by L. T. Vargus
Settling back in her seat, the doctor blinked thoughtfully.
“I have a feeling this is going to work out beautifully for both of us. Are you married?”
The sharp left turn into personal territory threw Darger for a moment, and she didn’t answer right away.
A conspiratorial smirk spread over Prescott’s face.
“To be clear, I’m not asking as your employer. That would be illegal.”
The bark of her hyena laugh roared over the line.
“Um, no. I’m not married.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Not presently.”
“Girlfriend?” There was a slight arch of an eyebrow there, as if Dr. Prescott thought she was being salacious with this one.
Darger felt her jaw clench, the muscles tighten at her temples. Why was any of this Prescott’s business?
“Nope,” she said, and she almost left it at that. Almost. “I mean, I experimented some in college, but I’ve never been in a serious relationship with a woman. Are you terribly worried that might affect my ability to work for Prescott Consulting?”
Darger immediately regretted these words, and even more the taunting tone in which she spoke them. She’d meant to be on her best behavior, all smiles and non-threatening, and now she was challenging her potential boss in their first conversation.
For her part, however, Margaret Prescott seemed unfazed. Her smirk widened into a manic shark’s grin for a beat, and this time her head fully tipped back when she laughed.
“That’s great. I love that. You’re a firecracker, aren’t you? Victor told me, but goodness. You’re the real deal.”
Her voice sounded guttural with laughter now — like a giddy grandma, Darger thought. But within the time it took to clear her throat, Prescott had composed herself and returned to firing questions.
“And where are you from originally?”
“Colorado. Outside Denver.”
“Of course! The Leonard Stump connection. I’d forgotten all about that,” Prescott said.
The smile faded from Dr. Prescott’s perfectly made-up lips. Even transmitted over the screen from a thousand miles away, her crystal blue gaze was penetrating.
“Tell me, how are you holding up after that? From the little Victor told me, it sounded like it was a rather dramatic experience for you.”
“I passed all of the FBI fitness tests, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Lowering her chin, Prescott’s stare intensified.
“Violet, dear, I’m not talking about the Bureau’s silly physical fitness exams. I’m talking about you.”
The sudden concern threw Darger, and she felt off-balance.
“Oh. I’m… fine.” She steeled herself, regained her composure. “The physical therapy sucked, if I’m being completely honest. I don’t recommend getting shot in the head if you can avoid it.”
Prescott threw her head back again and cackled.
“Jesus! He said you were tough, but I think that was an understatement.”
The tassels of gold chain hanging from her ears dangled as she shook her head back and forth.
“I don’t know how much he’s told you about our operation here, but Prescott Consulting is one of the top forensic psychology consultancies in the country.”
“You have quite the reputation. I followed the Mozes trial in the news. I understand it was your work that got him convicted?”
“A fascinating case,” Prescott said, running a hand through her short hair. “We’ll have to find a moment one of these days to discuss it. His mother is a classic narcissist. She’d make a fabulous case study for one of Victor’s classes at Quantico. But that’s for another time. We have a case out in Oregon — a very rural community with limited resources when it comes to this type of investigation.”
“And what type of investigation is that?” Darger asked.
“A suspected serial murderer. We’ve had three bodies turn up — all in bodies of water, the latest found in the Clackamas River by a couple of fishermen. The first body they chalked up to an accidental drowning. The girl went missing after some sort of school sports event, and no one could explain why she would have been anywhere near the river. Then again, these things do happen.”
Prescott picked up a shiny gold pen and toyed with it as she spoke.
“When the second body was found, people started to talk. Two women, gone missing miles from the river, only to end up being fished out five days later? It didn’t add up. By the time Shannon Mead — the third victim — went missing, the phrase ‘serial killer’ had started to pop up in the media, on the lips of the victims’ families. The locals couldn’t ignore the pattern anymore. And that’s where we come in.”
Darger was jotting down notes on a pad of paper.
“Where exactly in Oregon is this?”
“Sandy is the name. A small town outside of Portland. They’ve only got two detectives on staff, so this is a bit out of their league. All the deceased have been pretty far gone to decay by the time they’ve been found, which makes the forensics tricky, as you can imagine, so we’ve been assisting with that. But what they really need is a profiler, so I’d like to send you out there on a trial basis. It will give both of us a chance to see if this is a good fit,” Prescott said, and then her eyes narrowed slightly. “You’d be working as an independent contractor, just to be clear. And I have to remind you that you’re not technically working in the capacity as a law enforcement agent. I assume you’re licensed to carry a concealed weapon, but I wanted to be clear on that. I’m sure you know as well as I do that law enforcement personnel are creatures of habit. It can be a difficult transition for some to enter the private workforce.”
Darger gave a single nod.
“I doubt it’ll be a problem. How soon do you need me there?”
“Tomorrow, if you can be ready that quickly.”
“I can do that.”
The doctor clapped her hands together.
“Excellent. I’ll have my personal assistant coordinate with you to send over the case files and make the necessary arrangements. I do hope we’ll have an opportunity to meet in person soon, Violet.”
