"In that case, I can call the guy that hired him. If we can confirm he's been here all day, there's no way he ran all the way back to Seattle to snatch a little girl."
"Any confirmation either way would help out a lot."
"Right, I'm on it."
"There is one more issue." And he proceeded to explain the Pero/Pete mess and their connection to the case and…to Mack.
***
Meg wondered what Chad was talking about when an email came in with photos.
She read the short note. He'd found 13 cases of missing women that fitted the general profile of those missing in a 10 year period, with the day Cia had gone missing in the middle. She opened the first one and her mind stalled.
She studied the photo, the shakes starting all over again.
This so couldn't be.
But as she read the case number, she realized there was a name. Brenda Durnet.
She picked up the phone, then looked at it and realized she needed to be at Chad's office for this. This was going to be a long night and she didn't want to be alone, especially not now. She grabbed up her purse and laptop, sent him a quick text telling him to expect her and ran out the door. The traffic had picked up, unfortunately. It took her close to twenty minutes to cross town. She was more frustrated than anxious by the time she arrived. Her mind was locked on the one image she'd looked at. She should have taken the time to check out the others but had wanted to see Chad first. Maybe they could look at them together to deal together with the shocks she knew were going to come.
Damn it. She really didn't want to be alone right now.
She walked into the station, phone out to call him, but he was waiting for her.
"Meg, are you okay?" he asked, his concern rolling over her in warm waves.
She shook her head. "No, I'm really not." She took a deep breath. "Anything on Janelle?"
"No, not yet. Come on back to my office," he said wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "Do you want a hot drink? A coffee? A hot chocolate?"
"Maybe later," she murmured, hating her weakness. Now that she was here, that weakness just wanted to invade her body. She hated relying on anyone. For years she'd stood on her own two feet, and now she felt like she had none to stand on.
"Come, sit down." He led her to the spare chair in his office; at least, she presumed that it was his space. He disappeared. "I'm just getting you a hot drink," he called.
"Fine." She opened her laptop and turned it on. By the time he returned with two cups of steaming liquid, she had the laptop up and running. He placed a hot cup down beside her.
"So I spoke with Daniel, and they are doing a door to door search looking for Janelle and Pete. He'll talk to Mack and show him Pete's picture. As his uncle, he should be able to identify him." He paused. "Let's find that much out for sure.
Meg just nodded. The theories had been coming in fast, but they were still just theories. They needed facts. And that was something she might have. "You sent me some photos."
"Is that why you came running down here? You could have stayed home. I'd have stopped off at the end of the shift and brought you up to date anyway."
"Yeah, well, I can't just stand around waiting for news so I went to work." She turned the laptop around, the first picture loaded up for him to see. "Remember this photo?"
He pulled his chair around the corner of his desk beside her and sat down. He studied the picture and nodded. "Sure, it's one of the case files I pulled. Why? Do you recognize her?"
"Yes. And you should too."
His gaze flew up to lock onto hers. "Why?" He studied the picture again. "And I don't."
"You went to school with her. So did I."
"No way."
He strode to his computer and tapped lightly on his keyboard. "I'm bringing up her file."
"Do that. Her name is Brenda Durnet. I was in her English class."
"How can you remember anyone from school?" He shook his head. "I certainly can't."
"Think nerd. Chess club, student leadership, etc. And the reason I remember her is my brother was sweet on her for a while."
Chad raised a brow. "And so someone else we know is missing. That's sad again."
"Yes, but it's also good. She's one of the girls we just found."
That relaxed gaze locked down and hardened instantly. "What?"
"See the teeth pattern?" Meg stared down at the smile and the very crooked teeth on the bottom jaw. "That is damn near identical to the last skull we found."
Chad stared so hard at her that she could almost hear the spinning of his brain cells as he processed the information and the implications.
"Do you have her dental records on file?"
