His Garden of Bones (Skye Cree Book 4) (4 page)

“I always worry about you regardless of where I am.”

“I know. I love you, Josh Ander.”

“I love you too, Skye Cree. Take care. I’ll see you on Friday.”

Skye hung up with a heavy heart. No doubt about it, she missed Josh. To Kiya and Atka, she pointed a finger and said, “Okay, you’re both allowed to come with me but only if you stop sending out an SOS to Josh. And Atka stays in the car. She’s still too much of a puppy and jumpy to be allowed near evidence that needs bagging and tagging.”

She pushed the key into the door lock and muttered to Kiya, “And keeping you penned up is a total waste of time, impossible to do. But I don’t want you out wandering around, got it?”

Typically, the wolf ignored her.

Skye beat Harry to University Village by ten minutes. The fashionable, upscale mall near the University of Washington made for a strange place to dump a body—especially for the potential serial killer they thought was on the loose. The crime scene techs and the coroner must have thought so too because they were still hard at work taking measurements and photos when Skye walked up to the area roped off by yellow tape.

The area was different than what Harry had described to her earlier. For one, the place wasn’t an alleyway at all but rather a small stretch of undeveloped right of way, a short twenty yards from the front door of the nearest shop.

Unlit, but adjacent to the parking lot, the locale might play into their guy’s previous disposal method. If this was the same dude, he’d left his two previous victims in a wild, bramble-filled dump ground bordered by I-5 and Beacon Hill known as The Jungle.

She wasn’t ready yet to accept that he might’ve made the jump to a retail shopping outlet. That is, until she spotted the handy hedge that could easily hide his unloading a body out of his car.

Skye ducked under the tape and took up a stance near a band of shrubs high enough to block out what was happening on the other side. She made her way around bog and huckleberry, even caught strands of her hair in a tall vine of some kind. After getting her hair out of the mess, she got close enough to the woman’s naked body to realize the young victim hadn’t been killed here. Keeping her distance to six feet, she guessed the woman’s age at probably no older than twenty.

The victim’s ashen face had been left battered and bruised, her throat marred by deep purple crevices, her naked body mutilated.

She was still studying the face while fighting a wave of nausea when Harry interrupted her train of thought.

“Most of the shops around here closed up at nine o’clock, some even earlier at eight. We’re lucky the jogger decided to go for a run when he did. Otherwise the body would’ve been out here longer. By the time he happened along, the parking lot had pretty much cleared out.”

She took a couple steps closer to the body, swallowed hard as she tried to count the stab wounds. She gave up after ten. But it was the condition of her breasts that sickened Skye the most. Both had been mutilated beyond reason.

“What you’re saying is that the body hadn’t been here for that long, another hurried drop and dump. Is this the runner’s regular route?” Skye wondered aloud.

Harry went over the notes from the first cop who’d arrived on the scene. “Yep. Jogger works third shift and says he routinely runs along here three times a week before clocking in at his job at midnight. He made the 911 call at three minutes after ten. What are you thinking?”

“That our killer didn’t have a lot of time to select the best dump site. He went with whatever was handy. Tonight it happened to be near the local shopping center and a jogger happened along soon after.” Skye caught the attention of the medical examiner, Roger Bayliss.

She sidled up to the fifty-six-year-old man known far and wide to be a grumpy old man. “How long do you think she’s been dead?”

Roger Bayliss gave her an unsympathetic look without bothering to answer.

Knowing she wasn’t exactly dealing with a people-person, she huffed out, “Okay, I’ll play. Best guess, maybe under six hours.”

“Do you see an autopsy table here?” Bayliss snapped. “Maybe if I didn’t have to stop and answer stupid questions every time something pops into a cop’s head, or yours, I could get a little work done in the field. In case you haven’t realized it yet, it’s three in the morning.”

Unruffled at the doctor’s surly attitude, Skye leveled her voice as she pointed out, “Look, I’ve been on my feet all day looking for Gwen DeLargo. You know her, right? The girl abducted from another mall some twelve-plus hours ago. I found her tonight with a sleazy pervert who’d spent hours raping her. Harry dragged me here when what I really wanted to do was go home and crash. So before you get your panties in a twist, I’d like to be able to gain something for my efforts. Knowing when she died would help. Maybe because the family of this woman deserves a clue what happened to their daughter, or sister, or…”

“Knock off the sob story, Cree,” Bayliss retorted in a huff. “I get it. You were close when you estimated six. I’d say this one’s probably been dead no longer than eight hours tops. After he stabbed her multiple times, she lived through that ordeal before he removed her breast implants. I can tell you she probably bled to death from the mutilation—somewhere else. That’s my assessment in a nutshell.”

Another wave of nausea hit Skye at the idea the young woman had been alive while the killer had cut out her implants. She shot a look over at Harry. “Okay, so it fits with the other two. That connects the three victims to one killer.”

“Yeah, plus it’s something we held back from the media,” Harry added with a nod. “Reporters don’t know about the mutilation and removal of the breast implants and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“That’s fine by me,” Skye muttered under her breath. “Both Carrie Montague and Taylor Dinsmore went missing when they were fifteen. Both families gave DNA in hopes of a future match. Both girls were listed at the foundation.”

“And? Our guy must have cut out the implants because he knew they could be used to ID his victims.”

Skye wasn’t so sure. She chewed her lip while still trying to figure out the puzzle. “Why go to the trouble of putting them in and then brutally hack them out? As I recall Bayliss didn’t even need the implants for ID purposes with Carrie and Taylor because he used dental records along with the DNA the families provided. So why cut out implants the killer obviously wanted them to have?”

“Because he’s a sick bastard,” Harry muttered.

