been buried under some rock,” he told them, slowing his words so that no one had an excuse to misquote him. “And yes, some of those barrels do have bodies inside. That’s all I can say about that right now. But I will tell you that we have everything under control. We have experts on the scene collecting evidence and we have—”
“But what about the killer, Sheriff?” someone from the back yelled, interrupting him. “You have a serial killer on the loose. What are you doing about that, Sheriff?”
Jesus! These assholes were hell-bent on starting a panic. Henry tucked his hat lower over his brow, as if to ward off further blows and hopefully to let them know he couldn’t be goaded into their hysteria.
“We’re working on that,” he lied. It was only the second day. How the hell was he supposed to have a list of suspects already? “That’s why we have Special Agent Maggie O’Dell here.” He gave her a slight shove forward. “She’s a criminal profiler with the FBI, up here from Quantico, Virginia. Her specialty is catching guys like this. So you see we’ve got the very best working on our team. That’s all for now.”
This time he grabbed O’Dell’s arm to lead her out of the crowd, Officer Trotter clearing a path for them.
“Have you brought in any suspects yet, Sheriff?”
“When will you give us more information? Like a profile of the killer?”
“That’s it, folks. That’s all I have for today.” He waved a hand at them and continued to plow through, shoving the cameras aside when they refused to move.
As soon as they were across the road, O’Dell wrenched her arm from his hold and without a word marched to her Ford Escort. He didn’t care if she was pissed. Tomorrow she would probably be long gone. All she wanted was to find her precious missing person, and there was a good chance the woman was waiting for them in the morgue.
CHAPTER 25
Maggie waited, gloved hands at her sides, while Dr. Stolz unzipped the body bag. She was used to participating in autopsies. Her forensic and medical background had prepared her for doing everything from helping place the body block to taking fluid samples to weighing organs. But she knew when not to participate, too, and this was one of those times. Dr. Stolz had made that clear. So she waited, alongside Sheriff Henry Watermeier, still angry with him for blindsiding her, but anxious to have this trip over and done with.
She was trying to be patient despite her anger and her urge to help. She wanted to help clean the woman’s chest wound so they could see the incision, the puncture marks, the rips and tears. There had to be multiple ones to have caused such an eruption.
Stolz must have sensed her restlessness when he said, “The chest wound is not the cause of death. Not as far as I can tell from my preliminary exam.” He began parting the long tangled hair, his gloved fingers carefully splitting dried, bloody clumps to reveal a large crescent-shaped wound to the side of the corpse’s head. “I’m betting this is what knocked her lights out for good.”
“There was an awful lot of blood in the chest area,” Maggie said, trying not to contradict the doctor. “Are you sure she wasn’t just knocked unconscious?”
Stolz looked at Sheriff Watermeier and pursed his thin lips as if showing him that he was purposely refraining from what he’d like to say. Then he began sponging the woman’s chest, cleaning the wound, the mess. “If he started cutting her immediately after he killed her, there would still be a boatload of blood. Especially here in the chest where there’s some major gushers. And he cut deep. May have even punctured the heart.”
“Wait a minute. Deep wounds sound like fatal wounds,” Watermeier said, which drew a scowl from Stolz.
“Not stab wounds.” The medical examiner lifted skin he had just cleaned. “She’s cut open. Nothing pretty about this handiwork, though. At least not as precise and detailed as with Mr. Earlman.”
“What did he remove?” Watermeier asked before Maggie got the chance.
“I’ll show you.” Dr. Stolz began opening the wound with one hand and with the other flushed the wound with the sprayer hose attached to the side of the stainless steel table. “My first guess would have been the heart, maybe a lung. You know, stuff like the usual crazies take. But this one sort of defies anything I’ve ever seen.”
With the wound now washed clean, Stolz pressed the mangled skin to the side and moved back for Watermeier and Maggie to take a closer look.
Watermeier stared, scratching his head, puzzled and not recognizing the scarred tissue. But Maggie knew immediately. And without getting out the photo Gwen had given her, Maggie also knew that this was not Joan Begley.
“I don’t understand,” Watermeier finally said, looking from Maggie to Stolz and realizing he was the only one in the dark.
“This woman must have been a breast cancer survivor,” Stolz explained. “The killer took her breast implants.”
Maggie had already prepared herself, had already planned what she would say to Gwen when she called with the news that her patient had been murdered. She should have felt relief. But for some reason she felt beginning panic instead. If Joan Begley wasn’t dead, where the hell was she?
CHAPTER 26
Joan Begley woke to the sound of doves cooing. Or at least that was what it sounded like through the spiderweb in her brain. Her eyes felt matted at the lashes, stuck down with webs. Her mouth was cotton dry. But the cooing reminded her of summer mornings, waking up at Granny’s dairy farm outside of Wallingford, Connecticut. A distant humming lulled her in and out of sleep. The breeze over her head felt and smelled like dew-laced grass, the fresh air wafting in from the meadow. Along with the breeze and the cooing came a feeling of contentment.
A click startled her awake. A click and then a low rumble of a motor coming to life. She sat up, her eyes flying open, her arms straining. It was the leather wrist restraints that renewed the panic, that brought her back to reality. Or rather brought her back to her nightmare.
She stared down at the restraints clamping her to the bed rails, and for a brief moment she thought she might be in a hospital. Had he taken her to a hospital? The room was dimly lit, darkness filled the huge windows. She looked around the area and could see walls made of sturdy timber, rafters of the same, more windows with thick glass, none of which were open. The breeze she had dreamed of was only the ventilation fan above the bed, the hum of a chest freezer in the corner. It looked like she was in a cabin or converted shed. As frightened as she was she had to admit this place had a warm and almost cozy feeling, despite the smell of disinfectant laced with, of all things, the scent of lilac.
Where in the world had he taken her? And why?
She looked around again, her vision still blurred, distorting the items on the shelves, elongating and swirling them like something out of a van Gogh painting. Maybe she was hallucinating. Yes, maybe this was all a dream, a nightmare.
She tried to think through the cobwebs in her brain. She needed to stay calm. No good would come from panic. And she didn’t seem to have any energy left. She couldn’t allow the panic to take control of her again, to exhaust her. Last night…or was it days ago? How could she be sure? He had drugged her. Asked in his polite tone that she drink a bottle of some concoction.
“It won’t hurt,” he had promised her in that little-boy voice that she had once found endearing. “It tastes like cough syrup.”
But when she refused, she remembered how he grabbed her, shoving her into a headlock. She had been surprised by his strength, by his frenzy, by his…his madness. He had forced the liquid down her throat despite her clawing at him, despite her kicking and coughing and gagging. Yes, he had become a madman, totally out of control. Someone she didn’t recognize, and certainly not the Sonny she thought she had gotten to know.
She began to cry, thinking about it. Why had he done this? Why had he brought her here? What did he intend
