“I’m not sure what but something’s off here.” Drawing in several deep calming breaths, she pulled back branches on the perfectly trimmed underbrush. After taking a few more steps into the muck, that’s when she spotted it. “Unbelievable.”
“What?”
“Some kind of flower left here.”
Harry studied the row of boxwood. “Is that all? I didn’t even know this plant bloomed this time of year.”
“No, I mean someone left us a beautiful black flower on the ground. I don’t know what kind… Wait, I think it might be a dahlia. Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s known as a black dahlia. And look, there’s a partial shoe print in the soft ground next to it.” She took out her phone to capture the image of the flower on her cell before moving over to inspect the print.
“That doesn’t make sense, Skye. This couldn’t belong to our killer, not this far from where he dumped the body out of his car, a car he obviously pulled into the empty parking lot to avoid detection. Why would he go out of his way to walk here behind this bank of shrubs and leave us a flower?”
“Good question, but he came down here for a reason,” Skye said, taking off further into the growth of bushes. “Oh my God. Get the crime scene people over here.”
“What now? Why?”
Skye let out an audible sigh. “He gave us a gift by dropping one of the breast implants. There, see the blood trail. Geez, I don’t understand what he was doing over here either. Think about it. It would’ve been difficult at best for anyone to look for anything this far from the body, if not for…” She’d almost admitted it was Kiya’s discovery that got them this far. Needing to focus better, she began to question the absurdity of leaving the implant here at this location. There had to be a reason. And one glimpse at Harry had her picking up on his disbelieving look before he yelled instructions to the tech team.
“I’m not sure how you find these kinds of things,” Harry noted. “But don’t ever stop.”
“I’m pretty sure he wanted us to find this. It’s too convenient otherwise—first the flower and the shoe print and then the implant. It’s either that or he’s all of a sudden gotten very sloppy. My guess is it’s like you said before. The killer didn’t get enough press with the first two, so he upped the risk factor to get more.”
She thought of Jason Berkenshaw and how he’d done the same thing by sending her a box of bones. It had been his undoing. But his victims had gone through pain and suffering. Even though she was still clad in a heavy leather coat the idea of what these women had to endure brought a chill from head to toe. At that same moment she felt something else run through her system, a sense they were being watched.
When the wolf looked southward, lifting a regal head in that direction, Skye paid attention to every nuance, every sound from the crime crew behind them. During times like these she had to focus. Getting through this surreal scene was now her goal.
“Could he be watching us right now?” Skye proffered aloud.
Harry’s hand immediately went to the sidearm at his waist.
Skye narrowed her eyes to check out the parking lot a second time, trying to come up with a quick tally of police vehicles and names to go with some of the unmarked cars just in case. If their killer was hiding in plain sight anywhere nearby, it was a great dodge—for now anyway.
When Kiya trotted off farther south, Skye followed, keenly aware that certain eyes were on her and the wolf.
When Harry started to shadow her footsteps, Skye shook her head and mumbled, “Stay here. Make sure the techs take a mold of that partial we found. You never know when the smallest thing might lead us to our killer.”
Chapter Two
Two hundred yards away he sat perched on the rooftop of the Methodist church watching through a pair of high-powered binoculars while the detectives milled about below. He’d left the body in the most obvious place on purpose.
It was pure irony sitting on top of a chapel. Towering above the scene might give him a great perspective but he’d never once in his adult life recognized religion, certainly not the doctrine he’d been born into. His parents had done their best to raise him in the strict Mormon dogma. From day one, though, not much about it had stuck.
Back then he’d been scrawny Dillard Barstow, invisible to the world. As a small boy his mere name had been cause enough for the neighborhood kids to bully him. At school, the name-calling often got out of hand. He’d often wondered what kind of stupid parents named their kid Dillard anyway. How on earth could a man be expected to go through life with a name like that?
The answer was simple. A man couldn’t. So once he’d left Idaho for college, he’d done something about it. At the first opportunity, he’d paid the required fee to the court and changed the name his parents had given him at birth.
He sat back and tried to relax but still kept an eye on the activity at the mall parking lot. The misty, cold night air caused another memory to flash in his head—back to the night, similar to this one, when Dillard had taken his first sip of vodka. He’d been thirteen. His parents had left him alone to attend one of their ever-boring church events. That night, he snuck out of the house to his cave where he’d stashed several bottles of Smirnoff, the booze he’d swiped on one of his trips to the next town over, the trips he frequently made alone when he was supposed to be at church camp, or at school. But that night, he’d gotten so blind, stinking drunk on the stuff he hadn’t been able to stand up. It had taken him twelve hours to sober up enough to make his way back home. That recollection made him smile. But how he’d been punished for breaking his curfew did not. His father had taken a belt to him and beaten him black and blue.
From that, he’d learned that anything obsessive he did had best be kept to himself. The experience taught him a valuable lesson. In that troublesome path through life when making decisions—secretive versus honesty—secretive won out every time.
Now the full-grown man went by a different tag and had a wide array of interests.
One of them happened to be horticulture and plants, especially flowers—dahlias were his favorite. He’d come to his passion for botany at a very early age. Some people had made fun of him for it, mainly his parents.
