One of MPD’s forensic tech vans hunkered next to a curb, its grille pointed toward a graffiti-covered dumpster. She focused on a cluster of men standing behind a four-foot-high portable privacy screen. Some wore MPD uniforms, some had on white Tyvek suits, others were in business attire.
She had no trouble spotting Special Agent Wade. The bright gold FBI lettering stood out against the dark blue raid jacket draped over his tall frame. When he turned to her, his gaze reflected the bleakness of a man who had seen too much. His steel-gray eyes trapped her, performing an assessment that felt eerily similar to their last meeting two years earlier.
She strode to him and stuck out a hand in greeting. He controlled her access to the case, but she would not let him control her. “Good morning, Dr. Wade.”
She figured most people who had gone to the trouble and expense of earning a PhD wanted the official title attached to their name.
“Call me Wade.” His gravelly voice matched his rugged face.
His grip was firm, the calluses on his palm surprising her. She noticed he wanted her to use his last name rather than his first, keeping a certain professional distance. Fine with her.
“Guerrera,” she said.
He tipped his head toward the man a short distance to his left. “Detective Mike Stanton, MPD Homicide.”
Stanton acknowledged her with a quick wave.
Wade lowered his voice. “If any of this becomes uncomfortable, I expect you to let me know.”
She looked him straight in the eye and lied. “I will.” She was already fifty clicks past uncomfortable.
“There’s no time to be delicate,” Wade said, shifting into investigative mode. “The scene’s no longer fresh. We need any insight you can provide, and we need it now.”
She turned to the privacy screen, as much to avoid his penetrating gaze as to survey the scene. “Then I’ll get started.”
Detective Stanton moved to intercept her. “Before you take a look at the body, can you describe the vehicle he used . . .” He shifted on his feet, obviously uneasy. “With you?”
Logical. Someone who had specially outfitted a van for the purpose of abducting victims might keep it for years.
“Blue Ford Econoline.” At his questioning look, she elaborated. “I figured out the make and model from pictures the police showed me after the incident.”
The incident. A banal word she chose deliberately.
He gave her a slight nod. “Anything else?”
“Plain wrapper. Nothing stood out. At least, nothing on the exterior.” She swallowed to moisten her dry throat. “Inside was an empty shell, even the carpeting was yanked out. He put black vinyl flooring down to cover the metal beneath me. My wrists were taped together behind my back. Ankles too.”
Wade and Stanton let the silence stretch when she finished. She realized they were waiting for her to continue.
“There were these small round windows in the back.” She cupped her hands in front of her to approximate the size and shape of a dinner plate. “He blacked them out with dark spray paint.”
Stanton wanted more. “How did the back open?”
“Side-by-side doors. When he locked me in, he shut the one to his left first, then the one to his right.”
“That never made it into the report,” Wade said.
“There are a lot of small details like that.” She lifted a shoulder. “Stuff no one asked me, or no one wrote down, but I recall most of it very clearly.”
One of Wade’s silvery brows inched up. “Most of it?”
They exchanged silent glares. This was what had almost kept her from becoming an agent. She refused to apologize. “There are some parts I don’t remember. At least, I’ve never tried to remember.”
She turned back to Stanton, continuing with her description of the van. “The engine ran smooth. No backfiring, loud pipes, or anything else that would draw attention.” She reached into the crevices in her mind, pulling out more scraps of information. “He drove me about half an hour or so before he stopped. There was a divider separating the front from the back, so he had to get out and walk around to open the doors.”
“What did you see?” Wade asked.
A monster in human skin.
“It looked like we were parked in the woods somewhere,” she said. “The sun hadn’t come up yet, so I just saw a bunch of dark trees. Couldn’t make anything else out.”
Detective Stanton slid his cell phone out, pivoted away, and began speaking in a rapid undertone. She figured he was asking dispatch to put out a BOLO for a vehicle matching her description. A long shot, but worth a try.
“All right,” Wade said. “Crime Scene’s already finished. We were holding the body until you arrived.”
He edged sideways around the screen shielding the body. Following him, she understood why they had erected a visual barrier. The girl’s long dark hair spilled over the ground behind her head, the right side matted with dried blood. She lay sprawled on her back, her nude body an obscene display on the grimy pavement.
Nina bent forward to gaze into the filmy brown eyes staring sightlessly back at her. She scanned down, catching traces of silver duct tape clinging to the girl’s upper lip.
Standing behind her, Wade gave a quick summary. “One of the busboys from the restaurant on the other side of the alley found her. He was dumping the night’s trash after closing, at about three in the morning. He saw her in the dumpster, thought she might be alive, and pulled her out. He ripped the tape off her mouth before he caught on that she’d already taken her last breath.”
Detective Stanton returned from his phone call. “The killer placed the plastic baggie with the note in her mouth before covering it with the tape. Probably wanted to be sure it wouldn’t fall out.”
She agreed. He was taking no chances about the note. A thought occurred to her, bringing with it a sense of dread. She addressed Stanton. “Has anyone from your Crime Scene Unit turned her over yet?”
Stanton slid his eyes to Wade before he responded. “About a half hour before you arrived. We put her back the way we found her.”
Careful to school her features, she considered what she had observed so far, juxtaposing the scene with the cryptic note the killer had left for her. He had to have known the FBI would bring her into the investigation, and he was sending her a message.
“After years of seeking, I thought I would never have Hope again,” she muttered to herself, cocking her head to study the girl’s body from a different angle. “But today, everything changed.” She finished quoting the note and glanced up at Wade. “That means he has hope again, but how? In what way?”
He eyed her speculatively. “You tell me.”
He wouldn’t provide her with the benefit of his analysis, no doubt preferring to hear her take on the situation first. Turning away from both men, she bent down again. What else had he done to this poor girl? A glint of metal drew her attention. She sucked in air.
“You okay, Guerrera?” Wade said, his tone changing to one of concern.
“The necklace.” The two words were all she could manage. Once again, the monster had proved he could snatch control away from her anytime he wanted.
A diamond-shaped charm on a silver chain lay on the filthy pavement next to the girl’s matted hair, its long chain looped around the girl’s slender throat. The same necklace Nina had on when he took her. She peered at the plastic beads that formed a multicolored pattern of concentric diamonds, confirming her suspicion.