Chapter 6 #2
“I mean, staged or presented in a way like the killer wanted you to find them,” Hayes clarified, gesturing with his hand.
“Heather’s body was found less than twenty-four hours after she went missing—thanks to a tip about suspicious activity near the river, thirty miles from campus.
Four others turned up in shacks, abandoned homes, or garages soon after being reported missing.
Nothing ritualistic about them beyond the missing ring finger.
One victim was found on the roadside, barely alive, and died en route to the hospital from a head injury.
And the last two were pulled from the Intracoastal Waterway. ”
“We know all that,” Buddy said. “And as much as we hate to speculate, we have to assume there are more victims—ones we haven’t found.
No killer stretches their kills out this long without others slipping through the cracks.
The only reason we’ve connected these is because Chloe went digging once she became an agent.
The press hasn’t linked the murders—at least not yet.
But this last one…it’s raising eyebrows.
That reporter, Stacey, asked if the victim was missing a finger.
I deflected and told her we hadn’t finished processing the scene or run the autopsy yet. Still, her question was...concerning.”
“I heard that, too,” Dawson said. “How would she even know about the ring fingers? That detail’s never been made public, and we certainly haven’t said anything about this latest victim.”
“We don’t know,” Buddy admitted, dragging a hand over his mouth. “But I’m curious where you’re going with this, Hayes.”
“Here’s the thing,” Hayes said. “It looks to me like, up until now, the killer didn’t want the victims found.
He dumped them where they could be easily lost. Maybe his ritual got interrupted.
But this time? It feels deliberate. This body was positioned to be found, and it certainly made a statement.
So I keep asking myself—why now? Why Calusa Cove?
Why is he stepping into the light after all this time? ”
“I’ve thought the same,” Buddy said. “But we’ve never seen this guy stage a body before.
And we still don’t understand his ritual.
We don’t know much about what he does to the girls.
How long he holds them before he kills them, though, based on Heather, it didn’t seem long.
Setting a fire like that? It’s risky. Could’ve destroyed everything—evidence, the body, all of it.
We might not have even realized it was him for a couple of days if the body had been burned in the fire.
So I’m not ready to say he’s taunting us. ”
“No, but it’s worth considering,” Hayes said.
“It’s a change in behavior—and that means something. We need to reexamine everything we know about the victims.” Chloe pushed back her chair, stood, and paced with one hand on her hip and the other fiddling with her ponytail.
Hayes had seen her do this many times when she’d been deep in thought over files she’d been combing through. He shouldn’t find it sexy, but he did. Intelligence, kindness, humility, and honesty always trumped beauty.
But Chloe was the complete package.
“In our research,” Chloe began, “we found that every victim had either cheated on their partner or left them for someone else. That’s why we think the ring finger is the trophy.
It’s symbolic. Our theory is that the killer was either cheated on or abandoned—someone he loved left him and moved on.
He’s carrying that wound. It drives him.
But then we always question how he finds his victims. Is it personal?
Random? Is he stalking? There are too many unknowns.
” She paused, meeting Hayes’s eyes. “And the theory doesn’t hold completely.
The victims all look different—blondes, brunettes, even a redhead. ”
“So, he’s not killing the same person over and over,” Hayes said.
He wished he had another milkshake—bad for the body, good for the brain.
“Maybe he’s not seeking revenge on one woman but punishing a type—the kind of person who hurt him.
Or...he thinks he’s doing people a favor. Helping others heal.”
“That second part is interesting,” Buddy said, tapping his finger against the table. “We usually assume he’s out to punish cheaters. I’ve never considered he might think he’s helping someone—avenging them. Why are you framing it that way?”
“Because I think both motivations can exist together,” Hayes replied, rubbing the back of his neck.
He wasn’t sure he was even making sense, and he was surprised they cared what he thought.
Calusa Cove didn’t get complex cases often, but when Dawson hit a wall, he turned to the team, just like in their SEAL days.
Although Hayes and Chloe often discussed her work, it had always been at a high level.
Nothing detailed. He respected that. And he’d never seen himself as some criminal profiler.
His strengths were waiting in stillness, breathing through chaos, and staying steady when others fell apart.
