Chapter Ten
The next morning, Sean sat in the conference room staring at the N-DEx program glowing on his laptop screen, though the words and search parameters kept blurring together.
No matter how many times he forced his focus back to the case, his mind drifted to Grace and the kiss they’d shared at her front door.
Brief as it had been, it had left him restless for half the night.
He’d been so worked up when he got home that sleep had been impossible until he’d stood under a hot shower and burned off enough tension to crawl into bed.
Even then, his dreams had brought her right back to him—soft lips, warm breath, the faint scent of her perfume—and he’d ended up awake again before sunrise, standing beneath a stream of cold water and cursing his own lack of control.
The kiss had affected them both. He’d seen it in her eyes. That same flash of stunned desire had been reflected in her expression, matching the heat still burned into his memory. Yet the more he replayed the moment, the more doubt crept in.
What if crossing that line ruined what they already had?
It had been years since they’d spent any real time together, but some part of their old connection remained.
Being with her had felt easy in a way that caught him off guard, as though fourteen years hadn’t passed at all.
But fourteen years changed people. The girl he’d once known and the woman she’d become weren’t the same person, and he couldn’t pretend otherwise. He wasn’t the same either.
Then there was Bonnie and Uncle Dan. Would they be thrilled by the idea of him and Grace finding their way to each other, or would they think it was a mistake waiting to fall apart?
He was so lost in thought that he never heard the conference room door open. Pain snapped through his left ear, and Sean shot out of his chair, spinning around before his brain caught up with what had happened.
“Screw you, man. Haven’t you learned yet not to do that to someone carrying a gun?”
Brian doubled over laughing, the sound filling the room. “Been flicking your ear since we were little, and I still get away with it. You make it too easy being off in la-la land. What were you thinking about?”
If his brother had any clue where his thoughts had been, Sean would never hear the end of it.
“Nothing really.” He dropped back into his seat and pulled his laptop closer. “Just trying to wrap my head around this serial.”
“What time is your profiler getting here?” Rafe asked as he crossed to the whiteboards. “I’ve never had the opportunity to work with one before, and I’m actually looking forward to it. Should be interesting after all the reading I’ve done on the subject.”
“Around two, I think. Suki’s gonna call from the road when she gets closer.”
Rafe’s brows rose. “Suki? Interesting name. Asian?”
“She’s originally from Hawaii, but I think she mentioned there was Korean in her family background.” He pointed a warning look at both men. “Oh, and do me a favor, guys—don’t hit on her.”
Brian dropped into the chair across from him, a wicked grin already spreading across his face. “Ah, she’s hot then.”
Letting out an exasperated breath, he shook his head. “Yes, she’s good-looking, but she’s also a good friend of mine and a respected federal agent with a doctorate, so show her some respect while she’s here. Okay?”
“If you insist.”
The look Brian gave him told Sean exactly how seriously his brother was taking that request. He grabbed a pen from the table and tossed it at him. Brian snatched it out of the air without missing a beat, and Sean turned back to his laptop before the exchange could drag on any longer.
While Brian and Rafe began adding yesterday’s findings to the whiteboards, Sean flexed his fingers over the keyboard and reentered the case parameters into the now-functioning N-DEx system.
If they were lucky, the search might finally produce something useful.
Thoughts of Grace would have to wait. Right now, every ounce of his focus belonged to finding the man responsible for the murders before another woman paid the price.
After the detective bureau’s morning briefing with the lieutenant, Brad Lynch joined the rest of the task force in the conference room.
The stale heat of too many bodies in a closed space mixed with the scratch of dry-erase markers across the whiteboards as the men tossed out theories, challenged assumptions, and circled back through the same frustrating dead ends.
Sean sat at the table with his laptop open, half listening as ideas bounced around the room while he monitored the N-DEx search.
No one liked how little they had to work with.
Criminals were getting smarter every year.
Between crime dramas on television and endless websites packed with information, the average idiot could learn enough about investigations to avoid making obvious mistakes.
