Chapter 10
Bel raced for the station’s reception, barely stopping as she shouted at the on-duty officers. “Who delivered the package for me?”
“I don’t know,” the deputy said.
“It wasn’t the mailman?” she asked.
“No.”
“What did they look like?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” She gawked at him.It was his jobto address and observe those who approached the station’s front desk.
“A giant group of fans was just here trying to get information,” he said. “By the time we got them and their social media filming outside, the package was there. We didn’t see who slipped it onto the counter.”
“Check the security footage!” Bel bolted out the front door, the icy wind punching her face as she skidded to a stop to avoid a pedestrian passing on the sidewalk.
“Geez, watch where you’re—sorry, officer,” the stranger fumbled.
“Did you see them?” She ignored his comment. “The group that just left the station. Did you see where they went?”
“Um…” the man scanned the now sparsely populated street. “No.”
Bel cursed as she jogged out into the road, but whoever had delivered the package was long gone. A horn honked behind her, and she glared at the driver, who had the decency to look embarrassed when he realized she was a cop. The car slowed to allow her to retreat, and she sprinted back into the station and up the stairs to her desk.
“I couldn’t find who left this,” she said when Griffin raised his eyebrows in question.
“It has no prints,” he said. “We got photos before dusting it, but we found nothing.”
“Thanks.” Her gloved hands grabbed the tiny white box and untied the red ribbon. “You know this means there’s another body?”
“I do,” he said as Olivia and the other officers present gathered around.
Bel pulled off the lid and withdrew the single sheet of paper. She unfolded it and shoved it into an evidence bag before laying it flat on her desk. “It’s a game of hangman, and there’s one turn left.” She pointed to the stick figure body hanging from the noose. It had a head, torso, andtwo arms, but only one leg. Some letters were written on the answer lines, but mostof thephraseremained blank. It didn’t matter, though. She recognized the pattern and the message. The hangman would be complete with only one more wrong letter. They’d lost the game, and a very real victim had lost their life.
“Another riddle,” Griffin said. “Five words. Just like the first clue… what did that one say again?”
“What big eyes you have,” Bel answered.
“Some of the phrase is filled out.” Griffin pointed to the letters. “It isn’t hard to guess four of the words.”
“What big blank you have,” Bel said. “Big what, though? No vowels have been used yet.”
“It’s a four-letter word… What big legs? Or arms? Lips?”
“Not legs,” Bel said. “There’s a G in big, but it doesn’t repeat in the blank word. And I doubtit’s arms. The first riddle led us to contact lenses, so unless the killer stuck a clue in a victim’s biceps, it’s a body part with a natural cavity.”
“Okay, lips work then. You can put something in someone’s mouth. Nose and ears too.”
“I’m sure we’ll find out when we discover the body.The onlyquestion is, where is it?”
“In the woods somewhere, I imagine,” he said. “I’ll check today’s filming schedule for an outdoor shoot.”
“Detective Emerson,” the deputy from the front desk called as he jogged for her. “The security footage is of no use. Everyone wore coats, hats, and gloves, and no one lookedupat the cameras. They swarmed the counter, so it’s impossible to see who put the package down.” He handed her his tablet, and Bel watched the video to confirm his words.
“This was on purpose.” She cursed under her breath. “Whoever dropped this off probably encouraged these fans to come in and demand answersfortheir social media followers. With the weather, he took advantage of everyone being bundled up, making it easy to hide a small box inside a coat.”
“Sorry.” The deputy turned red. “They all hadtheircameras out, and I was trying to get them to stop filming. I didn’t expect someone to drop off evidence.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said. “Whoever did this predicted we’d remove fanswho wererecording the station. He played us… have we received any calls to report something odd?”
“No, not yet.”
“Well, hopefully, we locate the body first. If fans discover it, they’ll destroy the evidence and post the scene all over the internet?—”
“You can’t be here,” Olivia’s agitation interrupted her, and Bel glanced across the station to find her partner blocking Ewan from entering the precinct. “This is my place of work, and cornering me won’t make me talk to you.”
Bel cringed at the hostile interaction. Olivia and Ewan’s breakup wasn’t public knowledge yet, but it was about to be if she didn’t lower her voice.
“Liv…” Ewan glanced over her blonde head and met Bel’s gaze. “I’m not here to talk to you.”
“Bel?” Olivia gawked at him, clearly offended that he hadn’t come to grovel at her feet.
“Yeah.” He sidestepped her as if itphysicallyhurt him to leave and gripped Bel’s elbow. “Can I speak to you?” he whispered as Olivia glared at their closeness.
“Now’s not a good time.” Bel backed up, forcing his fingers to fall from her arm. She figured he wanted help with winning Eamon’s or Olivia’s favor back, but the station with a second murder looming over her head was not the appropriate place.