He checked the file. "Yes. They were added in. And they are digital." He frowned. "We're lucky there. With lots of these old files we'd be digging around in the storage units for something like that otherwise."
"Send the x-rays to Stacy and ask her to match it. She'll know which one."
With a nod, he tapped on the keys. She waited, staring down at her old school friend. They hadn't been close but they'd been friendly. Brenda was the type to be friendly to everyone all the time. Well, someone hadn't been so friendly back to her.
"Done."
And her breath whooshed out, surprising her. She hadn't realized she'd been holding it in. "Good. That's one."
"You're that certain."
"Yes. The teeth caught my interest. I spent quite a bit of time studying that jaw bone."
"Okay, what about the others?"
"I honestly haven't looked. I came here instead."
"Good. Have a drink of that hot chocolate. It will make you feel better." He rolled his chair closer. "Now, let's go over these other photos and maybe we'll get lucky with another one."
Meg would have nodded but she was busy sipping greedily away at her hot chocolate. It had been years since she'd had any. It wasn't great as far as hot chocolate went, but for the shocks she'd been dealt lately, it was warm and soothing. When the cup was half empty, she replaced it on the desk and turned her attention to the photos.
She brought up the second one. Both studied the blonde and Meg said, "I don't remember ever seeing her. And there's nothing distinctive about her that's catching my eye."
"Next."
They went through several more when one photo jarred Meg out of her comfort zone – yet again.
She tapped the screen with a long nail. "I know her."
"You do?" Chad leaned closer to study the pretty young woman. She must have been in her early twenties. I've never seen her." He got up and went to his computer. "Her name is..."
"Cynthia. She was my old neighbor. Moved away...oh, maybe nine, ten years ago."
"Was last seen leaving her condo just over ten years ago; she never showed up for work on Monday morning. No one knows her whereabouts from that Friday after work through the weekend." He studied Meg's face. "How do you know her?"
"She lived in the condo beside us. Well, I hadn't moved in yet as I was still dating Pete, but I'd met her couple of times, coming and going. She seemed really nice. She moved out a couple of months after I moved in."
When he didn't say anything, she looked up. At the look in his eyes, she was filled with dread. "What are you thinking?"
He pursed his lips. "I'm thinking it all comes back to the same person – you and therefore, maybe...Pete."
***
"There you are." Daniel called to Mack. "I've been looking all over for you. We've got a problem and I need your help."
"What's up?" Mack might not be at his best, in fact, he was still pissed, but Daniel was good people and if he said there was a problem, then there was a problem.
"Missing child and the guy that might have taken her was helping us at the crime scene and has a cabin on the lake."
"Shit." Mack's stomach knotted. "Explain."
Daniel launched into the explanation he'd been given. "That's all Chad had. He's hoping we can go door to door and find either or both
. Or at least confirm that Pete was here all day and couldn't have made it to Seattle and back again."
"Sounds like Meg just had a tiff with him. It's probably nothing."
"Oh, I don't think so. According to Chad the two of them split this last weekend and the two women moved out. You know how that goes. I say we find this Pete and find out for sure." Daniel hesitated, and then launched into the rest of Chad's message. "Chad says there's some confusion about whether this Pete could actually be your nephew Pero."
Mack's face froze and his gaze turned glacial.
Damn. Daniel tried to bring up Pete's picture. "It's not showing up very well." He held it out for Mack to see.
His gut twisted. Mack stared at the piss poor image. "Who can say anything about that picture? It's so damn small. Besides, I haven't seen my nephew in years and a lot of years at that."
"Yeah, it's hard to see anything."
The expression on his old friend's face never changed. Daniel took a deep breath and forged on. "Chad also said you might know which cabin is his."
Daniel had turned to look at the cabins that Chad had mentioned.
Clearing his voice, Mack said, "Yeah, Pero's cabin is that old one over there."
"Good. Let's go. That little girl is quite a looker. Sure hate to see anything happen to her." He brought up the photo from his email. "Look at her."
