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  “Right.”

  “They should also check for the type of dirt that’s probably embedded in each victim’s shoes. I don’t personally know how it’s done, but there’s a scientific way to pinpoint the area of the country with that exact makeup of sand, dirt, minerals, plant life, and possible animal waste. If the victims were taken from wherever it is they all lived and transported after they were dead, they sure as hell wouldn’t have contaminated the bottoms of their shoes with different ground and soil components.”

  Renz huffed. “Damn good theory, Monroe. We’ll discuss that with Forensics tomorrow and see what they can do. Of course, we’ll need each victim’s clothing and shoes in order to do that.”

  “Yep.” I was becoming optimistic. It was something to work with and could possibly get us a location that we could focus on as the base of the sicko who was committing the crimes.

  After checking into the hotel and taking ten minutes to freshen up, Renz and I met in front of the restaurant to look over their menu. If the food sounded appetizing enough, we would stay right there and enjoy our dinner without leaving in the car again.

  Chapter 14

  Cassie backed into a dark space about the size of a closet. She could turn around and lie down, but standing wasn’t an option. All she needed that night was to stay dry, warm, and calm. She didn’t want to think about what might be inches away, and erasing that from her mind would be the only way to sleep, but with the thunder and lightning so loud, sleep might not come. Staying dry was most important, and as she looked toward the opening and saw the rain coming down in sheets, she thanked God that she’d found the cave in time. She pulled the two limbs next to her to use in the morning, knowing she was in for a long night.

  Tears filled her eyes. Cassie thought about Jolie and wondered what Bart and his vicious crew had done with her. She might have ended up in the cattle trailer, or Bart could have had one of his minions bury her on the property. Even worse, they might have dumped her farther back on the land, where coyotes, bears, or mountain lions could feed on her corpse. Cassie shook her head to get rid of that image. Were the others being punished because of her escape? Cassie hoped not, but doubt crept in. She knew that each day that Bart’s men didn’t find her would be a day the kids close to her age would meet Bart’s fury. Chances were some would disappear. She was desperate to find help as quickly as possible, not only for her sake but also for the sake of all those still at the ranch.

  Night had arrived. Cassie backed in a little farther and reluctantly leaned against the wall. If only she had a flashlight. The sound of something approaching caught her ear. Limbs snapped just outside the entrance.

  No. Please, God, it can’t be them!

  Without flashlights, there was no way Bart’s men would have found the small cave. It had to be something else. Cassie grabbed one of the limbs she’d brought in with her and waited. The growl of what sounded like a mountain lion was just outside the opening and sent panic through her body.

  Oh my God, I’m in its den!

  Cassie couldn’t see anything, but from the animal’s breathing, she knew it was close. All she could do was seem more threatening to it than it was to her. She screamed as loudly as she could, and with every ounce of strength she had, she swatted at the cave’s opening with the stick. When the animal swatted back, the limb was nearly ripped from her hand.

  “Shit! Go, get out of here!”

  She shook the stick even harder and screamed until the animal retreated. After it was gone, she sucked in a thankful breath, and all that remained was the storm.

  Cassie remained awake most of the night, and the adrenaline pumping through her veins from the near disaster with the animal had likely kept her alive and warm. Once the storm was long gone and the sun was up, she had to keep moving. The rocks would be dry soon, so slipping would be less of a concern. She needed to know if she could stand on her injured foot.

  After tossing both tree limbs out of the opening, Cassie cautiously peeked out and checked her surroundings. No animal or human was in sight, but the enormous paw prints in the mud outside the cave’s entrance unnerved her. It had been a close call, and now she had one more predator to watch out for.

  She crawled out into the daylight and looked closely at her ankle. It wasn’t swollen anymore.

  “Thank God,” she whispered.

  Supporting herself against the rock wall, Cassie stood on her left foot and little by little applied pressure as she gingerly put her right foot down. She breathed in a sigh of relief. Although it hurt, the foot likely wasn’t broken or sprained. She hoped it would feel better as she continued on.

  She decided to stay on the sideways path and go around what remained of the mountain instead of up and over. Too much stress on her injured foot could cause it to fail her, and time wasn’t on her side. Bart’s men would be on her trail again soon, and she needed to put distance between herself and them. With the small pack of food—and what was left of the water—slung over her shoulder, she set out with her eyes peeled for anything that could be a threat, whether it was human, animal, or the mountain itself.

  Chapter 15

  After breakfast, we sat in my hotel room, and I fired up my laptop. We couldn’t conduct our video call with the state ME in the hotel’s business center due to the lack of privacy.

  With cups of coffee on the table in front of us, we waited for the ME to log on and join the meeting. I had jotted down notes the night before when Renz and I had discussed the case over supper. I planned to present my theories to the ME and get his take on them. After checking out, we would return to the sheriff’s office and get their opinions as well before we left the area.

  Doing exactly the same thing at each dump site felt unproductive, but we had been sent there by Taft. She wanted feet on the ground at each location, and I wasn’t about to debate her. Other than seeing the bodies up close, getting the victim’s clothing was the most important thing we could accomplish at the medical examiner’s office. The current situation was different, though, since the ME’s office was so far away. We would have to make do with the visuals coming to us via computer screens.

