Tami had been found in the unlikeliest place imaginable. They say that the chances she was still alive by the time Steph found me, were almost 100%. They believe she was still alive an hour later as officers walked through her home, looking for any sort of clue to her whereabouts, the killer keeping her silent either by rendering her unconscious or subduing her into submission.
It was only because of the passage of time that they found her. Time had allowed for certain events to take their course and combine to reveal her location. A heavy thunderstorm had hit Cider Hill on Tuesday, hard enough to cause flash flooding in some parts, damaging roofs and uprooting trees. Her roof had sprung a leak, one of the tiles damaged. When the rain water had leaked into the roof cavity, the congealed blood that had pooled beneath her body became watery again, slowly weeping through the ceiling plasterboard. A large red patch of moist sludge had formed in the middle of her living room ceiling. When Lester and another officer had returned to the home on the Tuesday afternoon to search for any missed clues, they made the grim discovery, finding my Tami tied to her own rafters in the ceiling space. She had been there the entire time.
3.
It took a lot of pleading for Steph to finally show me the photos of Tami. At first, she refused to even listen to me, saying that they were police evidence and she was unable to get them. The she said that she didn’t want to show them to me, that they weren’t for me to see. One look into my eyes and she knew that that line was not going to work. I practically was police as much as she was. Then she told me that it wasn’t a good idea with my injuries, needing rest and relaxation to heal quickly. But with each plea, I could see her walls slowly crumbling. I eventually told her that if I didn’t get them from her, then I would get them from someone else, like Lester. She knew that I was right and so, with dread in her eyes, she handed them to me the following morning.
“You can have these, Jim, but I won’t stay while you look through them. I don’t think it will make things any easier for you, but if you insist, then I won’t stop you.” She let the envelope go, then without another word, turned and left the room, closing the door behind her. I held the envelope for close to ten minutes, tears building, then slowly tracing their path down my cheeks. My heart was truly aching, my belly on fire with rage. My leg was throbbing and my chest felt like a spear was lodged in it, a piercing bolt of pain cascading through my body with every hitching breath. I tried to prepare myself as best I could, trying to picture the horror I was about to see.
Nothing can ever prepare you for the moment you see the love of your life dead and lying on some slab, the inflictions of a madman visible in the slashes and cuts and bites that would adorn her body. Her Cheshire grin now gone forever, her beautiful eyes closed, the happiness in them extinguished for all eternity. I took another painful breath then slowly opened the envelope.
There were six photos in all. I don’t know how many I was expecting but as I held them in my hand, they felt meagre compared to the life-changing event they were about to show me. The first photo was of her face and I felt a wave of relief as I saw that it was untouched, her beautiful eyes closed as if in an eternal sleep. The second was of her legs, again, untouched and unmarked. The third photo showed her back and buttocks while the fourth was of her wrists, deep ligature marks showing how the rope that held her had bitten into her soft skin, leaving identical wounds on each wrist. The fifth photo was of her upper torso and showed her naked breasts and stomach as well as her upper arms. The scar she had suffered twenty years earlier was visible on her upper left arm, just below her shoulder, a deep hole that had healed itself over time but never able to replace the missing muscle tissue. There were no visible marks of any kind.
I was beginning to think that maybe he had simply strangled her, her body seemingly untouched and devoid of major trauma. But then I looked at the last photo, and my tears began to flow, the levee broken. It was a photo of her neck. It had one single bite mark on its left side, deep enough to open the carotid artery that pulsated with each beat of her heart. He had taken a single bite, then watched her bleed out, if he had indeed waited to confirm her death. My guess was that he probably did wait, long enough to ensure that she was gone. But something struck me as odd.
I suddenly wanted to speak to Steph, the urge
