Page 22 of Good Girls Don't Cry

Needing to defuse the situation, Jenna leaned forward. She’d always admired Emily’s strength in any situation. “How you managed to keep it together under so much pressure I have no idea. If a grisly crime scene, rockslides, and someone shooting at you isn’t bad enough, then Dave hauled you up to a chopper in high winds with a storm coming. I’m not surprised you’re in shock. I figure if that happened to me, I’d be hiding under the bed for the rest of the year.” She smiled at her. “I’m so proud to have you on my team, Em.” She swung her gaze to Raven, who looked just fine. Nothing seemed to faze him. “Are you okay, Raven? I should have asked earlier, I apologize.”

“I was a little upset about losing my truck but that new one is mighty fine.” Raven grinned at her. “The other stuff, well, I’m used to it—living in the mountains, things happen. Not crime scenes per se, but I’ve seen plenty of dead bodies in my lifetime, and once you’re under fire in battle, how to survive becomes an instinct.” He glanced at Kane. “I’m like Dave when it comes to heights, nothing worries me. I don’t scare easy. I actually enjoyed the ride up the mountain, it was crazy good.” He rubbed Ben’s ears. “Ben liked it too.”

Needing to get back on the case, Jenna pushed slowly to her feet. Her back ached and her swollen ankles made her boots too tight. “Okay. Thanks for the updates. I need to get back to the office.” She looked at Kane and Carter. “Grab your wet clothes. We’ll wash and dry them back at the office. Best investment the mayor ever made was installing a washer and dryer in the locker rooms. How many times have we gotten back to the office soaked through or covered in blood?”

“Too many times.” Kane picked up a plastic garbage bag and whistled to Duke, who was asleep in the basket, with Zorro dozing on the carpet beside him.

“I’ll ride back with Rowley.” Raven smiled at Kane. “It’s been a long time since I watched someone rappel down a slide rope so fast. Not since my last mission.”

“Practice makes perfect.” Kane took Jenna’s hand and they headed for the door.

As they reached the Beast, she looked at him and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Do you figure he recognizes you?”

“Nope.” Kane frowned as Carter followed them outside. “Just fishing, is all.”

Jenna dragged herself into the passenger seat. Raven had known Kane. They’d spent over a week escaping the enemy after Raven’s chopper was shot down during a military mission. That was before Kane had plastic surgery and changed his name. She looked at him. “Would it be a problem if he did, do you think?”

“Nope.” Kane slid in behind the wheel. “He’s solid. I’d trust him with my life.”

Jenna shook her head in dismay. “I hope you’re right.”

Twenty-Five

Once they arrived at the office, Jenna had everyone meet up in the conference room. She asked Maggie to send out for pizza as it was obvious the cookies hadn’t touched the sides of Kane’s stomach. She could hear him rumbling like a teddy bear all the way back from Wolfe’s office. Inside the conference room, Rio had set up the whiteboard and was making additions. He already had a list of all the male victims they’d recovered from the limo and a second list of the missing girls, with photographs. On the opposite side of the board, he had an image of Samantha Haimes and the crime scene photos of the female victim with the copper pennies on her eyes. It was blatantly obvious who the victim was, and Jenna’s stomach dropped at the sight of the poor girl. She could only imagine how difficult it would be for her parents to identify her body later in the afternoon. She smiled at Rio when he turned away from the board and she brought them up to date with all the information that she’d received at Wolfe’s office. “I can see you’ve been busy. What do you have for me?”

“Unfortunately, nothing set in stone.” Rio rubbed the back of his neck but remained at the whiteboard, pen in hand “With the help of Bobby Kalo, we hunted down some of the most recent men released from jail who might be inclined to do this type of murder. If we had some clue to a time frame, it might help.”

“How did you determine who might be inclined to do this type of murder because each one of them so far has had different MOs?” Kane leaned back in his chair. “And we would need to find the murder he claims as his to get any type of time frame.”

