Chapter 15

"Thanks for coming," Lina Thum said as Bel handed her a large cup of coffee. "And thank you for this. I'm so tired, I'm seeing double of everything."

"Me too," Bel said. No one had gone home yet. No one had slept, and time no longer held any meaning. All that existed were those forty-two girls and the need to find the murderer whose brutality destroyed so many lives. "You haven't started the autopsies already, have you?"

"Not yet. The bodies are too frozen," Lina said.

"I thought so, and I don't envy you. I'm stressed about the number of autopsies before us, and I don't even have to perform them."

"It is overwhelming." Lina patted Bel's arm. "But this is about something else. It's why I called all three of you here." She nodded toward the door as Griffin and Gold entered the morgue to join them. "Come on, I need to show you something."

She led them into the cold storage where bodies rested on every available surface, and seeing the women piled into the space wherever they fit was almost worse than seeing them in that freezer.

"I recognized her once we got the Jane Does under the lights," Lina said as she pulled back the sheet covering one woman. She'd been a pretty girl, and she was unfortunately one of the younger victims.

"I don't," Griffin said. "Who is she?"

"Victoria Scotts," Lina said. "I followed her case when it first broke, and while we'll have to run DNA and prints to confirm, I'm almost certain it's her. She was a nineteen-year-old politician's daughter who went missing twelve years ago."

"Twelve years?" Bel repeated.

"Yes." Lina met the detective's gaze with a sickened expression. "Twelve years ago, Victoria Scotts disappeared from her home, and it became a high-profile case because of her father's political career. Shots of Mr. and Mrs. Scotts begging the kidnapper to return their daughter aired constantly. The police were convinced her disappearance was politically motivated until the investigation uncovered evidence of abuse. The narrative changed, and the media crucified Mr. Scotts. His career crashed and burned, and Victoria was labeled a runaway instead of a kidnapping victim because of his crimes. The police assumed she fled to escape him, and they eventually halted the investigation. No one ever saw Victoria again… until she showed up on my table." Lina draped the sheet back over the girl's lifeless face. "The act of freezing the bodies will make pinpointing their times of death impossible. Our only hope at a timeline is to ID The Matchstick Girls and pray their names reveal when they went missing, but Victoria's presence gives us a starting place for how long our killer has been operating. Forty-two women over at least twelve years. That's an average of three murdered girls a year, and no one ever noticed."

"I'm up!" Olivia jerked up from where her head had been pressed against her desk. "I'm awake."

"Sorry." Bel rubbed her back as she slid a to-go cup before her. It had only been a few hours since they returned from the morgue, but it felt like a lifetime. "I didn't mean to scare you. Violet and Ewan heard what happened, and they bought us coffee and donuts from The Expresso Shot. I figured you would want something to eat." She handed a chocolate donut to her partner, and it barely left her fingers before it was in Olivia's mouth.

"Ewan's here?" Olivia asked, scanning the station for her boyfriend.

"Yeah. He's unloading the food, and then he'll be over to say hi."

"One reason I like smaller police stations. They let boyfriends bring you coffee. I might cry when I see him after last night… I'm surprised Eamon didn't stop by to check on you."

"He already did," Bel said, intentionally being vague about his show of support.

"Hmmm." Olivia's exhausted smile was more grimace than grin as her gaze snagged on something across the station. Bel followed her line of sight and found Violet and Deputy Rollo chatting in the room's corner, and by the way her friend nervously tucked her black hair behind her ears, Bel understood her partner's sudden interest in the secluded conversation. It seemed her matchmaking was going to plan.

"There's Ewan." Olivia stood up, forgetting about the flirting duo. "I'll be right back. I'm going to ask him to bring me a change of clothes. I still feel that freezer on me."

"That's smart," Bel said as her partner sought out her boyfriend's comfort. She didn't know how long they'd be stuck at the station, and she didn't relish the idea of solving this case wearing the same pair of underwear for days on end. She'd text Eamon after she ate the chocolate croissant Violet had bought specifically for her. Her friend knew she had a special place in her heart for The Espresso Shot's famous croissants, but the moment the flaky pastry touched her lips, a horrifying thought smacked her.

"What happened?" Olivia asked when she returned.

"Violet brought me a chocolate croissant," Bel answered.

"Okay?" Olivia gawked at her. "Maybe you should take a nap at your desk like I did. You aren't making sense."

"Violet and Ewan brought the entire station food, which I'm assuming was Ewan's idea since he didn't want you hungry… although after seeing Violet with Rollo, I wonder if she orchestrated it."

"I told you they would make a cute couple, but you're still confusing me."

