Page 55 of Nothing Hiding

The only thing he still had to think about was his current victim. Would he kill her as an extra sacrifice?

And then, it came to him in a blaze of light that seemed to cut the darkness. He shouldn’t kill her, and he might benefit even more if she remained alive. That way, he could in fact use her.

The killer knew his intelligence. He'd always been a phenomenally sharp and insightful person. People had praised him frequently for his brain power.

He closed his eyes, letting the darkness flow over him, feeling the energy he'd absorbed from the earlier kills that would help him with this one, mapping out his new way forward. It would involve some driving, but he was ready for that.

It would all be worth it because he’d have a better sacrifice and a new location.

He was excited about his victim to be.

The stones were screaming for her life force.

And so was he.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

"There's another missing woman. She was reported missing about an hour ago.”

Juliette turned to Wyatt as he walked out of the interview room, breaking the bad news as soon as the door had closed.

“What happened?” he asked, his voice taut. “Are they sure about the timeline?”

“She left home for a modeling job ten minutes away and never got there. The agency knew about the crimes in central London so far, so when she didn't arrive and her phone was off, they called police."

Concern flashed in Wyatt's eyes. "But that means it couldn't be this guy in here. He was out in the woods then. Not in London.”

"Look, there's a chance this disappearance is coincidental."

Wyatt shook his head. "No, Juliette. No. We can't risk assuming that for something this important. Not now. We have to take this seriously."

Juliette frowned, her mind racing. What happened next was going to be critically important.

"Alright. Emergency plan of action. First things first, let's get a network of police on the alert in that area. All available police resources need to be on scene. We must shut down as many roads as possible. Stop all vans in and out of the area. It’s getting dark, and the streets will be quieter now. They should be able to do it."

"Agreed. It might be too late, but we need to focus on that end point. And what about the others, the ones you mapped?" Wyatt asked.

"Yes. We need to search every one of those locations where this woman's body could be dumped."

Dumped.She hated the word.

And hated the fact that they still didn't know if this was the killer at work, or whether Doone was the killer, still sitting in the interview room right here, evading their questions.

But now that she thought about it, his evasive answers had alluded to others. There seemed to be a network of people who believed in the powers of the stones, and she had no doubt that they colluded in secret, sharing their ideas and wild theories, offering each other support and encouragement.

So, the man in the interview room might not be the killer, but he might share the same mindset. He might even have communicated with the killer in the past, most likely on an anonymous and highly secretive basis. This killer would have been careful. And so was Doone, talking in circles, refusing to give any real information.

"I'm going to get moving on this, now," Wyatt said. "I think we should leave forensics in Doone’s house, but Harris and Black should return to London, and there, they can spearhead the search."

“Yes. We need them in charge there,” Juliette agreed.

Juliette wanted so badly to be there, in London, joining in the search. She wanted to make sure that the police had gotten those sites plotted correctly, and that they weren't off by a vital few yards that might mean the latest victim wasn't found.

But she couldn't. She knew that Wyatt would organize it down to the last detail, and that Sierra's plotting of the sites would be geographically precise. She relied on her team and knew that despite their conviction that her theories were harebrained, Harris and Black would be utterly committed to finding the missing woman.

And the reason she couldn't do any of this was that she now had another, tougher job.

This killer might have shared his plans with the man in the interview room, as she was now suspecting.

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