I pull up at the crime scene and flash my badge, ducking under the tape. I overhear a couple of cops as I pass.
“Another animal attack?”
“I don’t know.”
“We don’t get many animal attacks here.”
Annoyance grows in my chest. I don’t believe the first was an animal attack, and my intuition is very rarely wrong. I see Abby up ahead, her red hair glinting in the sunlight as she stares down at the body in front of her.
“Hey, Abby,” I say, making my way past her to the body.
Abby’s head snaps up, as if she wasn’t expecting me.
“Hey, detective.”
I squat down next to the victim, and pressure builds in my chest as I stare down into her terror-stricken face, her mouth open in a silent scream. This poor girl suffered, and not just in her final moments. The bruises and swelling across her body suggest long term abuse.
Abby, the crime scene specialist, snaps some photos, getting close-ups of the victim’s hands and feet, which have been rubbed raw from rope marks. The first victim didn’t have rope marks. This woman looks as if she was held longer, starved and tortured.
“This is the second body. Both victims have the same characteristics. This doesn’t seem like an animal attack to me,” Abby says, lowering her camera.
“I don’t think so either.”
Abby’s warm brown eyes meet mine and she pauses, dropping her voice to a whisper. “The two girls both show signs of abuse.”
I grunt in response and look around the body. “ID?”
Abby’s bright red hair dances around her face as she shakes her head. “None.”
I let my eyes drift over the body again as I stand, every mark on the victim’s body lit up by the harsh LED lights. “She looks half starved,” I note.
Abby hums and snaps another photo. “I know. I think she was kidnapped and basically fed to the wolves when she outlived her purpose.”
My blood runs cold as Abby voices my thoughts. This girl was put through hell. The suffering and depravity inflicted on her was unimaginable. She was probably praying for death to come for her.
I’ll have to wait for the official cause of death, but I know some fucked up person tied this poor girl up and tormented her then tossed her away like garbage. It’s my job to find this fucker and bring him to justice, help make sense of this crime. But it won’t help the family left behind. They rarely get the answers they’re looking for.
Just like me.
“Sexually assaulted?” I can’t help how harsh my voice is when I ask.
Abby froze and looked up at him from her camera, “I– I don’t know. Doc will have to–”
“Detective Sinclair?” a loud voice interrupts.
I turn to the newcomer. “Yes?”
It’s the captain, and he looks worried as he makes his way over. “I need your full focus on this, and to keep it quiet. I can’t have the city of Boulder thinking we have a serial killer on the loose. For now, it’s an animal attack.” Stress lines his face, making him look ten years older.
“Understood,” I reply. I don’t like it, but if it gets out into the public that we might have a serial killer on our hands, we’ll have panic and vigilantes running around, causing god knows what kind of havoc.
“Good.” The captain’s eyes drift to the body behind me, and I can see the tension there, behind his eyes and the way he’s holding his body.
He runs a hand over his mouth. “Poor girl,” he mutters, then turns walking back to the parking lot.
It takes me a couple of hours to go over the crime scene and talk to the poor jogger who found the body. The younger woman takes this path three times a week, and says it’s a quiet path that doesn’t usually have many people around. I don’t think she will be running this path again, if the haunted look in her eyes is anything to go by. I reach into my pocket for my wallet, find the card I’m looking for, and hand it to her. The woman looks down at it, surprise lighting her eyes.
“A shrink?”
