The Best Man to Trust - By Kerry Connor Page 0,20

of the way as he slowly and methodically went about documenting the scene, first on still images, then on video.

It was fascinating watching him work. He took his time, recording every inch of the body and area around it. The hands that held the camera were steady and true, his gaze just as stable as he focused on the screen on the camera. When he moved in front of her, she caught glimpses of the screen, observing how he zoomed in and out to give both a close and wider view of what he was recording.

Meredith watched him bend on one knee, focusing the camera on the floor beside the body. Curious, she leaned closer to see what he was fixing on.

Then she spotted them, the series of red marks on the carpet leading from the body. “Is that blood?”

“Looks like it,” he confirmed.

Meredith followed the trail with her eyes, from where it began at the body to a door several feet away.

“That’s the door to Haley’s room,” she noted just as he began to turn the camera on it. Why would there be a trail of blood from Haley’s room toward the body? She supposed the most obvious answer was...

She stepped forward. “Do you want me to open it?” she asked, referring to the door.

Tom never took his eyes from the viewer on the camera. “I think you should.”

Meredith reached out and released the door, then slowly nudged it open. The light was still on inside. Almost immediately she spotted the blood just inside the door, leading farther into the room, growing denser as it proceeded.

Tom carefully moved inside, tracking the blood with his camera. Meredith followed a few steps behind, unable to resist, even as a little tremor of unease rumbled through her. She felt Rick fall into line behind her.

Tom came to an abrupt stop, aiming the camera toward the center of the room. Meredith peered around his shoulder, her breath hitching as she saw what he was recording. There was no mistaking the blood splattered across the center of the floor, the pool thick and wide on the blue rug she’d chosen and laid in place herself.

“This is the murder scene,” she whispered hoarsely.

“I would bet on it,” Tom said.

“So she was killed in here and then moved out into the hallway.” It certainly explained why the trail of blood got smaller as it reached the door. “But why?”

“Because the killer wanted her to be discovered.”

It was Rick who drew the conclusion, but Tom nodded an instant later. “It makes the most sense. If she’d simply been left in here, she most likely wouldn’t have been found until morning, maybe when she didn’t come down for breakfast. Putting her in the middle of the hallway, where someone would absolutely see her if they needed to use the bathroom, guaranteed she would be found sooner.”

Goose bumps raised along her skin as the implications of it sank in.

“The killer wanted everyone to know this had happened,” Meredith said numbly. “He—or she—wanted everyone to be afraid.”

“I’d say mission accomplished then,” Tom said.

“It makes sense, since the knife was left in her,” Rick said. “It couldn’t have been easy to move her like that. Or else the killer stuck the knife back in after she was moved.”

“The killer wanted to make sure everyone not only knew that she was dead, but exactly how she died.” It would have been horrifying enough to find Haley lying in the middle of the floor with her chest coated in blood. But actually seeing the big knife, leaving no doubt exactly what had killed her, had made it so much worse.

Meredith let out a long, deep breath, trying to control her racing pulse. “It’s not just to scare everybody, is it? It’s a warning. Whoever it is intends to kill again.”

As much as she wanted someone to disagree, no one argued the conclusion.

“Maybe we should get out of here,” Tom said. “I have everything I need.”

“Good idea,” Meredith agreed. She reached in her pocket for her keys. “I’ll lock the room so no one else can come in until the police get here.”

They quickly filed back to the exit. Rick and Tom ducked through first. Shutting off the light, Meredith pulled the door shut and locked it behind her.

Turning around, her eyes fell back on the trail of blood on the floor. Frowning, she automatically checked the floor around the rest of the body. “There’s no blood leading to any of the other rooms.”

Tom