Cadence returned to his side. “No prints were found on Lily’s vehicle. The perp may have been wearing gloves when he approached her. Or he could have wiped the car down after he took Lily.”
Now more folks were flipping through the files.
“Thirteen women.” Kyle threw out the number and waited for the gazes to lift back to him.
He wanted them focused on what he was saying. They all needed to be searching the roads. They needed to know what—who—they were searching for.
“Once a year, our perp goes out and abducts a woman. He’s hunting in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee. We’re alerting authorities in all of those areas so they can be searching, too.”
There were mutters then. Did the men and women realize what a large target zone they were facing? Too bad. But maybe he could narrow things a bit for them. “He likes hunting down here, probably because it’s his home. He feels comfortable here.”
Silence, the uncomfortable kind.
Yeah, I’m f**king saying the killer could be right here, in your town. He could be the guy who works at the diner. The man who runs the repair shop. He could be here.
“Lily is the only victim to have been recovered at this point.” Lucky number thirteen. They’d yet to identify the woman in the Statue of Liberty chamber. “The others were never found. But based on Lily’s encounter…” The memory of his sister’s voice, pleading for help. “We don’t think he kills his victims right away.”
“Jesus Christ,” Jason said. The guy looked shaken. “Just how long does he keep them alive?”
“We don’t know that.” Kyle wished he did.
“It’s possible.” Cadence’s voice carried easily through the room. For an instant, he thought he heard a slight drawl in her voice, but it vanished as she continued, “It’s possible they stay alive for the full year. When the year is over, he kills them, and hunts again.”
Jason scrubbed a hand over his face. “Twisted freak.”
Heather Crenshaw shifted in her chair. “Could any of the victims still be alive? Are we sure he kills them?”
The ME hurried forward. Dr. Hank Crane was in his sixties. His cheeks were ruddy, his eyes watering, and his hands moving in a nervous rhythm. “We know the remains of one victim are in my lab. I can’t ID her, not yet, but based on decomposition, I’d say she’s been dead for at least eight years.”
“That’s one body,” Heather said, swallowing. “What about the other ten?”
“They could be buried in the caverns. They could be hidden somewhere else,” Cadence said.
“Or maybe they’re still alive?” Heather pressed.
“The odds of that are low,” Cadence told her. “This man, he’s what we’d view as a collector. He sees a woman he wants and he does anything necessary to get her. He keeps her, breaks her, and when he’s done with her, he kills her.” She pushed back hair that had fallen over her forehead. “He dosed Lily Adams with enough drugs to kill her. She was dead for five minutes while we waited for rescue personnel. He didn’t want Lily to escape, and I don’t believe he let any of the other victims escape, either.”
Then Cadence stepped to the side and pointed to the photos covering the wall behind them. “When it comes to his prey, our perp is very particular.”
“Those women don’t look a thing alike,” one of the deputies muttered.
“It’s not how they look. It’s how they act.” Cadence squared her slender shoulders. “These women never caused trouble with the law, they weren’t late on their taxes, their acquaintances all described them as being good friends, easy to talk with. Folks who knew them said these women liked to help others.”
“They were good people,” the captain said, frowning. “They didn’t deserve this.”
No one would deserve this.
“How would the guy know this stuff?” Jason demanded. “Some of these women were just passing through town. There’s no way he could have so much information on a stranger.”
“He could’ve gotten the information if he talked with them.” The obvious answer. Cadence delivered it softly. “If he sat with them for a few hours in a restaurant. If he overheard them talking with someone else. I believe this man is very, very good at figuring people out. At seeing what makes them tick. He realized very quickly that these women would be the perfect prey for him, so he took them.”
“Perfect prey?” Now this came from James. “What does that mean?”
“It means these are women who were likely to respond quickly to his commands. Women who weren’t going to argue, weren’t going to question.” Her voice was smooth, emotionless. “These women would want to survive, and they’d follow his orders if it meant freedom waited for them.”
“Wouldn’t most people react that way?” Heather wanted to know as her fingers tightened around the file in her lap. “To survive, hell, wouldn’t we all do just about anything?”
Kyle knew she was right. When it was your life on the line, you’d do any damn thing.
“I pulled the school records for the victims,” Cadence said. Cadence was always the thorough one. “In school, these girls never had so much as a warning in their discipline files. They followed the rules, they were—”
“Good,” Kyle finished. He knew it was what the killer wanted. “He takes the good girls for his collection.”
“And he figures this out,” Heather asked with both fear and confusion sliding over her face, “just by talking to them for a while? That’s what you’re saying? The guy knows who they really are that fast?”
“Our perp is highly intelligent,” Cadence said, voice calm and clear. No fear flashed on her face. “I believe we’ll find that he’s well educated, and that he might have even spent time studying psychology. He knows people. He knows these women. I think he approaches them and asks them questions. He learns from their own words and actions whether they would be the type of prey he wants.”
“He’s looking for control.” Kyle knew the SOB wanted to control everyone and everything around him. That’s why you called me, isn’t it? To prove you were the one with all the power. But guess what, ass**le? I’m taking that power away.
“What happens,” James asked as he rolled his shoulders, “when the victims aren’t…good? What if he makes a mistake? No one is damn good all the time.”