The plea was this: show me thetruth. Give me clarity. If he heard back an answer, everything would becomplete. Everything would make sense at last. And he thought that it mightalready make more sense to him than it ever had to anyone, across the whole oftime, because no one yet had ever seen the way that he saw. Those beautifulcircles in the universe, which must and would take him somewhere, someday, to aplace of understanding, crystal clear like the chime of a bell, like thesurface of the water.
In order to make that happen,sacrifices had to be made. But in exchange for the ultimate truth, whatsacrifice would be too great?
In order to get his answers, he hadto do it again—and he had to do it tonight, before time ran out. Beforesomething floating on the water, like a water spider with its legs outstretchedand looking for food, sensed the ripples first, and cut him off from theanswers that he sought.
CHAPTER TEN
Zoe looked around the trail,taking a deep breath of the fresh November air. She was wrapped in a coat, warmenough to keep out the sting of the cold from everywhere but her face, and itfelt bracing rather than unpleasant.
Finally, she was alone. Only thesounds of birds in the distance, probably warning each other that a human wasaround judging by the rhythm and tone of their calls, interrupted the peace.And while she could still see plenty of numbers here—the circumference oftrees, the depth of the river, the pattern of growth given by all of thegreenery around the river’s banks—at least it was less intrusive than thenumbers given off by another human.
Even as she felt the peace exudedby the natural beauty of the scene, Zoe also knew that this was the place wherea body had been found. That of Olive Hanson, forty-one years old, five footsix, erstwhile hiker. The crook of the river seemed to embrace the bank whereshe had been found, placed just so, her shirt hiked up out of the way so thatthe killer could carve his symbol into her flesh.
The rookie was off chasing hislead about the potential connection between acquaintances. It was a smallenough area here, and Zoe didn’t exactly doubt that he would find a link ortwo. It was whether or not they would be relevant that was the problem. Sheknew in her gut that he was on the wrong track. This was about the symbol, notthe women. Maybe they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She’d come across many motives formurder. Killers who needed to strike in specific locations. Killers who wereall about the particular time of their attacks. Even killers who hunted downand killed their own wife, or mother, over and over again, recreating herlikeness as closely as they could in strangers. There would be a key to thisone. Zoe just had to figure out what it was.
Zoe stood behind the taped-offarea, not wanting to add her own confusion to the mess beyond it. There weretwo pairs of footprints that matched, the same boot but in different sizes. Thesheriff’s team, where they had come in to remove the body. These she couldignore, stripping them away from her impression of the crime scene.
That left two other sets ofprints: one smaller yet than the others, which must have belonged to the victimwith her size 7 feet. Zoe could see the weight of the imprint, the way that shehad strolled along here slowly, simply walking for the enjoyment of it. Thensomeone followed her: a man’s size 11.5, moving along the bank behind her. Theman who wore them weighed around a hundred fifty pounds, Zoe could see.
The victim had paused at the veryapex of the river’s curve, looking out at it. The current was free-flowing, theleaves from a few trees around the banks falling to gather at the edges of theriver or carried along by it, a mixture of brown and orange. It was beautiful,really. No wonder she had stopped to look. The imprints of her hiking bootswere there, deeper than elsewhere, a slight variance as she stood with herweight shifted onto one side.
She was probably just enjoying thenatural scene, thinking her own thoughts. Zoe listened to the rush of theriver, particularly as it gathered those dead, rustling leaves, as well as thesigh of the wind through the branches that remained. Her hearing was impaired;Zoe was confident that the killer had snuck up behind her without herawareness. His steps were light, a slightly deeper impact toward the toe, as ifhe were literally tiptoeing toward her.
He had strangled her then. Zoecast her mind back to the crime scene photographs that had been in the file:contusions across the neck, a red line imprinted with a corded pattern. He hadused some kind of rope or cord, not as harsh a material as twine, somethingstrong enough to withstand his full force pulling back on her neck as he chokedher to death with it.
Finally, he had taken her wholeweight and dragged her, leaving two shallow lines in the soft shore where thepoints of her boots had disturbed the mud. Then he had laid her face-down inthe water, just enough for it to catch at her hands, face, and upper torso. Notenough for the current to pull her away.
It was a deliberate act, Zoethought. Measured. He wasn’t trying to hide the evidence when he put her in thewater—wasn’t expecting her to wash away. He had placed her deliberately withthe toes of those boots anchored in the soft mud, keeping her in place. Shecould see the deeper indentation, since disturbed, where the sheriff’s men hadpulled Olive free.
So, why? What was the significanceof the water? If it was about leaving her where she stood, then why would hebother to drag her forward to that precise place?
There was something here,something nagging at the corners of Zoe’s mind. If she could just see it—grasphold of it—but nothing seemed to click. She looked at the scene again, movingher eyes in a practiced and logical grid pattern, left to right and up to down.Everything flashed out at
