“Yeah.You’re telling me.”
Meyers walked into the house and barked commands to the officers.Muttered curses filled the air as the officers realized that they had just wasted an entire day turning an innocent man’s house inside out meanwhile their killer was taking another life.
Faith’s cheeks burned with frustration and embarrassment as she followed Meyers inside.More than a little guilt too.She had fixated on Meadows because she was desperate to find the killer.She should have ended the search hours ago and moved on.Maybe they wouldn’t have found anything that would have saved this innocent person’s life, but maybe they would have.
Meadows lifted his chin haughtily.“Who’s going to pay for my house?Your officers trashed the place.”
Faith didn’t answer.The house was far from trashed.In fact, the officers had been careful to put things back where they found them.It was dirty from fourteen pairs of boots and two pairs of German shepherd paws prancing over everything, but nothing was damaged.
She wasn’t going to argue with him right now, though.If he wanted to make an issue of it, and he probably would, then she would address it at another time.
“Jessica, Turk, we have to go.”
“Yeah, I picked up on that,” Jessica said curtly, just as upset as Faith.
She sighed again and gave Faith an exasperated look.It wasn’t meant to be an attack on Faith, but it stung anyway.
The three agents left the still complaining Meadows and followed Meyers’s cruiser north to Woodbridge.They stayed quiet for the twenty-minute drive toward Veterans Memorial Park.It wasn’t until Faith pulled behind Meyers’s cruiser that Jessica broke the silence.“I really thought we had something there.”
"So did I," Faith replied.
She said nothing else as she stepped out of the vehicle.Turk trotted just ahead of her, tail switching with excitement.Faith couldn’t muster the same excitement.There were a dozen other police vehicles here, and she already knew that the victim was dead.Whatever happened here had already happened.
The body was about a half mile into the park in a shallow ditch to the left of a wide concrete walking path.Turk was sniffing at the body, an attractive woman in her mid-twenties with dark hair pulled back into a ponytail and a deep red entrance wound directly in between her eyes.There was no dog in sight other than Faith’s venerable K9.
And this young woman appeared in none of Brian Meadows’s pictures or files.So there was that.
Nine sheriff’s deputies stood in three separate clusters near the ditch.Three of them formed a loose blockade redirecting passersby away from the scene.There were only a few looky-loos since it was now past sunset.
The other six alternated between talking in quiet voices amongst themselves and glancing in mild shock at the body.Meyers approached the highest-ranking deputy in evidence, a sergeant, and introduced himself.The sergeant shook his hand professionally, then gestured to the body.
“Rebecca Hartley, age twenty-six.Shot at close range by a small-caliber handgun.We think about two hours ago.Initial examination revealed a fine ceramic dust around the wound.It sounds a lot like the two cases you guys are dealing with in Stafford County.”
“Yep,” Meyers agreed.“Same shit.”
“Not exactly the same,” Jessica said.“Our other two victims were killed at dog parks in front of their dogs.I don’t see a dog here, and this isn’t a dog park.Also, this girl’s young enough to be our victims’ daughter.Hell,granddaughter.”
“There’s a dog park a half mile that way,” the Prince William Country Sergeant—Jasper, according to his nametag—replied.“But no, Miss Hartley didn’t own a dog.”
Faith stepped close to the body.Rebecca had a permanent look of shock on her face, disbelief in the process of becoming terror.That was her last moment.Probably seeing the killer with the gun, then realizing she was going to die.It looked like she had been shot while drawing her breath to scream.
She was also covered in dirt and leaves.Unlike the previous two victims who had been lured away and left where they fell, Rebecca had been killed out in the open, then quickly rolled into the ditch.
Faith pointed that out to Jessica and asked, “Why do you think that is?”
Jessica crossed her arms.“We suspect that the victims were lured away because of a scent their dogs picked up.”
“Just Iris, but yes.”
Jessica frowned.“Well, if it’s just Iris we think was lured away, then I guess that means the killer changed his MO for each of them.Or the location is only tangential to the MO rather than a part of it.We have Iris lured to a secluded area, Mark Patterson caught behind the shed he used every day for work, and Rebecca shot on the path where anyone could see it happen.”
“But no one did,” Faith said.“The killer made sure they were alone before he shot her.”
“Then he moved her out of the way,” Jessica pointed out.“That’s new.”
“He sort of moved her out of the way,” Faith said.“He just kicked her into a ditch.He was buying himself enough time to not be close when she was discovered, but he wasn’t trying to hide the body.In fact, he hasn’t tried to hide any of the bodies.He knew they were going to be discovered, he just needed time to get away from the scene.”
“It’s smart,” Jessica remarked.“In a really messed-up way.A lot of killers give themselves away by details in how they manipulate the scenes.Like Jacob Moss with his dog callers or Victoria Lang using allergens to kill her victims.This guy’s got a signature too—the ceramic bullets—but that’s the only thing that’s staying consistent between the victims.And we can’t trace ceramic bullets.”
