LET ME BREATHE, page 15
There was no chance that the killer had picked this location at the last minute.
Ashley had thought that Daphne’s murderer had originally planned to take her to the preprocessing center, but that wasn’t the case. Ashley now knew that the killer never intended to leave his latest victim at the center.
The field where Daphne had taken her final breaths had been chosen in advance.
The earth had likely been stripped away before Daphne had even been abducted. But what had drawn the killer to this location? Why had he changed his MO? It didn’t make sense.
Ashley heard Wyatt’s cell phone ring.
He glanced at the screen and then took off across the field, heading back toward the highway. She guessed the caller might be Brenda, and Wyatt didn’t want Sheriff Pickens to overhear the conversation. Or it could be Kaylee again.
Whoever was calling him, it was clear that Wyatt wanted privacy.
“Can you show me the rat that you found in the tree?” Ashley asked the sheriff.
Although she dreaded looking at the poor animal, she couldn’t risk missing a clue or a piece of evidence the killer might have left behind.
“It’s this way,” Pickens said, ambling toward the forest.
Ashley followed, bracing herself for the gory sight.
The killer had made no effort to hide the dead rodent. The brown animal dangled from a low branch of a maple, right at the edge of the tree line. A piece of narrow rope had been tied to the rat’s tail, leaving the body hanging upside down. Ashley’s stomach somersaulted when she spotted the white plastic bowl that had been placed below the animal to catch the blood. The severed head lay next to the bowl.
“Well, I could be wrong, but that doesn’t look like a pet-store rat to me,” she said, fighting the wave of nausea.
“It’s wild all right. And Sparks County doesn’t have a pet store.”
Ashley wondered whether the TBI forensic techs would be able to lift prints from the plastic bowl. So far, no fingerprints belonging to the killer had been found, which meant he likely wore gloves along with his cowboy boots. Or maybe he was just an expert at wiping things down.
With nothing left to see in the forest, Ashley made her way back across the field to Daphne’s body. She checked the time on her phone. If the medical examiner didn’t arrive within the next few minutes, the sheriff would be forced to forgo speaking with him before breaking the news to Wallace.
Glancing down toward the highway, Ashley spotted Wyatt standing on the other side of the ditch. He motioned for her to come and meet him. She hoped that they weren’t in trouble with Brenda again.
Ashley hurried down the slope, retracing her previous footsteps. When she reached the road’s shoulder, she realized that a worried expression masked Wyatt’s face. It was obvious that he had received some type of news. And it wasn’t good.
“What’s wrong?” she asked him.
“I have to leave,” Wyatt said.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
A sinking feeling hit Ashley as she stood on the shoulder of the highway, studying Wyatt’s troubled face. Maybe she’d heard him wrong. Had misunderstood what he was trying to tell her.
“What do you mean: you have to leave?”
He sighed. “I’m going back to Briarwood.”
They’d just found Daphne’s lifeless body lying on a carved-out chunk of earth at the top of the slope overlooking the highway. Every suspect they’d investigated for the three murders had proven not guilty, and they had no new leads. The case had ground to a halt, and it was likely the killer had already chosen his next victim. They needed to find him before he abducted another woman. They were racing against the clock.
And now, Wyatt wanted to go home?
He couldn’t be serious. Unless…
“Was that telephone call from Brenda? Has she pulled you off of the case?”
Ashley had realized at the start of the investigation that there was an unusual amount of friction between Wyatt and the deputy director. The situation had seemed to go from bad to worse after their high-speed chase of Curtis Crick had resulted in a toxic waste spill. Had their failure at capturing the killer at the preprocessing center the prior night proved to be the last straw for Brenda? Had it cost Wyatt his job?
“No. It has nothing to do with Brenda.”
Ashley stared at Wyatt, waiting for him to explain. He didn’t.
“When are you coming back to Sparks County?” she asked.
Maybe he only planned to be gone a few hours. While she didn’t want to lose a single minute working on the case, if there was something he needed to take care of back in Briarwood, she could handle the morning and afternoon alone. She’d bring him up to speed tonight.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “A day or two, maybe.”
Two days? In that length of time, they stood the chance of losing two more women to the serial killer. Were the victims’ lives not important to Wyatt?
“I don’t understand how you can just run out in the middle of a murder investigation,” she stated, fire in her voice.
He hesitated a moment before answering. “It’s personal.”
Ashley counted to ten in her head, forcing herself to remain calm. Maybe he had a legitimate reason for needing to go home. Maybe something terrible had happened to a member of his family. While she hoped that she’d guessed wrong, if that proved to be the case, then she could understand—and empathize with—his situation. She’d take up the slack and cover for him as long as he needed.
She softened her tone. “Did someone in your family pass away?”
He shook his head. “Ashley…”
For a split second, she thought he was going to open up to her. That he trusted her enough to share the details of what had been going on in his life that had him so unnerved. But when he met her gaze again, it felt as though a new wall had slid between them.
