Chapter 13

Saturday, March 13

2:00 p.m.

A few bumps and bruises, a mild concussion. Nothing she couldn't handle.

Leigh cringed against the bright fluorescent lights skewering her vision as she headed into the conference room. The station hadn't changed over the course of a day, but this case had. One victim had been looking into a twenty-year-old investigation, and they had reason to believe the other may have as well. Now they just needed to know why Michelle Cross and Gresham Schmidt didn't believe what was written in Lebanon PD's final reports.

And why the killer had possibly altered his MO.

Director Livingstone took position behind the podium at the front as the rest of the team found their seats. "Boucher, where are we at with the search of Michelle Cross's home and the death scene? Anything we can use to identify our unsub?"

"Not yet." The lieutenant leaned back in his seat as though he'd rather be anywhere but here. "My guys have photographed and printed every inch of that house, including what we found in the attic. Michelle Cross's fingerprints came back clean from the notes and photographs hidden upstairs. No one else handled her research. The subject of surveillance—Chris Ellingson—hasn't seen or heard from the vic since leaving town or in the two months since he's been back. I've got dogs up and down the river near the crime scene, scouring those woods for evidence, and uniforms questioning neighbors about anything suspicious. My guess, killer dropped our dead woman on the bridge and took everything with him. Maybe even changed his clothes to avoid leaving behind DNA. Same with the house."

"Agen' Brody, you believed we were looking for someone trained in forensics at the start of this investigation." The director changed gears. "Is that still the case?"

Leigh's phone pinged with an incoming message from beside her laptop. Another number she didn't recognize, but the sender had gone the extra mile to sign her name.

Please call me. Elyse.

Yeah. That wasn't going to happen. Leigh turned her cell screen down on the table.

This was her chance. To prove she belonged here. To prove Chief Maynor and everyone in this town was wrong about her. "It is. Considering the expertise needed to clean up after himself at the crime scene and Michelle Cross's home, I'd wager he took a deep interest in law enforcement at a young age and most likely applied to Lebanon PD when he got older. Perhaps taught himself everything he needed to know through his own research as well. Library books, internet searches—he would've gotten his hands on anything he could."

"So, what then? You want us to ask the local librarian who's been checking out books on forensics?" Boucher asked.

Low laughs eased the tension closing in. From all but Livingstone.

"Let's keep that in mind as a last resort." Leigh went on. "Our unsub is good at what he does. Past data and autopsies of the victims conclude killers of this caliber are practiced. Whether in the past or outside of town, there will be evidence of his early experiments. There will be reports of torture of animals or small children, or both. Someone would've noticed. A parent or a sibling, a teacher or friend. I recommend we contact the school board for incidents concerning the need for excessive discipline of any particular male students in the past decade to start. Detentions, violence against other children, arguments with authority figures. We should take those incidents and cross-reference them with applications run through Lebanon PD and surrounding towns."

"Why only male students?" Livingstone kept up the intensity Leigh had noted during Michelle Cross's autopsy. Always questioning, never satisfied with the answer. For her, knowing every detail ahead of time was a way of defending herself against the unknown. A lifelong pursuit that would only end in disappointment. "Men don't have a monopoly on murder."

"You're right. They don't, but history shows women are far more likely to internalize their anger and violence against themselves. Not others," Leigh said. "Apart from that, the trail where Michelle Cross was left for us to find was iced. It would've taken someone with great strength to drag her into position without slipping."

Something along the lines of pride transformed Chandler Reed's features and threatened to pull her out of focus. Every set of eyes in the room was on her. As though what she had to say was important. As though they believed her. Her brain only managed to process a quick bump in satisfaction at the idea.

"And if your boy isn't a local?" Boucher swung his attention to the wall on the other side of the room, hands clenched as tight as football laces in front of him.

"Then things get a lot more complicated." The scars Chandler Reed insisted on hiding beneath colorful tattoos—combined with the note in his voice—attested to experience.