And so far, their killer had been careful.
As the discussion began losing steam, Sean’s computer chimed. The sharp electronic alert cut through the room, and every head turned his way. His pulse kicked up as he leaned toward the screen.
Finally.
He scanned the results, then sent the printer humming before the others could crowd too close. As the pages slid out, he snatched them up and skimmed the details, his stomach knotting tighter with every line.
“We got a hit—a good match too.” He looked around the table. “Last year in Philadelphia. Three female victims over three months—July through September. All blondes in their twenties. Taken after partying somewhere. Found at least twenty-four hours later in public locations.”
The similarities were enough to raise the hair on the back of his neck. Then his gaze dropped to the final details. Looking back up, he met the others’ stunned expressions. “And all had pennies left on their foreheads and ‘sinner’ carved into their torsos.”
A stunned silence followed.
Brad’s gaze shifted from one man to the next, as if searching for the answer to a question he hadn't asked yet. “I don’t remember hearing anything about that, and it’s not like Pennsylvania’s on the other side of the country. Didn’t it make the news?”
Sean scanned the report again. “I don’t know, but there’s an FBI case file open on it.
No viable suspects, though. I’ll call the lead agent up there and see if I can get my hands on the file and whatever info he’s got.
Or she’s got,” he amended, glancing at the bottom of the printout.
“Says here it’s Special Agent Karen Winslow out of the local office there.
Why don’t one of you call Philly PD and try to find out what they have on it?
Just in case there are any discrepancies. ”
Montoya was already pulling out his phone. “I’ll do it. I’ve got a few contacts up there.”
“Sounds good.” Brad braced both hands against the conference table, his expression grim.
“The rest of us will keep digging into the victims’ pasts.
See if we can figure out why he chose them.
” He paused, his jaw working as he thought through the implications.
“You know, we might also have another problem on our hands. Is he killing three, then moving on? Is he done here? Or are we wasting time until he kills another one?”
The questions hung over the room.
There was no good answer.
Sean shook his head in a silent response. Part of him wanted to believe the killer had already moved on, that no more women in North Carolina were in danger. But if that were true, it meant another city was about to become a hunting ground.
And if Brad was wrong—if the pattern had shifted, or if the killer had decided to linger—they were racing a clock they couldn’t see.
Either way, somewhere out there, a predator was still free. And unless they moved fast, someone else would pay for it.
Sheriff Griffin stepped into the conference room, his expression carved from exhaustion, and asked for an update. After they filled him in on the Pennsylvania connection, he crossed his arms and leaned against the wall beside the door, his brow furrowed as he processed what it could mean.
“All right. Let’s keep this quiet for now.
I want everyone at this morning’s press conference at eleven, unless something urgent comes up.
We’ll give the sharks the same info we gave them yesterday, just spin it differently so it sounds new.
I asked the medical examiner to attend, but he won’t release much info either.
As you know, the press has already found out the first two victims’ names somehow.
I spoke to Daphne Jones’s father in Chicago around six last night after the local PD broke the news to the family, so we can also release her name.
Everyone, meet in my office at ten to eleven, and we’ll walk out together. ”
Before anyone could respond, the sheriff pushed off the wall and disappeared back into his office.
The man looked like he’d gotten even less sleep than Sean had, and that was saying something.
The strain of the investigation was wearing on all of them, but Matt carried the added pressure of keeping city officials, the media, and a nervous public from losing confidence in the department.
Sean shifted his attention to Brad. “Where do you hold your press conferences?”
“In the lobby on bad days. But the weather’s nice today, so it’ll probably be on the front steps of the station. Anyway, we have two hours until then, so let’s get to work.”
The room broke apart in a flurry of movement.
Rafe and Brian headed out to re-interview a few of the victims’ families and friends, hoping a second round of questioning might shake loose something they’d missed the first time.
Lynch returned to his desk in the detective bureau to work through the latest batch of hotline messages, while Sean remained at the conference table.
