Page 10 of Maverick Detective Dad
The look he gave her was all cop. “And she might cooperate if she realizes one of her support group members is a killer.” He tried another call. “I got River’s number from Dispatch...” Noah explained, but she heard the call go to voice mail. He left another message for River to call him ASAP before he looked at her phone, at the Peace Seekers webpage she still had on the screen. “Anything on there that’ll help?”
“Not at first glance, but they might have a social media page, a way for members to stay in touch in between meetings.”
“Let’s hope so because I’m not buying that all of this is happenstance, not with Jill Ritter’s daughter and Jared in the same group.”
She would have quickly agreed with him, but his phone rang, and Everly hoped this was the counselor who could start giving them some answers. But it wasn’t.
“It’s Grayson,” Noah relayed to her, and he put the call on speaker.
“I’m out at Everly’s house, and the CSIs went through her backyard.” Grayson immediately said. “They found a body.”
Chapter Four
A body.
Noah felt the sickening dread wash over him. Dread not just for this new victim the CSIs had found but because of the stark terror he now saw in Everly’s eyes. The bloody box had been bad enough, so had the info that Jared had given them, but apparently that had been just the beginning of this particular nightmare.
“Who’s dead?” Noah asked Grayson, praying it wasn’t a friend or a family member.
“Not sure yet. There’s no ID on her, but it’s a woman. Her clothes have been stripped off, and the cause of death appears to be from a knife wound in or around the femoral artery.”
Hell.
Beside him, he heard Everly make a hoarse sound, and as if her legs had lost all their strength, she dropped down into the chair. The color drained from her face, but that only lasted a couple of seconds before the panic set in.
“Ainsley,” she muttered, and with her fingers trembling, she sent another text. No doubt to Sara at the day care.
Noah knew he’d soon have to take Everly there to get her daughter, but he needed to deal with a few other things first. That included getting any and all details about their latest victim.
“There are two deputies with Ainsley,” Noah reminded Everly in a whisper. “She’s safe.”
He resisted the urge—no, the need—to pull Everly into his arms to try to give her some reassurance. But considering there had been four people murdered, a hug wasn’t going to give her much of anything. The only thing that would help was for him to find this killer and put him or her away in jail so that Everly and her child would no longer be in harm’s way. Since he was also likely on this killer’s hit list, it’d keep him and his own family safe as well.
“Can you describe the woman?” Noah asked Grayson. Because even though his investigation was at the preliminary stages, he might have done a search on someone matching her description.
“She’s in her late twenties or early thirties. Black hair, brown eyes,” Grayson readily provided. “About five foot three, around a hundred and twenty pounds. I can’t see any distinguishing marks or tats on her body.”
Nothing from his searches immediately jumped to mind, but Noah would definitely take another look.
“Other than the wound and a small puncture mark on her right shoulder,” Grayson went on, “there are no signs of violence. No defensive wounds. She doesn’t appear to have been dragged to her current location, and it’s clearly not the site of the murder. Not enough blood.”
So, she’d been killed elsewhere and brought to Everly’s. Maybe the killer had done that when he’d dropped off the box. If so, that was gutsy of him to place a body there where the neighbors could have noticed. Then again, the body could have been there all night.
That wouldn’t be a comforting thought to Everly. To know that the killer had been so close to Ainsley and her.
“Does the dead woman appear to have been a junkie?” Noah asked Grayson.
Because Jill had definitely looked like a drug abuser, and now that he’d seen photos of the other victims, Delbert Washington and Winona Billings, Noah knew that a veteran cop would recognize the signs of someone who’d lived a hard life.
“No,” Grayson answered. “She looks as if she was healthy.”
Yeah, healthy before someone had murdered her. So, it obviously wasn’t a hard life/drug or alcohol abuser that had caused the killer to single out this woman. Then again, Everly and he were damn healthy, too.
“The CSIs have already gotten the dead woman’s fingerprints,” Grayson went on a moment later. “We might get a hit on them. You should go ahead and see if there are any missing persons reports that might be a match.”
“Will do,” Noah assured him, and he moved his laptop closer so he could get that started. “I had a visitor while you’ve been out.”
And he filled Grayson in on what Jared had told them and his new working theory for this investigation. A theory that so far pointed to three murders connected to this vigilante killer and perhaps the support group. Specifically, to a member, River Parnell.
