Page 163 of Forever Dead

Chuck glanced between them. “Are we talking about someone medical?”

“Possibly,” Selena said. “But Curtis worked on a kill floor. We already know he handled skin and carcasses. We can’t turn this into a qualification only one kind of person could have.”

“I’ll have Blethan give us his findings as soon as he can,” Price said.

Chuck turned to Arnold. “And keep working the existing leads. Ginnie’s account, Curtis’s contact with Patricia, Ray’s movements and Deacon’s. We still need answers.”

Arnold opened his notebook.

Selena waited while Price took another photograph of the excision. The missing section was small beside the damage done to the rest of Nora’s body, but it might explain something the staging could not.

“If this was replacement material,” she said, “then taking her skin wasn’t the end of what he intended to do with it.”

Chuck studied her.

“He planned to keep using the mask after this. That means there’s more to come.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

By the time Selena reached the sheriff’s station, Elmsview had begun dressing itself for the evening.

A group of children crossed Main Street under the supervision of two adults, costumes partly hidden beneath jackets. Orange lights framed the bakery windows. Somebody had set a row of carved pumpkins along the steps of the courthouse, their unlit mouths waiting for darkness.

The sheriff’s station had none of that energy.

Connor’s SUV was absent from its usual space. Another vehicle sat there instead, one of the county units Chuck sometimes drove. Selena parked beside it and remained behind the wheel for several seconds.

Her right knee had started aching on the drive from the Ellison farmhouse. The sensible choice would have been the motel, an ice pack and the rest her orthopedic surgeon kept recommending.

Connor had asked for more than sensible.

Promise me.

Selena opened the door and reached for the cane.

The badge stayed in her jacket pocket. Her pistol rested beneath it in the holster at her side. Neither made her an active FBI agent again. They did, however, make her feel less like someone waiting for other people to decide what happened next.

Inside, Cheryl sat behind the front desk with a phone wedged against one shoulder.

“Yes, ma’am,” she was saying. “Meekie’s is closed today. No, I don’t know whether they’ll reopen tomorrow. You’ll need to ask them.”

A pause.

“No, we are not releasing details about the mask.”

Cheryl’s mouth tightened.

“That’s all I can tell you.”

She ended the call and wrote something on a pad before noticing Selena.

The irritation disappeared.

“How’s Connor?”

“He’s out of surgery.”

Cheryl stood. “I know that… And?”