Mack glanced down and was surprised to see a beautiful child staring out at him. "That's Meg's niece? Never would have thought it. No family resemblance there."
"No, apparently she takes after her mother who died several years ago. Then her father was killed in a car accident and she moved in with Meg and Pete."
"Maybe Pete just wanted to spend some time with her, explain that the relationship has changed and they'd still be seeing each other."
Daniel glanced at him, not commenting on the Pero/Pete issue, thankfully. "Maybe, but you and I both know a lot of other reasons for some guy to be picking up a beauty like this. And most of those beauties aren't quite so pretty by the time these assholes are done with them."
"Let's hope this is all a false alarm." But inside his gut, Mack had a pretty good idea that things were not quite as innocent as he'd like them to be.
"I've already called a Jim Sutton." Daniel said, "He's the guy that hired Pete for the chainsaw work. Said Pete's well known in the area for lending a hand. He hasn't seen him all day; thought he'd headed into town this morning."
Mack nodded, feeling a push of inevitability. Damn. Some things fate just insisted on controlling.
"Let's go see if he's home."
CHAPTER 22
Meg was tired by the time they got through all the files that Chad had found. And underneath all the activity was an insidious fear as she waited for news about Janelle.
Every time the phone rang, her heart jumped and her stomach wanted to heave. She wanted to go to the cabin and find Pete. She'd texted him several times and had tried calling, but he had never answered. She wanted to ask him herself.
To pass the time constructively, she had Brenda's file open in front of her. And Cynthia Wood's sat beside her. Both women had gone missing abruptly – just as if they dropped off the face of the earth. Neither had had a steady boyfriend; one friend thought Brenda had one but if she did, Brenda hadn't shared any details about him.
As for Pete's old neighbor, Cynthia, she'd dumped her boyfriend months before. The police had looked at him closely but ended up taking him off the suspect list.
Meg had little to go on with Cynthia's case. There were x-rays showing Brenda had broken her left femur as a child and had two cracked ribs from a fall off a horse as a teenager. Those breaks would be fundamental to her identification and all the information was immediately dispatched to Stacey as she would be able to find out if one of the skeletons had similar injuries. Meg hoped so. There were six women in the morgue and 13 case files. So many families would be watching and waiting by the phone, hoping for news of their loved ones. Seven families would be disappointed unless they could find another dump site. But how many women would one man kill?
She flicked through the 13 cases; the two women she had recognized were blondes like Cia and Meg herself. They were both young, like Cia, although Meg's neighbor was a couple of years older. Of the other women, only five were as similar. Two of the women she discarded from the group were overweight, and didn't fit the pattern. One was quite a bit older, and another was into a lifestyle that was rough and also didn't fit the pattern. No, as she studied the women, she realized she'd picked out her particular six to match the bones in the morgue. And she could only hope that Cia matched the first set.
"We haven't discussed one other issue."
Meg checked the time on her cell phone for the zillionth time in the last hour. "And what's that?"
"The necklaces."
"They found four, for six victims. Maybe we missed a couple or they could still show up."
Chad added, "You're thinking that the killer had a half dozen or more made up and made his victims wear them?"
"Yeah, that's the most disgusting thing I could imagine, considering they have my name on them." Meg hated to think someone had so much anger toward her that these women had paid the price for it.
"It's unlikely that we'll be able to track down the necklaces, but I'm hoping the person who did the inscriptions might still be around."
"Jorgensen's Jewelers." The name just blew out of her mouth. "That's where Josh bought mine."
"Excellent. Let's see if they are still around."
"They are." She smiled. "We walked in there a few years back. Pete bought me some earrings for my birthday."
Chad was already on the computer. "Found them." He picked up the phone. I wonder if they still do inscriptions." He checked the time. "They are going to be closed now, aren't they?"
"Most likely as it's six-thirty." She swallowed. "Your teammates haven't checked in yet."