"The pastries are The Espresso Shot's basics. Muffins, scones, donuts. But chocolate croissants are specialty items, and she only brought one for me, since she knows I love them."

"Okay?" Olivia looked so confused that Bel felt bad for trying to make a point while they were exhausted.

"She ordered me something specific because she knows me," Bel explained. "She always sees me at The Espresso Shot, so she's memorized my order. I have a list of which restaurants prepare the best vegetarian meals. We know these things because we live in Bajka. We spend time together, and by doing so, we've learned important information about each other.I think our killer lives in Bajka, because how else would he discover Walker owned his land outright or that his property bordered a secluded road? How could he predict no one would notice Walker's disappearance? How would he know which bills to pay or that automatic lights would fool an entire town into believing Walker was alive and not shriveling in the farmhouse walls? An outsider wouldn't know these things. When I assumed Walker was killed because of a drug operation, it made sense that the murderer was a stranger, someone using our town to lie low as they distributed their product. The cartel's reach is wide, and they'd have the manpower and knowledge to keep us in the dark, but a single serial killer wouldn't have the same resources. I could be wrong, but I think The Matchstick Girl Killer is someone we see daily."

"I don't want to believe that," Olivia said. "It makes sense, but I don't want to think that someone we pass every week in the grocery store was freezing girls to death. How could we walk by him and wave? I want it to be a stranger. Someone we don't stand in line for coffee with." She put her cup down as if she were no longer thirsty.

"I know," Bel said, images of Abel ordering oatmeal at The Espresso Shot flooding her memory. How many times had she greeted him without realizing he was capable of murder?

"We have to figure this out," Olivia said, her small voice practically begging. "I realize what Abel did to you was worse, but he took me too. I barely remember it, and I still needed therapy to deal with the emotions, but he didn't put me in a freezer with dozens of other dead girls for me to stare at as I froze to death. We can't let this man get away with this."

"We won't," Bel said. "Law enforcement officers aren't supposed to promise success, but it's just us, so I'll forgo protocol. I have five sisters, and I couldn't help but see their faces last night because while those victims weren't my family, they were someone's. Daughters, sisters, friends. Forty-two families lost a piece of themselves, so I'm going to remain at this station for as long as it takes to hunt him down."

"Olivia," Bel said as she entered the breakroom. "It's Lina. She has something for us." She removed her cell from her ear and tapped the speaker button as she leaned against the counter where her partner was fixing a cup of coffee. Not a single officer had gone home yet, everyone taking turns napping on the few station couches to keep the exhaustion at bay. Bel's veins were more caffeine than blood, and both she and Olivia were experts in utilizing the bathroom sinks as their personal showers. Griffin, who was always the first to send his detectives and officers home when they exceeded their limits, refused to leave his office, and if the commander-in-chief remained at his desk, so would the troops. As long as the sheriff lived within the station walls, so did everyone else. This case was a once-in-a-lifetime horror, and every Bajka police officer understood the unspoken agreement. They would not rest until those forty-two women found peace.

"Okay, I found her," Bel said to the M.E.

"Thanks," Lina said. "I can't say definitively since we've only just started the autopsies, but I rushed the toxicology on the few we performed."

The detectives had visited the morgue earlier to collect the first autopsies' evidence, and so far, they'd found nothing surprising. The Matchstick Girls were healthy, the cause of death hypothermia, and none of them had so much as particles of dust under their nails. They hadn't fought their attacker, nor had they resisted their deaths, and the lack of injuries on their persons inspired Lina to run a tox screening.

"I'll need to check every Jane Doe to confirm, but so far, the victim I tested came back positive for traces of Rohypnol."

"They were roofied?" Olivia asked, her face souring at the word. "They weren't…"

"Sexually assaulted?" Lina finished for her. "No. It appears he drugged them to keep them compliant when he moved them to the freezer. It seems he timed the murders so that the drug wore off once they were locked inside. They would've been groggy, but they were aware enough to understand their situation. I suspect he placed the matches in their hands. Otherwise, how did they find them?"

Her voice fell silent, but neither detective spoke as the medical examiner's words settled cold against their bones.

"Did I lose you?" Lina asked.

"No, we're here," Olivia said.

"It explains why the freezer door was clean and undamaged," Bel said, recalling the view of those depressing walls. "Any capable person would have tried to escape. They would've had marks on their hands from beating on the door. They also might have used the other dead girls to survive…" she trailed off, not wanting to dwell too long on that horrifying idea. "Someone fully conscious would've stripped the bodies for clothes or burned the unused shoes for light and warmth. At least one of those forty-two women should've fought back, yet they all sat there and burned their matches until they became one of his frozen statues. He didn't want a mess or conflict. He didn't want to see them struggle. He just wanted to watch them die."

