Page 44 of Run for Her Life
“I thought there was no DNA or prints.”
“There isn’t. But they found pollen. It’s calledViola glabella.” She read from her phone. “Shaded forest floors in the Pacific Northwest, common in Washington’s old-growth forests and stream banks. It doesn’t disperse easily via air, meaning direct contact is required for transfer.”
Aiden set his coffee down and straightened up. “Jackie had a bouquet of flowers at her place. Stream violets, remember?”
“I think so.” She quickly checked her phone. “That’s where the pollen’s from. So the killer has been in Jackie’s house.”
The wheels in his mind spun. “I have to go.”
“Where?”
“Jackie’s place. I’ll take Lisa.” He was almost frantic, like his thoughts were racing and he was struggling to catch up. He began backing away.
“What are you looking for?”
“She was obsessed with the fire – rather the massacre. More so than the regular folk in this town. I’ll be back. Following a hunch.”
“Okay.” Zoe headed back to the office and locked the door behind her, shutting out the humming at the substation. The events from last night still clung to her skin like grime. Shame stirred inside her. She wanted to crawl under a rock and die. What was Simon thinking chasing her like that?
She pulled out her phone and shot a message to Benny.
Z: Book me in ASAP, please.
She didn’t wait for a reply. He always took his sweet time. Instead, she decided to go through Annabelle’s autopsy reports again. There had to be something she was missing. She began reading through the notes and reports again, absorbing everything piece by piece. She didn’t know how much time had passed.
Multiple contusions and abrasions across the anterior torso, bilateral upper arms, and thighs, indicative of repetitive blunt force impact.
Linear impact marks across the lateral ribs (T5–T9 bilaterally), consistent with compression injuries caused by sustained external force. The absence of fractures suggests sublethal force applied over time rather than a single crushing event.
And then something caught her eye.
Distinct heat demarcation lines present, inconsistent with exposure to an open flame. The pattern suggests radiant heat exposure at close proximity rather than direct flame contact.
There was fire damage but not from the actual flame. It was stimulated heat exposure. She flipped through the report again.
No soot in nares, trachea, or esophagus, ruling out inhalation of combustion byproducts.
She sat back in her chair, her mind reeling. Annabelle was put through extreme stress and torture. Stimulated heat. Blunt force trauma. Hunting darts. It was elaborate and specific and psychopathic. She scanned the autopsy reports of the teenagers from the Pineview Falls Massacre, her eyes flicking between the forensic details. Bruising patterns. Thermal injuries. Signs of prolonged psychological distress. Each detail echoed back, a perfect match to Annabelle.
Same impact zones. Same heat exposure. Same biochemical markers of extreme fear before death.
Her stomach twisted. This wasn’t just similar; it was identical.
Annabelle and the victims of the big fire were tortured and killed the exact same way.
TWENTY-SEVEN
PAST
The music made the air vibrate. Zoe felt the rhythm reverberate from the ground up to her legs, soaking into her bones. The strobe lights pulsed, slicing through the darkness in jagged bursts, revealing the dingy nightclub in disjointed glimpses.
Shadowy figures dancing. Sticky floor. Dark corners. Leather booths.
It was a messy club—not the kind for a nice night out, but the kind where people danced as if their lives depended on it, with sweat dripping down their backs and mascara running down their cheeks. Zoe was feeling messy too as she moved and danced, chasing some kind of resolution she knew deep down she would never find here. A nameless guy had his arms wrapped around her waist and was kissing her neck. She allowed herself a moment of fancy.
She was supposed to be celebrating. She had gotten into Quantico. But the pleasure in the pit of her stomach felt hollow. Her eyes scanned the dimly lit club. For a second, she saw Rachel. Then another burst of light and she saw Rachel again. Every glimpse of her was the same—she stood motionless, unblinking, her skin almost slimy like her flesh was hanging off her bones.
Zoe clenched her teeth and her nostrils ballooned. Rachel was dead. Rather than her absence, it was her secrets that loomed over Zoe’s life. Her blood ran hot and heavy in her veins. This is what her mother had left her with—lack of closure and guilt. She had no right to convince a little Zoe to not go looking if anything happened to her and to do everything in her power to cover it up. Silly little Zoe had fallen for it and tampered with her mother’s crime scene.
