Don't Look Back (12 page)

Dakota flinched and looked back at the skeletons on the tables. “He’d have to be strong in order to slash someone’s throat to the bone.”

“Or in a rage.”

“Or that.”

She pushed her sleeves up and examined the scars. Dakota’s eyes returned to her wrists. “Handcuffs?”

“Yeah.” Turning her arm, she said, “I suppose I could have plastic surgery to cover them up.”

“Why are they so bad? I’ve never seen cuffs cause that much damage.”

Biting her lip, she pondered whether or not to reveal that to him. “Because I tried so hard to get out of them – one way or another.”

“What does that mean?”

A knock on the door made her jump. Jamie pulled her sleeves down in one smooth movement and forced a smile. “Hi, George.”

“Hi there.” He waved a folder toward Dakota. “I’ve got that information you wanted. I was passing Lila’s desk and she snagged me for the role of errand boy.”

“Oh, thanks.” Dakota met the man in the middle of the room and took the papers. He told Jamie, “I also asked Jazz to do an extended search, widening the age range a little and going so far as seeing who’s gone missing within a hundred-mile radius. She faxed the results. George also provided some great information on a possible profile for this guy.”

While Dakota and George discussed his findings, Jamie tuned them out and went back to work on the bones. She desperately wanted to find out who these two women were and offer their families closure.

In the back of her mind, she registered Dakota’s phone ringing, George leaving with an absent wave. Totally focused on what she was doing, she jumped when Dakota said her name.

“Oh, sorry, what?”

“We’ve got another body.”

“You mean another skeleton?”

“No, a body. Serena’s with her right now.” Serena Hopkins, the medical examiner Jamie worked with on a regular basis.

“Okay.” Confusion knit her brow. “Well, if it’s a body, Serena will take care of it. She doesn’t initially need me.”

“Not to do the examination, but there’s something about this one that you need to know.”

Jamie stilled, wondering what he was getting ready to say and fearing she wasn’t going to like it. “What?”

“She’s been branded. Upper left shoulder. The number seventeen.”

11

Jamie stared down at the woman on the slab before her. “How long has she been dead?”

The medical examiner, Serena Hopkins, set aside a tool and said, “Anywhere between four to six months is my best estimate, but who knows?”

“She’s very well preserved.”

“They found her in the basement of an old warehouse that was scheduled for demolition,” Connor said from her left.

“A damp area. I wouldn’t expect her to look this good.” If you could call it good with a slashed throat and what remaining skin she had in various shades of unattractive color.

On her right, Dakota shifted closer. “This particular basement had been converted into a freezer to store dry ice. The owner also rented out the bottom three floors as storage to various places.”

“So, basically, she’s been packed in dry ice for however long she’s been dead,” Serena concluded.

Jamie nodded. “Well, that would do it. But why is it no one noticed her until today? How long have they been using that freezer?”

“The guy I talked to said he rented half the space. Someone else had the other half, but the only thing in the other half was an old freezer and some meat hooks. He never bothered with it and everyone went about their business.”

“Who was renting the other half?”

“A guy who was working on starting his own meat packing company. Only it never got off the ground, so when he realized his business was going nowhere, he went to get the freezer and the few other items in there, figuring he could at least sell them to someone and recoup a bit of his investment. Only when he opened up the freezer . . .”

“He got the shock of his life?”

“Exactly.”

Jamie shook her head. “Is Jazz running dental impressions with missing persons reports?” She moved around the table needing to look at the woman’s arm.

Dakota eyed her. “Yes.”

Deep breath, Jamie.
Her throat tightened. Her lungs felt constricted. Just a little farther and she would be able to see . . .

. . . number seventeen.

The raised flesh mocked her, taunted her. She flashed back.
He walked toward her, the branding iron smoking red. “You’ll always
belong to me now. It’s time to release you from the pain.”

“What are you doing?” Terror that never left her increased threefold.
“It’s time.”

“For what?” she screamed.

“The end. I promised you I would make the pain stop.”

She stared at him. So this was it. He’d brand her and kill her. Cold
certainty curled in her stomach. This was the day she would die. His
eyes glowed with some manic glee. Excitement at her impending death.
Slowly, an idea formed.

“Who?” she asked, catching him off guard.

He stopped, some of the excitement fading from those weird eyes.
“What?”

“Who made you stop their pain? Who?”

He recoiled, pulled the branding iron away from her, and stared.

His lips moved, but no sound emerged. The hand that held his weapon
trembled.

Then he left, muttering. Something caught her attention to her right.
A shadow? The moon moving behind the trees causing the light to play
tricks with the corners of the room?

No time to dwell on it. He returned five minutes later, the iron fiery
red once more. “Don’t speak.”

She’d ignored him and pleaded, “Stop. Don’t do this!”

The sizzling iron touched her arm.

“Jamie? Jamie?”

She blinked.

Dakota’s hand rested on her upper arm, covering her white knuckles that had been clenched around her own brand hidden by her long-sleeved white shirt under the lab coat.

“Who is she?” Jamie demanded. “I need to know who she is.”

Serena’s BlackBerry beeped. She punched a button, then looked up. “I think I can help you out there. Jazz just emailed me. Her name is Lisa Dupre. Nineteen years old, she disappeared just after New Year’s last year.”

“And died a few weeks? months? later,” Jamie muttered. “If she died only four to six months ago, he kept her a long time.” The thought nauseated her.

Dakota blew out a sigh. “Connor, you want to take the family?”

“I want to be there,” Jamie ground out. No, she really didn’t, but this girl’s poor family . . . what they must be going through.

“What?”

“I need to be there for them. In case they have any . . . questions. Unfortunately, they won’t like the answers.”