"I hope the Rohypnol dulled the end," Olivia said.

"I like to think it did," Lina said. "I'm running the DNA and prints of the girls we autopsied. I'm hoping we get some hits so we can start identifying these Jane Does. I'll call back if we get any matches."

"Thank you," the detectives said in unison.

"I don't want this now." Olivia shoved the coffee away. "I don't feel good. Part is lack of sleep and proper food, but I hate this case. I hate we didn't find that freezer sooner."

"Thank God for that storm," Bel said.

"I know, but now I'm worried we'll never find the killer with the constant news coverage. Ewan keeps texting me photos of me on his television."

"Eamon too," Bel said.

"Whoever this Matchstick Killer is, he's probably long gone."

"Maybe," Bel said. "But he likes to watch. He watched those girls freeze. Let's hope he's watching us. He trusts that he's safe walking among us like a friend. Let's pray he's arrogant enough to stay."

"In other news, college student Sarah Bristol was reported missing by her family after the Thanksgiving break," the reporter on the breakroom television said, and both detectives snapped to attention.

"Centerville University confirmed that Bristol never returned to her dorm after the holiday, and her family is begging anyone with information about their daughter to call the tip line below," the reporter continued. "Sarah was last seen driving a tan Toyota Camry, wearing blue jeans, a pink sweater, and a pair of ladybug earrings." A photo of Sarah Bristol flashed onto the screen, and while her outfit wasn't the one described, the unique ladybug earrings sat visibly on her ears, signifying they were the girl's trademark jewelry pieces.

"Oh, thank god," Bel sighed, her chest deflating as she released her held breath.

"What?" Olivia asked.

"She isn't one of The Matchstick Girls. When the reporter said missing college student, my brain instantly went to the freezer, but that girl wasn't there."

"I hope she just ran away with a boyfriend," Olivia said. "I realize that's probably not the case, but after the freezer, I need her to be okay."

"I know." Bel wrapped an arm around her partner's shoulder. "We can't worry about her, though. We have enough missing girls to worry about, and maybe you're right. Maybe she decided college was stressful and a trip with a cute boy was worth freaking out her family."

The women exchanged a knowing look. If the parents were begging for the public's help, Sarah Bristol wasn't with a boy, but that scenario was all their brains could handle.

"What's that?" Olivia asked as their skin vibrated. "Oh, it's your phone. Someone texted you."

Bel released her and dug her cell from her blazer pocket. "They have an update on the freezer camera. The techs want us to stop by."

"Hopefully they have good news," Olivia said as they abandoned their coffees and walked to the lab.

"Thanks for coming down," the tech greeted. "Don't get your hopes up, though. I don't have much for you."

Olivia's chest visibly deflated as the women gathered around his station.

"The camera that the Matchstick Killer used was basically an expensive security system equipped with low-light night vision," the tech began. "High-definition visuals in the dark with motion detection. It served its purpose, but it's nothing the average person can't get if they're willing to spend the money."

"Could you trace the connection?" Olivia asked.

"No," he said. "Because the barn's location was so far from any wireless routers, the killer physically wired the connection. No Wi-Fi, no cloud storage, no account. It seems the moment we found Walker in the wall, he cut the wires. We have no way of finding him."

"Of course," Olivia mumbled under her breath. "But can't we follow the cables?"

"Much like the electricity, he tapped into the town's lines for most of the heavy lifting, and I'm sure he's ripped out the connections on his property. I will say this, though," the tech added, clearly bothered that he couldn't offer the disappointed detectives the smoking gun they were hoping for. "The camera was expensive, and someone who knew what they were doing wired it. I doubt our killer hired a technician to install it, so we're looking for someone well-versed in technology."

"Like the power siphoning," Bel whispered to herself.

"What was that?" he asked.

"Nothing." Bel tugged Olivia's elbow lightly as she turned to leave. "Thanks for everything. Call me if you find anything else."

"Will do," the tech said as the women climbed the stairs to their desks.

"You said, like the power siphoning, didn't you?" Olivia asked.

"Yeah, I think we're looking for someone skilled with technology and electronics," Bel said. "As well as a Bajka resident." She collapsed at her desk, and after waking up her computer, she pulled up her case notes and typed her two observations into a list. "I believe he lives here because of his knowledge of Walker's property, but Lina's call made me realize something else. He drugs them with Rohypnol to make them compliant during transportation, but the drug dissipates shortly after he places them in the freezer. He wants them to wake up before they die, but it was bitterly cold in there, and we had the door open. The Matchstick Girls didn't, so hypothermia would have set in quickly. They would've eventually lost consciousness, so the killer wouldn't have had time to drive far. He would've missed their deaths, so he has to live close."

