Drained (Edgars Family #6) - Suzanne Ferrell Page 0,74
victims.”
“From what you’ve told us,” Matt said, looking at him, “the third crime scene is a complete crap shoot. The guy’s posing them in open, but out of the way places. No connection between them or to your victims, right?”
“As far as we’ve determined,” Aaron said.
“But they mean something to your killer.” Carson leaned forward and fixed his attention on Brianna. “Remember when we talked this morning and I asked you which direction Art was facing in the warehouse?”
She nodded, suddenly sitting straighter. “And I said east. Then you pointed to Mia just as the sun rose high enough to shine on her face. She was facing the east, too.”
“He posed them so they’d be looking into the sunlight,” Katie asked. “Is there some significance in that?”
“Sunrise is the beginning of a new day,” Brianna said, looking at Aaron. “You told me that when I was in the hospital. I’d woken up after they’d done surgery on my left eye and face that first night. The sun was just coming up and it shone in my good eye and I complained about it. You told me, the sun rising always meant the beginning of a new day with no mistakes in it.”
“I remember that,” he said. She’d looked so bruised, battered and betrayed lying there in that hospital bed, IV’s and monitors hooked up to her, half her face wrapped in bandages. He’d wanted her to prevent her from reliving all the trauma that had gotten her there, the mistakes she’d made or the men who’d disappointed and abused her.
She gave him one of those whisper-of-a-smiles that melted his heart, then turned to Carson. “He’s cleaning their lives on the streets off of them, putting them in clothes that represents their lives before they fell on hard times and posing them in a spot where they’ll have the sunrise on their faces to give them a sort of resurrection?”
The profiler nodded. “That’s what I believe.”
“How’s she doing?” Matt asked as Katie came out to join him on the sofa in the living room. He’d taken off his shoulder holster and laid it on the end table, so his weapon was in easy reach.
While she’d been giving Paula her breathing treatment and meds before bed, he’d secured the house and also cleaned up the kitchen. They’d divided up the chores like this at home ever since Russell had been born so that Katie wouldn’t feel overwhelmed each evening.
The others had all left to follow up their mutual assignments. Carson was going to go search some FBI database on serial killers and blood draining. Kirk F went home to check on his Nana and return her plastic bowl and lid from the dumplings before spending time scouring the internet for abandoned meat packing plants with a surge in electrical use. Aaron and Brianna, along with Stanley had headed back downtown to see if they could find anyone who might identify their killer posing as a journalist.
“She’s pretty good,” Katie said, snuggling in and pulling her phone out of her pocket and typing. “Has some rales in her lower lobes still, but otherwise, I’d say she’s on the mend.”
“Who you talking to?” he asked with a nod to her phone.
“Your mother. She’s says Russell’s having a ball.” She smiled and turned the phone to him, showing him a picture of their one-year-old son and his grandfather, both licking off the same ice cream cone.
“I can see that. Is it too early for them to spoil him rotten?”
Katie shook her head. “No. I love that your parents love all their grandchildren, and especially Russell. I want him to have a big, happy, loving family. Not the nightmare I grew up in.”
“He’s in good hands.” Matt draped his arm around his wife’s shoulders and pulled her closer.
Leaving Russell for the first time was hard on them both, but especially Katie. When her mother died, she’d left her to somehow survive in the Prophet’s cult all alone. They’d discussed her feeling like she was abandoning their son when she returned to work in the family’s new private security and investigation firm. He told her that leaving Russell with his mom or their paid sitter four days a week wasn’t her abandoning him in any form. She finally adjusted and the past four months had gone smoothly, but when Jake needed someone to come to Cleveland, they all knew that Katie’s special skills, both as a nurse and as a weapons expert, made her the perfect choice.