“Just find Lilly, she is all alone out there.”
“We’ll find her.” Kane’s expression was set in stone. “We have a search party there now.”
Feeling nauseous, Jenna turned to go and looked up at Kane. “Get someone out here ASAP.”
“Roger that.” Kane pulled out his cellphone and moved into the hallway.
Jenna walked up to the doctor waiting outside. “I’ll arrange to have a deputy here soon. Can you call security and have someone guarding him until he arrives?” She lifted her chin. “I want him up in the secure ward as well. He is our only witness and the killer might return to finish him off.”
“Not a problem, I’ll call someone now and we’ll take him there directly from the MRI.” The doctor headed toward the nurses’ station.
Jenna waited for Kane to disconnect then moved to his side. “We’ll wait until a security guard arrives.” Her cellphone vibrated in her pocket and she pulled it out and stared at the caller ID. “It’s Wolfe.” She accepted the call. “Hi, Shane, did you find anything in the barn?”
“We have taken samples but I’ll need time to analyze them before I can give you anything conclusive. I’ve just had a call from one of the park rangers about a possible body near here. We are riding over to join the search party now. It’s been raining pretty hard and we’ll have one hell of a time collecting evidence.”
“I’m at the hospital with Kane. We have interviewed the boyfriend of the victim. There are similarities between his story and the previous murder. The killer poured gas over him and stabbed the female victim. The missing woman is Lilly Coppersmith, twenty, five-six, dark hair, blue eyes. We’re waiting for a security guard to watch him until one of our deputies can take over then we’ll be heading your way.”
“I’ll send you the coordinates of a firebreak that runs parallel to the mountain. It’s some ways in from the road and you’ll need to travel up toward Bear Peak from there but I’m told it’s faster than taking the regular trail. It would have made life a lot easier if we had known the firebreak existed for the other murder, but it’s not on any of the maps yet—it was cut through the forest the end of summer.”
Jenna breathed a sigh of relief as two security guards marched into the corridor. “Security is here now. We’re on our way.”
“Roger that.”
35
Jenna caught sight of the crows circling before Wolfe called her on her cellphone to update the coordinates. They had found Lilly Coppersmith’s body, and from Wolfe’s preliminary examination alone, he had concluded they were dealing with the same sadistic killer. She relayed the information to Kane and took the chance to inhale the mountain air, fresh and fragrant after the rain. As they left the firebreak and moved down a narrow trail, it was like traveling through fairyland. Each hanging branch or delicate spider’s web glistened with raindrops and the abundant wildlife was scampering around as if excited the rain had ceased.
She absorbed the beauty of the mountain as a shield against the horror she would encounter at the crime scene. After the last grisly murder, she assumed the killer would have found more ways to entertain himself with his latest victim. He must have been absorbed to allow Colter Barry to crawl away undetected. As they rounded the bend, she pointed to an orange flag in the distance. “That’s Wolfe’s marker and I can hear horses.”
“If this murder comes close to what Colter Barry described, it’s going to be brutal.” Kane’s concerned gaze examined her face. “If you feel a flashback coming on, take a step back and catch your breath. Don’t forget you have a great team to lean on if necessary.”
Her last flashback, a leftover from being a victim of a kidnapping, had occurred some time ago but sometimes she found them lurking unexpectedly and she hated having a weakness that interfered with her job. She forced her lips into a smile. “Thanks but I’ll be fine. Nothing happened last time and I’m confident I can handle murder cases. The flashbacks were a temporary glitch, nothing more.”
“I never had any doubt.” Kane’s smile was genuine.
The others had hitched their horses to the trees along the trail and she could hear Wolfe’s deep voice barking orders. “Okay, we’ll leave the horses here and go in on foot.”
They took an overgrown path through the forest and she noted the way Kane stopped to check the trees along the way. She waited for him to catch up. “Find anything?”
“Yeah, the same marks on the tree trunks as before. Trail cams, I would guess, and back there I found the remains of a hunter’s blind. It looks fresh, and this is not a designated area for hunting, but we can’t discount the people who use trail cams and blinds for birdwatching and the like.”
Jenna caught the distinct metallic smell of blood on the breeze and her skin prickled. “Maybe, but Colter Barry mentioned the killer used a body cam. He is filming his kills.”
“They all have trophies of one kind or another.” Kane’s attention moved past her and he shook his head in disgust. “It looks like our killer is escalating way faster than I imagined.” Kane pulled two face masks out of his pocket and handed her one.
In trepidation, Jenna turned toward the small clearing set to one side of the trail. She gasped at the horrific sight before her then pushed on her face mask to filter out the smell of death. The sound of Wolfe’s voice came through the buzzing in her head. She dragged her attention away from the gruesome remains of a once pretty young woman and looked at him. “What can you tell me?”
“The victim is Lilly Coppersmith. I found ID in her pocket and she bears a striking resemblance to the last two victims. The time of death is consistent with Mr. Barry’s story. I don’t have a cause of death with so many injuries to consider. I’ll determine that after the autopsy.” Wolfe’s pale gray eyes moved over her face as if gauging her reaction. “This is not the same as either of our other murders and yet there are similarities. I gather the only gunshot wound on Mr. Barry occurred during his escape?”
“Yeah, he has a deep knife wound to the lower spine and has facial injuries consistent with suffering a beating.” Jenna cleared her throat. “She looks pretty messed up too.”
“He didn’t shoot her. I think the killer was playing with her.” Wolfe led her closer to the body. “I’ll know more after the autopsy, but the wounds on her arms and legs are not defensive wounds.” He waved Webber to their side. “Show the sheriff the images we took of Paige Allen’s bones then the difference in Bailey Canavar’s.”
“See on Paige’s arms the wounds are randomly placed?” Webber pointed at the deep lacerations in the bones. “They are all over, in different dir
ections and of various depths.”
Jenna peered at the close-up images. “Yeah, the wounds on Paige’s forearms are placed as if she was holding them up to protect her face.”