  After swallowing my last gulp of coffee, I saw that the ME had joined the meeting. Seconds later, a woman’s face popped up on the screen. My eyes darted to the name on the autopsy report—Dr. Jude Kitterly.

  “Hello, Agents. I’m sorry I’m a bit late, but traffic backed me up this morning.”

  I chuckled and instantly liked her. It was a Monday, the day on which I always had the worst chance of getting to work on time. I was happy to hear that I wasn’t the only person with that problem.

  “I’m Jude Kitterly, Utah state medical examiner.” She glanced down then up. “Agent Monroe, you look surprised.”

  She’d read my expression well. “You got me and I’m sorry. I was expecting a man’s face to pop up on the screen but I’m pleasantly surprised. That’s all.”

  “I get that often,” she admitted. “My mom was different, one would say, and decided to spell Judy with an e at the end instead of a y.” She laughed. “For most of my life, people have assumed I was male by the spelling of my name.”

  Renz grinned. “Well, it’s good to meet you. I’ll admit I’ve never viewed a deceased or gone over an autopsy report via a computer screen, but whatever works is fine with me.”

  “Me as well, so shall we begin with the report first?”

  We said we were fine with that, and she began. The official report was in front of us, but Jude said she would add her own off-the-record opinions when she thought they were needed.

  “The Jane Doe I examined five days ago weighed in at one hundred and two pounds, and her height was a smidge over five feet—sixty inches and a hair or two. The stippling on her forehead came from a handgun shot at close range, a nine millimeter to be exact. I was able to remove the intact projectile from her head. She had to be facing the shooter since the entry wound went from front to back in a downward fashion. My best guess is that t
he shooter was above her when he or she fired the gun.”

  “So the girl was sitting or kneeling?” I asked.

  “Yes, I’d say so. She wasn’t well-cared-for in my opinion. Rotten and abscessed teeth, stunted growth, and undernourished. Her skin and hair were dirty, ragged fingernails, and she didn’t shave her legs. I wouldn’t say her filth came from being in the elements for several days. More like it was her way of life. You know when people ask that sarcastic question about being born in a barn? That seemed to fit her. Kind of feral. Neglected, I’d say.”

  “Find any bruises or signs of abuse?” Renz asked.

  Jude sighed. “Old scars, but that can’t be proven to be from abuse. Kids fall off bicycles, play too rough, and so on. Personally, I doubt if that’s what happened, but I can’t testify to anything otherwise.”

  I nodded. “Understood. And age?”

  “I’d put her age to be around seventeen.” Jude rose from her desk and carried the laptop with her. “We’ll move on to the body so I can walk you through her injuries.”

  We stared at my laptop screen as Jude entered the autopsy room, placed her computer on a roller table, then took a position near the girl’s head. She held the laptop over Jane Doe’s forehead so we could see the bullet wound. The stippling was centered around the half-inch-wide hole with blackened edges.

  I grimaced. My thoughts couldn’t be repeated out loud. That poor girl was likely forced to watch as her killer executed her. “How close was the shooter?”

  “Well, the stippling covers a two-inch diameter. The tighter the pattern, the closer the shooter is.”

  That much we already knew, but by viewing the deceased through two computer screens rather than with the naked eye, the tattooing was more difficult to see.

  “So, a foot away from her face?” I asked.

  “That or closer.”

  I groaned but couldn’t let myself get too angry yet. I needed to focus. “Do you have the girl’s clothes in your possession?”

  “I do.”

  “Including her shoes?”

  “Yes, Agent Monroe. Her clothes and shoes were old and torn. The shoes even had holes in the soles.”

  “I’d like to run my thoughts past you if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course. I’d love to hear them.”

  “We’re collecting the clothing and shoes that each victim wore. If we’re in agreement that the victims all died prior to being dumped, that means the killer dragged or carried them to the spot where he left them.”

  “Right. Go on.”

  “If there’s debris such as soil, sand, gravel, grass, or even animal waste in the treads of all the victims’ shoes and they match each other, is it possible we could get some kind of analysis of the area in the United States that has those organic components? That is a thing, right?”

  “It is, and I’ve read articles of how cases were solved that way. It’s called forensic soil science. Pinpointing the physical location where all the victims were held can take a while using that process, but if you could even narrow the search down to a particular state, that would help.”

  I was relieved to know we had other options since finding the killer on camera was nothing but a pipe dream. The thought of solving the case through soil samples intrigued me, but the length of time it could take didn’t.

  Renz took his turn. “May we see the brand?”

  “Certainly, Agent DeLeon. I hear that all the victims have that same mark.”

  “They do, and we think the killer had laid claim to them like livestock by branding each of them.”

  “Your assessment is probably right on. If the other victims are in the same poor condition as Jane here, then they probably did live like livestock.”

  Her words made me even more determined to solve the case as soon as humanly possible. He’d killed five teens that we knew of, and we had no reason to think there weren’t more.

