She refused to let moisture gather in her eyes. “That necklace was mine,” she breathed.
“You’re sure?” Stanton said.
“I made it in an art class when I was fifteen. The pattern is ancient. It’s called ojo de dios.” She straightened and pointed at the charm. “God’s eye.”
Stanton signaled one of the evidence techs over. “Could you get extra pictures of the necklace and send them to my phone?”
Nina turned away, feigning interest in the pavement on the other side of the body to buy time to compose herself. She did not want to look at Wade until she had a semblance of objectivity. This was much harder than she’d thought it would be.
“Do you need some water?” Wade gentled his tone. “I have an extra bottle.”
“I’m fine.” Another lie. She felt sure Wade could see through it, but she didn’t care. Instead, she focused on the facts before her, arriving at the only conclusion that put everything into perspective. “He’s re-creating his time with me.”
Stanton stopped watching the tech. “What do you mean?”
She crossed her arms. “How many marks did you find on her back?”
“How did you—”
Wade cut in. “Twenty-seven.”
The same number of scars striping her own back. How had the monster remembered the exact number of lashes? He hadn’t been the one to inflict them on her, but he’d been fascinated by them. She suppressed a shudder as she felt the sensation of his fingertip trailing down the center of her spine, tracing the ridges of her wounds.
“And three burns on her back?” she asked him.
Wade made no response.
His silence felt like a test. He was still assessing her usefulness to the investigation. She faced him and elaborated. “A cigarette burn to mark each point in a triangle. Like the ones he gave me.”
Pivoting away, she made a show of scanning every inch of ground. “I’ve got to keep looking. There might be something else.” She wasn’t consciously taking anything in until her gaze fell on the dumpster decorated with urban art. In the lower left corner of the scarred and dented metal front, four rows of numbers and letters stood out, spray-painted in fluorescent blue. The top row read “4NG,” followed by a colon. Something stirred inside her, drew her in. She squatted, narrowing her eyes.
Wade’s knees creaked as he crouched next to her. “Paint looks fresh.”
“He wore bright blue latex gloves,” she said. “Exactly this color.”
He raised a skeptical brow. “You think he’s communicating something in code?”
“He definitely did with the note and the necklace. And both were meant for me.” She angled her head. “What if 4NG means ‘for Nina Guerrera’? There’s a colon after that, indicating the rest of it is the message.”
They both leaned closer. The next row down read 8, 15, 16, 5. The row below that had the numbers 9 and 19, and the final row consisted of 4, 5, 1, and 4.
“Every other communication he left behind was securely attached to the body. Like he wanted to be sure we’d find it.” Wade swept a hand toward the dumpster. “This doesn’t match his pattern. Except for the color, it blends in with the random graffiti all over everything in this alley. He couldn’t be sure we’d find it.”
“To be honest, we overlooked it,” Stanton said, motioning one of the crime scene techs over again.
She hadn’t heard the MPD detective approach. His tone held a note of chagrin as he ordered the tech to photograph every inch of the alley.
Wade got to his feet. “Damn,” he said under his breath.
She stood as he snatched his mobile phone from his pocket. “What?”
He ignored her, thumb-typing on the device. His gray eyes darted to the painted numbers again, then back to the screen in his hand. “Sonofabitch.”
She was ready to grab him by his jacket collar and shake him. “What is it, Wade?”
He finally answered her. “It’s a simple substitution cipher. Very basic. But it was definitely him.”
“What does it say?”
“It spells out the words hope is dead.”
“Holy shit,” Stanton said. “I noticed something else when you first got here, Agent Guerrera, but I didn’t want to say anything in case I was overreading the scene.”
“Noticed what?” she said.
“Look at her.” Stanton gestured toward the still form lying nearby. “She looks a lot like you.”
Nina stood and tried to see the girl through unbiased eyes. She was Latina, petite, and slender. Like her. Stanton was right. Perhaps she hadn’t seen it before because she was looking at someone who was much younger, a total stranger, and also deceased.
“The victim’s hair is long, though,” Wade said. “He would have cut it short if he wanted to match Guerrera’s.”
“No,” Nina said quietly. “He wouldn’t.” She reflected on the events of that night. “When he abducted me, my hair was long like hers.” Her gaze remained riveted to the girl. “He grabbed my ponytail to pull me inside his van.”
After her release from the hospital that night, she’d gone back to the group home and stood in the shower until the water ran cold. Then she stepped out and stood in front of the bathroom mirror, droplets from her wet hair blending with tears. She’d clutched fistfuls of the damp locks, ruthlessly chopping with kitchen shears until her head looked shorn. To this day, she wore her hair in a pixie cut.
“Maybe he’s done, then,” Stanton was saying as her thoughts returned to the present. “He felt like he couldn’t kill an FBI agent, so he chose another victim to take her place. He closed the circle.”
“I’ve seen this kind of fixation before,” Wade said, shaking his head. “This isn’t only about murder. It’s about obsession.” He locked eyes with Nina. “And he’s just getting started.”
Chapter 6
Hermosa Vista Apartments
Springfield, Virginia
Nina pulled the enchilada casserole from the oven. She paused to check the golden-brown melted cheese bubbling at the edges before shooting a glance over her shoulder at Shawna Jackson. “You weren’t there. I could tell Wade really didn’t want me involved. He was totally aloof. After I spotted that spray paint, he didn’t believe it had anything to do with the case until he figured out the code for himself.”
“You’re an investigative tool to him right now. It’s up to you to change that.” Shawna sat at the tiny glass-topped table in the cramped kitchen of Nina’s apartment.
Situated on the top floor of a four-story building in the unofficial Latin corridor of the Springfield-Franconia district, Nina’s unit was what a Realtor would call modest or cozy. Like the cleaners, cooks, and landscapers who comprised most of its tenants, Nina was willing to live in the crumbling forty-year-old building for quick access to the nation’s capital.
She rested the CorningWare dish on a pot holder to cool on the counter. “Honestly, how could you work with him every day?”
For a fleeting moment, Shawna’s dark brown eyes held a wistful gleam. “He wasn’t always like that. There was a time when Wade was warm. Caring.”