A soft sucking noise. The gentle pop of a seal breaking. He pulled the lid back—
“Toys?” Elaina gazed down into the box.
Troy lifted up a plastic bag that looked like it contained something from a kid’s Happy Meal. A plastic puppy dog. “Looks like it.”
“Is that cereal?” She pulled out a mini-sized box of cereal, the kind sold at convenience stores. “Special K,” she said, and picked up something else. “And beef jerky. What’s all this stuff doing in the middle of a swamp?”
Troy lifted a plastic Baggie containing half a dozen white pills. “Now, this looks a little more interesting.” He read the typewritten label.
“What is it?”
“Esteroides,” he said. “Steroids.”
“Those are illegal.”
“Here, yeah. But not at your friendly neighborhood pharmacy just south of the border. Drugstores in Matamoros do a booming business in controlled substances.” He picked up another Baggie, this one containing a hand-rolled cigarette.
“Is that a joint?”
“Yep.” He opened the bag and sniffed. “Smells good, too.”
Elaina rolled her eyes. “Terrific. We’ve stumbled into some kid’s secret stash. Another great lead.” She stalked away from the box and scanned the horizon. She turned around and plunked her hands on her hips. “This sucks. It’s almost dark and we haven’t found—”
“Stop.” Troy’s gaze homed in on the long black ribbon gliding between her ankles. “Don’t move.”
“What?”
“Water moccasin.”
Her gaze dropped. She yelped. But to her credit, she didn’t move a muscle. Troy crouched there, motionless, as the snake eased close to him with its head out of the water, then veered away.
“Omigod. Omigod. Omigod. I hate snakes.”
“Good thing he’s leaving.”
“Is it poisonous?”
“Yep,” he said. “Cottonmouth.”
She clasped her hand to her stomach and stepped backward. “Omigod, I nearly— Ah!”
She fell backward and landed on her butt with a splash. She glanced around, looking dazed. She lifted her hands up, and they were coated in muck.
Troy dropped the lid back on the plastic box and trudged over to help her.
“Damn it!” She got a panicked look on her face and started flailing around.
“You okay?”
“No!” she wailed. “My phone!”
She fished her BlackBerry out of the water. It was covered in sludge. She fumbled with it and jabbed at the buttons.
“It’s dead!”
“So get a new one.” Troy stepped closer to her and spied something tangled around her shoe.
“This had evidence on it! I needed that telephone number to trace in case that phone call wasn’t a hoax.”
“It wasn’t,” Troy said grimly.
She glanced up from the muddy phone. “How do you know?”
“Because.” He crouched down and untangled the yellow twine from her flip-flop. “You just tripped over the killer’s calling card.”
Elaina picked her way through the mud almost totally by feel. Troy’s penlight cast a thin beam on the ground before him. She focused on the light and the tiny strip of grass and water it illuminated. She would have given anything for one of those huge Maglites her father had always admonished her to keep in her car, but that, like dry feet and a gallon of Gatorade, was a fantasy.
The air smelled like rotting vegetation. It hummed with mosquitoes and who knew what other insects. The sun was long gone, and they hadn’t found Valerie or any sign of her since the yellow twine. With nothing but a penlight, they had little hope of finding anything unless they literally tripped over it.
“You took some forensic science classes up there at Quantico, right?”
She followed close behind him. “Yeah.”
“Any idea how long it takes for a body to decompose in this kind of marsh?”
She’d been working it out in her head. “Well, most of the cases I studied were from the Body Farm in Tennessee. But I’ve been reading up on the Delphi Center. They’ve got a farm up there, too, and their findings are more applicable to this sort of climate. According to— Ouch!” She shook her foot, and Troy turned the light on it. He snatched a baby crab off her toe and tossed it away.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Here, hold on to me.” He took her hand and tucked it into the waistband of his jeans, just inches away from the pistol he’d put there. They continued their trek.
“You were saying? The Delphi Center?”
“They did an interesting comparative study,” she said.
“Do tell.”
“Are you making fun of me again?”
“No.” He stopped briefly and glanced around. The moon hadn’t risen yet, and they were using the distant arc of lights on the Lito Island Causeway to navigate by.
“Well, in Tennessee, it can take days or even weeks for scavengers to skeletonize a sixty-pound hog. A few hours north of here, an animal that size can be picked clean in just twenty-four hours by the native bird species. Add in the effects of water and increased humidity, and I’d say we could be looking for mostly bones at this point.”
“A canine unit would help.”
“Yes.” Elaina let the word hang there without adding the rest.
“That’s assuming you can get anyone to understand the significance of the yellow twine,” Troy added.
“Yes.”
Elaina curled her fingers inside his jeans. His body felt warm against her hand, and his T-shirt was saturated with sweat. She knew his boots couldn’t be comfortable, and despite his silence on the subject, she was pretty sure he’d suffered about as many bug bites as she had.
“Water break?” he asked.
“Let’s just get there. You want to try that phone again?”
“No use. Once it’s dead, it’s dead. I have a charger in my car, though. We can juice it up and call your boss again.”