Just then his phone rang. "Oh, good. It's Daniel."
***
"Daniel, what did you find?"
"Nothing as yet. Mack can't tell from the picture if that's Pero – says he hasn't seen him in forever. But we went to Pete's cabin, which was empty, and Mack says it's Pero's cabin. He inherited it when his brother died. Mack searched inside but there's no sign of Pete or the girl." He added, "A door-to-door search is underway and we've got a couple of people looking to track Pete down. Everyone we've spoken to says that he's been here all day."
"But you haven't been able to confirm it?"
"No. No one can say when they saw him or where. I'll give you a call in a bit."
"Thanks." Chad hung up and turned to face Meg. The crestfallen look on her face tugged at him as he watched her clench her fists.
"They haven't found her, have they?"
He watched her lower lip tremble then firm as he answered, "No. Daniel has spoken to a couple of people who believe they've seen Pete today at the lake but can't say when or where for sure." He took a deep breath. "Pete's cabin is the same cabin as Mack's brother left to his nephew, Pero."
She stood still, a frown wrinkling her forehead. "Really?" At his nod, she shrugged. "So maybe he is."
And that was it.
He stood up. "It's a waiting game now. But we also need to keep up our strength. Do you want to go out and grab some food or shall I order in pizza?"
"Pizza," she said so quickly, he raised a brow.
"I don't want to leave," she said. "Just in case..."
He nodded. "I'll go and put in an order. Back in a moment."
She nodded. "I want to see where these women were living at their last known residences."
***
She walked over to the map of Washington on the wall and found a map of Seattle nearby on the table. Grabbing a few pins, she posted the second map up on the wall beside the first. Then, using the files, she placed a blue pin where Brenda had lived, then a second one for where Cynthia had lived. There were approximately 30 condos at that addre
ss. That alone offered many potential suspects. Walking back to the files, she picked up her next four choices for the remains she'd found and took a different colored pin and placed one at each last known residence. She also took a red pin and placed it at Cia's address.
Then she stepped back. The cluster was close together – except for one. Cia's.
What did that mean?
Shaking her head, she retrieved the pages on the other 7 girls from the case files Chad had found and choosing white pins for them, marked their residences as well.
She'd just finished when Chad walked back in. From the look on his face, he didn't have any good news.
"No pizza?" she asked lightly. "It took you long enough."
He managed a smile. "Sorry, it will take twenty minutes."
"Ah." She placed the last pin in place and stepped back several steps to study the change.
"What have you found?" He stood beside her. "Is there a meaning to the colors?"
"White are those women I have no idea about." And true enough, if there was a pattern to the white pins' locations, she couldn't see it. "The red pin is for Cia. Blue is for the two women I'm fairly sure of. The yellow pins are for the four women that I picked out from the files you gave me as potential matches for the other four sets of remains."
She turned to glance at him, noting the surprise on his face. "What? You told me to do what I do best."
"And apparently you did." He pointed out the blue and yellow pins with one white pin. "These are very close together."
"Yes, but this map isn't the best. One of just this neighborhood would help us take a closer look." She motioned to the white pins that were sprawled across the city. "These can't be ruled out, but they aren't so likely."
"Interesting that you picked four yellows and three are in close proximity to the right area, and this one isn't. You're almost eerily accurate. How the hell do you do it?" Chad's phone rang. "Hi, Stacy. I thought you were long gone for the day.
"No, working late, it's almost the norm these days. Tell Meg, she is right about Brenda Durnet. That's a positive ID on our first one."
Chad turned to Meg, "Stacy says that's a yes on Brenda."
"Oh, Stacy is still working?" She held out her hand. "Hey, Stacy, that's great. I have another one for you. Cynthia Wood." Meg looked at Chad. "We sent the information a while ago and..." She walked back over to the stack of four, removed the one that was located out of the hot spot and read off the names of the other three missing woman.
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