“Where are you going?” Garrett asked as Alex headed down the narrow hallway past the breakroom.
“To look at the files again.” He shot his partner a look from over his shoulder. “We’re missing something. I need to figure out what before he takes another victim.”
Entering the first room on their left, Alex went straight to the large whiteboard mounted on the south wall. With his arms crossed, he stood in front of it. Studying the pictures of the women The Liberator had murdered.
Sandra Denney, Rebecca Neilson, Amanda Schultz, Lizzy Stonehauser, and the latest victim, Chloe Howard.
Standing at five-three with blond hair and bright, blue eyes, Sandra was what Alex would call the girl-next-door type. With red hair and freckles, Rebecca was a couple inches taller.
Amanda and Lizzy were both brunettes and of average height, but Amanda was about fifty pounds overweight while Lizzy appeared nearly anorexic.
Chloe’s body had been discovered late last night by some teens messing around by the river. She was tall, lean, and had short blonde hair.
Like the others, her body had been posed and left in plain sight, waiting to be found. Unlike the others, Chloe’s mother was a United States Congresswoman.
As if we weren’t under enough goddamn pressure already.
“That reporter was right. We’ve got nothing.”
Garrett came up beside him. “You can’t beat yourself up, Alex. Even the FBI is stumped on this one.”
“I don’t give a shit about the feds. This is my city. These are my people.”
“Correction.” His partner turned to face him. “This isourcity.Ourpeople. And together, we’re going to catch this son of a bitch.”
With a look of acknowledgement, Alex said, “Question is how many women are going to die like this before we do?” He looked back at the crime scene photos. Their eeriness sent a shiver down his spine. “His timeline is narrowing. He started out killing a month apart, but Lizzy was found less than three weeks after Amanda. A little over two weeks later, he kills Chloe.”
All five women had been positioned in a way they looked almost at peace. Lying on their backs, the killer had propped their heads on either a rock, pile of leaves, or piece of their own clothing. Their hands had been crossed casually at the waist, and their eyes had been closed.
Because they were fully dressed at the time of discovery, the only visible wounds on each of the bodies were the precise incisions the killer had made along the front of their throats.
However, after removing their clothing prior to autopsy, Dr. Veronica Fisher—Cook County’s Chief Medical Examiner—also discovered several deep cuts in other areas of the victims’ bodies. Though they’d lost a lot of blood from those wounds, the official cause of death listed for each woman was exsanguination due to the severing of the carotid artery.
According to Fisher, the area and manner of these wounds indicated the killer’s desire to cause maximum blood loss without being immediately lethal. The bastard then waited until his victims were on the brink of death before slitting their throats.
Somewhere on the bodies, the killer always left a small, white card with the words ‘Her tortured soul is finally free’written in black ink. At the bottom, they’d all been signed,‘The Liberator.’So far, that tidbit of information had been kept under wraps from the public.
“The profiler the Feds sent over the other day said this guy’s smart,” Alex stated. “So, we need to be smarter.”
Garrett rolled his blue eyes and gave him a‘No Shit’expression. “How do we do that?”
“By figuring out how these women are connected. These guys always have a reason for who they choose.” Alex stared at each of the victims’ pictures again. “We just have to figure out what his is.”
“I get that,” he shot back. The man’s impatience was beginning to show. “I’m askinghow.Everyone in the unit has gone over these women’s lives, forward and backwards. The FBI did extensive background searches and came up empty.”
“It’s here, Garrett. We just have to keep looking.”
“No offense, man, but I think we’re wasting our time. We need to find another angle to focus on.”
Alex pointed to the board. “This is the only angle we’ve got. So until we come up with why our guy chose them, we don’t have shit.”
“I agree.”
Both men turned their heads toward the door. Standing just inside the small room was Sergeant Murphy.
“Wedon’thave shit, and neither do the Feds.” Their boss closed the door and stepped further into the room. “That’s why I think we need to try a different approach.”
“Sir?”
