at Jimmy who was leaning around the body to get a better look at the shackles. “Josie good when you left her?”
Jimmy glanced at Zach, but Zach looked back to the body before he could try to read anything into his expression. “Yeah, she was fine. Horton and Vogel are both hanging out until you can get there.”
“Good.”
“Looks like the same exact MO from the previous crime scene photos I looked at,” Jimmy said. “What’s your take having personally been at both scenes?”
“Same guy,” Zach said. “I’d bet on it. This girl is also young like Aria Glazer.”
“Any way to tell how long she’s been here?” Jimmy asked Dolores.
“Long enough to starve to death.”
They were both quiet for a moment, letting that settle.
“And this is what Josie Stratton experienced too,” Jimmy murmured, voice tight. Zach glanced at him and noticed a small tic in his jaw.
“Similar,” Zach answered. “At one point he unchained one of her hands. That’s not the case with this victim, or Aria Glazer. At least not at the time he left them to die. And of course, there was the pregnancy. That’s different too.”
“Prophylactic residue on this one,” Dolores said, obviously listening to their conversation though she looked laser-focused on her work. “Signs of sexual assault.”
“The same as Aria Glazer.”
“This guy learned from his predecessor as far as the importance of protection.”
“Either that or he’s just smarter in general.”
They were both silent for a moment, looking at the extinguished life in front of them, the obviously young woman who’d had her future stolen by a demented monster.
There was a metal pan off to the side with some congealed sludge at the bottom and Zach gestured to it. “Something like that was taken into evidence at the first crime scene too,” he said. “And Josie was supplied with a similar makeshift toilet by Marshall Landish.”
Jimmy made a rough noise in the back of his throat. “Why bother with the small bit of dignity?” he muttered. Zach didn’t answer. He didn’t have one.
“The carving in the leg?” Zach asked after a minute. “Can we see it?”
Dolores lifted up the girl’s skirt, showing the top of her thigh where the words casus belli were carved. “Premortem?” Jimmy asked.
“Definitely,” Dolores answered. “It appears as if the wounds were just beginning to heal over at the time of death.”
Zach nodded, standing, Jimmy following suit. “I’m sure Cathlyn will expedite the exam on this one. I’ll give her a call and tell her to let us know as soon as she has anything.”
They said goodbye to Dolores who gave them a small wave, not lifting her head from her work, and walked up the wooden stairs. Outside the house, the night was cool and clear. Rainswept. It felt like an entirely different world than where they’d just been. He wondered if Josie had experienced that sensation too when she’d fled the warehouse room where she’d been held captive and emerged into that crisp winter day, but he pushed that particular thought away. He needed to focus on the girl they’d just found.
“One of the missing persons I pulled when we were looking to ID Aria Glazer was that UC student who was reported missing six weeks ago.”
“The one all over the news last month. Harley and Aymes are on that investigation, right?” Zach nodded and Jimmy ran a hand over his jaw, pulling out his phone. He stepped off the path that led from the house to the curb, turning so no one coming or going from the house could see what he was doing. Zach followed. After typing something into what looked like a browser, Jimmy stared at the screen, his lips thinning as he turned it toward Zach. The body in the basement was in the beginning stages of decomposition, but damn if the girl he was looking at didn’t appear to be the same as the one they’d just left with criminalists. “Yeah, this could very well be her. Fuck me. Isn’t her father some city council member or something?”
“Yeah. We need to let Sergeant Woods know about the possibility.” Zach thought back to Aria’s roommate Tessa telling him about Aria taking classes at UC. Fuck, if this was in fact the UC student, it’d be the second one found in the same manner in less than a week that had ties to the university. Aria Glazer hadn’t been a full-time student. She’d been taking night classes. But she’d still been at the campus regularly.