“Likewise,” Darger said.
Even after they’d said their goodbyes and disconnected the call, Darger swore she felt those piercing blue irises staring at her through the screen. The gaze was alight with the hunger of a keen predator, like a hawk or a lioness.
Something in those eyes told Darger to tread lightly with Margaret Prescott.
Chapter 2
The rented Ford Fusion zipped through the twists and turns of the rural Oregon road. Darger followed the winding path of the Clackamas River, surrounded on all sides by green. There were the trees themselves - Grand Firs and Lodgepole Pines — but also the vines and moss clinging to nearly every surface. The foliage of the undergrowth almost seemed to explode from the ground.
She passed a lone farmhouse on a hill, bordered on each side by two massive Ponderosa pines. The house wasn’t small, but the trees were easily three times as tall, towering over the structure, dwarfing it.
It struck her that there was something wild about the trees here, the way they encroached on the road, reaching limbs toward the vehicles speeding by. It felt like a place that belonged to the forest. Like at any moment she might be swallowed up by a cluster of the conifers.
An uneasy feeling wormed in her gut. She wasn’t sure if it was the environment making her feel claustrophobic or her current assignment.
Was she nervous about the job? She was truly on her own this time. She’d always had Loshak there before. Always had a partner to lean on. But maybe it would be good to fly solo for once. Not that she blamed Loshak for any of her ill will toward the FBI. But sometimes change was good.
Then there was Margaret Prescott. Darger couldn’t help but feel like she was under the microscope for this case. It was a test, after all. And Dr. Prescott wasn’t known for grading on a curve.
She mulled over
the details of the case as she drove. A floater — such an endearing term — discovered by two men out fishing on the river. The woman’s body was so badly decomposed, her entire bottom jaw had disintegrated while she lay submerged in her watery grave.
The body belonged to Shannon Mead, an elementary school teacher who’d gone missing five days earlier. She was the third dead woman to be pulled from the river in as many months.
A shiver ran up Darger’s spine at the thought.
Bodies found in water had always creeped Darger out more than others. She thought it could have something to do with a particular memory burned into her mind from childhood.
She and her mother had been visiting family in Minnesota. Their home was on a small lake, and one of Darger’s second cousins — once or twice removed, she could never remember — had taken her on a tour of the waterside.
They spent the afternoon plucking at lily pads and chasing frogs. And then they found the turtle.
It was a massive specimen, just the very top hump of its shell protruding from the water.
“Let’s see if we can catch him,” Darger’s cousin said.
The older girl crept to the water’s edge, plunged her hands into the water on either side of the shell, and grabbed hold.
“I got him!”
She lifted then, but as the shell cleared the water, they saw that something was wrong.
The turtle had no legs. Nor a head. In fact, it was just an empty shell.
Or almost empty.
Thick white clumps of tissue poured from the orifices, the liquefied remains of the dead turtle. This chunky matter was accompanied by a terrible odor. Death, decay, and rot.
Darger’s cousin shrieked and dropped the shell back into the water, and both girls ran back to the house where they fell into hysterics when trying to explain to their parents the horror they’d uncovered. Her cousin’s mother eventually calmed them down with Froot Loops, of all things. Darger could still remember clutching that paper Dixie cup filled with dry cereal, crunching away while tears congealed on her cheeks. Her mother had always refused to buy “sugar cereal,” so the little neon circles had been a rare treat for the young Violet. She was pretty sure that was why she remembered it so well.
Well, that and the smell of the dead turtle. It was fishy and foul, and her recollection of it was worse than the smell of any dead body she’d witnessed to this day.
Another reason for her to be feeling some amount of anxiety, she supposed.
She wondered if the locals would be more accepting of a consultant outside of law enforcement. The cooperation between the FBI and local jurisdictions was usually tenuous at best. Perhaps being on the case as a privately-employed consultant would be less threatening to the local cops. Not that she’d be doing her job any differently. Technically she and Loshak had always been acting as consultants. That was how the BAU operated. The cases they worked were still under the purview of the city, county, or state police force. But that didn’t matter to the local guys, who always treated them like double-crossing interlopers swooping in to steal their thunder.
There was also a possibility that lacking the shiny FBI credentials would mean they wouldn’t take her seriously at all. The thought caused her to glance down at the empty space formerly occupied by her badge.
“I’m a civilian now,” she muttered out loud.
Civilian. The word felt oddly-shaped on her tongue.
She could still picture her badge and ID tumbling toward the Detroit River. Flapping like moth wings all the way down from the MacArthur Bridge to the water.
She’d left that out when she’d talked to Loshak afterward. She wasn’t in the mood to explain that in the mindset she’d been in at that particular moment, tossing her badge away like an old candy bar wrapper had seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Loshak only would have chided her for being impulsive, which was true. She just didn’t want to hear it.
Working at the FBI had been her singular goal for most of her life. To be in a place where she was considering leaving that dream behind had her questioning her sanity some days.
