Page 21 of Cooper’s Passion

Anita unfolded a map and pointed to the blue and red dots on it. “Over the last six years, there have been at least thirty-five abductions and murders that I believe were committed by the same person. He never abducts more than one person from the same jurisdiction. And he always kills them in a different state. For example, if he abducts a person from Washington State, that person will show up dead in Idaho about six to eight weeks later. He travels in a clockwise direction from Washington to Idaho, then to Nevada; from there to California; then back up north to Oregon, and then back to Washington.”

Cooper studied the map and noticed that the red and blue dots never coincided. He nodded to himself. “It makes it harder for law enforcement to connect the crimes if they’re being committed in different jurisdictions, I get that. How did you connect them?”

“I started seeing a pattern. He only abducts women between the age of thirty and forty-five. All victims so far were blonde and blue-eyed. And all women were tall. He definitely has a type. And it looks like he keeps the women alive for several weeks before he kills them, because according to the autopsies that I was able to obtain, when the bodies were found six to eight weeks after the abductions, they’d been dead for less than twenty-four hours.”

Cooper remembered what Maya had told him about the time of death of the exsanguinated woman. She’d been dead for only a few hours, and she fit the type: blonde, blue-eyed, tall, and in her thirties or forties.

“You don’t believe me.” Anita looked at him, looking disappointed.

“That’s not it. Show me more. How did these women die? Stabbed? Strangled? Shot?”

“That’s just it. They died of massive blood loss, but they weren’t stabbed or shot. But I wasn’t able to get all the autopsies. Some jurisdictions aren’t quite as accommodating when it comes to sending copies of autopsies to out-of-state law enforcement. Particularly since I couldn’t really go through official channels.”

Massive blood loss translated to exsanguination by a vampire. Shit! This wasn’t good.

Anita opened a file and pulled out several photos. “This is Sandra Thacker, a store manager from Olympia, Washington. She was found dead in Ketchum, Idaho.” She pointed to another one. “Here. Clare Grundy, a professor at a community college in Boise, Idaho. She was found in Reno, Nevada.”

She reached for another one, but Cooper put his hand over hers. “I believe you. I can see the pattern too.” He was impressed with her work. Anita knew how to analyze data. “You need to identify the dead woman from last night. If she’s indeed the missing woman you mentioned, we’ve got a huge problem on our hands.”

And he couldn’t even let her know how terrible a prospect this was. To reveal to her that vampires existed, and that one might be a serial killer wouldn’t exactly start them off on the right foot. It was hard enough to reveal to a human that vampires existed, but how could he convince Anita that most vampires were peaceful people living normal lives and meant her no harm, when he had to admit in the same breath that the serial killer she’d been hunting was a vampire?

Anita nodded. “Let’s do that. Let’s look at the body.”

She already got up from her chair, when there was a sound at the door. Cooper whirled his head in the direction. Somebody was inserting a key in the lock. He jumped up and rushed toward the door, ready to fight the intruder, while he issued a command.

“Anita, stay back!”