Elaina had tried him earlier and only gotten voice mail. She glanced around at the inky blackness. Fireflies twinkled here and there, providing an interesting show, but not much in the way of guidance.
“This is so weird,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Being out here. No lights. No phones. Just the marsh and the sky.”
“That’s the way God made it.”
She hiked in silence for a while, digesting that. Did he believe in God? After studying and writing about some of the most depraved murderers of the last two decades? Elaina had grown up believing in God, but she hadn’t given it much thought lately. She believed in the opposite, though. She believed in evil. She knew monsters were real. She’d seen their handiwork up close. She’d heard their voices as she’d pored over the transcripts of their jailhouse interviews with her father. She knew there were people out there—walking, breathing, stalking people—who were capable of unspeakable cruelty. People who simply had no soul.
She wondered what it felt like to spend your last moments with a person like that. What had Mary Beth Cooper felt? And Whitney Bensen and Valerie Monroe and this new woman from Houston? A lump rose in her throat, and she tightened her grip on Troy’s belt.
“Do you think—” She paused, feeling self-conscious about the question now. Scientifically speaking, she knew the answer. But she wanted Troy’s take on it.
“Do I think what?”
She cleared her throat. “I’ve been wondering about the ketamine,” she said. “Do you think he does that for a reason? Besides controlling them?”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, do you think they ever wake up?” Her skin chilled as the words left her mouth. “Do you think they realize what’s happening when he starts the cutting? Do you think that’s part of his thrill?”
Troy didn’t say anything. The only sound was the monotonous slurp glop as the mud sucked at her shoes.
“I think it’s pos
sible,” he finally said.
She took a deep breath. “I do, too.”
“But the thing to remember is—”
She bumped into the solid wall of his back. “What?”
“Shh.”
“What is it?” she whispered.
He dropped down, yanking her with him. Her knees sank into mud. He took her chin in his hand and turned her head to face due east.
“There,” he whispered in her ear. “Someone’s over there. I saw a flashlight.”
Elaina strained to see what he meant. She reached for her weapon and felt Troy do the same. Gradually, she managed to make out the figure—a black shadow against the sky that was almost as dark.
It was a man. Average height. Stocky. Not twenty yards away. He moved toward them.
In his hand was a gun.
CHAPTER 11
FBI! Drop your weapon!”
The figure froze at her words. Elaina’s heart slammed against her breastbone as she knelt there, aiming her gun at the shadow. She felt Troy beside her, his pistol raised alongside hers.
“I’m a cop,” the man called out.
“Drop the gun!” she shouted. “Now!”
He crouched down slowly and placed something on the ground. Then he stood, lifting his hands above his head. She and Troy stood, too.
“I’m a cop,” he repeated. “Lito Island PD.”
“Cinco?” Troy asked.
“Troy?”
Elaina’s breath whooshed out. She lowered her arms.
“What the hell’re you doing?” Troy demanded. “You damn near got your head blown off.”
Elaina’s hands shook as she reholstered her Glock.
“What’re y’all doing out here?” Cinco shined a flashlight in her face as she approached him. Then the beam shifted to Troy.
“I got a phone call,” she told him. “Anonymous. Possible location of Valerie Monroe’s remains.”
“GPS coordinates, right?” The beam moved back to her again.
“Breck told you?”
“No,” Cinco said. “I got a call like that, too. She gave me the location, almost to the square foot.”
“You mean you found something?” Troy asked.
“Your caller was a she?” Elaina cut in.
“I found something,” Cinco said. “Not sure what it is, yet. Got the area taped off. Cisernos is on his way out here to tell me what we’re looking at.”
“What does it look like we’re looking at?” Elaina asked.
Cinco shook his head. “Well, shit, I’m no expert. But looks to me like a leg.”
Elaina stood beside the portable spotlight and watched a member of the evidence-response team deposit a bone atop the white sheet.
“Is it human?” she asked.
He glanced up. “Appears to be.” He swatted at the cloud of insects swarming around the surgeon’s light attached to his headband. “Looks to me like a tibia. We’ll need to consult a forensic anthropologist to be sure.”
“Got another one.”
Elaina turned and saw the dog handler approaching from the east. His black Labrador, Ike, had alerted on twelve other bones in the past hour. So far, no skull. Elaina met the dog handler’s gaze and asked the question with her eyes.
“Sorry, ma’am.”
She sighed. It was entirely possible they might never recover the full skeleton. Elaina dreaded the thought of breaking that news to the victim’s family. A vision of Valerie’s father filled her mind. He was wrecked and grieving as his wife stared out the window of that police station. He’d looked at Elaina with his watery blue eyes that could have been her own father’s, except that her own father never cried.
You have any children, Ms. McCord?
No, sir, I don’t.
Well, when you do, you’ll know what it’s like to have your heart ripped out.
“McCord!”
She turned and spotted Scarborough standing beneath the open-sided tent that had been set up to sort evidence.
“Sir?”
“Over here. Someone you need to meet.”
Elaina crossed the muck, tugging at the hem of her flowered shorts as she went. She was covered in grime, head to toe.
Scarborough wore his typical slacks and dress shirt, but his sleeves were rolled up to the elbows. His gaze skimmed Elaina, then he gave a curt nod.