“Detective, I need to talk to you now.” He stared at herwith meaning, the bear peering through his irises with predatory urgency, and her skin flushed cold. This wasn’t about Olivia or Eamon, and dread settled like a rock on her chest.
“Sure.” She gestured for him to follow her to the breakroom so no one would overhear.
“With everything going on, I let Him out to relieve stress,” he said. “I run on Eamon’s property since his presence shields mine, but with how much Olivia hates me, I don’t expect him to welcome me here much longer. I won’t have Eamon’s protection once I leave, so I’ve been taking advantage of what time I have. I hiked the trails this morning until it was safe to shift into my true form, and that’s when I smelled the blood.”
“Blood?” Bel stepped closer to him. “Human?”
“Definitely.”
“Fresh?”
“Within the past few hours.”
Bel cursed. “And it’s on the Reale Estate?”
“Yes, but the scent is far from the mansion, so the killer probably assumed it was the state park. But there’sdefinitelya bloody body in the woods.”
“Did you see it?”
“No. My senses are stronger when I shift, but the last thing I wanted was to leave bear tracks at a crime scene. As soon as I scented the blood, I shifted back and found you. I wasn’t sure how you’d want to handle this tip.”
“We’ll just tell Griffin you were hiking,” Bel said as she led him out of the break room. “Everyone knows you’re an enthusiast. You construct half of your designs from materials you find in the woods.”
Ewan worked with Violet Lennon at Lumen’s Customs. Brett Lumen had been a famous furniture designer before his murder, and he’d left his entire business to his assistant, Violet. She was one of Bel’s closest friends, but she was no designer. She’d been at a loss for how to keep the company alive until Ewan moved to town. His style was far more rustic than Lumen’s luxury pieces, but the bear shifter with the sexy lumberjack vibe had the skill to turn furniture into art. He often used the recycled or natural materials he found in the woods, so convincing Griffin he’d been merely exercising was probably the easiest task Bel would face that day.
“Sheriff.” She cornered her boss and tried to ignore the way Olivia hovered from a distance. “Ewan was hiking this morning.”
Griffin’s eyes shot to the man clad in outdoor gear beside her with an expression that warned he knew what was coming.
“He thinks he found the body.”
“I was hiking here,” Ewan said as he led the police through the snowy woods. Bel had texted Eamon to warn him there was another body on his estate before positioning herself between Ewan and Olivia to help keep the hike professional, and she hated every second of it. Her physical position felt uncomfortably similar to the emotional one Ewan’s lies had placed her in, but while the trek through the cold was unpleasant, the end of their trip was what she dreaded most. She didn’t want to find another woman ripped apart to stain Eamon’s land. It seemed hell refused to let him go. He’d abandoned his ways of bloodshed, and in return, his property soaked up the spilled blood of those who murdered in his stead.
“I noticed something strange in the trees here,” Ewan lied as he left the trail and ventured into the woods. “I think there’s a body if you follow these footprints.” He gestured at the sea of endless white.
“I don’t see anything.” Griffin studied Ewan, and Bel could see the wheels in his head turning. The solitary tracks leading away from the path were human, but if she didn’t intervene, her boss might realize Eamon wasn’t the only Bajka man to be wary of.
“There.” She pointed as she moved through the trees, glancing at Ewan for guidance. He nodded, and she surged forward, an army of officers in tow. “There, I see it…” She froze, her little white lie suddenly true, and she instinctively reached out and grabbed Griffin’s hand for support.
“Good lord,” he muttered as he squeezed her gloved fingersin return. For a moment, no one spoke, and then Griffin cursed, the words ugly as they echoed through the emptiness. For before them was another dead woman wearing a hooded cloak, only this one wasn’t face down in the snow. This crimson victim hung like a crucifix from the tree branches, her body completely naked save for the red fabric and her frozen blood. Just like Gwen Rossa, her abdomen had been ripped apart, the jagged wounds flayed open and horrifying to witness. Her torso and spread arms were pale and bloodless, but her soaked legs had stained the deep drifts below her, and Bel felt instantly lightheaded at the brutality of her death.
“The same M.O.,” she whispered before venturing closer. “The same wounds. The same box. The same phrase. The same red cloak.”
“Don’t say it,” Griffin said.
“It’s the same killer.” Bel ignored him. “Two deaths by the same killer. One more makes it a serial.”
Griffin cursed again. “Thum, you’ll be able to confirm, but she doesn’t seem to have defensive wounds. Her feet are soaked in blood, but I’m willing to bet her soles aren’t damaged from running in the snow.”
