“Yeah. But if it was someone trying to do the right thing, why make those taunting comments about Shannon being a good Catholic girl?” Despite how distorted the voice had been, I kept coming back to the tone, which had made me picture a sneer on the caller’s face. “No, it must have been the killer.... And shit, what if there are other bodies?”
“I counted two more bags. You?”
“Same. Though did you notice how much thinner they looked than the first one—not the bags themselves but the contents? Maybe there’s only evidence stuffed in those. From the crime scene.”
“Or therearetwo more bodies, but he had time to dismember those.... You know what this means, of course. We could be talkingserial killer.”
I nodded. That horrifying possibility had occurred to me, too.
Off in the distance, I caught sight of a motorboat slicing across the lake. It was hard to believe that as we sat near this horrible grisly scene, life was proceeding normally for other people.
“That would fit with the phone call,” Alice said. “Don’t serial killers like to broadcast clues, practically begging to be caught?”
“Some do, yes, but not all.... Have any other women been reported missing in the past few months?”
When I’d done my research on the area before driving north, I certainly hadn’t turned up anything like that.
Alice slowly shook her head. “No, not that I’ve heard of—and I certainly would have caught wind of news like that at work.”
I thought suddenly of the blond woman I’d seen jogging on the road, and my stomach clenched. But if she had gone missing, wouldn’t her family or friends have tipped off the authorities to that fact?
“What if the guy’s a trucker?” Alice said. “Or someone else who covers long distances for work and ends up here periodically?”
“Meaning?”
“He murdered two other women in different locations, and because this seemed like a safe dumping place, he hauledtheir bodies here. On his last trip he killed Shannon and added her body to the pile.”
“Yeah, it’s possible. But I’ve always heard that serial killers like to stick to what’s called a killing field. And how would this one have known about the retreat center?”
“Could be a guy who’s originally from the area and moved away. He might have even come here on retreat as a teenager and known it was closed now.”
I bit my lip, considering her theory. “But it has to be someone who’s around herenow. Because he—or at the very least someone who knows him—had to have been aware of my talking to Tom Nolan about Shannon, about her being a Catholic. And then he got his hands on my cell number somehow.”
“And what’s all this Catholic stuff about? What the guy said to you. And this place. What if—?”
She didn’t have a chance to expand because the quiet outside the car was pierced by the roar of engines. We swiveled our heads to see two sheriff’s department vehicles shooting down the road in our direction. I felt relief but at the same time I had to remind myself:Prepare to have your butt kicked—and hard.
We climbed out of the Jeep and walked briskly toward the spot where the two vehicles had jerked to a stop. Before we even reached them, another car came barreling down the road, spraying dirt everywhere. This one, according to the logo on the door, belonged to the state police.
Sheriff Killian exited one of the first cars.
“What the hell is going on?” he demanded, stepping soclose I caught a whiff of menthol from his aftershave, which I should have been thankful for after the rancid smell from minutes ago.
“We found what I assume is a corpse in the basement of the smaller building,” I said, as calmly as I could manage. “It fell out of a closet, in a large black plastic bag. We saw two other bags as well.”
He locked eyes with me, his expression incredulous, as if I’d just told him the Loch Ness Monster had reared its head above the waterline of the lake shortly before he arrived.
“You told 911 it was Shannon.”
“I said it might be Shannon. We didn’t look in the bag, of course. But it was clear from the shape and the smell that there were remains inside.”
“And do you want to tell me what in God’s name made you come down here?”
I quickly explained about the call, and that it had inspired me to research Sunset Bay, trying to determine if something around here was connected to the church. This place popped up on the radar.
“Sheriff, I need to take partial responsibility,” Alice interjected. “When Bailey asked me if I had any clue what the caller was referring to, I told her about the center and offered to drive her here.”
Nice, I thought. She wasn’t afraid to take the heat.
