another section a table where he must do his taxidermy. Two wild cats sat there now, tools lined up neatly next to them, along with a jar of glass eyes.
Derrick marched across the room, lifted another jar that sat on the shelves by the table and held it up to examine it.
“Blood.” His gaze swung to her. “Could be the blood he used to write on your door.” Derrick looked grim. “Shondra’s.”
Nausea climbed Ellie’s throat while Derrick opened the doors to a metal cabinet.
Inside, fixed to a cork board, were photographs of all the Weekday Killer’s victims posed on the daffodils. Four dead women so far, four gruesome images.
And there were two more pictures—of Shondra and Ellie.
Ninety-Eight
Derrick stared at the photos. Finding them here made McClain look as guilty as sin, and he was shocked to read denial on Ellie’s stunned face.
“These pictures are his souvenirs,” he said.
“I can’t believe Cord would do this,” Ellie replied, a tremble in her voice.
“He fits the profile of the killer,” Derrick added. “He lives out here alone, knows the AT, led us to bodies, has knowledge and books on the symbolism used in the unsub’s MO, and allegedly liked to dress up corpses. Evidence doesn’t lie, Ellie.” He pointed toward the shelf of taxidermy tools. The jar of eyes was downright disturbing. “Just look at his hobby. Taxidermy.” How on earth did she need convincing?
Walking over, Ellie studied the tools. “I’ve known him since I was a teenager, and he’s never seemed violent. He’s risked his life on rescue missions, carried lost hikers and children for miles to get them medical attention.” She shook her head. “It just doesn’t fit with the man I know.”
“Sometimes we’re too close to people to see who they really are. We just see what we want to see in them.”
She flinched. His comment had clearly struck a nerve about her parents.
“I know it looks bad,” she said in a low voice. “But this is all circumstantial.”
“His past suggests he’s troubled. Maybe those crimes with the girls triggered something in him––you know about the cycle of the abuse. And these photographs are of the crime scenes. He had to be present to have taken them.”
“Where’s his camera, then?” Ellie said. “And the dresses? If he prepares ahead, why aren’t those things here?”
Derrick chewed the inside of his cheek. “Maybe he keeps them somewhere else. He could have a secret place on the AT that we don’t know about.”
“The perp could have planted these pictures to frame Cord,” Ellie said.
She had her head in the sand. “Did he plant those books on symbolism, too? And what about how he grew up? And the fact that he won’t talk now?”
Ellie cut him a venomous look. “I’m calling a team to process the house.”
“I was just going to do the same thing.” She could argue Cord’s innocence all day long.
But he went by the book. Evidence told the story. And right now, it was stacked against Cord McClain.
Ninety-Nine
He’d heard those old biddies gossiping in town. One of them, that crazy-mean old Maude Hazelnut who liked to dish about everyone in town, pointing fingers here and there and airing everyone’s dirty laundry when she was nothing but a fraud herself, had gotten under his skin.
Her granddaughter was just like her.
Except she was as pretty as a peach. She knew it, too. Used her good looks to lure men into sleeping with her until she got knocked up. Then she robbed them blind.
It was time she got a lesson of her own.
He jimmied the lock on the door to her plush bedroom. He knew it was plush because he’d been here before. He knew all about the women he took. His feet sank into three-inch deep white carpet and the smell of some expensive perfume nearly knocked him over as he tiptoed to her underwear drawer to rifle through it. He was sure it was full of sheer lace and satin.
But she wouldn’t be wearing any of that when he was finished with her.
And Meddlin’ Maude would be screaming at the heavens, wondering why God had forsaken her and brought evil into her family’s life.
Truth was, Maude was evil herself. And one day everyone would know it.
Exposing her was just icing on the cake.
One Hundred
Stony Gap
Ellie was not only confused as hell but pissed too as she and Derrick entered the sheriff’s office. Her parents’ betrayal had nearly destroyed her. Cord couldn’t have committed these heinous crimes, he just couldn’t have. This devastating