“I would have to agree.” The medical examiner joined them before the corpse. “I thought Gwen Rossa’s scene was terrifying… but this. Hanging from the tree to bleed out like this, her entire bare and brutalized bodyondisplay. This was such a violent and hateful death. Whoever killed her did so in a fit of rage.”
“You think so?” Bel asked.
“Like with Rossa, he had to face her to kill her.” Lina pointed at her mangled abdomen. “The killer inflicted these wounds standing up close and personal. He looked into her eyes when he ripped her apart, and then he laced her arms through those branches while she bled out. I think she was still alive when he strung her up. There’s so much rage in these deaths. To be torn to shreds and then left face down in the snow. To be posed like the crucified Jesus of Nazareth.I might be wrong, butthis reeks of rage.”
“Like a man seeking revenge for an accident that sent him to jail.” Bel met Griffin’s gaze.
“Thum, can you remove the hood?” the sheriff asked. “Do we have another dead crew member on our hands?”
“Sure.” Lina rose onto her toes and pushed the draped fabric away from the victim’s face. Sunlight bathed the woman’s bloodless cheeks, and Bel lunged forward, her recognition dragging her closer to the disturbing scene.
“Griffin,” she whispered, her boss’ alarm crowding her back. “It’s her. It’s the costume designer.”
“Ellery Roja,” he spoke her name. “We just saw her yesterday.”
“Yeah.” Bel met the sheriff’s eyes with an overwhelming churning pulsing inside her. “When she warned us about Orion Chayce.”
“Sotimeof death was probably in the middle of the night like Rossa’s,” Lina said. “Lividity and rigor mortis confirm that estimate.”
“And like with Rossa, I doubt we’ll find anything of value,” Griffin said. “The elements always compromise outdoor crime scenes. We have footprints this time, but they belong to one, maybe two people. They’re mottled, sowe won’t get any boot prints, and they stretch between the trail and the body. Little good that does us. We already know she was chased here, and the trails are too trodden to track the killer’s retreat. No blood drops lead away from the scene, though, which is strange.”
“The killer probably cleans the weapon before he leaves the bodies,” Olivia said.
“But a kill this violent and personal?” Lina said. “The blood spatter and cast off would’ve coated his body.”
“Except I’ve seen the designers spray painting the set pieces,” Olivia said. “They wear masks and protective suits. White protective suits. The killer would’ve disappeared out here wearing one, and when he was done with his kills, he could’ve stripped it off at the scene so the dripping blood would join the rest. He left clean, and even if he was dirty, he could’ve scrubbed himself with snow andthentossed it below her body. Her warm blood would’ve destroyed what he used to wash. We won’t find anything.”
“We might get lucky,” Bel said, not believing herownwords. Whoever killed Rossa and now Roja had been deliberate in their attacks. These weren’t the sloppy murders she’d dealt with while on the NYPD force. This killer was telling a story, and stray evidence wasn’t a part of his narrative.
“Story,” she whisperedto herselfas the unsolved hangman puzzle flashed through her memory. A hanged man for a hanged girl. “Lina, the first body’s clue read, ‘What big eyes you have’ .”
“And we found the contacts,” the M.E. said as she worked.
“A white box was delivered to the station this morning with a similar style clue,” Bel said. “We recognized the words ‘what big’ and ‘you have’ , but we don’t knowwhat four-letter word sitsin the middle. Our guess is lips, nose, or ears. Maybe arms?”
“Arms might be right since she’s posed like a crucifix,” Lina said. “This hangingdefinitelydraws attention to them.”
“I didn’t think arms would work, but you have a point.” Bel stepped closer without disturbing the frozen blood.
“I’ll check them, but we’ll probably have to wait until the autopsy to locate anything embedded subdermally,” Lina said. She took her time examining Ellery, both her skin and the crimson cloak, but after five minutes, it was clear her arms were free of evidence. “Okay, there’s nothing here, so my guess is nose, ears, or lips.” She stepped back to study the corpse. “I’ll perform the autopsy tomorrow, and we’ll look for whatever he hid in her body.”
“Lina?” Olivia interrupted as she shifted into their peripheral view. “When you examined Miss Roja’s arms, you knocked the hood off her right ear.” She pointed to the side of the victim’s head. “I think the clue is ‘What big ears you have’ .”
“Oh my god, you’re right,” Lina said as she rounded the bloody snow and leaned toward Roja’s ear. “It looks like a hearing aid. Did she wear hearing aids?”
“Not that we saw when we spoke to her yesterday,” Bel said.
“Contact lenses. Hearing aids. It fits,” Lina said. “Can someone get a picture of this before I pull it out?”
A techjumped to oblige her, and when he finished, she withdrew the object. “Okay, not exactly a hearing aid, but it’s somesort ofearpiece.” She dropped it into an evidence bag and handed it to Bel. “I know film crews use earpieces to communicate. Could this be one?”
