Laurel nodded. “If we had a hard time discovering that Christine was purchasing this property, how did the killer know to bring her here?”
Huck ducked beneath the bough of a century-old pine tree. “Unless she told him? He could’ve held a gun to her head and insisted they go to a place that had meaning for her?”
“Maybe, but I don’t think so,” Laurel murmured, her hands freezing even in her gloves. “She’d just seen him shoot an FBI agent, and she’d probably been knocked out by him. No woman would lead somebody like that out to a remote location like this. She would’ve known he’d kill her.”
Huck paused at the front of a white clapboard cabin. “People get desperate. She might’ve told him anything so he didn’t shoot her.”
“That’s true, but she was a logical woman. Like me.” Laurel moved up to his side to look at the narrow porch. A snow-covered eave protected the weathered boards and splattered blood. Red coated the porch, the railing, and the front door of the structure. “She was murdered here.” There were two larger blood stains that had already sunk into the wood. “He cut off her hands here.”
Huck looked around the porch but didn’t proceed farther. “No ax. This is the first time he didn’t leave the ax.”
“This is the first time there wasn’t an ax on site,” Laurel murmured. “He must’ve brought his own this time.” She looked for any sign of footprints around the cabin, but the snow was too thick. “We’ll need to conduct a grid search down the driveway and road for the murder weapon.” She looked over at the driveway, and there were subtle indents in the newly fallen snow from thick treads. “He must drive a truck or SUV to have made it here and back. There’s no way a smaller car could’ve gotten through that snow.”
“It’s not much, but at least it’s something,” Huck muttered. “You want to go inside?”
She wished she’d remembered her hat back at the office. “We can take a quick look just to make sure it’s clear, but I doubt they even went inside.”
“I’m looking.” Huck stepped up the stairs and over the blood to twist the knob. “Locked.” He turned around and kicked back, his boot hitting square by the knob.
The door flew open.
Huck drew a flashlight from his pocket and shone it inside. “One room, no furniture. There’s a bathroom off to the side, door open, vacant.” He shut the now-damaged door and sidestepped the blood, jumping down to the snow. “You were right. They didn’t go inside.”
Even so, the techs could process the scene. “Perhaps the killer has been here, the same way he broke into the other victims’ homes. He does like to infiltrate their spaces.” Right now, she didn’t know. “I promised her she’d be safe.”
“Hey.” Huck settled a heavy hand on her shoulder, his gaze dark. “This wasn’t your fault and you know it. She should’ve been safe with an FBI agent, and she should’ve been safe in the middle of the day, according to this killer’s pattern. Let it go, Laurel.”
He was correct. Her phone rang and she pulled it from her pocket. “Hi, Nester.”
“Hi.” He sighed. “I have bad news.”
Her heart lurched. “Walter?”
“No. Sorry. Not Walter. He’s headed into surgery right now. It’s Christine Franklin.”
Laurel started walking back toward the body, her gaze slashing to each side in case the murder weapon was close. “What about her?”
“The hospital administrator just sent over all the information I requested, including anything Dr. Franklin had written lately. I was thinking articles for medical journals and such, but apparently she contributed lifestyle articles to the hospital newsletter each month as part of her new promotion. It’s distributed online and is even accessible to the public.”
Laurel stopped walking. “No. Do not tell me—”
“Yep. She wrote about how important it was to take time off and recharge one’s batteries, giving her new cabin by the river as an example. Anybody stalking her probably knows about the newsletter, since she’s been writing pieces for it for the last six months. She even included a picture of the place she was buying. The cabin is painted white, correct?”
Laurel’s head hung. “Correct.”
* * *
What a completely crappy day. Huck Rivers drew a beer out of the fridge and popped off the top, tipping his head back and finishing the entire bottle in large gulps. The still-wrapped bag of burgers from the Dairy Dumplin’ sat on the counter, but he couldn’t drum up hunger. He tossed the empty bottle in the trash and fetched another, turning to pad in his hole-riddled socks to the sofa. The fire already burned hot across from him, and he planted his feet on the old coffee table and stretched out.
He and Laurel had waited for the techs while freezing their asses off. Then they’d waited until the scene was clear to actually go through the cabin inch by inch and survey the property down to the river.
Christine Franklin’s hands, the talented hands of a cardiologist, had not been found as of yet.
It was a “fuck you” to them all.
Huck half emptied the beer bottle, eyeing Aeneas, who was sleeping soundly on a cushion to the side of the fireplace. At least somebody was content. He had to find this damn killer before another woman was brutally murdered. The killer was speeding up his timeline, and he probably had another woman already in his sights.
Huck’s phone buzzed and he fumbled for it on the table behind the sofa. “Rivers.”
