Chapter 7 #3
“I do. Skye would always complain that she wanted a salad, but you and I were all about the sandwiches.” Evie’s smile faded. “I hate thinking about what she must have suffered that night. We really need to find the person who killed her.”
“We will.” He forced himself to sound confident. “We have a good plan.”
“Yeah.” Evie pulled out her phone. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to search for missing women.”
“On what, social media?” He frowned. “Not sure that’s a reliable source.”
“No, I was going to try a simple search first.” Her gaze was focused on her phone screen. “There must be some report out there especially related to the bracelet tattoo, or Jackson wouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“Okay.” Cam hoped the woman they’d found buried wasn’t someone he’d interacted with at some point.
He slowed to make the turn toward the high school.
To his surprise, the parking lot wasn’t empty.
There were several cars parked in a cluster near the front door of the building.
He wasn’t familiar with teacher’s schedules, but the number of cars led him to believe they were required to report for duty well before the students arrived on scene.
Or maybe there were summer school classes that were still being held on campus.
“Pull over!” Evie’s curt tone startled him.
“What’s wrong?”
“I found her.” Evie’s stricken gaze clashed with his. “Pull over, please.”
“Okay.” He did as she’d asked, making sure they were well out of traffic before shifting into park. He mentally braced himself. “Who is it?”
“Her name is Jasmine Kramer.” Evie slowly turned the phone so that he could see the image on the screen. “Does she look familiar?”
A sense of relief hit hard when he saw the girl’s face. He’d never seen her before in his life. She had dark hair with a dyed blue streak on one side along with a nose piercing. She looked young.
Too young.
“Jasmine Kramer? From where, here in Grand Haven? Or somewhere else?” He forced the questions through his tight throat. While he was grateful he didn’t recognize her, the poor girl was still dead.
Murdered, just like Skye Gray.
“She lives here in Grand Haven, according to the news report.” Evie slowly shook her head. “She just turned eighteen and apparently works in the kitchen at the Grand Haven Medical Center.”
“Eighteen,” he repeated grimly. “Same age as Skye.”
“Yeah. Although since she just turned eighteen, I’m not sure if she’s graduated already or not. This report also mentions the flower tattoo around her wrist as an identifying mark.”
They were both silent for a long moment, remembering the blue-tinged slender arm he’d uncovered in the dirt.
Evie turned the phone back so she could read more about the missing girl. “According to this, Jasmine has been missing since Tuesday.”
“You called me on Wednesday.” He stared at her. “You were right about the timing. Bruno must have caught the killer’s scent when he darted into the nature preserve that night.”
“Technically, that was Wednesday early morning, roughly four a.m.” Evie ran her fingers through her hair. “Today is Thursday, so Jasmine has been lying in the ground for the past two days.”
“Yeah.” Two days Cam didn’t have an alibi. He’d gone to the grocery store after finishing the last mission for Rex and had done his usual five-mile runs. But even if there was a witness who’d seen him running, it wasn’t enough to clear him as a suspect.
“I can’t believe Bruno was so close to the killer.” Evie’s tone was husky. “Do you think he saw Bruno?”
“I don’t know, but it probably doesn’t matter.
By now, the news that Bruno was the one to find Skye’s remains has probably spread through town to the point the killer knows that.
And he would also know exactly when that was.
” He held Evie’s gaze. “The same night he’d killed and buried Jasmine’s body within two hundred yards from Skye’s grave. ”
Evie dropped her phone into the center console and buried her face in her hands. He reached over to rest his hand on her shoulder.
“I thought it would help to know that poor girl’s name, but it doesn’t,” she whispered. “It only makes it worse.”
“Evie, don’t torture yourself. This isn’t your fault. Or Bruno’s.” He did his best to sound reassuring. He thought it was interesting Jasmine worked at the medical center. That was very different from Skye, who claimed to feel faint at the sight of blood.
Yet both girls were young, barely eighteen, and pretty. Maybe that was the only thing that mattered to this guy.
“Look at it this way, the killer made a huge mistake,” he went on.
“The guy who did this chose to bury Jasmine close enough to Skye that we were able to find her. And even if Bruno hadn’t found her remains, it’s possible the police would have widened their search parameters to the point they’d have found Jasmine too. ”
“Rueger?” She snorted and rubbed her hands over her face before looking up at him. “Fat chance.”
“You never know.” This new information made him anxious to return to the nature preserve. If they were right about the killer visiting Skye’s grave to remember how he’d killed her, then there were likely more bodies to find.