Page 46 of Nothing Hiding

Juliette tried not to let Harris's threat hold her back as she and Sierra focused on plotting the locations of where each victim had been taken and where they'd been posed.

Wyatt was the one who answered the Scotland Yard detective, straightening up from staring at the screen, and turning politely toward him.

"You know, Detective Harris, I've known Juliette for a few months now, and we've worked together on some serious cases. The one thing I can say, Detective, is she has good instincts. She can get right into a killer's mind and figure him out. And sometimes, that's more important and useful than the camera footage," he explained.

Harris grunted in response, clearly not convinced. Juliette tried to ignore him and turn her mind to the task at hand.

"We've got two sets of coordinates here," Sierra said. "Start and finish? We don't have the exact places where they were taken or where they were killed.”

Juliette nodded. "Yes. We know their starting point, which is their home or work base in London, and then we know where they were positioned after their death."

"And this is relevant?" Black asked, sounding more incredulous than curious. Juliette ignored her.

"I'm going to say that the positioning, the end point, is the more important one because he went to so much trouble to prepare and plan it. Yes, they all worked or lived in central London, but perhaps that's just how he ended up seeing them."

"So. One, two, three."

Juliette stared down at the three points, looking at the shape of it, the distances between the sites.

"It's not so much a triangle as part of a circle," she said thoughtfully. "Now that I'm seeing this here, it looks as if this is a portion of a circle. Can you see how there's almost exactly the same distance between each site? That's planned, for sure."

Sierra nodded. "We could tell where the next body is going to be dumped then?"

"Unless he's planning an entire circle," Juliette warned. She didn't want to think about that possibility, but it was important to be realistic about the possible extent of this killer's plans. If he was planning to create an entire circle within central London, he could do it. There was the space. It would end up being—she quickly calculated—about forty sites.

Forty sites, give or take a few yards each, that would need to be permanently monitored and guarded? It would not be possible.

Why was this making her think of something else? Juliette looked up, away from the computer screen, bypassing the doubtful gaze of Harris and the unfriendly scowl that Black was giving her.

This was making her mind leap between the connections. The circle. The idea of immortality. Even the victims themselves. Looking again at what Sierra had plotted and visualizing how the bodies had been posed, she saw that they had all been positioned to face inward in that circle.

And that thick, gray eyeshadow. A connection, a link?

Then the idea came to her, the name that had been simmering at the back of her mind. The configuration that this reminded her of.

"Stonehenge," she said aloud.

Now, Harris and Black stared at her incredulously.

"What are you talking about?" Black demanded. "Stonehenge has nothing to do with this case."

Juliette took a deep breath, gathering her thoughts. "As you know, Stonehenge is a circle of standing stones, arranged in a particular configuration. Deeply symbolic to many, both past and present."

"But it's in Wiltshire, nowhere near here," Harris pointed out.

"What's important is the configuration. It's a horseshoe shaped circle, with stones positioned in a particular way, facing inward."

She turned back to the computer screen, studying the plotted locations of the victims. "Maybe this killer is trying to create his own version of Stonehenge, using the bodies of his victims instead of stones?"

Sierra's eyes widened in realization. "That would explain the positioning of the bodies," she said. "They're all facing inward, just like the stones in Stonehenge."

"This is utter nonsense," Black said.

Juliette shook her head. "It's actually common for killers to have a fascination with historic rituals or beliefs," she said. "And if he's trying to create his own version of Stonehenge, using human sacrifices each time, it could explain why the locations are so carefully chosen and spaced out. And why he grayed their eyes. Stone gray."

Sierra and Wyatt exchanged a glance, both caught up in the theory as well. Harris still looked skeptical.

"I really think this is too left field to consider seriously," he said. "I can't see what my superiors would make of it. Wouldn't go down well." He shook his head, allowing himself a small smile as if visualizing their apocalyptic reaction.

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