"Our killer was obsessed with hurting these victims. He would've planned for every variable and studied them. While we still need a connection between this case to Gresham Schmidt, Michelle Cross has been confirmed to have an interest in the Joel Brody case." Her voice nearly caught on the name. "I believe the unsub wanted to keep her from finding something in those original case files. Either to protect himself or someone else. As of right now, we have no reason to assume Michelle Cross and Gresham Schmidt were in contact with one another, so our connection is their killer."

Confidence unlike anything she'd felt before tendrilled through her.

"He's comfortable in Lebanon. This is his home base. He knows the area and has most likely put an escape plan in place, but only if absolutely necessary." Leigh stood, rounding to the front of the long table to stand in front of the team. A police lieutenant she wasn't sure she could trust, a unit director who'd built her team on a grudge, a forensic investigator hiding behind that smile, and a criminologist in search of closure. What more could she ask for? "This is personal for him. He has a lot to lose to go to these kinds of measures, and he won't stop until he feels he's completed his task."

"What's that?" Boucher set dark eyes on her—no longer distracted—and Leigh suddenly felt that being the center of this man's undivided attention would cost her. In place of the self-assured, if not cocky, investigator she'd met at the death scene three days ago was a man with his own family to lose. With a son the same age Derek Garrison had been when he'd died.

"He wants what every killer wants, Lieutenant." She shoved the urge to cut her gaze to another team member deep and met Boucher head-on. "To feel in control."

Silence settled in the distance between them, and Leigh took her seat.

Livingstone didn't waste a second. Because in an investigation like this, with so many moving pieces, it was important to keep their eyes on the target: catching an unsub before he killed again. Her brother had been gone three days by the time she'd found the body under the house. Their killer could already have another victim under his knife. "We've confirmed the number of stab wounds are consistent between both recent victims, but neither match the results of the boys killed in the original investigation. Dr. Jennings will be in contact concerning toxicology and lab analysis."

"Wait. How many times were the boys stabbed?" Boucher separated his hands in question without facing the director.

Leigh held back an answer, the visual all too clear in her head.

"Thirty-one according to the autopsy reports." Livingstone raised her chin a few millimeters higher.

Boucher turned this time. "I pulled those files after we connected this case to the ones from twenty years ago. Nothing in them said anything about thirty-one stab wounds."

Leigh had an idea of in whose hands the final autopsy reports for Troy Brody and Derek Garrison had ended, but accusing the chief of police of corruption without proof would only detract from their goal. "Detective Maynor—Chief Maynor—was convinced there was a leak of information within the department at the time." Whether he was that leak, she had her own theory. "Reporters—and family members—knew too much, in his opinion. It wasn't uncommon with high profile cases at that time to withhold reports from certain investigators to compartmentalize information. Everything would've had to go through him."

The arrogant bastard. A practice that had most likely resulted in compromising the investigation. Because how thorough could detectives really be without all the details of their own case?

Chandler Reed leaned forward in his chair. "Mismatched number of stab wounds. Could be a copycat."

The federal investigator was right. The man who'd killed her brother and Derek Garrison wouldn't have mistaken the number of times to stab these recent victims, and her experience studying crime statistics and profiles of the country's worst murderers said he wouldn't have changed his MO either. Thirty-one wasn't random. It'd been chosen for a reason. It was important for him to leave his signature. It was the number that would've fulfilled his craving and kept him going until the next victim came along.

"We're looking into why there's a change in MO. Aside from the obvious difference in age and gender, the killer didn't actually know how many times to stab Michelle Cross and Gresham Schmidt because there's no report or news article to tell him." Livingstone slid one hand into her blazer. "It would explain the toy soldiers, too. Whoever killed our recent victims may not have had access to the original set."

Boucher practically growled. "Joel Brody could've had a partner police didn't know about."

