Find Her Alive (Detective Josie Quinn #8) - Lisa Regan Page 0,50

the center with all the small bones from the hands and feet as well as the clavicles circling it. The arm bones are at six o’clock and the leg bones are at two o’clock. The only difference is that sometimes the pelvic bone and skull are placed near the arm bones and sometimes they’re near the leg bones. Sometimes the positions of the pelvic bone and skull are reversed.”

Josie pulled another photo from the file in front of Gretchen, also of a set of human bones arranged just as Drake described them, this time in what looked like an abandoned gravel lot. “What’s the difference? Why does he put them in different places?”

“We don’t know,” Drake said. “A lot of theories have been developed over the years as to why, but none of them have helped us get any closer to this guy. We’ve had teams study the arrangements trying to figure out what they mean. It’s definitely ritualistic but no one has been able to come to a definitive conclusion. I can get you those reports if you’d like to read them, but I’m not sure that the meaning behind these displays will help us find the killer.”

Mettner looked over Josie’s shoulder. “How many victims in total?”

“Four,” he answered. “Darden, in Philadelphia, was the third victim.”

“What was their cause of death?” Gretchen asked.

Drake replied, “We don’t know for certain.”

Mettner asked, “None of the bones indicated stabbing or shooting or trauma of any kind?”

“No,” Drake said. “We just know all the victims were abducted and killed in even-numbered years. In 2008 it started with Anthony Yanetti. Then in 2010 he killed Terri Abbott; in 2012, Kenneth Darden and then in 2014, Robert Ingram. All in the state of Pennsylvania. With every single one of them, exactly thirty days after they went missing, their bones turned up somewhere else arranged like that.”

Josie thought of the Post-it notes she’d seen in Trinity’s room before she’d torn them down. One of them had said OCD. Many serial killers had rituals—that didn’t mean they had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but she supposed it was possible that the Bone Artist suffered from it. Even-numbered years; exactly thirty days between abduction and staging of the remains—Josie could see why Trinity had raised the possibility of OCD.

Noah reached down and tapped a finger on the photo in front of Josie. “Thirty days? It’s our understanding that that’s not long enough for a body to decompose that badly.”

Drake said, “There are ways.”

For a moment, Josie’s heart stuttered before going back to its regular rhythm. She thought of Nicci Webb, missing for only seventeen days and reduced to a skeleton. She noted the name Abbott, Terri at the top of the photo. With her finger, she traced the woman’s rib cage. “There’s frayed material here, on her rib cage.” She pointed to the femur bones. “And here as well. That’s usually an indicator of scavenging, isn’t it? Could animals accelerate the decomposition of a body if they… got to it?”

She looked up from the photo. Drake held her gaze for a long moment. As tension filled the room, she resisted the urge to tug at her collar. “There were some studies done at a body farm in Texas,” he said quietly. “Scavenger birds—specifically black vultures—in a great enough number, say a gathering of about twenty to thirty—can reduce a body to skeletal remains in as few as four hours.”

Josie’s throat felt painfully dry. When she spoke, her voice cracked. “He leaves his victims outside? Exposed to the elements until they’re picked clean?”

“That’s what we think. Four different experts have examined the remains and opined that the victims were reduced to skeletons by avian scavengers over a relatively short period of time. Except for Anthony Yanetti, the first victim; there were no indicators of rodent or canid scavenging.”

Gretchen said, “The first victim’s remains were exposed to other animals in the wild then.”

“That’s what we believe, yes.”

“We,” Josie said. “As in the FBI?”

“Yes. The task force was disbanded in 2018 after the Bone Artist failed to kill for a four-year period. He’s been inactive now for six years total.”

Josie and her team exchanged a few looks. Drake didn’t miss it. “What?” he asked. “What is it?”

“Any idea why he stopped?” Noah asked, ignoring his questions.

“None,” Drake said. “We used to think that a serial killer who stopped killing was either dead or in prison. Of course, the Bind Torture Kill, or BTK Killer, threw that whole theory on its head. He started