“Two weeks ago when they found her abandoned car. There was a rag found in the exhaust pipe."
"Still looking into it."
"And the lack of broken nails, or redness around her wrists?"
"I don't follow."
"If she was abducted, he would have had to restrain her. No ligature marks on the ankles or wrists."
“Maybe she was drugged. We won't know until toxicology comes back. Might have been the same with Kara Ellison."
"Without her body that's hard to know."
"But there is a connection. The jacket. Kara's college ID,” Callie said.
"Or the perp wants to make it look that way."
"No. Why would someone do that?"
"Serial killers often want to boost their body count. Especially on nationwide unsolved cases. Kara was seen on surveillance before she went missing wearing that coat. It wouldn't take much to track down the brand and make, buy one. Create a fake college ID. Happens all the time on campuses. And suddenly our dead girl is wearing a missing girl's clothing with her ID. Same road they both went missing on."
Callie processed that. McKenzie had given up pretending and was openly listening now. "Well, I'm sure we can rule that theoryout when we check DNA on the coat and the ID against the blood from the knife. That is if it is still in evidence. What we do know is that Brooke was last seen on her way to a modeling gig."
"Oh yeah? Through who?"
"Possibly through Strutz Agency. We’re heading there now.”
"Good luck," Noah said, and the line went dead.
Callie pocketed her phone and stared through the windshield. McKenzie waited a beat.
"So he definitely looked at the file," McKenzie said.
"Obviously."
The Strutz Agencyoccupied the second floor of a narrow building on the main street in Elizabethtown, below apartments that had been there since the town was founded. There was no sign on the street, just a brass number on a door between two storefronts and a steep set of stairs behind it.
McKenzie knocked. The door opened and Samuel Bridger stood on the other side. He was mid-thirties, lean, with symmetrical features and careful grooming. He looked like he'd spent time on the other side of a camera before switching to this side of the business. He wore a fitted shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows and a watch that caught the light.
"We're closed," he said.
McKenzie held up his badge. "Detective McKenzie. This is Deputy Thorne. We have some questions about one of your models. Brooke Danvers."
Samuel's expression shifted. Not alarm. Something more careful. He stepped aside and let them in.
They climbed a long flight of stairs that opened into a studio space with high ceilings and exposed brick. The walls werecovered with photographs. Headshots, portfolio shots, editorial layouts. Young women from every angle, in every kind of light, ranging in age from what appeared to be thirteen to early thirties. Callie scanned them as she walked and made a mental note of how young some of the faces were.
“They all seem so young,” McKenzie said.
Samuel kept moving, leading them through the gallery toward a desk at the far end. He talked as he walked. "What can I say, actors start young. We get these kids gigs in magazines, commercials, music videos, TV and film. You name it, we do it."
They followed him past another wall of portraits. Callie's eyes caught on one and she stopped. Brooke Danvers. Smiling, hair down, lit from the left in soft gold. It was the second time Callie had seen her face. The first had been at the parents' house earlier that morning, a framed photo on the mantel. Both times the girl had been beautiful and alive. What they'd found in Heaven Hill Trails had been neither.
"So how does it all work?" McKenzie asked, settling into a chair across from Samuel's desk.
"Each girl creates a portfolio. Photographers looking to expand their body of work will often offer free photo sessions. That gives them something we can show to other agencies, and then we arrange paid bookings from there."
"They all get paid?"
