but it was probably too far away to be meaningful to the scene. “Do you know who found him?”
“A city cop doing a detail. It was the guy’s first one here, so it appears that this discovery was random.”
Huh. Something else odd, in addition to whatever the techs had found.
Reed looked down, squinting at the stone near his feet, moving the grass aside so he could see the name. He didn’t recognize it, but when he moved to the one beside it, he saw that that one looked newer, the name easily read. “No way.”
Ransom, who had turned to look in the same direction as Reed walked over to where he stood. “You don’t fucking say.”
Reed looked at him. “Everett Draper.”
“Gentlemen,” Lewis called. He was kneeling next to the body a few feet behind them and had probably just noticed their arrival.
Reed and Ransom turned, walking toward the body, Reed swallowing down his disgust at the stench.
“Lewis,” Reed greeted. “Any information on the victim’s ID?”
“Nope. No ID on the guy. We checked his pockets. But, look at this.” Lewis reached a gloved hand up and pushed the man’s head back.
Reed stared, blinking. The man’s face was a rotted mess of decayed and sunken flesh, his cheek lumpy and . . . moving as maggots squirmed beneath what had once been skin. Even through the carnage of death, he looked . . . familiar. Reed frowned.
“Damn,” Ransom swore. “Dude’s not just dead. He’s dead.”
“It’s not just the decomposition that’s a departure from the other victims,” Lewis said. “Take a closer look." He gestured toward the man’s eyes, still intact, just blackened with paint, hardly noticeable in the midst of the rest of the purple and black death palette of what had once been a human face. Reed rubbed his chin. The killer had followed the same MO, but had not removed the eyes and left this one to rot, which made it a different MO entirely.
“What’s with his legs?” Ransom asked.
Lewis glanced down and Reed tore his eyes from the DOA’s ravaged face and looked at his legs. They appeared . . . shriveled within the fabric of his pants. Atrophied. Shock slammed into Reed as his gaze flew once again to the man’s face.
“He was disabled in some way,” Lewis was saying. “He’d have been in a wheelchair.”
“No,” Reed said.
“Oh yes, no question.”
Reed’s mind was reeling. “I don’t get it. This isn’t possible.”
“I don’t get it either,” Lewis said. “The eye situation is less grisly anyway, but the rest?” He made a face.
A distant buzzing was growing louder in Reed’s head. “The decomposition,” he managed.
“Yeah,” Lewis answered. “This guy has been dead for a week, if not a little longer. Also of note, there’s no brand on the back of the neck that I can see, though the skin there is pretty decomposed.” Lewis lifted his head momentarily. “It’s possible he’s been sitting right here, but no one noticed him.” He glanced around. “It’s out of the way. Also, this guy?” He held up the man’s fingers, purple and bent in unnatural positions. “He was tortured. There are wounds all over his body. The killer took a little extra time with him.”
Reed shook his head, standing, and taking a step backward. “No, not possible.”
“Oh, it is,” Lewis said, pulling up the man’s sleeve, where several gashes stood out, gaping and dark red against purple, peeling skin. “Look. He’s been burned, stabbed, sliced. Someone really went to town on him.”
“Not that. Not any of that,” Reed said, shaking his head, his heart pounding. “I know him.”
“What?” Ransom asked and Lewis looked at him curiously.
“That’s the former director of Lakeside. Gordon Draper.”
“Wait, what?”
“But”—Reed rubbed his temple—"it’s not possible that he’s here. I just talked to him. I just talked to him this morning.” He was breathless, his words staggered, as though he’d just finished a run.
Ransom was staring at him as if he was watching Reed slowly lose his mind and wasn’t quite sure how to react. Maybe he was losing his mind, because this was absolutely not possible.
“I talked to him today,” Reed emphasized, as though saying it more than once would cause the mystery to become clear. “I called him after we spoke, Ransom. Today.”
What’s his endgame do you think, son?
Son. Reed let out a small sound somewhere between a groan and a gasp for air as he grabbed his skull.
Oh, dear God.
No.
Nonono.
He turned to Ransom, pulling him aside as Lewis gave them another strange look and went back to