  Jane’s brand, just like John Doe’s in Montana, was on her left hip and identical to his.

  “Does the brand appear old, like it’s been there for some time?” I asked.

  “It isn’t new, but once a scar has healed, there isn’t a good way to tell how old it is.”

  Jude had told us everything we needed to know. All that was left was to give her the address to send the clothes and shoes to. They needed to be overnighted to our crime lab in Milwaukee. As Renz gave her the address, I looked over my notes to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything while we still had her on video chat. I was good.

  We thanked her, and she said her assistant would hand deliver the bag to the post office right away. I ended the video call and logged off.

  Renz tipped his wrist and checked the time. “We need to pack up and move on. We’ll stop at the sheriff’s office, ask the same questions we asked in Montana, then head for the airport.” He stood. “I’m going back to my room. Meet me in the lobby in thirty minutes?”

  “That’ll work, but I’m going to call Taft first and ask about the forensic-soil-scientist angle. With her connections in high places, maybe she can find us a contact who’ll get on that right away.”

  “We can only hope.” Renz knuckled the doorframe and walked out.

  Chapter 16

  Cassie said a prayer before rounding the turn—the one she’d hoped would show her a valley with a town or even a paved road on the other side.

  “Please, God. I don’t have much food or water left, and my strength is almost gone. I don’t know how much farther I can go.”

  She was only feet from knowing her fate when her fate was decided for her by the whirring noise overhead. Cassie shielded her eyes, looked up, then saw it—a drone hovering several hundred feet above her.

  No, no, no. I didn’t come this far for nothing!

  She ducked under an evergreen to stay hidden, but her gut told her that she’d already been seen. She had been out in the open.

  This can’t be happening! They’re going to find me even if I do stay under tree cover. They know the area, and they’ll box me in.

  Cassie scrambled from one tree to the next as she did her best to stay out of sight. She had to get around the bend to see what was on the other side. If there was a road, she would try to reach it, but would Bart’s men be waiting for her? She darted to a boulder then another tree as the drone circled. Even at the risk of being seen, she rounded the last curve. She had to know.

  On her hands and knees and beneath the longest branches of a large pine, Cassie crawled to the mountain’s edge and looked over to see if a road was down there somewhere. Then she saw it. Snaking through the valley was a paved two-lane road. She had no idea where it went, but it meant civilization couldn’t be far away. Bart’s men had to get supplies and food somewhere, and when Bart loaded the others in the cattle trailer and drove away, he had to connect with a paved road at some point. A town could be just out of sight on the other side of a curve where the road disappeared and the next mountain obstructed her view. Cassie had to get to the valley floor. She would do her best to stay hidden as she worked her way down the mountain. She knew the vehicles at the ranch, and when and if she reached the road, she needed to stay hidden from any vehicles that looked familiar.

  As Cassie made her way down the mountainside, rocks slipped beneath her shoes. She had to watch her footing, but the hovering drone unnerved her. She was sure the men watching its screen saw her every move. Cassie was heading to dangerous territory—the road—and the men would be nearby again. She had to outwit them. They were all hunters and could track animals, plus they had rifles and radios, and with the drone, they had an even better advantage. As she descended the mountain, she took cover wherever she could to stay out of sight. To Bart’s men, she was no different than prey.

  Cassie assumed it would take three to four hours to reach the valley floor, especially if she was ducking and dodging to avoid the drone. She was smaller than those men, and she would have to stay hidden and be as inconspicuous as possible since she had nothing to de
fend herself with except her mind. Chances were, they’d be coming up as she was going down. She could grab a limb for a weapon if she needed one, but she would have no chance at all against a bullet.

  Chapter 17

  We sat in Sheriff Glenn Petrie’s office and discussed the case. Every sheriff or police chief in the jurisdiction where the bodies were found knew of the other cases and their similarities. They obviously realized, as we did, that we were looking for a singular killer, a couple, or two men. I didn’t believe a couple was involved, but I had to keep an open mind.

  We discussed each interstate, including how the dump sites were similar with bodies left at night in remote areas. All the victims were estimated to be in their late teens, all wore torn clothes, and they were all in poor physical condition.

  “If the dump sites were closer to our southern border, I’d venture to say they were immigrants that smugglers brought in, but since they were found in the Mountain and Plains States, I don’t think that applies,” the sheriff said.

  “And both north and south and east and west interstates were used,” Renz said. “Over-the-road truckers come to mind.”

  “Very well could be, but the teens came from somewhere. Because they’re all branded with the same mark, it isn’t like the trucker was picking up and killing hitchhikers along his route.”

  “Good point,” I said, “but if he is an over-the-road trucker and he’s hauling bodies from state to state, what is he doing with them when he has to stop at a weigh station or if he’s pulled over by the state patrol?”

  The sheriff shrugged. “Hidden compartment in the trailer? I mean, anything is possible. In my honest opinion, though, I’d say the only way this pervert will ever be caught is if he’s seen committing the crime or if one of his victims escapes.”

  I sighed. “So far, he’s got five wins and zero losses.”

  “So none of the kids have come up as missing or runaways?”