“I can’t go into it right now,” he said. “But I have to hurry. Do you want a ride back to the motel? Or do you want to stay here?”
Irritation brewed in her chest. What he obviously meant was that he felt uncomfortable discussing the problem with her. Wyatt’s reluctance led Ashley to believe that his troubles were likely romantic in nature.
“Does your leaving have anything to do with Kaylee?”
The wounded look that crossed Wyatt’s face made Ashley wish that she’d never asked the question. But it was too late to take back the words. And his pained expression had given her the answer.
“Are you going to the motel or not?” He sounded as though he was losing his patience with her as well.
Wyatt might be heading home, but she had to keep working.
“I’m going to stay here and talk to the medical examiner.”
Without waiting for his reply, Ashley spun on her heels and trudged back across the ditch. A serial killer stalked the women of Sparks County. And there was no way in hell she’d let him claim another victim. Not if it was humanly possible to stop him.
But one thought plagued her.
Could Ashley apprehend the murderer alone?
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
The scarred wooden desk in her musty motel room wobbled as Ashley flipped open her laptop. One of the desk’s legs appeared to be shorter than the others, which didn’t surprise her. But she realized that having her computer seesaw every time she pressed down on the trackpad would prove too aggravating for her to get any work done. She wondered how Wyatt had managed to concentrate when he’d sat at the desk.
But there were many things about her partner that she had trouble understanding.
Especially now.
With a sigh, she grabbed her laptop and moved to the bed, propping the pillows behind her. After logging into the TBI database, she scanned through their notes on the case. There had to be something that she was missing.
What was the common denominator between Hannah, Trina, and Daphne? Serial killers usually had a specific type that they targeted. But there appeared to be nothing similar about the three women. They didn’t share the same physical attributes—each having a different hair color, height, and body weight. Both Hannah and Trina were Sparks County locals, but Daphne had grown up in Nashville. They’d been born years apart, worked in different professions, and they weren’t friends.
What had sparked the killer’s interest in the three women?
As she clicked through the photos from Hannah’s crime scene, Ashley’s cell phone rang.
Brenda’s name flashed on her caller ID, filling Ashley with dread. With Wyatt temporarily out of commission, she realized that it would be up to her to field all of the deputy director’s questions. And to explain the reasons for their lack of progress on the homicide case.
“Hello,” she answered, trying to instill a note of confidence in her tone.
“Ashley, I’m returning Wyatt’s call. His cell keeps sending me straight to voicemail. Could you hand your phone to him please?”
Caught off guard, Ashley didn’t know how to respond. She’d assumed that Wyatt had spoken with Brenda first, before deciding to head back to Briarwood. But it was obvious now that the deputy director had not been informed.
“Ashley?”
“I’m here,” she stated, searching her mind for the right thing to say.
She wouldn’t lie to Brenda, but she felt it wasn’t her place to reveal the fact that Wyatt had left Sparks County.
“Actually, I’m alone in my motel room right now,” Ashley said, hoping that she wouldn’t be pressed for further details.
Brenda sighed on the other end of the line. “I don’t have the time to play phone tag. Please ask Wyatt to return my call.”
“I will.”
The line went dead.
Resentment surged in Ashley’s chest. Why did Wyatt leave without getting Brenda’s approval? He had to have known that when he didn’t answer his phone, the deputy director would contact Ashley. How long did he expect her to cover for him? The entire two days?
If Brenda called again, asking to speak to Wyatt, Ashley would be forced to tell the truth.
How could he knowingly put her in such an awkward position?
Tapping on her phone’s message app, she selected Wyatt’s contact. She willed herself to calm down as she typed the text.
Brenda is looking for you.
She doesn’t know you went home.
Call her ASAP!
If Ashley had written the words that she really wanted to say to him, Wyatt would likely never return to Sparks County, leaving her to solve the homicide case on her own. She just hoped that he would get in contact with Brenda before everything blew up in his face.
Pushing her irritation with Wyatt aside, Ashley turned her attention back to the investigation.
The medical examiner had confirmed that Daphne had been killed at the location where her body had been found. His preliminary findings indicated that the time of death had been somewhere between midnight and one a.m. The same timeframe had been utilized for the deaths of Hannah and Trina.
But the fact that a grassy hillside had been chosen for Daphne’s murder puzzled Ashley.
Why had the killer changed his MO?
With Daphne’s death, the theory that the murderer considered his victims to be pieces of trash fell apart. So what message was the killer attempting to send? It made no sense for him to select the landfill and the waste treatment center for Hannah and Trina and then switch gears by carrying Daphne to a tranquil, sunlit field.
And what had possessed him to slaughter the rat, signing his work in blood?
Ashley clicked on the photos of Daphne’s murder scene. The way the earth had been carved away, and the position of the body and the square of granite rock, made it appear as though the killer had mimicked a burial plot from a cemetery.
Consumed by the horror of the photographs, Ashley jumped when her cell phone rang.