The Philadelphia report still sat in front of him, the details burned into his mind. If the connection was real—and every instinct told him it was—they’d just gone from hunting a local killer to chasing a predator with a multi-state footprint.
He picked up one of the conference room phones and dialed the number listed for the FBI agent who’d handled the Philadelphia case.
The line rang twice before a woman answered. “Special Agent Winslow.”
Relief flickered through him. He’d expected voicemail, a receptionist, or some bureaucratic maze that would waste half the morning.
“Agent Winslow, this is Agent Sean Malone in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.”
“What can I do for you, Agent Malone?”
He pulled a legal pad closer and uncapped a pen. If this call gave them anything useful, he wanted every detail. “Sean, please.”
There was the faintest pause. “Then feel free to call me Karen. Now that we have the niceties out of the way, what can I help you with?”
Sean got right to it. “Well, it seems we have a serial killer down here who matches one you had last year in Philly. Pennies on the forehead and the word ‘sinner’ carved into the victims’ torsos.”
Silence. Not the distracted kind of someone skimming through paperwork while half listening. This was sharper. Focused. He could almost picture her straightening in her chair.
“How many has he killed down there?” The tension in her voice was palpable.
“Three in the past three months.”
A harsh breath crackled through the receiver. “Damn it.”
He rubbed a finger over his jaw. “How did your homicides stay out of the news up there? I never heard about them until I got the hit in N-DEx.”
“We got lucky,” Winslow admitted. “The first one was a prostitute. No one claimed the body, so she was sent to a potter’s grave.
Must’ve been a busy news day, because without details about how she died, the press lost interest fast. The second one was—and still is—a Jane Doe.
We think she may have been a transient passing through the area, but we couldn’t match her to any missing persons reports and got nowhere after airing a police sketch on the news.
We never released the fact that she was a homicide victim.
Officially, she was listed as an unattended death.
She spent four months at the morgue before being buried beside the first victim. ”
Sean grimaced. Three dead women, and two of them had vanished from public memory before the investigation had even gained traction.
Winslow continued. “The third one was new to the area. After the body was released, the family took her back home to Vermont. No one except the local detectives and us knew about the connection between the cases. And I think for the first time in my career, there were no leaks from the PD or medical examiner’s office. ”
“You’re right,” Sean said. “You got lucky.” He leaned back in his chair and glanced toward the whiteboards covered in victim timelines and photographs. “I was hoping you could share what you have in your files.”
Paper rustled on the other end of the line. “Give me a phone number where I can reach you, your email so I can send the files, and a mailing address for anything that hasn’t been digitized. I'll overnight that stuff to you.”
Sean rattled off the information.
“I wish I could come down there and assist you,” Winslow said, frustration edging her voice. “Unfortunately, I have to appear in court this week. I want this bastard bad.”
“You and me both.” Sean glanced at the clock on the wall. “We also have a profiler driving in from Quantico.”
“Who’s coming?”
“Doctor Suki Ralston. Do you know her?”
A short laugh sounded through the receiver.
“Absolutely. I’ve worked with Suki on several cases.
I was hoping to get her last year for this one, but she was unavailable.
” A phone rang in the background. “Listen, I have another call. I just sent you an email containing the initial reports and autopsy results. I’ll send the rest in a bit.
Let me know if you have any questions or leads. ”
“No problem. Wait, one more thing.” Sean glanced down at the notes in front of him. “What were the dates on the pennies? Were they all the same?”
“Yeah. They were all from 1993. Yours?”
His stomach knotted.
“Same here. Another unknown piece of the puzzle.” He reached for his pen. “All right, I’ll let you know if we find anything, and thanks.”
After ending the call, Sean turned toward his laptop just as the new email notification flashed across the screen. He opened the files and sent some of the documents to the printer, listening to the machine hum to life behind him.
Somewhere inside those reports, he hoped there was something useful. A missed detail. A pattern. Anything that might point them toward the man responsible before another woman ended up dead.