None of that mattered now.
These days no one told him what to do or how to do it. He indulged in the finest food and alcohol available on his budget, fancied buying first-rate seeds and soil for his garden, lived in the best house his income afforded, and frequented the rare five-star restaurants he treated himself to on special occasions. Although he did his best to keep everything to reasonable moderation, he did have a few weaknesses. He consumed espresso like a fiend, smoked the occasional cigar when the mood hit, and enjoyed all that young females offered.
But that was a secret best kept close to his vest.
So instead of following in the footsteps of his parents, he’d embraced what his maternal grandmother had done her very best to teach him—her love of Mother Earth. From his visits with her he’d learned the most important aspects of his life, things he still carried with him today.
He’d inherited his grandmother’s green thumb, a talent he’d taken to the small town of Corvallis while attending Oregon State. During four years in pursuit of a horticultural degree, his classmates had considered him nerdy and strange. But during his grad school days his professors thought of him as nothing short of a botanical genius, a regular herb doctor, a whiz with plants. They’d marveled at what he could do with roots and bulbs. But it was his ability to cultivate cannabis that made him a highly sought-after man on campus and always flush with ready cash. His gardening skills didn’t, however, make him popular with women.
It was just as well. He’d always been a loner. And sooner or later his proclivities tended to come to light at odd times no matter what he did to hide them.
When he spotted Skye Cree making her way onto the scene and hobnobbing with cops, her arrival caused his anger to spike. Man was the hunter, the warrior, not the woman, never the woman. The wo
man cared for the home and the children. He’d learned that much from his mother. She didn’t go out and mingle in a man’s world. She certainly didn’t take on fighting crime the way Skye Cree did or try to make herself an all-important Seattle icon. The woman seemed to crave making headlines. In his mind, the whole attempt made her an aberration, particularly an insult to her Native heritage.
Through the lenses of the field glasses, he focused on the female in question, dressed all in black, dressed much as he had for his outing tonight. For now though, he dismissed her athletic physique and zeroed in on her spirit guide. The wolf had sniffed out the implant he’d cleverly dropped just the way he’d hoped.
He chuckled at his inventiveness. Now the authorities would no doubt consider him sloppy and careless, a theatrical production he didn’t intend to waste.
He’d been anything but reckless tonight, or last week, or the week before that. Normally he didn’t resort to using a knife. After all, he wasn’t a butcher. He much preferred to get the job done with his own bare hands. There was too much satisfaction in that to opt for a weapon. But when the situation called for staging, when you were looking to get a reaction, the best way was to create a brutal crime scene, the bloodier the better. The cops leaned toward a narrow focus if you didn’t toss multiple victims at them. Add in all that blood and it would get him the desired results. He didn’t think twice about anyone catching him. What concerned him was losing control of the situation.
Skye Cree didn’t need to know that three victims barely scratched the surface. The way he approached the situation, the cops should be thanking him. He’d given them a gift and returned three women back to where they’d started out. Why couldn’t they appreciate his generosity?
From now on he intended to eliminate the people in the underground he did business with. He’d steer clear of his old clients, especially those who defiled the flowers he sold them—like the women he’d given back.
How ridiculous was it to add unnatural elements to something so naturally beautiful? Adding tacky tattoos and augmentation to an already perfect blossom seemed ridiculous to him. Discoloring the skin or distorting perfectly proportioned boobs into something hideous wasn’t worth taking a shitload of money anymore. He should have realized before now there were people who failed to appreciate the magnificence of the human body. Mother Nature didn’t make mistakes.
Going forward, he’d have to find a way to close up shop. He’d end his online presence—mostly. He’d stay in the chatrooms, of course, those he used to attract the most naïve. At this stage of his life, he could afford to take a pass on the profit. Besides, there were risks involved now. No way did he intend to get caught by some loose-lipped, low-level pervert who couldn’t keep his trap shut. Knowing the idiots didn’t appreciate what they’d been given made him realize he was wasting precious resources for very little gain.
He’d never minded them returning the merchandise. That wasn’t the problem. He’d made a name for himself in the underground trade by having the most generous return policy. After all, he could easily find another buyer for any girl he’d taken back. But not when their appearance had been altered in such a way as to devalue their worth. To unload damaged goods like that, it took dealing with a lower class of people, people like hard-core drug dealers or street pimps who wanted to make a fast buck. He’d learned a long time ago those types couldn’t be trusted.
Since he couldn’t afford to put time and money into the caring and feeding of the merchandise for an indefinite period of time, he’d have to put an end to the tradition. Taking them back would no longer be an option. He was done putting up with customers who took advantage of that perk.
Through the binoculars, he saw that the wolf had taken the bait and done a superb job of finding what he’d purposefully left for the fools. If not, Cree and her Nez Perce instincts would have fallen flat. In the future, surely he wouldn’t need to go that far and cut out body parts each time to get a reaction—unless of course, the genius hunter Skye Cree couldn’t find her way out of a paper sack. Then he would do what had to be done.