A wave of anxiety hit her. She feared it was Brenda calling again. Her mood lightened as she checked the screen. It was her father.
“Hi, Daddy,” she said, looking forward to hearing Spencer Hope’s soothing voice.
“How’s my baby girl been doing?”
Well, I’ve been forced to share a bed with my partner, who by the way, just ran out on me while we were in the middle of chasing a serial killer, and I’m terrified another woman may die before I can stop it. And to top it off, my boss isn’t happy with our work so far, so I might be out of a job soon, but other than that, I’m great.
“I’m okay,” she said, trying to sound upbeat. “How are you, Kyle, and Shane?”
“We’re fine as frog’s hair. But something tells me you ain’t.”
The cheery note that she’d tried to force into her voice had fallen flat. But she wasn’t too surprised. Her father had been an expert at reading Ashley since she was a young child. Even over the phone. Most of the time, his intuition proved to be a good thing. But in this situation, there was no way that she could confess everything that was troubling her.
“It’s just this homicide case,” she said. “The killer has changed his MO and I don’t understand what it means.”
“What’s he done?”
It wasn’t her habit to discuss the details of a case, but this was her father. She could trust him to keep the information to himself.
“Well, we have three murder victims,” she began. “Two of the bodies were left at hazardous waste sites, which I thought was important to the case—that the killer was using the locations to send a message. But we found the third body on top of a quiet grassy slope in the country. I can’t figure out why he chose that spot. And it makes it a lot harder to catch a killer when I can’t anticipate his next move, or where he’ll take the next victim.”
Spencer remained silent for a moment, but Ashley could feel the gears of his mind turning.
“You say you found this last one on a hill?”
“That’s right,” she said. “Do you think that could mean something?”
If her father had made some kind of connection between the three murders, maybe he should be the one with the TBI badge.
“I reckon it might,” Spencer said. “You remember that ten acres your cousin Virgil was gonna buy real cheap?”
Ashley had a vague recollection of her cousin mentioning something about a tract of land in Laurel County a few years prior. But the details were hazy.
“I think so.”
“Well, you should recall that your Uncle Russ done went and put a stop to it, soon as he found out where the land was.”
She had no idea where the ten-acre tract had been located, or what her father was trying to tell her.
“I really don’t remember anything about it, Daddy.”
“Back when you was just a tot, there was a leather tannery in Mettler Ridge. They used some dangerous chemicals to tan them cow hides. This was before all these regulations they got now. Anyhow, the man that owned the place went and buried them used chemicals on a piece of land he had. That hill looks might pretty today. But it ain’t fit to live on.”
Was hazardous waste buried beneath the slope where Daphne had been murdered? If so, that would link all three locations. It also meant there was still the possibility that the killer would return to the preprocessing center. And they could finally catch him.
“I’ll bet you’re right,” Ashley said, hope welling in her chest. “The land where we found the last victim could have been used as a dumping ground. Thank you, Daddy.”
“Just glad to hear you perking up,” he stated, a smile in his voice.
Ashley heard her phone beep, indicating she had another call coming in. She glanced at the screen. It was Brenda.
“I’m going to have to let you go, Daddy,” she said, keeping her tone light. “I love you.”
“Love you too, baby girl.”
Ashley took a deep breath, bracing herself for the conversation she feared was coming.
Would she be forced to tell Brenda that Wyatt had left Sparks County?
CHAPTER THIRTY
Anxiety rippled through Ashley’s body as she tapped the screen of her cell phone, hanging up with her father and accepting the incoming call from Brenda.
How would she explain to the deputy director that Wyatt had walked out on the homicide investigation? Especially since she had no idea of the reason he’d decided to leave. She couldn’t hide the fact that he was gone, but she feared that if she said the wrong thing, it would cost Wyatt his job.
Sliding her laptop onto the mattress, Ashley rose from the lumpy motel room’s bed.
“Hello,” she answered, trying to keep her voice calm and level.
“Ashley, I have a bit of unfortunate news,” Brenda began. “Wyatt has returned to Briarwood, which means that I need you to step up and take the lead on this case. I don’t have another agent free that I can reassign to Sparks County. So, you’ll have to fly solo for a while.”
The deputy director’s words stunned her. Brenda obviously wasn’t aware that Ashley already knew where Wyatt had gone. By omitting that fact, did that mean he’d felt it necessary to cover for her? Had Brenda fired him?
“Will Wyatt be coming back to Sparks County?” Ashley asked as she paced the dingy motel room. She dreaded hearing the answer—afraid that Wyatt was no longer an agent.
“That has yet to be determined. But you need to plan on carrying the full load yourself, at least for the time being. And I don’t think I should have to remind you that everything must be done by the book. Use extreme caution and don’t create more trouble with the EPA.”
“I understand,” she said, knowing Brenda was referring to the high-speed chase of Curtis Crick. “There won’t be any more waste spills.”