The wooden sign for the small park appeared on the roadside to her left, sinuous vines winding around the lower halves of the posts. This was her destination. Darger turned onto the narrow lane and followed the path to a parking lot set only a stone’s throw from the river. The water sparkled in the early afternoon sunlight.
Darger parked and got out, glad to be able to stretch her legs after the long flight and then the drive out into the boonies.
A few other vehicles were scattered about the lot, but none of them seemed to be law enforcement. Good. She wanted a fresh, quiet look at the scene. By herself. It was how she worked best. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. But she was on her own now, and that was fine.
She walked closer to the water’s edge where a lichen-covered picnic table stood watch over the day use area. She recognized it from some of the crime scene photographs.
Flipping the file open, she paged through the photos, stopping when she reached those focused on the small park. The local police had been thorough, collecting what bits of possible evidence they could from the spot, in case it had served as the scene of the murder, though Darger was sure the killer would have opted for somewhere with more privacy. Under the cover of the nearby forest, for example.
Darger inhaled. It smelled like cedar and cool, clean water. Her eyes flitted from the glittering surface of the river to the green boughs that swayed gently in the breeze. It was the kind of setting she’d expect to see featured on a motivational poster, with a cheesy, clichéd phrase about nature and relaxation written beneath.
Relax. That was what the two fishermen had been trying to do a couple days ago when they discovered the body of Shannon Mead. The bloated, waterlogged corpse was a pale pinkish-gray, the color leeched from her flesh like a dead fish.
The file indicated the men had found the floater about a quarter mile upstream from the park. By the time law enforcement arrived, the body was mostly submerged, tangled up in the aquatic weeds and deadfall at the river’s edge.
Knowing of the many uncertainties an investigation faced when a body spent any amount of time in water, Darger figured they’d probably never know exactly where Shannon Mead was killed and dumped. Still, she wanted to see the place where they’d fished her body out of the river.
Fixing her gaze on the looming fir trees that bordered the parking lot, Darger tucked the folder under her arm, zipped up her parka, and stepped into the woods.
Chapter 3
Darger threaded her way through the dense Oregon wilderness, a tunnel of greenery arching overhead. The towering trees cast a permanent shadow that caused an artificial twilight beneath their canopy.
The air was thick with a damp, mulchy smell. Fresh earth, still wet.
It felt like a jungle. Sounded like one, too, with all the birds calling and insects chirping. She thought of the farm she’d passed on the drive and the small field planted with a cover crop of alfalfa. She suspected that the farmers around here were constantly at battle with the encroaching forest.
Her footsteps barely made a sound on the soft carpet of moss and pine needles covering the forest floor. Though the parking lot was only a short distance behind her, she felt far away from the rest of the world. She looked over her shoulder, but the trees completely blocked the view of the small park. It was a little creepy the way the forest seemed to close in around her, cutting her off from her car, from civilization.
It felt different than most crime scenes she’d been to before. More claustrophobic. More secluded.
The file rested in her hand, a manila folder packed with gore. Darger glanced down at a photo of Shannon Mead’s bloated, fish-white corpse. Mottled. Skin sloughing off in places. There were wounds all over, too numerous to count — whether they occurred before death or were the result of being in the water so long would be almost impossible to determine at this point.
The photographs were gr
isly enough; she could only imagine how gruesome it would have been to see it floating down the river unexpectedly. A bulbous gray-white thing bobbing and flitting along with the whims of the water. Creeping ever closer.
She shuddered a little and glanced away from the folder, checking her location.
Just ahead she spied something flapping in the breeze. A stripe of yellow bisecting the natural greenery. Plastic tape emblazoned with big black letters: CRIME SCENE - DO NOT CROSS. It cordoned off the little area where they’d pulled the body out. Probably not much point in it, since she doubted there’d been many gawkers way back here in the woods. Just procedure, but….
A twig snapped, and Darger caught movement near one of the huge hemlock trees.
There was someone crouching in the northwest corner of the crime scene area, just at the water’s edge.
A man.
And her first thought was that serial killers often returned to their scenes. It was a way to relive the crimes, revisit the dark fantasies. To feel those violent impulses wash over themselves again and again.
Adrenaline spiked in her bloodstream. Made her pupils dilate. She sucked in a gasping breath.
Her hand moved to her hip, reaching for her Glock. Instead she found air.
Right. No FBI-issued Glock today, of course. She was carrying her personal weapon — an M&P Shield.
Different holster. Inside her jacket.
Her fingers found the grip of the weapon, latched onto it. She didn’t like the unfamiliar feel of it, but at least she was armed with something.
All of this confusion threw her enough that she reconsidered her actions. Her palm rested against the butt of the pistol but did not draw it.
She blinked a few times. Really studied the man squatted there near the river.
He wasn’t in uniform, but he was wearing semi-professional clothes: khaki pants, a shirt, and tie. And latex gloves on his hands.
And it clicked finally. Not the killer. A local detective, maybe.
Sensing her presence, he turned, looking surprised for a moment and then popping upright.