Page 59 of Forever Dark
“Exactly,” Selena said.“It also means that he’ll carry through the murder no matter what, even if the situation isn’t perfect.”
“Stubborn SOB,” Connor said, almost to himself.
“Tenacity and psychopathy are a horrible mix in cases like this,” she responded.
If the killer had a preferred ritual and could alter the location when blocked, then he wasn’t dependent on one precise setup.That made him mobile.Adaptive and confident in his ability to shake things up on the fly.
“We should have patrols check in on churches and holy places in the county.Add them to their patrols.It might deter the killer,” Selena suggested.
“I don’t have the manpower to stake out every church or cemetery,” Connor said, sounding frustrated.
“I know,” Selena said.“The best we can do is have your men drive by the sites on their patrols.It could be enough.We might even get lucky and spot him.”
Connor stood beside her, looking from the damaged door to the corpse below.She turned to him.“Who found the body?”
“That’s the thing,” he said after a moment.“We don’t know.”
He reached into his jacket and took out his phone.
“The call came in from the victim’s phone.Dispatch logged it.I had Cheryl send me the recording.”
He tapped the screen and held it out.
Static crackled.Then a man’s voice, pitched higher than natural, rushed and frightened.
“There’s a dead body at Hawthorne Graveyard.Please.Please send someone.”
Selena listened without moving.
The dispatcher began asking questions.The line cut off.
Matt said, “Might be innocent enough.They could’ve called and gotten cold feet.”
“Maybe,” Connor said.
Selena kept her eyes on the phone a second longer, hearing the strain in the voice, the deliberate panic, the way the caller gave the information and nothing more.
“Or maybe,” she said, “that’s the voice of the killer.”
No one answered.
They all stood there in the growing light, the scarred chapel door beside them, the body below them, the mountain rising behind in a pale sheet of mist.Then the sun broke over the horizon.
Gold touched the upper stones first.
The grave markers threw long shadows across the slope, and the victim lay down below.Cold.Lifeless.Unmoving.A murder that Selena knew must be answered.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Selena stayed in the car a moment longer than she needed to.
From her spot near the edge of the sheriff’s office parking lot, she watched Connor pull in and cut the engine on his SUV.Morning had settled properly now, pale sun over the low buildings of Eagleton, light catching on windshields and the dusty edge of the lot.Connor stepped out with a folder under his arm and headed inside.
Even from a distance, his stride looked familiar.Even in the sheriff’s uniform, there was something rebellious about the way he walked.His swagger had not completely abandoned him.It made her wonder if the wild guy she had fallen in love with in high school was still in there.
Inside, they were going to go over the murders together.
Two victims.Two abandoned places of worship.Two bodies displayed like warnings.Details pinned down, cross-checked, arranged into something useful.Work she wanted to do.Work she needed to do to get her life back in DC.And all of it would happen in a room where she and Connor could not step around each other, could not pretend the past was waiting politely outside.