"Or he was actually innocent." Chandler Reed seemed to be exactly what she needed him to be. A believer in a well of deniers trying to pull her beneath the surface of the water. So far, he'd been nothing but supportive, friendly, and understanding. How the world hadn't cut those traits from him after he'd obviously suffered at the hands of violence, she didn't know. And, strangely, she wanted a bit of that softness to bleed off on her. Just for a little while. "In my experience, serial offenders rarely change their MOs or their hunting grounds, and they sure as hell don't disappear for two decades without a trace. I'm not sure we're looking for whoever killed those boys for these murders now, but it's possible someone wants us to believe we are."

Weight solidified on Leigh's chest. No matter how much she wanted it to be true, Chris Ellingson was potentially not the killer they were looking for today. She hadn't been able to prove it as a seventeen-year-old, and she couldn't prove he was responsible for Michelle Cross's and Gresham Schmidt's deaths now. "Whatever the case—whether we're dealing with a copycat or not—this isn't over."

"What makes you say that?" Boucher asked. "You got a crystal ball hiding under that blazer we don't know about?"

"Not at the moment, but Michelle Cross and Gresham Schmidt can't be the only ones digging up the past." Apprehension lodged in her throat. Journalists, authors, true crime podcasters, TV series producers—they'd all tried to get their pound of flesh. College had been the hardest. The wounds had still been fresh, and her fellow students' curiosity never faltered. But watching a true crime documentary and experiencing it firsthand didn't give a voice to the victims. It didn't help her talk about her feelings. They couldn't solve a case that was already closed by police. "If the connection between both victims is their private investigations into the Joel Brody case, there could be more victims out there we're missing."

"Damn armchair detectives." Boucher collapsed back in his seat. "Crime isn't entertainment or escapism from problems. It's real. It's what people have to live with every day. Hell, Michelle Cross didn't care about those boys she was looking into. She just wanted a distraction from her pathetic life."

"And Gresham Schmidt?" Livingstone lost her practiced detachment right then. In curiosity's place something antagonistic and abrasive clawed from beneath her expression. "What about him?"

"I can tell you one thing, Director. The only reason a retired cop is looking into a case outside of his jurisdiction is to keep himself from facing the truth." Boucher flipped his hand up as though he'd suddenly started conducting a chamber orchestra of fifty musicians. "Nobody needed him to solve cases anymore, and he couldn't live with that."

"You didn't know him," Chandler Reed said.

Boucher half turned to face him two rows back, hands fisted with battle-ready tension. Practically looking for a fight. "Did you?"

"Enough." Livingstone took back command of the room with a single warning. "Our killer knows the original case enough to replicate the MO, but he doesn't know the fine details. He's playing pretend. If the original killer is still in Lebanon, we might be looking at an escalation from the unsub to get his attention."

"Or a response." Leigh didn't even want to think of the possibilities. "Serial offenders leave signatures for a reason. They're egotistical, and they don't like to share the spotlight."

"You know, you keep saying serial killer and serial offender, but from where I'm sitting, we've got two bodies. Michelle Cross and Gresham Schmidt. That stuff that happened twenty years ago? You said it yourself, we're looking at a copycat." Boucher's impatience had reached a high point. Muscle tightness and fidgeting suggested he wanted to be on his feet, uncovering the next lead, getting this sickness out of his town so things could go back to normal. But that was the problem. Lebanon would never be the same again. Not after this. "Don't you guys down at the FBI have a rule about the number of victims this guy would have to kill in order to call him a serial? It's three. Shit, even I can count."

A phone chimed with an incoming call from the head of the room.

Chandler Reed made his way down the stadium seating and into the hallway, his voice low as he answered his cell.

"Agen' Brody, go through the evidence recovered from Michelle Cross's home. Find out what the victim was doing in the days leading up to her death and construct a timeline of her movements. I want to know who else she talked to and who she intended on interviewing." Livingstone's authority bled into every word as Leigh collected her notes. "Boucher, get back to doing what you do best and get me something I can use to identify the bastard behind this before he kills someone else. I'll have Reed find me someone who can give us answers on the lab reports we're waiting on until our medical examiner decides to grace us with her presence."

"That's going to be a problem." Chandler Reed centered himself in the doorway, his phone still in hand. "Dr. Jennings was just reported missing."