Maybe his own spirit guide would take care of the wolf for him. He turned to the panther, black and sleek, that nuzzled his knee. Dillard ran his hand along the animal’s body and smiled. “You’ll level the playing field for me if it comes to that, won’t you, my friend?”
Dillard spoke in the language of his grandmother’s native Greek tongue when it came to his history, his roots. His grandmother’s people believed the panther stood for reawakening, a sign to begin anew. It was his panther, Oreias that had given him the power to become what he was now. Oreias had given him a new meaning to life.
While the Cree woman used her spirit guide to find the bad guys, Dillard used his as his power source. Orieas was as much a part of himself as his right arm, and as such, deserved the lofty title.
“It’s only fair, my friend that we go up against the hunter’s wolf, don’t you think?”
As a reply the panther purred into his master’s hand.
“In our world we know something about betrayal by family, don’t we? We come from a proud people who took down a king.”
The fierce panther butted his head into Dillard’s big palm.
“It isn’t that I think she’ll catch me. No, not that. But she and her wolf are certainly on the hunt. We have to counter that, prepare for it. If those two get close, if they find anything at all, they’ll have to do it on our terms. If we eliminate her wolf spirit, she’ll have to deal with us using her own merits, her own skills, and we both know she doesn’t have squat.”
Since Camilla, so very long ago, he’d refined his methods and taken advantage of his talents, which had eventually led to his discovery. He could make a shitload of money in the sex trade. It hadn’t take long to find out how lucrative it could be, especially when there were men out there willing to pay a hefty fee to own a young girl—men who didn’t have the gumption to go out and do what he did—men who didn’t have the skill set or the guts to fulfill orders the way he could. That’s why he charged them dearly for his services. That’s why any request for specific types of females cost extra.
Relying on his Internet search skills he’d been able to connect with masses of people—a reminder that he didn’t always get to keep every prize he landed for himself. He refused to sell his best stock. The best he kept for himself.
His nine-to-five job was just that. It wasn’t exactly rewarding but more like a paycheck. That’s why he’d had to diversify years ago to pay for his lifestyle. Keeping up appearances meant something.
But those days had come to a close. With Carrie, Taylor and Lisa gone from his house, he could start anew. Everyone deserved a fresh start. Obviously, he needed new blood, new power, new everything. Maybe if he widened his hunting grounds beyond Seattle and Vancouver, it would bring about better selections.
If he scoured the area to the north, he might happen upon someone who looked like the Cree woman with her same striking features, her same eyes—the very characteristics he’d been drawn to initially. It was all the incentive he needed to continue the hunt.
Over the past ten years, he’d made plenty of trips across the border into Canada, explored all that British Columbia had to offer. He could say without hesitation, the Pacific Northwest held a lot of promise. But it was winter. Cold, snowy weather had never suited him all that much. If he needed to see snow and ice, he’d simply head back to where it had all started. And if he braved the frigid weather, he might as well land back on familiar turf.
Or maybe he would revisit his old college haunt, go back to Corvallis, Oregon, and relive the glory of his time spent there.
He itched to take a road trip. It’d be just the thing to pick up his spirits. It might make him forget how playing with fire, or in this case, Skye Cree, could get him caught. Playing tag was a sign that he needed to stay on guard, be more cautious.
“That’s why it’s so important to give up my extracurricular activities, keep my int
erests closer to home. Keeping my gardens tidier, weed-free, and without flaws is the goal.”
He scrubbed the panther’s ears again with his big hands. “The two of us have always made a good team. Your predatory instincts were handed down to me through my ancestors for a reason. Remember how my parents acted when I told them I had a spirit guide? Remember that? They thought I was crazy and refused to believe me. They might’ve laughed behind my back then but they aren’t laughing now, are they?”
Dillard continued to talk to himself like that, sitting atop the roof of the church until the sun came up. Watching Skye Cree head to her car, he made a pact. If the woman thought so highly of her hunting skills and came for him, he would be ready.
It was inevitable that one day soon they were destined to meet face to face. His fate rested on the opportunity of a lifetime. He didn’t intend to waste it. Maybe it was because his adversary bore such a striking resemblance to his little Camilla that she fascinated him so. The Cree woman was a little older than he was used to hunting. But it didn’t negate the fact that she’d be a prize asset, a lovely addition to his purple field of dahlias.
“Imagine that, my friend. Imagine if we could add Skye Cree to our garden. Imagine having a woman like that with us and keeping her forever. Either way, she’ll soon learn a thing or two about what she was truly meant to do.”
Chapter Three
The moment Skye burst through the front door at home—a few minutes after eight a.m.—she started toeing off boots and shedding her clothes. Drained, she tossed her jacket on the bench in the hallway and watched the dog and the wolf in their exuberance both skid on the hardwood floors.
She went in search of orange juice, hoping to put an end to a craving she’d had since Harborview. Heading for the kitchen, she followed the animals to the fridge. After pouring a bowl of chow for Atka, she pulled out the plastic jug, drank straight from the bottle. Even though she could’ve used several over-easy eggs and a couple slices of bacon, she passed on the temptation, too tired to bother with food. As she slugged down more juice, she was just grateful to be back home.
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