ten, so gaunt her ribs showed, her feet at least a size nine. Pescoli remembered the pictures she’d seen of Jillian Rivers. Even if Rivers lost weight, cut and dyed her hair and wore dark contacts, she wouldn’t resemble either woman they’d found today.

      “So where the hell is she? Why do we have her car and not this woman’s or the Jane Doe we found up at Cougar Pass?” Agent Chandler asked, her eyebrows knit in frustration, her breath fogging in the cold air.

      “We’ll find her,” Halden, her partner, said. He was the calmer of the two, though he, too, was irritated, his mouth set and grim, his eyes scanning the surrounding area, where the dilapidated, graying buildings of what had once been a profitable hunting lodge were partially hidden by snow-laden trees and rocky hills. It was desolate up here, the whole area looking decrepit and forgotten, a testament to death.

      The victim was transferred to the rescue basket and winched skyward as the helicopter started moving, heading back to Grizzly Falls, just as the crime scene team arrived.

      “How the hell did he get them to two different places, miles apart?” Chandler muttered angrily.

      “One at a time. First the victim at Cougar Pass and now this Jane Doe.”

      “Her initials being HE or EH, if the pattern remains the same.”

      “It is,” Chandler said. “He’s just escalating.”

      “Not just escalating,” Pescoli said. “So far he’s duplicating. He’s not killing closer together; it’s like he’s doing a two-for-the-price-of-one thing. Two women in one day.” She was worried as she stared at the note and the tree to which the victim had been lashed. Traces of blood were visible on the bark, and drops of red dotted the snow. Whoever this woman was, she had struggled and fought.

      “What the hell does that mean?” Grayson asked.

      “I don’t know.” Stephanie Chandler was shaking her head. “We need to find out who these women are.”

      “I’ve already called in both sets of initials to Missing Persons on the walkie,” Alvarez said. She was still standing near the entrance to the crime scene, making certain everyone was signing in as she waited for the crime scene team to arrive. “They’re checking.”

      “Call dispatch. Have them bring in every available detective,” Sheriff Grayson said. “And I don’t want to hear any complaints about it being Sunday or a few days before Christmas or even that their kid has the flu. I want every available road deputy at the department when we get back into town. Overtime’s no problem. Screw the damned budget. Are the cell phone towers working again?”

      “Not all of them, not yet,” Watershed said. “Just like the electricity. It’s spotty.”

      A muscle worked in the sheriff’s jaw and his lips were flat beneath his moustache. He lifted his hat from his head, and staring at the pine tree, the would-be death scene, he raked stiff, gloved fingers through his hair. “I hate this son of a bitch,” he muttered under his breath.

      Pescoli silently agreed. She prayed that they had found this victim in time. That EH or HE or whoever she was would live. And not just survive. Oh no. Pescoli hoped that the woman would be able to name her attacker and testify against him at the prick’s trial.

      Yeah, that’s what she wanted, Pescoli thought as she shaded her eyes against the lowering sun and watched the helicopter disappear over the craggy summit of the mountain.

      It would serve the bastard right.

      Detective Gage returned with the dogs and the bad news that the trail had gone cold, ending up at a lower parking lot for the old lodge where tire tracks led away. The crime scene team would take tire and footprint casts, which were tricky but not impossible in the snow. With Snow Print Wax sprayed onto the tracks several times and followed by the dental stone impression material, clear casts could be created. Once the impression material hardened, experts would make duplicate prints and study them, trying to figure out the make and imperfections in the tire tread and boot prints. Methodically, experts would go through the painstaking process of finding out who had bought those particular tires in a hundred-mile radius of the area and start comparing the tread, vehicle by vehicle.

      It could take weeks. Or longer. Assuming they were able to get a good, clear print.

      At that moment, the sheriff’s cell phone beeped. “Looks like we got service up here again,” he said, and answered, his expression darkening as he listened. “Yeah…right…good. Send the chopper up. Use one from the state police if you have to, but check out the area. See if there’s any sign of activity. Tracks. Smoke from a chimney. Noise or exhaust from a generator. Any damned thing! Yeah…yeah…I know. Get back to me.”

      He hung up and said, “It looks like we might have caught a break. Jillian Rivers’s cell phone company called. They got a ping off her phone and pinpointed it to a tower up on Star Ridge.”

      “That’s wicked country up there,” Watershed said.

      “Yeah, well, what else is new?” Grayson was already headed back to his Suburban. “The crime scene team can handle this. Let’s go.”

      Pescoli didn’t waste a second. Finally, it seemed, they’d caught a break. She felt a surge of satisfaction. We’re going to get you, you bastard.

      Look at them!

      Police officers crawling over the “crime scene” like ants on an anthill. Hurrying this way, scurrying that. Not having a clue that I’m here, in the warmth of the bar, sipping a drink of fine Kentucky whiskey as I blend in with the rest of the patrons, the men and women who have stopped in for a drink after work to share conversation, even laughter, and shake off the bitter cold of winter, here in the lower part of the town, in a century-old building overlooking the river.

      As one, we stare at the old television mounted over the colored bottles glistening in front of the mirror.

      The bar is glossy wood, reflecting the lights overhead, holding up a half dozen sets of elbows of men who’ve come inside after a day’s labor. There are women, too, but most of them are seated at the tables near the fire, where real logs are blazing in a massive stone fireplace that was built over a hundred years earlier, when miners and loggers in cork boots trod on these old plank floors. From the kitchen, the scents of grilled onions and burgers seep through the open doorway, accompanied by the sizzle of the deep-fat fryer.

      I, like the other customers, am shaking my head at the senseless horror playing out on the screen.

      “I can’t believe it could happen here. Right outside Grizzly Falls,” one sawmill worker says. While he stares up at the images on the flickering television screen, some faint Christmas carol can be heard over the buzz of the patrons. What is it? Oh yeah. “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”

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