“That goes without saying. But there has to be more to it than that, another reason we haven’t figured out yet.” Clearly stumped, Skye suddenly snapped her fingers as a realization dawned. She took two steps back toward the body and stared. “That’s it, I knew this girl looked familiar. That’s Lisa Williams. She went missing four years ago on a trip to the lake with a group of friends. She was sixteen at the time. I have her photograph still tacked up on the wall at the Artemis Foundation.”

Bayliss overheard the claim. “Come on. You can’t be serious? There’s no possible way you could make an ID to her face when it’s ashen and lifeless like it is now.”

Harry was just as skeptical. “Skye, are you certain you remember the face? Lisa had to have changed quite a bit from a teenager to a young woman.”

Skye nodded even though the purple streaks in the victim’s hair did cause a chink to form, although it wasn’t enough to dissuade her. “Sure, Lisa’s looks have changed during those key years. But her mother made sure I had Lisa’s sophomore picture from high school tacked up on my board alongside the age-progressed photo Mrs. Williams had done. I’ve stared at both images over the years to recognize that face. Still don’t believe me? Then how about this? Lisa had the same jet-black hair
and
a very distinctive almond shape to her eyes. Then there’s the unusual slope of her nose. This victim has all three characteristics. See? Try to look beyond the dye-job.” Skye stepped even closer to point out the features in question. “I’m telling you this hacked up mess belongs to the missing Lisa Williams.”

Bayliss stared at Harry. “I hate to admit it, but Cree sometimes gets it right. There are times when she does know her stuff.”

Harry’s mouth tightened. “So girls who disappeared from the area years earlier are now turning up dead, getting dumped like trash now after having their breasts made bigger? Why?”

“Cut out, the girls no longer have the implants because he cut them out. Changed his mind maybe? I don’t know. The girls grew into women, women who were no longer attractive to the pervert for some reason. One thing’s for certain. He didn’t want these girls around any longer and did something about it. It’s like he wanted us to find them by putting them in a high traffic area. The homeless uses The Jungle all the time. They come and go there like campers. Our killer put them there knowing they’d be found.”

Harry pursed his lips as though he’d taken a sip of sour milk. “Not getting enough attention to suit his ego so he does something about that, too.”

“I’d say so.” To get into the right frame of mind, Skye squatted on her heels and spotted movement along the row of hedges. Knowing instantly it had to be Kiya because she’d left Atka secured in the car, she felt relieved to catch sight of the wolf roaming in and out, tracking a scent. It didn’t take long for Kiya to pick up a trail.

Skye headed in that direction, following the wolf, covering almost the entire length of the right of way. She didn’t realize Harry was hot on her heels until she stopped a few feet away from her spirit guide.

“What is it?” Harry asked.

“I’m not sure what but something’s off here.” Drawing in several deep calming breaths, she pulled back branches on the perfectly trimmed underbrush. After taking a few more steps into the muck, that’s when she spotted it. “Unbelievable.”

“What?”

“Some kind of flower left here.”

Harry studied the row of boxwood. “Is that all? I didn’t even know this plant bloomed this time of year.”

“No, I mean someone left us a beautiful black flower on the ground. I don’t know what kind… Wait, I think it might be a dahlia. Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s known as a black dahlia. And look, there’s a partial shoe print in the soft ground next to it.” She took out her phone to capture the image of the flower on her cell before moving over to inspect the print.

“That doesn’t make sense, Skye. This couldn’t belong to our killer, not this far from where he dumped the body out of his car, a car he obviously pulled into the empty parking lot to avoid detection. Why would he go out of his way to walk here
behind
this bank of shrubs and leave us a flower?”

“Good question, but he came down here for a reason,” Skye said, taking off further into the growth of bushes. “Oh my God. Get the crime scene people over here.”

“What now? Why?”

Skye let out an audible sigh. “He gave us a gift by dropping one of the breast implants. There, see the blood trail. Geez, I don’t understand what he was doing over here either. Think about it. It would’ve been difficult at best for anyone to look for anything this far from the body, if not for…” She’d almost admitted it was Kiya’s discovery that got them this far. Needing to focus better, she began to question the absurdity of leaving the implant here at this location. There had to be a reason. And one glimpse at Harry had her picking up on his disbelieving look before he yelled instructions to the tech team.

“I’m not sure how you find these kinds of things,” Harry noted. “But don’t ever stop.”

“I’m pretty sure he wanted us to find this. It’s too convenient otherwise—first the flower and the shoe print and then the implant. It’s either that or he’s all of a sudden gotten very sloppy. My guess is it’s like you said before. The killer didn’t get enough press with the first two, so he upped the risk factor to get more.”

She thought of Jason Berkenshaw and how he’d done the same thing by sending her a box of bones. It had been his undoing. But his victims had gone through pain and suffering. Even though she was still clad in a heavy leather coat the idea of what these women had to endure brought a chill from head to toe. At that same moment she felt something else run through her system, a sense they were being watched.

When the wolf looked southward, lifting a regal head in that direction, Skye paid attention to every nuance, every sound from the crime crew behind them. During times like these she had to focus. Getting through this surreal scene was now her goal.

“Could he be watching us right now?” Skye proffered aloud.

Harry’s hand immediately went to the sidearm at his waist.

Skye narrowed her eyes to check out the parking lot a second time, trying to come up with a quick tally of police vehicles and names to go with some of the unmarked cars just in case. If their killer was hiding in plain sight anywhere nearby, it was a great dodge—for now anyway.

When Kiya trotted off farther south, Skye followed, keenly aware that certain eyes were on her and the wolf.

When Harry started to shadow her footsteps, Skye shook her head and mumbled, “Stay here. Make sure the techs take a mold of that partial we found. You never know when the smallest thing might lead us to our killer.”