in the bushes near the lake, pale and icy cold. Near death. Bennett clamped down on the rush of emotions threatening to rise up. Emilia was alive. She’d survived. He needed to keep his focus on the woman who hadn’t.
Emilia bent closer to the victim. Her expression was detached, a self-protection mechanism Bennett recognized. She was in cop mode.
“Same type of victim, dark-haired and pretty.” Emilia sniffed the woman’s skin without touching the body. “This isn’t a copycat. Derrick had a partner. This is the work of the same killer from last year.”
“How can you be sure?” Claire asked.
“There were certain things never shared outside the task force. For starters, the killer bleaches the bodies to remove trace evidence.” She pointed to Kathy’s feet. “Her toenails and fingernails have also been painted red. The killer did it before leaving her body here. Like the poinsettia, it’s part of his ritual. How long has she been missing?”
“Kathy was last seen by her coworkers two nights ago.” Claire glanced at the notebook in her hand. “Her car was found in the diner parking lot, but Kathy often leaves it there. Her apartment is within walking distance.”
Bennett rocked back on his heels. “Why wasn’t she reported missing?”
“No one realized she was. Kathy lives alone and had the last two days off from work. According to her boss, she’s a homebody. It wasn’t unusual for her car to stay in the parking lot for a couple of days while she caught up on her sleep and binged television.”
“Who found her?”
“A local school teacher out for a hike with her dog.” Claire waved her pen along the trail. “As you can tell, this area isn’t used often. People normally stick to the paved pathways.”
“The body hasn’t been out here long,” Bennett said. “Kathy was likely killed last night and placed on the trail in the early-morning hours.”
Emilia nodded. “The killer kept her for a day or two. Also just like our original victims.” She pointed to Kathy’s shoulder. “Those marks appear to be from a stun gun. That’s a new aspect to the crime. Derrick used drugs to subdue his victims when he kidnapped them.”
Bennett frowned as he ran through what he knew about the other cases in his mind. “That makes sense if our theory about the case is right.”
“Theory?” Claire asked.
“Derrick kidnapped the victims, but it was his partner who killed them.” Bennett bent closer to examine the marks on Kathy’s skin. Definitely a stun gun. “Derrick had a history of drug abuse. He had a supplier who provided the drugs which were used on the women.”
“But now the killer is working alone,” Emilia continued, picking up on Bennett’s train of thought. “He doesn’t have a connection to the drug dealer, so he needed a new way to subdue the victim. Hence the stun gun.”
Claire scribbled a few notes in her pad. “How does last night’s shooting fit into all of this? And the threatening note left on Emilia’s doorstep?”
“The note was to bring me back to Fulton County.” Emilia rose. “The shooting was an attempt to run Bennett off the road so the killer could grab me.”
“But he already had Kathy. Why kidnap you too?”
“Opportunity. This killer is smart. He knows I’m going to be protected, and he was hoping to catch us off guard.” She took a deep breath. The stark look in her expression was haunting. “If the killer is attempting a repeat of last year, then I’m supposed to be victim number four.”
Her words slammed into Bennett with the force of a freight train. “He’ll kill three more before you.”
She nodded. “But that won’t stop him from trying to grab me in the meantime. He’s working off a game plan. The good thing is he doesn’t have Derrick anymore. The killer has to stalk and kidnap the victims himself, which gives us a better opportunity to catch him.”
Emilia turned to Claire. “Pull surveillance video from the diner where Kathy worked. Go back at least two weeks. The killer interacted with her. You’re looking for a white male, 30-40, smart, well-dressed. He has a flexible schedule, which gives him the ability to stalk his victims. He’s a killer but doesn’t look like one. Nothing about him sets off alarm bells.”
The sheriff jotted everything down in her notepad. “How long before he kidnaps the next victim?”
She shrugged. “There’s no way to know for sure, but this killer is looking to make a splash. My best guess is we have days.”
Bennett’s stomach