"But it's a half-hour drive from Bajka to the farmhouse," Olivia said.

"We were coming from the property's entrance, though," Bel said, pulling up a map. "Our killer entered from that back road, and the barn is here." She pointed to the spot in the nothingness. "When we left the barn, we returned to the main roads, but what if he took a different route home? He enters from the rear of the property at the pull-off and then exits somewhere else to avoid creating a pattern. Walker's land is extensive. Just because we only found one pull-off doesn't mean there aren't other access points. When transporting the girls, he would've gone the long way. The back roads avoid town, but once his vehicle was empty, what would it matter?"

"I don't know if it's drivable, but what about this area?" Olivia pointed to a section of the map. "That's in the opposite direction of the farmhouse. If you drive from the barn to here, you're driving as the crow flies, and you could reach almost anywhere in Bajka from this point."

"We should check it out," Bel said.

"Can we take your car? I'm so tired, I might drive us right off the road."

"No problem. I'll mention it to Griffin, and then we'll go."

Twenty minutes later, the women parked at the edge of Walker's property, Olivia's proposed exit more than ideal. The trees offered ample protection, but they were spaced out far enough to allow an exiting truck to pass without issue.

"I think you found his exit," Bel said as they stood in the shade. The ground held no clues, but Lina had guessed he killed an average of three women a year. Three one-way trips below these trees wouldn't leave anything worth finding.

"Coming from this area, he could pull onto the dirt road that leads to a trailer park. It's a large community, so a car passing through wouldn't raise eyebrows," Olivia said. "Then from there, his trip could be anywhere from five to fifteen minutes long. If he lived in the trailer park, he would've been home in seconds."

"He doesn't live here," Bel said.

"What makes you say that?" Olivia asked. "The expensive security camera?"

"Because The Matchstick Girls aren't his first murders."

"Oh god." Olivia whirled around to face her. "Please don't say that."

"I don't want to, but these murders were expertly planned and executed." Bel absentmindedly picked at a bush. "Look how much effort went into obtaining this property. He killed Walker and assumed control of his life. He installed that freezer—alone, I expect, since hiring a crew would create witnesses—then he tapped into the power grid and mapped out every entrance and exit. He knew exactly why he needed this land and how he wanted to kill those girls. He left nothing of himself behind. No evidence, no mistakes, no witnesses. He's not an amateur. He's killed before, and I think often until he learned what he liked."

"We need to find this guy because, if that's true, our discovery won't stop him. He'll just start over," Olivia said. "But as horrifying as that is, why does that mean he doesn't live in the trailer park?"

"I've seen Bajka's cold case files," Bel said. "There aren't many, so the Matchstick Killer wasn't hunting in Bajka. It would've raised too many questions. I think he left town, learned how he liked to kill in other cities, and then left the bodies to return home. He either has money or a job that allows him to travel, and neither of those points to living in a trailer park."

"He travels a lot…" Olivia stared at the sky as she thought. "We've only identified one Jane Doe because of Lina, but they're all different ages, races, and body types. He doesn't have a preference, so he looks for opportunity instead. Girls that people wouldn't miss from other locations to keep Bajka safe for him."

"My guess is he's middle-aged but nice enough looking," Bel added. "He has a face that wouldn't scare his targets. They'd be comfortable having a drink with him or letting him sit at their table. They would feel safe opening up to him, and he probably targeted girls with family issues. He would lull them into safety by playing the father figure, and they would wake up in a freezer before they realized something was wrong."

"Okay, so we're looking for a handsome middle-aged man with enough money to travel who also has technology skills," Olivia said.

"Who works a job the public doesn't notice," Bel added. "He drugs the girls and then watches via video stream. Walker was hit over the head, but that could've been an accident. Even if it was premeditated, I still believe violence makes him uncomfortable. He doesn't enjoy the physicality of harming people, so he prefers living behind the scenes. He's someone with a low profile that we wouldn't bat an eye at. He hates being the center of attention and prefers to watch the action happen to others."

"Like a movie," Olivia said. "I was wondering if he was ex-military, but now I think that's wrong. A soldier deployed overseas would be well acquainted with violence, and I'd wondered if returning to civilian life drove him to feed the beast in other ways, but that doesn't fit the profile." She started pacing the dirt road as she gathered her thoughts.

"He transports the women to the barn after he kidnaps them, and he's someone people are accustomed to seeing," she finally said. "You know who drives large trucks and would never raise suspicions, even if they're in odd locations? Electricians who work at the power company like the men who found Walker's body."