Drained (Edgars Family #6) - Suzanne Ferrell Page 0,100

haven’t found any bodies lying around anywhere else.”

“You also haven’t found the actual crime scene, either.”

“You mean he’s keeping others he’s killed at the place where he drained their bodies?” Jaylon asked. “Like in a deep freeze from our female victim?”

“Mia,” Brianna said quietly, looking both sad and angry.

Aaron wanted to pull her into his arms and comfort her, or at least squeeze her hand, but couldn’t. Not here, not now.

Carson took a few steps back from the officers and tech milling about doing their work. Aaron, Brianna, and Jaylon followed.

“What I believe is, your man is way too skilled in his process,” Carson said in a slightly lower voice so others passing by wouldn’t hear. “He befriends his victims. Convinces them to trust him, or in this new case subdues them with little to no effort. Drains their blood almost completely and prepares them this elaborately. All this tells me he’s had quite a bit of practice.”

“Months?” Aaron asked with a sinking feeling.

Carson gave a half-shrug. “Maybe years.”

“Fuck,” Jaylon whispered.

Aaron couldn’t agree more.

“Why would he be keeping the bodies?” Brianna asked, her eyes a little wider and a slight pallor to her face.

“They’re his trophies,” Carson said.

She cocked her head to one side, the way Aaron caught her doing when she didn’t quite understand something, which wasn’t often. “I thought Art’s medals and Mia’s violin were his trophies?”

“They were.”

“Because he couldn’t keep the bodies, themselves,” Aaron said, following the profiler’s logic.

Carson nodded.

“That’s sick,” Brianna whispered, arriving at the same conclusion.

“So, when we find this place that’s his kill spot, we’ll find more bodies?” Jaylon asked.

Again, Carson nodded. “I can’t be a hundred percent sure, but odds are you’ll find them, or part of them there.”

The trio of plain clothes men standing off to one side were the important ones. All the other police were no more than worker ants, going about from one spot to the other.

The tall red-headed one hadn’t been at the vet’s unveiling. The other white man and the black guy had been. He’d bet anything they were the lead detectives. The policewoman with them seemed to be listening as they spoke, but she didn’t look to be too important. No captain or anything.

He held the camera on his shoulder as if trying to get film for the news like the others around him did.

“Did you hear someone called into the local channels before the police found him?” one of the beat reporters said, holding his cell phone up to get a video of the football player’s body.

“They won’t be able to sweep this one under the rug like the others,” he said, hoping to get more talk going.

“Others?” an old journalist asked him.

“I heard over there,” he pointed ambiguously in the direction of other camera crews, “that this isn’t the first body the cops found like this.”

“Really? Who said that?” a woman reporter asked, the others all jotting that down or trying to see who he might’ve gotten the information from.

He shrugged. “Don’t know his name, but he said something about two others posed like this.”

That news sent several of the vermin news people scurrying over to the other group of camera crews.

So easily manipulated.

Smiling inside, he wanted to tell them everything but couldn’t. They’d have to get the police to tell them about the blood and the sunrise. That is, if they’d even figured it out themselves.

He wasn’t worried. After today, the press would ensure his work made the front page and headlined the nightly news. And when he made his next statement, there would be no doubt about his purpose. They’d understand that people who abused the gift of life needed to be punished and reborn, their gift reclaimed for society.

Now it was time to get onto his next donor.

30

While the three professional lawmen discussed more technical things, Brianna decided to get on with her own assignment. Pulling her phone out of her jacket pocket—she left her bag in Aaron’s car as no policewoman would be carrying one while working—and pretended to dial up a number. On the drive from the safehouse, she’d already set her phone to open to the video mode and made sure the flash feature was off.

Aaron wanted her to capture the crowd and media people on site again—even though they hadn’t had time to really look at the first one yet. He hadn’t said as much, but she suspected he didn’t want the killer zeroing in on her for her own safety. Aaron treated her like both a