Page 10 of Some Saviors Can Break You

“You didn't get a look at the driver, did you?”

“No. I wish I did. I was watching you while I was waiting for my driver and I saw the car heading for you, I didn't think, I just reacted.”

“If you'd hesitated I'd be dead.”

The thought that Florence might have died before he’d had a chance to get to know her didn't sit well with him. “Lucky I'm quick on my feet,” he quipped to lighten the mood.

“Yeah, lucky. What time exactly did you come out?”

“Just before quarter to ten.”

She fiddled with the computer and fast-forwarded through the footage, stopping just before the time he’d said. She pressed play, and they both watched as the security cameras caught a car come flying past. It was clear from what they could see that it had deliberately aimed right for Florence. The car didn't swerve or waver, the driver obviously wasn't drunk or high.

The attack had been deliberate.

Someone had wanted Florence Harris dead, but was it because the driver had just wanted to kill someone or had she been targeted?

As they watched they saw Eli go running across the road and tackle Florence, both of them rolling onto the pavement.

Tires screeched as the car took off, zooming out of screen.

Florence paused it just before it disappeared. She turned to him with a grin on her face. “Look at that. We got a nice clear shot of the license plate.”

2:16 P.M.

“I can't believe you figured out his pattern,” Jake Zeus said as they pored over the maps.

“It was just a hunch,” Florence told her partner, brushing off his praise. It was just observation, intuition, and good luck that she had managed to predict where the killer was going to dump his next body. “Do you think now that we figured out where he’s going to be that he’ll change things up?”

“Depends how set he is on following his modus operandi.” Jake studied the map for a moment longer and then said, “It allseems so obvious now that we know it, I can't believe we didn't see it before now.”

“We couldn’t have seen it until he did enough dumps.” The pattern needed enough bodies before you could see what he was doing, but now the fact that he was making an eye was obvious when you looked at the map. He was moving all across the city. The first ten body dumps had made a large circle, and the next four had started making a small circle in the middle. Once you knew what you were looking for, it was easy to see it.

“What made you think of an eye?” Jake asked.

“The fact that he cuts into the victims the same words.I am nothing. I was just thinking that when you think you're nothing, it’s because you think no one sees you, and because they don’t see you, you aren’t worthy of being seen. You're nothing. I looked at what we knew so far and thought that it looked like an eye. I used that to start searching dumpsters.”

“Next time you decide to go out looking for body dump sites, you should probably tell your partner.” He shot her a reproachful look.

“Sorry about that,” she said sheepishly. “But you have the baby, and this was off the clock. I thought I'd let you actually get some time with your family, and if it turned out I was on to something, I would have brought you in. I swear.” Florence didn't want Jake to think that she was shutting him out on purpose. He and his wife had a four-month-old baby at home, and he was always talking about how he hardly got any time to spend with them, she’d just been trying to cover every base.

“It’s okay.” Jake reached over and squeezed her shoulder. “But don’t do it again.”

“I won't,” she promised.

“So, we can add what we know to his profile, we’re getting closer to finding him.”

“The car led us to a rental agency, even though he paid them cash under the table to get them to rent him the car without a license, at least we have a description of him now.” It had been disappointing to track the license plate to a small car rental dealership and find out that someone had been paid a lot of money to agree to let him rent the car without a paper trail. Their killer was smart, and apparently he had a lot of money to throw around because he’d paid the dealership ten thousand dollars, enough to convince them to go against their policies.

“A description is better than nothing,” Jake reminded her.

That was true, but the description was nothing special—tall, medium build, short cut brown hair, hazel eyes, and a cleft chin. They might be able to use that once they already had their guy in custody, but it was unlikely it would lead them to the man’s identity. Still, the sketch would be shown on news stations today in the hopes that it might garner them some leads. More than likely, it would give them dozens of false leads, but again that was better than nothing.

“So, where do we go from here?” she asked. They had the guy’s pattern, and they knew that he had driven on to the dumpster that had been next on her list after he’d tried to run her down, and left victim number fifteen. That was what had proved her initial speculation that it might have been the Dumpster Killer who had tried to hit her with his car. After she’d been pushed out of the way by Eli Lennox, he’d continued on to the dumpster, left the body, and then disappeared back into whatever hole he was hiding in.

Eli.

Why couldn’t she get him out of her head?

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