“Ethan and Buster found Melanie, sheriff. She’s dead.”
“Give me the location, I’ll head there now. Send in Rick, Tank, and Brady too, and then call everyone else back to town. Tell them on account of the light we’re calling a halt for the night. Don’t tell anyone about Melanie yet, Rona; leave that for me.”
“Copy that.”
Cubby called Katie in, and twenty minutes later he heard her approach.
“Have they found Melanie?”
Her face was damp with sweat and rain, her jacket now tied to her waist, shirt clinging to her lovely body, and he thought she’d never looked more beautiful than out here, surrounded by nature. He stepped closer. “Ethan just called it in. She’s dead, princess.” Her face closed up as she dealt with the news. He touched her, needing the contact before he went to see Melanie’s body. Resting his hand briefly on her shoulder, he then let it slide down her arm before gripping her fingers hard then releasing them.
“Want me to come with you?”
“I appreciate the offer, but I got this. I’d be grateful though, if you’d head back to town and help Rona send everyone home, including Jilly and Melanie’s families. I’ll call on them after I’m done here and tell them the news.”
She nodded. “I’ll go now.” He watched her turn away from him and take a couple of steps. She stopped then retraced them. She rose to her toes and brushed a kiss across his lips. It was sweet and brief and he felt it right down to his toes. “Look after yourself, Sheriff.”
He stood there breathing deeply for several seconds, watching until he’d lost sight of Katie. Only then did he begin the long hike to where Melanie had been found.
Ethan and Buster were standing beside the body when he arrived, both looking pale.
“Got here as quick as I could. You two doing okay?”
“Sure. I’ve seen a few bodies before now; it’s still a shock just the same. Buster emptied out his stomach but he’s doing okay now too.”
“Jesus, Cubby.”
“I know it, Buster. Why don’t you head to the main trail for me, and stand there so the others know which direction to come in when they arrive.”
“Gotcha,” he said, with a final look at Melanie. Shaking his head, he left.
Cubby and Ethan crouched over the girl.
“We haven’t moved much, didn’t want to destroy any evidence.”
“Same deal as Jilly,” Cubby said, looking the body over. “I’d say she wasn’t killed here, because there’s no blood.” Melanie had been shot between the eyes, also like Jilly, he noted.
“Jesus, what the fuck is going on in our town, Cubby? Two locals, both killed the same way, suggesting the same person or persons, and like Jilly, Melanie looks like no one has sexually abused her.”
“Wrong place, wrong time, is my hunch. Did they stumble on to something out here somewhere?” Cubby voiced the theory he was leaning toward.
“Drugs or something like that?” Tex said. “Because nothing else makes any sense. It would also explain why they were possibly killed somewhere else and dumped in different locations.”
Cubby nodded, and the discussion halted as his deputies arrived.
“Same bullet between the eyes,” Brady said, looking down at Melanie. “I was on a case in San Diego and this man, Elijah Willis was his name, always did his victims this way; it was like his signature.”
Cubby got to his feet with Ethan to eyeball his deputy.
“Is the man in prison?”
“They never caught him and then he stopped, almost like he’d disappeared. We all thought he’d died or moved away.”
“Just what we need, a fucking serial killer on the loose around here,” Tank said.
“Stop that shit right now, Deputy; we don’t know it’s him, and if the town hears something like that it’ll just raise the fear levels, so lock it down,” Cubby said.
“Yes, Sheriff.”
