Page 58 of Forever Dark
Selena glanced over the ground around them.“Wouldn’t anyone have heard her scream?”
“Unlikely,” Connor said.“Chapel’s been closed for years.Nearest occupied house is over a mile off.”
Matt pointed to the rope at Lauren’s wrists.“Bindings were tight.Some tearing.She fought it for a while.”
Selena let her gaze travel over the gravestone, the body, the arrangement.Then she saw the marks on the older upright stone opposite.
Three vertical lines.
Fresh and dark against weathered gray.
Her stomach tightened.
“Another Roman numeral.This is our third victim,” she said quietly.
Connor looked at her.“You still think there’s another before Brenda?”
“I know it.But why haven’t we found them?That’s the question we haven’t answered yet.”
Matt straightened.“Speaking of finding things.We found a brush in the undergrowth.Blood on it.Most likely what he used to paint those.”
Selena nodded toward the stone.“Get prints done.I doubt we’ll find any, but get them anyway.”
“Already moving on it,” Matt said.
Her attention shifted uphill to the chapel itself.Stone walls.Narrow bell tower.Boarded windows.A place chosen on purpose.
Connor followed her gaze.“What’s wrong?”
“The last murder was in a tower.This time it’s at the foot of one.”
“You think that change matters?”
“I wonder.”
She started up the slope before either man answered.
The ground near the chapel door had turned to churned mud under boots.She saw some forensic markers, isolating a few existing footprints.
“Did Matt get these, then?”she asked.
“Yeah,” Connor said, following.“But I bet the soles will be the same.Custom-made to avoid being traced.”
Selena thought that, too.She turned her attention to the chapel door.Sheet metal had been fastened over the entrance with heavy screws, a rough attempt to keep trespassers out.Selena bent near the frame and ran her eyes over the edges.
Fresh scoring marked the metal near the latch side.Deep scratches.Pry damage.Someone had tried to force it.
“Here,” she said.
Connor and Matt came up beside her.
Selena pointed.“He wanted in.”
Connor leaned closer.“Does this mean he was going to use the chapel tower?”
“It seems likely.”She straightened and looked back down the hill at Lauren’s body stretched across the stone.“But he couldn’t get inside.So he improvised.”
Matt let out a low breath.“That’s not good.A killer that improvises is even more dangerous.”