“This is Special Agent Bob Loomis. He’s taking the lead on this.”
Elaina traded nods with the man. She was pretty sure no one wanted to shake her hand at the moment.
“Loomis has seen your profile. He’s got some ideas of his own to add. Fill him in on what you know.”
“Sir?” She gazed up into her boss’s piercing gaze.
“About your mystery caller,” Scarborough said, and then stalked off.
Elaina shifted her attention back to her new acquaintance. Tall. Paunchy. Wedding ring. She put him in his mid-forties.
“I read your profile,” Loomis said. “It didn’t mention an accomplice.”
“That’s right. I don’t think he has one.”
“In that case, how do you explain the female who called Officer Chavez?”
“She could be anybody,” Elaina said. “Someone walking down the street who accepted a few bucks just to talk on the phone for him.”
He paused for a moment. “Chavez said she sounded agitated.”
“It’s also possible she found the bones out here. That would make most people agitated. Maybe she’d heard about these murders on the news and didn’t want to get involved beyond reporting her find.”
“With GPS coordinates?”
Elaina swallowed. Loomis had a point. It was a strange coincidence. And she couldn’t explain it, except to say that whoever the caller was, Elaina didn’t believe she was the killer’s accomplice. They were dealing with a lone perpetrator, of that she felt sure.
“This box you found earlier,” Loomis continued. “The one with the toys. Any idea if it’s connected in some way?”
“Nothing solid,” she said, and immediately regretted her choice of words.
“What do you have, McCord?”
“Just a theory, really. It could be nothing.”
“Or it could be something.”
She hesitated. “I was just thinking about the cereal box.”
“The bran flakes?”
“Special K,” she said. “That’s a street name for ketamine hydrochloride. Also, Kit Kat, Vitamin K, Cat Valium. It’s commonly used as an animal anesthesia, but it’s also a club drug. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but so far, all the victims have had ketamine in their systems.”
He crossed his arms and looked at her, and she stood there, clasping her hands together to keep from scratching the itchy welts up and down her neck.
“It’s my understanding that the tox results aren’t back yet on the most recent autopsy—the girl from Houston,” he said. “And I hear she was pretty decomposed. We may never know what drugs, if any, she had in her system.”
“Actually, we should,” Elaina said. “The ME was instructed to look for ketamine. He took a vitreous sample from the eye.”
“How do you know?”
“I attended the autopsy.”
This seemed to come as a surprise to him. He tipped his head to the side, and she couldn’t tell whether it was respect or skepticism she saw in his gaze.
“Well, you’re right, then. If she had ketamine in her system, we’ll probably find traces. You think she did,” he stated.
“I’d be surprised to learn otherwise. All the other victims have had it. It seems to be his drug of choice.”
He looked at her for a long moment. In her peripheral vision, she saw Troy approaching. He must have just finished giving authorities his formal statement.
“You understand this case is ours now, don’t you?” Loomis asked her. “Besides this one turning up on federal land, we know we’ve got a serial killer on our hands, and it’s time we stepped in.”
Elaina waited. Where
was he going with this? Everyone knew the Bureau had taken over. That particular piece of news accounted for the resentful looks she’d been getting tonight from Breck and the sheriff and especially Cisernos, who had responded to Cinco’s request, only to be told his services weren’t needed; the FBI had taken charge.
“I’ve been tapped to lead up this investigation, McCord. You’re new. You’re green. Letting you anywhere near this thing is probably a mistake.”
She saw Troy edge closer, probably wanting to hear the rest of it. Elaina wanted to hear it, too. She sensed a “but” coming. Despite the sweat and the mud and the Hawaiian shorts, it was possible this man actually took her seriously.
“But you’re already involved,” Loomis said, “so we’re going to go with it. You’re a part of this case, and I’ve got a task for you, starting right now. That is, if you’re up for a challenge.”
Troy was waiting when Weaver exited the station house. He watched the agent walk across the blindingly white caliche parking lot. Three in the afternoon, and the man still wore a jacket. His only nod to the triple-digit temperature was his slightly loosened tie, which happened to be purple. Not a great choice for spending the afternoon with Lito Island’s finest.
If Weaver was surprised to find Troy out here leaning against his car, he didn’t show it. He stopped beside the battered Taurus and pulled out his keys.
“Hey, I think you dinged my car,” he said.
Troy scowled at the sedan. It was a heap, just like Elaina’s.“I can’t believe you guys drive these things.”
“We took a vow of poverty. What can I do for you, Mr. Stockton?”
“Troy. And you know exactly what you can do for me.”
“I don’t know where she is,” Weaver said.
“Bullshit.”
“Okay, I know exactly where she is, but I’m not going to tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s got a difficult job to do, and she thinks you’ll distract her.” The man’s gaze dropped briefly, and he lifted an eyebrow. “I can understand her concern.”
Troy gritted his teeth. “She’s off trying to track down that ketamine.”
Weaver didn’t say anything.
Troy crossed his arms. “I was standing right there when Loomis asked her to do it. That’s where she’s been all day, isn’t it?”
Tracers 02 - Unspeakable Page 15