Dakota and Connor exchanged a look. “Jamie, they don’t need to know what their daughter suffered.”

She chewed her bottom lip. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. They’ll know she had a bad ending, they don’t need to know the extent of it.”

“Will you give them my card? Tell them to call if they need to? I’ll be . . . careful with my answers to whatever they ask.”

Dakota paused, then held out a hand. “Sure.”

Jamie pulled a card out of her lab pocket. She kept some in there just in case. Dakota took it and slid it into the back pocket of his khakis.

Connor pulled his phone from his pocket. “I’ll give them a call and let them know. They may want to see her.”

Serena shook her head. “They don’t want to see her like this. I’d try to talk them out of that.”

While Connor did the dirty work, Jamie studied the slash on Lisa’s throat. Once again he’d used enough force to hit the bone. “So much anger,” she whispered.

Serena looked at her. “Why do you have the answers?”

Jamie let a deep breath slip out between her lips. “Because whoever killed her tried to kill me eleven and a half years ago.”

The woman blanched, her classically beautiful features twisted with shock. “What?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Care to share?”

“Not really. Maybe sometime. Does she have any broken bones?”

Serena studied Jamie but didn’t push. Instead, she gestured to the wall where she’d hung x-rays. She pointed to the wrist. “Broken in three places. But healed back pretty well.”

“He put a cast on her.”

Not bothering to ask Jamie how she knew that, Serena moved on to Lisa’s leg. “Here. A broken leg. The bone split in a couple of pieces. This part looks like it healed nicely, but there’s a chip missing here.”

Studying the x-rays, Jamie felt a chill move up her spine. She could have been looking at her own. “He used a baseball bat on her legs. Just enough force to break the bone, not shatter it.”

A swiftly indrawn breath from behind her made her look over her shoulder. Dakota’s eyes pierced her. “A baseball bat?”

Shoving all of the emotions that wanted to bubble to the surface deep down into a safe place, Jamie nodded. Dakota winced and Connor’s jaw went rigid.

Serena continued. “See this? The ulna. Broken in two places.”

“She fought him.”

Connor stepped forward. “Can you find any prints on her skin?”

Serena shook her head. “No, but I’ve scraped her for some trace evidence. I’ve also gone over her clothes with a fine-tooth comb.”

“Find anything?”

“Nothing yet. We’ll see.”

Lila stuck her head in the door. “Family will be here in about five minutes.”

A collective sigh echoed around the room.

Then Serena moved to cover Lisa’s body. Jamie decided it might be up to her to convince the family they didn’t want to see how Lisa ended up.

An hour later, Dakota marveled at Jamie’s skill in handling the shattered parents. She’d convinced them they didn’t want to see the remains of their daughter, and by the time they left, they’d decided on cremation.

Jamie had stood in the hallway and watched as Mrs. Dupre sobbed into her husband’s shoulder. They’d walked to the elevator clinging to one another, grieving the loss of their eldest child. Then Jamie had turned to Dakota and said, “You’re right. They’re better off not knowing.”

“I’ll give them a couple of hours to do some processing, then Connor and I will head over to the house to ask them some questions.”

They all needed a break from the intense emotions running through the room and had decided to meet at Flannigan’s. Jamie declared she didn’t really have an appetite, but decided she’d like the company.

Dakota was glad. He felt she needed to get away from the lab for a while. Samantha managed to get away and join them, as did George Horton.

Monica, a waitress they were all on a first-name basis with, approached them with a smile. Her spiky purple hair didn’t move in her trek across the floor. Today she had on a nose ring and four earrings in her left ear. “My favorite group is back.” She eyed George with a flirtatious smile. “And a newbie. Welcome.”

Offering her a small smile, George nodded. “Thanks.”

Jamie asked, “How’s school going, Monica?”

“It’s going. One more semester and I’ll be done. I graduate in December.”

“That’s great. You’re going to make a fine teacher.”

Monica smiled and took their order. After she left, Dakota turned to George. “Do you have anything you can add to your profile on this guy now that we’ve got another body? I’ve got the team at Quantico doing a profile workup too, and everything you’ve said has coincided with what they think. So far, it looks like we’ve found three of his victims. If Jamie’s right and he’s branding each one, we’re up to seventeen. That’s a lot of missing bodies.”

George shook out his napkin and placed it across his lap. He studied his fingers, then said, “I would say this guy is in his mid-thirties to early forties. Probably well educated. Physically strong. He’s probably something of a loner but can fit in well in social situations. He’s learned to adapt, be comfortable anywhere.”

“Why do you say that?”

George spread his hands. “Well, think about it. If he hadn’t, there’s no way he would still be walking the streets of our fair city. Someone would have caught on to him by now. He would have slipped up and made some kind of mistake.” His lips twisted. “From what you’re telling me, his crimes have been darn near perfect.”

Dakota shifted. “Not perfect. No one’s perfect. Which means there’s evidence out there, we just have to find it.”

“Be that as it may, I think he’s going to be a tough one to nail down.”

Unfortunately, Dakota felt like George was probably right.

Samantha took a sip of water. “What about his background. How he grew up? His home life?”

“Well,” George shrugged, “of course this is all based on an educated guess, but I would say he suffered a horrible childhood, was probably abandoned by a parent, and most likely suffered continuous abuse that messed up his mind.”

Dakota snorted. “I understand that children who are abused often follow the pattern and become abusers themselves, but my dad was about as bad as they come and I didn’t grow up killing people.”

Jamie twisted the napkin between her hands, her eyes on some faraway spot across the restaurant. When her mind registered his comment, she snapped her gaze in his direction. “I didn’t know that.”