3. Asher
Chapter three
Asher
I knew without a doubt that this was Dahlia Porter, but without any identification, the hospital had to admit her as a Jane Doe until we could verify who she was.
Ms. Porter was still unconscious, and they started her on an IV in the ambulance because she was severely dehydrated.
Once she was in a private room, I waited behind the curtain while nurses cut off the dress she’d been wearing, and a couple of techs bagged everything as evidence.
They also took her shoes and got a hair sample, as well as scraping from under her fingernails.
I listened as the nurses murmured to each other, their voices floating over the thin curtain wall.
“-look at the wounds here, they’re fresh, and they look deep.”
“She’ll have scarring, we should get plastics in to take a look.”
The intercom on the phone buzzed as they paged someone else to come in.
I peaked around the corner to check on the techs.
They had a gown on Ms. Porter to cover her thin frame—she was lying on her side as they examined her back.
Lacerations covered her middle and lower back, some were clearly made recently while others looked almost healed.
I grimaced and waved one of the techs over, reminding them to take pictures of the wounds before they were patched up.
One of them had finally cut the collar off of her neck, and I picked it up in the evidence bag, examining it through the plastic.
“Nasty bit of handiwork,” someone commented, and I looked over to the technician at my right, who was cataloging the evidence.
“It’s homemade?” I asked, taking a closer look. I’d never had a dog, so I was not familiar with shock collars, but this thing looked more like a homemade IED than something you’d put on an animal.
“It looks like they took pieces from a taser and rigged it to a shock collar. Same concept but a bigger bite.” I grimaced and set the device back down on the table.
It always astounded me, the lengths that some people would go to just to fulfill their own twisted desires.
I walked back behind the curtain and checked my phone.
Hunter and a team of officers had gone to Curing’s workplace and a couple of frequented spots, but so far there was no trace of him.
We had an A.P.B. out and his face would be splashed on every news channel at 6 p.m. tonight.
We weren’t releasing any information about Ms. Porter just yet, not until we could verify her identity.
“Agent Cross?” I glanced behind me, and a nurse waved me over.
“It’s Doctor actually, I’m not an agent,” I told her casually, ignoring her look of confusion. Sure I had a gun, a badge, and a partner who screamed FBI out of every pore, but I was just a behavioral analyst who worked for the FBI, so I didn’t get the snazzy title. “What do you need?”
“Our plastic surgeon is coming to do a consult once he’s out of surgery, in the meantime we’re going to bandage her up and let her rest. Does your team have all the pictures they need?
” she asked, glancing at the duo standing by the evidence tray.
The one with the camera had already turned it off, which I assumed meant they were finished for now.
“They’re done,” I replied and stepped back to get out of their way. The techs wheeled the evidence out to the waiting officers, and once the nurses were finished with the bandages, they also headed out of the room. I followed them, wanting to check in with the officer who was still there.
“Has a shift been assigned to stand watch here?” I asked, and he nodded, leaning against the wall.
“If you need to leave your post for any reason, knock on the door and let me know alright?” He grimaced at me, and it was only after I said it that I realized this probably wasn’t his first time guarding someone.
“I’m Dr. Cross,” I offered, trying again.
“You can call me Asher.” I waited a beat, and he grunted an acknowledgement, looking me up and down briefly.
Right, okay then . I sighed and let myself back into the room, shutting the door quietly behind me.
I took a seat near the bed so I could watch the door and keep an eye on Ms. Porter, and I grabbed my bag off the floor, rooting around until I found my notebook and a pen.
I started to scribble my notes from today on a new page, preferring to document as much as I could while it was still fresh in my mind.
At least it was fairly quiet in here, aside from the hum of the devices set up behind the bed and the occasional voice over the intercom.
Every half hour or so a nurse popped in to check Ms. Porter’s IV and make a note on her chart.
So far she hadn’t moved or woken up, and I was starting to get a little concerned that she had some head trauma we had missed.
Hunter checked in a few times, letting me know their progress.
The News had finally aired the story, so Curing would be forced to go to ground now.
I didn’t envy the officers manning those phone lines tonight.
Everyone and their dog would be calling in to say that they definitely saw Steve Curing shopping for canned peas at the supermarket in some small town in Wyoming.
Rarely, if ever, did we get anything useful on those tip lines, most of it was just an outlet for lonely or crazy people.
I scratched my chin with the pen idly as I started off into space.
Where would Curing go now, what would be his next step?
He was meticulous, every detail was exact, every step planned out just so.
He would be furious that we stole away his latest doll, untethered without his collection of clothes and the videos he’d been saving of the women he hurt.
Would he run, give up, or try to finish things with Ms. Porter?
I doubted he would give up, he profiled as someone who would choose suicide by cop over jail.
This wasn’t about the notoriety for him, this was about his own twisted game.
He’d want to finish the game, it would itch under his skin until it ate away any rational thought.
He’d do something stupid, he would make a mistake, and that was how we’d catch him.