Page 57 of Race to Save Her

“Great. And we still need those results from Rockview. I’ll get onto Stern.”

“Thank you.” Katie put up photos of Shelby, Bates, and the persons of interest. She hesitated on Ames and decided not to put him up, but kept him in the pile.

“Can you print out a photo of a black Chevy truck with special-order rims.”

“Year?”

“Ames said about five years old.”

“Okay.” McGaven keyed up a good photo and printed it.

Katie attached it to the wall next to one of the crime scene on Heritage Road.

“Wow, there are a lot of registered Chevy trucks in Pine Valley,” McGaven said.

“Can you narrow it down? No women or anyone under twenty-five and not older than sixty,” she said.

“I don’t know, there are still more than a hundred.” He printed the list.

“What about in Rockview?”

He took a few minutes. “There’s less. Around twenty-five.”

Katie frowned. She knew nothing was going to be easy. She decided to add the locations for all the crime scenes and places of interest to the board.

Shelby’s home

Yoga studio

Carriage House restaurant

The hotel

Brandon Bates’s trailer—place of interest—and shooting incident with detectives

Pine Valley Sheriff’s Department—Katie’s Jeep

Heritage Road near fire training center

Baker Road and Hallow Lane

They now had a bigger puzzle than before, but things seemed to be taking a step forward.

“What’s churning in that mind of yours?” said McGaven.

“The killer clearly has an overall plan, but we’re only seeing fragments of it. That’s why it’s so hard to link up all our evidence.”

“The sign of a killer’s insanity?”

“No… I believe there is a method to what he’s doing. There’s always an internal logic, even if it’s only logical to him.”

“And how are you involved?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because I’m a cop? The fact that I’m female? He could’ve been at one of the crime scenes in the past?” It was still so hard to know. She studied the photos even more closely, looking for anything that made sense.

“That only tells us he has a possible obsession with you.”

“I don’t see how.” She stared at the photo of Shelby. She was a beautiful young woman who didn’t deserve this horror.