“We went with what information we had. One difference was that the copycat killer of James Earl Stafford didn’t rape his victims. The female victim found in Stanton Forest was raped. So we made a list of anyone released from jail who’d been serving a sentence for any type of sexual assault and released in the last six months. We came up with four names: Ben Holloway, Jasper Montgomery, Silas Thorne, Jim Birch. All these men lived in surrounding counties. They could all live in town now, for all we know. I haven’t had the time to check them out yet. I’ve asked Kalo to do background checks and I’m waiting for him to get back to me.”

“So I’m assuming these men committed crimes against adults or we would have been notified of any child sex offender releases.” Kane rested his forearms on the table and shook his head. “It’s a shame we can’t flash their pictures all over the media and ask people if they’ve seen them, but I guess even sex offenders have rights.”

Pushing her hair out of her eyes, Jenna nodded. “Yeah, they’ve done the time and been released. Maybe they’re changed men, for all we know. It seems obvious to me that more than one of our murder victims was killed by this man. I don’t know why he’s doing this, but he must have been interrupted in his killing spree, got sent to jail on a misdemeanor, and a copycat took his place. This is the problem. This guy is mad at the guy who murdered in his place. Someone else got the thrill of the kill while he was sitting in prison doing time for something else. Take note of what Jo said: Serial killers like to own their kills. They relive every second and take trophies. So we need to look closer to home.”

“That’s easier said than done.” Rio sat down at the table and looked at her. “We must assume he’s aiming the messages at either you or Wolfe, so we should concentrate on the homicides involving women over the last seven years that involved both of you.”

“That’s a ton of cases.” Kane whistled. “I figure we take it from the date of the oldest copycat murder of the two so far. There will be more. He’s trying to prove a point. I figure he won’t stop until he’s killed all the hostages.”

Unable to allow that to happen, Jenna shook her head. “I’m hoping we’ll stop him long before he kills them all. He has our attention and made his point. I figure he’ll replicate the last kill that was his and it will reignite his fantasy—we know they all have one special fantasy and none of the others would satisfy him. He’ll keep one girl for himself. One special kill to prove his point before he moves on. We need to find him. So far, he isn’t killing in the sequence the murders occurred, is he?”

“Not for the last two we know about, no.” Rio shook his head. “We can’t just sit by and wait for him to kill again, can we? There must be something we can do to stop him.”

Jenna turned to a knock on the door, and Maggie came in loaded up with pizza boxes. She waved her inside.

“The manager of the pizzeria, Brian Rhoads, is such a nice man. He dropped them by personally.”

Jenna smiled. “He is indeed.” She opened the lid of a box. “Want a slice?”

“Oh, no, thank you.” Maggie smiled at them. “Pizza gives me indigestion.”

After Maggie left and the deputies demolished the pizza, Jenna thought through what little they had on the murders. She looked at her team. “I know we feel useless at this time, but with luck, Wolfe might find something. He’ll have test results by the morning.” She looked around the table. “For now, we need to rely on old-fashioned police work. Rowley and Raven, I want you to visit the local bars, motels, and Realtors. See if anyone knows or has seen any of the men on our list. Take the photos of the suspects on your phones and be discreet. In the morning, I’ll go with Dave to visit some of the ranches that hire over summer.” She looked at Rio. “Maybe call some of the local stores who hire casual help, ask if they have hired anyone recently.”

Everyone nodded. Jenna stood slowly. “I’ll leave it in your capable hands, Rio. Keep me in the loop if there are any breakthroughs. I’ll be working from home for the rest of the day.” She turned to Kane. “Let’s go.” She looked at Carter. “You too. I figure you’ve done enough for one day.”

“Well, thank you, ma’am, much obliged.” Carter stood and pushed on his damp Stetson. He indicated to Zorro to follow him and headed out of the door.

“Is everything okay, Jenna?” Kane walked with her to her office to collect her things. “It’s only five after four.”

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