“Maybe,” Bel said. “I’ve seen people walking around set with them, but this one’s different. It looks custom.”
“The contact lenses were custom,” Griffin said. “It makes sense this is too.”
“Another hidden message.” Bel retreated a few paces and pulled out her phone to snap a few wide shots before returning to the sheriff’s side. “But the first clue isn’t this crime scene.” She showed her boss the photos. “We’d wondered if the forest etched into the contacts was his next murder site, but nothing about these trees matches the ones in the image. Everything’s wrong.”
“So if the lenses weren’t warning of his next victim, what do they mean?” Olivia asked.
“I don’t know.” Bel studied Ellery Roja’s almost biblical visage. “If this is about exacting revenge for the accident that sent Orion Chayce to jail, I have no idea what a photo of the woods has to do with anything.”
“What’s that?” Bel’s eyes scanned the room for the sound’s origin.
“This.” The tech held up the earpiece found on Ellery Roja’s body.
“It makes noise?” Bel asked as she moved closer. As expected, they’d recovered little at the scene, and the forensics team was currently pouring over the physical evidence. It seemed this earpiece was more than just a plastic mold.
“What did you do?” Bel asked without giving him time to answer.
“I noticed screws in the larger end,” he answered. “I took it apart and found this.” He pointed to the smallest USB flash drive Bel had ever seen. He’d plugged it into his laptop, and it was playing a sound clip of a man speaking.
“Turn it up and play it from the beginning,” she demanded, but the tech was already increasing the volume.
“It is a cold one this January morning, so don’t forget to bundle up,” the recording began. “Right now, we’re looking at a temperature of twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit, but by mid-day, we’ll see a high of twenty-nine degrees before it falls back down to the low twenties tonight. Wind speed will be around ten miles per hour, which is a relatively mild breeze, but with these January temperatures, it’ll make everything colder. Skies are mostly sunny with only a ten percent chance of rain, so at least we’ll have beautiful sunshine tomake upfor the chill.”
“A weather report?” Bel and the tech asked in unison.
“A January weather report,” she repeated. “No date. No location.Justa winter forecast. That’s even more random than the contact lenses.”
“What if that’s the point?” the tech said. “To make us chase our tails with nonsense.”
“Maybe,” Bel agreed. “But let’s not dismiss anything yet.”
“Right… well, it’s January and cold in the report, so it’s obviously from a northern state.”
“Based on the snow in the contact lenses photos, that’s a given. Can you play it again? There might be a hidden meaning.”
“Want me to email the recording to you too?” he asked.
“Please.”
The tech replayed the clip, emailing Bel a copy when it finished, but nothing stood out. It was a generic winter weather update. An undisclosed day in an unmentioned year in an undetermined location in January.A coldmonth andaphoto of snow in the woods. Maybe this was a witch hunt meant to confuse them while the killer escaped justice.
“I didn’t hear anything,” the tech said. “Just that it was cold and January. But as you said, the contact lensesalready implied it was winter.”
“Wait…” Bel whirled on him, something clicking in her brain at his words. “A cold place and a month.”
“Yeah?” The word sounded like a question.
“I have an idea.” She charged out of the room, leaving a confused man in her wake as she climbed the stairs to knock on the sheriff’s door.
“Come in!” he called, but she was already opening it.
“Listen to this.” She opened her email and played the recording for her boss.
“What was that?” he asked.
“We found a flash drive inside Roja’s earpiece,” she explained. “Its only file was a weather report, though.”
“Well, that’s… random.”
“I thought so too,” Bel said, a spark flickering in her eyes as her brain assembled the puzzle pieces. “But we wondered if the contact lenses photo was the scene of his next murder. It wasn’t, but it’s still a location. Then this weather report is for somewhere cold, which matches the image, but it adds another piece of information. The month.”
“Okay?” he said, clearly not following her.
“What five questions do detectives always ask themselves when solving a crime?” Bel leaned over his desk before answering herownquestion. “Who, what, where, when, and why?”
“Right.” Griffin squinted as if it might help him see where her train of thought was going.
“The contact lenses had a photo of a location. The where,” she explained. “The news report mentions a month. Both are vague and unhelpful, but it doesn’t change that January is still ameasurement of time.”
“Which would be when,” Griffin said, catching on.
“What if these clues are part of a bigger puzzle? What if the snowy woods are the where and January is the when? The killer is trying to paint us a picture.”
“There are five W questions.” The color drained from Griffin’s face. “If you’re right, we only have twoanswered.”
“Which means we still need Who, What, and Why to solve his riddles,” Bel said. “He isn’t done killing. There are three more murders to go.”