Whether behind a sniper’s scope or treating the wounded bleeding out in the dirt, he didn’t second-guess. He acted.
“When you lose someone you love,” Hayes said, “you look for someone to blame. Some people get stuck in that. But others might twist that pain into something else—something they think is justice. What if this guy isn’t recreating the same relationship over and over, but instead thinks he’s helping others by removing the source of the betrayal? Some kind of bro code.”
“Maybe someone did that for him,” Chloe said softly. “Maybe the connection to the victims isn’t through the girls, but through the men they were in relationships with.”
“That’s possible,” Dawson muttered.
Chloe exhaled. “And we just made profiling him harder. The victims don’t fit a clear mold, and now we need to look at the men they were involved with.”
“Both in a relationship, and the ones they were cheating with,” Buddy added. “Victimology matters—and right now, what we have is thin. Hayes makes a good point, though. This feels different. Like the killer is changing tactics, maybe even toying with us.”
Hayes leaned forward. “Then maybe it’s time we go back to the one case we do know inside and out—Heather’s.”
Buddy glanced at Chloe. “It’s not like we haven’t picked that case apart a hundred times.”
“I brought the case file, along with my notes when we tried to use me as a potential victim,” she said, sifting through the pile in front of her until she found a worn folder.
“It doesn’t give us much, other than showing how different Heather and I were.
She was the rebel, and I was...the rule-follower.
She broke boundaries. I created them. We butted heads a lot.
The night she disappeared, I didn’t even want to go to that party.
But my dad was worried. I learned later that he knew about her cheating.
I promised to keep an eye on her.” Chloe turned, swiping at her cheeks. “I didn’t.”
“But you went,” Hayes said gently.
“I did,” she admitted. “But as soon as we got to her friend’s house, I peeled off.
I grabbed a book from the shelf in the family library and went to the beach to read.
I came back for a soda about an hour later and started looking for her.
Couldn’t find her. I did see her boyfriend and asked if he’d seen her—he said she was probably off screwing someone else, and then he left.
I stayed until everyone else was gone...
and still couldn’t find Heather.” Her voice cracked.
“That’s when I called the cops. They told me I had to wait twenty-four hours.
She was found dead before I even got the chance. ” She drew a shaky breath.
“Did many people know she was cheating on her boyfriend?” Dawson asked. “And what about the other victims?”
“Same story,” Buddy answered. “Every significant other reported infidelity. They were all ruled out as suspects early on. What’s also interesting is that all the bodies we’ve found have been within a 150-mile radius of Calusa Cove.
My office is doing a deep dive into missing persons across the state but taking a closer look at ones near here. ”
“That’s usually my job,” Chloe muttered. “I already have a list of missing women labeled as cheaters.”
“I know,” Buddy said with a nod. “But you’re on leave, and I can’t?—”
“Spare me,” Chloe cut in. “Just make sure the new files get to me so I can compare them to what I’ve already got.”
“I’d like to take a look, too,” Dawson added. “Maybe there’s a pattern we missed. Dates, timelines...something.”
“We’ve already tried that,” Chloe said, leaning against the railing and twisting her ponytail. “There’s no date pattern—no season, no anniversary. The only common threads are that the victims are all women, they were all cheating, and they were all young.”
“Young women between twenty-one and twenty-five,” Buddy said. “This latest one is the oldest so far. Chloe’s original list capped at thirty, but for this case, I expanded it to include women up to forty.”
“Dawson.” The sound of Dewey’s voice caught Hayes’s attention, and he shifted his gaze. Dewey jogged across the neighbor’s yard. “Audra told me you’d be here,” Dewey said, breathlessly, slowly as he approached the back deck. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need to speak with you.”
“What’s going on?” Dawson turned, smiled, and waved. “Is everything okay?”
“I don’t know.” Dewey shook his head. He was a bit of an odd duck, but a kind enough man.
He was always willing to help his neighbors.
When a storm blew through town, he was the first one to move tree branches from the street or cut away debris from someone’s yard.
But the man didn’t socialize much outside of having a beer or two with Silas and his crew.
Mostly, Dewey kept to himself…and the mangrove.