All the energy seemed to seep out of Jenna as she stared at the forlorn figure sitting on the lichen-covered bench. She’d failed to find Lindy in time. Kane was right – the girl deserved some dignity. She fought to push out words over the lump in her throat and not scream out in anguish. “Okay, I’ll call him. We’ll need coordinates. Get going, I’ll get the location.” She sighed at his obvious reluctance to leave. “What are you waiting for? She’s out there all alone and the crows could be eating her.”
“Jenna.” Kane pulled her against his broad chest and stroked her hair. “You’re not to blame. We did everything humanly possible to find her.”
Unable to hold back a sob, she inhaled his comforting open-air scent. She could always rely on Kane to calm her shattered nerves. Brushing back tears, she straightened and regained her composure. Being exhausted was no excuse to fall to pieces. She had to find this SOB and bring him to justice. The stark reality of the circumstances around Lindy’s kidnapping slammed into her. The kidnapper was playing a game with her and, this time, he’d won. She looked up at Kane. “He’s going to do this again, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, he is.” Kane removed his arm from around her shoulders and started the engine. “But next time we’ll be ready for him.”
* * *
As Kane slowed to turn onto the road leading to the old schoolhouse, he glanced at Jenna. Not many crimes got under Jenna’s skin but she’d switched off her compassion and fallen into her professional, almost robotic mode. Her calls had been concise and to the point. She’d instructed Rowley to make sure the media circus was way over the other side of town by landing the chopper at the next old property on their list and remaining there. Wolfe had slipped out of town taking the backroads and would be arriving at the crime scene soon. They’d decided to avoid using the two-way as the media and many others owned scanners. When Jenna’s cellphone chimed, he glanced at her. “Wolfe?”
“Yeah.” Jenna placed her phone on speaker. “What have you got for me, Wolfe?”
“I’m on scene. I’ve checked the victim for life signs and taken photos of the scene. I’d take a look around the building but as it’s just Emily and me, I figured I’ll wait for backup. What’s your ETA?”
Kane glanced at the GPS. “Five minutes, maybe less.” He slammed his foot on the gas and his truck accelerated. “This perp is playing games. Don’t take chances and wait by your vehicle.”
“How close are you to the building?” Jenna shot Kane a worried look.
“Right now, we’re on the road out front. I drove past to scan the area for a vehicle.” Wolfe cleared his throat. “It’s a ramshackle building, no vehicles.” He took a deep breath. “I can hear you coming.”
“Roger that.” Jenna chewed on her bottom lip. “Be on alert, we don’t know what kind of crazy we’re dealing with.” She disconnected and looked at Kane. “Is this another stage of his game?”
Kane accelerated and soon caught sight of the ME’s van parked beside the remnants of an old barn. He could make out the small figure of Lindy on the bench some distance away from an old red-brick building with only the skeletal remnants of a roof. “Maybe. Sick people can display many facets of insanity. Not many fit neatly into one box.” He pulled in behind the old barn and parked behind Wolfe’s van. “One thing for sure – to crave this much attention, he’s done this before.”
“This place was on Rowley’s list.” Jenna slid from the seat and pulled out her cellphone to call him. She explained their discovery. “Didn’t you check the old schoolhouse down a dirt road about a mile past the Triple Z Bar?”
Kane climbed out the vehicle and opened the back door to release Duke from the seat. He could barely hear Rowley through the speakers on Jenna’s phone with the chopper in the background.
“Yes, ma’am, first place we checked and it was clear.”
“Roger that.” Jenna glanced at Kane. “I need to keep this out of the media. Pull the search teams out of Stanton Forest and move west. Keep away from us. We’ll need to notify the parents before the media discover we’ve located Lindy’s body.”
“Leave it to me, ma’am.”
“Thanks.” Jenna disconnected and made her way to Wolfe’s side. “What have you got for me, Wolfe?”
Kane did a visual recon of the scene and all the usual mistakes a frenzied killer made were missing. No tire tracks were visible, but the killer or Rowley’s search party could’ve disturbed the new spring growth on the grasses and shrubs surrounding the area. He noticed how Duke stayed close to his heels, stopped frequently, then whined and walked around in circles. One thing for sure, something wasn’t right. “What is it, boy?”
He scanned the area, taking in every shadow, but could see no movement. Duke’s heightened senses had picked up something and he respected the warning. He moved swiftly to Jenna’s side. “Stay alert. Duke has picked up something unusual.”
“Okay.” She wore a mask of professionalism but he detected the expression of deep sorrow in her eyes when she turned to him. “You’re right; Wolfe believes the kidnapper strangled her.”
“I hate being right when it comes to kids suffering.” Kane stared down at the tragic form of Lindy Rosen, so young with all her life in front of her, propped up on an old bench like a bag of garbage.
He pushed down the rush of anger. The instinct to hunt down and kill the animals who hurt kids rested deep in his subconscious. He swallowed hard and looked at Wolfe, remembering his friend’s creed – to learn the story of how victims died, to always treat them as a person and bring their killer to justice. “Did she suffer?”
“I’m afraid so. Slow asphyxiation.” Wolfe gave him a direct stare. “I’m making an assumption from the ligature marks around her neck and the pinpoint hemorrhages, petechiae, in the skin and conjunctiva of both eyes, but these are non-specific. I’ll give you an exact cause of death once I’ve performed an autopsy.”
“At least he didn’t cut her.” Jenna wiped the back of her hand over her mouth. “I don’t see any signs of a struggle.”
“None evident.” Wolfe lifted each of Lindy’s hands and examined them before Emily slipped a plastic bag over each one. “Her nails aren’t broken, the marks on her wrists are consistent with the image we received, and she has no defense wounds. I’ll know more in the next twenty-four hours and after I examine the larynx, including the hyoid bone. If I can prove strangulation, I believe it was committed from behind and she had no chance to fight back.” He sighed. “The time of death isn’t conclusive. We’re assuming he killed her in the last hour but from her body temperature, I figure she died as long as six hours ago.”
“I’ll need to inform her parents.” Jenna sighed. “How long do you need to get her ready for them?”
“I’ll make her presentable and they can see her this evening. I’ll require them to formally identify her and I’ll need a day for any other marks on her skin to become visible.” Wolfe gave her a long look. “I did a recon of the immediate area to see if I could find any evidence but the area is too clean for him to have killed her here.”
“Why do you figure the bench is way out here so far away from the schoolhouse?” Jenna stared at the ground. “Did the killer move it?”