“Time of death?” Turner asked.
“I estimate it to be between one and threea.m.”
“Just like I thought,” Turner muttered, almost to himself. “While they slept. That son of a bitch.”
Both Josie and Anya glanced over at him. He hadn’t come closer, lingering near Maxine’s body. At his sides, his hands clenched and unclenched.
Josie turned back and scanned Haven’s battered body. “Her mother was first. She probably didn’t wake up until it was too late.”
A terrifying visualization lit up Josie’s brain. Waking from a deep sleep to a crushing pressure on your chest and something covering your mouth and nose. Trapped and terrified, unable to call out or even struggle effectively. How long had Maxine Barnes spent in that hinterland between waking and death? Minutes? Or had the sudden lack of oxygen and inability to move her upper body caused her to slip back into unconsciousness within seconds?
During that time, had she thought about her daughter, sleeping only five feet away?
Josie already knew the answer to that. If it had been her, the only thing on her mind would have been Wren.
Anya lightly touched one of Haven’s hands. “I think she woke up, maybe while he was finishing with her mother. The pattern of bruising suggests quite a struggle which she wouldn’t have been able to put up if he’d assaulted her while she was still asleep. Besides these visible injuries, she presents just asher mother did. All the same findings consistent with homicidal smothering with traumatic asphyxiation, including broken ribs and fibers inside her mouth. It just took him quite a bit more time and effort to subdue her.”
That explained the noises that the witnesses thought they heard. Rustling, grunts, thumps, a male voice.
“Did Maxine’s body show evidence of chronic intimate partner abuse?” Turner asked. “Old healed fractures? Eyes, forearms, ribs? Anything like that?”
“No,” Anya replied. “I didn’t find anything like that. Haven didn’t show signs of chronic abuse either.”
Turner nodded. He fished his phone out of his pocket but didn’t look at it. Instead he squeezed it, his knuckles turning white. He turned toward the door, but Anya’s next words stopped him. “That doesn’t mean he wasn’t hitting them, Kyle.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Were they sexually assaulted?” Josie asked.
Anya shook her head. “No. No signs of sexual assault.”
Which meant it was unlikely that the murders were sexually motivated. The flowers were clearly a signature—something the killer felt compelled to do that was not necessary to committing the crime. A calling card. A ritual that fulfilled some psychological need.
That he’d left flowers for both women could be significant. As if reading her mind, Turner called, “Let’s talk to the husband first.”
TEN
Josie’s pulse quickened as she approached the glass door of Merrifort Meadow Glamping Company’s main office. Even from outside, she could hear the raised voice of a very angry man. Turner trailed behind her, scrolling on his phone. She resisted the urge to ask him what was so important that he couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to their current circumstances. Turner had dealt with Maxine Barnes’s husband before. In fact, Turner considered Charles Barnes the main suspect in hers and Haven’s murders. Josie had expected a little more enthusiasm from him when it came to questioning the man.
Then again, they’d spent the last couple of hours driving from place to place trying to track Barnes down. The ME in Fauset County, whose border touched Denton’s northeast corner, had made the death notification concerning his wife and daughter at the apartment he’d moved into, but when she and Turner stopped by, he was no longer there. A neighbor had sent them to his friend’s house. The friend had told them he was on his way here.
She pushed through the door into a small, rustically decorated lobby to find Charles Barnes towering over the young woman behind the front desk. He was easily six foot four,wide and bulky, the back of his suit jacket straining against his shoulder blades as he stabbed a meaty finger into the woman’s face.
“I don’t give a fuck about your client confidentiality policy,” he roared, spittle flying from his face. “If you don’t tell me exactly where my wife and daughter were staying, you’re going to be sorry.”
The woman had to be in her early to mid-twenties. A college student, maybe. Her nametag read Taulara. A few strands of dark hair fell loose from her ponytail as she shook her head at Charles. “I can’t do that. I have to call my super?—”
Charles leaned over the countertop, his snarl putting Josie’s instincts on high alert. “What did I just tell you? Don’t fuck with me, little girl.”
“Or what?” Josie drew up beside him. Her voice was calm, even though every cell in her body twitched with the overwhelming desire to punch the guy’s next words right out of his mouth.
“Stay out of this,” he told her with a dismissive glance.
He missed the firearm at her waist, but Taulara didn’t. Her shoulders relaxed a little even though her brown eyes remained wide with fear. For a split second, they locked onto something behind Josie. Turner. He was thinner than Charles Barnes but took up just as much room. She wondered if he’d put his damn phone away but wasn’t about to take her eyes off Charles to check.
Josie sighed and flashed her credentials. “Don’t think I will, Mr. Barnes.”
From where she stood, she could see his stubble-lined face was red, beads of sweat dotting his upper lip. His dirty-blond hair was thinning and uncombed.
