Luring

Even for him, this was a uniquely grisly sight.

Lehl explained, “The photo was taken about a month ago. The body of a beauty parlor worker named Alice Gibson was found bound up with barbed wire and hanging from a fence post on a rural road near Hyland, West Virginia.”

“Pretty nasty stuff,” Jake said. “How are the local cops handling it?”

“They have a suspect in custody,” Lehl said.

Jake’s eyes widened with surprise.

He asked, “So what makes this an FBI case?”

Lehl said, “We just got a call from the chief of police in Dighton, a town near Hyland. Another bundled-up body like this was found just this morning, hanging from a fence post on a road outside of town.”

Jake was starting to understand. Being in a jail cell at the time of the second murder gave the suspect a pretty good alibi. And now things looked like a serial killer was just getting started.

Lehl continued, “I’ve given orders that the current crime scene not be disturbed. So you need to get there ASAP. It would be a four-hour drive across the mountains, so I’ve got a helicopter waiting for you on the airstrip.”

Jake was just turning to leave the office when Lehl added …

“Do you want me to assign you a partner?”

Jake turned and looked at Lehl. Somehow, he hadn’t expected the question.

“I don’t need a partner,” Jake said. “But I’ll need a forensics team. The cops in rural West Virginia aren’t going to know how to get a good reading on the scene.”

Lehl nodded and said, “I’ll get the team together right now. They’ll fly out with you.”

Just as Jake was stepping out the door, Lehl said …

“Agent Crivaro, sooner or later you’re going to need another regular partner.”

Jake shrugged awkwardly and said, “If you say so, sir.”

With a hint of a growl in his voice, Lehl said. “I do say so. It’s about time for you to learn to play nice with others.”

Jake stared at him with surprise. It was rare for the taciturn Erik Lehl to say anything the least bit snide.

I guess he really means it, Jake realized.

Without another word, Jake left the office and headed through the building. As he walked briskly along, he thought about what Lehl had said about him getting a new partner. Jake was well-known for being tough to work with in the field. But he really didn’t think he gave anybody a hard time unless they deserved it.

His last regular partner, Gus Bollinger, had certainly deserved it. He’d gotten fired for smearing the fingerprints on a piece of vital evidence in the so-called “Matchbook Killer” case. As a consequence, the case had gone cold—and there was little that Jake hated more than cold cases.

On the Clown Killer case, Jake had worked with a DC agent named Mark McCune. McCune hadn’t been as bad as Bollinger, but he’d made stupid mistakes and thought too highly of himself for Jake’s taste. Jake was glad that their partnership had been only for that one case and that McCune remained in DC.

As he stepped onto the tarmac where the helicopter waited, he thought about someone else he’d worked with recently …

Riley Sweeney.

He’d been impressed with her ever since she’d been a psych student who had helped him solve a serial case at Lanton University. When she’d graduated, he’d pulled strings and stirred up the ire of some his colleagues to get her into the Honors Internship Program. Perhaps against his own better judgment, he’d enlisted her help on the Clown Killer case.

She’d done some really brilliant work. She’d also made some really outrageous mistakes. And she was a long way from learning how to obey orders, but he’d only known a handful of even seasoned agents with such powerful intuitions.

One of those was himself.

As Jake stooped below the spinning propeller blades and climbed up into the helicopter, he saw the four-man forensic team trotting across the tarmac. Then the forensics guys climbed into the chopper, which took to the air.

It seemed silly to be thinking of Riley Sweeney right now. Quantico was a huge base, and even though she was at the FBI Academy, their paths weren’t likely to cross again.

Jake opened the folder to read over the police report.

*

After the helicopter cleared the Appalachian mountain ranges, it passed over rolling meadows dotted with Black Angus cattle. As the chopper descended, Jake could see where police vehicles had blocked off a stretch of gravel road to keep onlookers away from the crime scene.

The helicopter set down in grassy pasture. Jake and the forensics team climbed out of the vehicle and headed over toward a small group of uniformed people and several official vehicles.

The cops and the medical examiner’s team were standing on both sides of a barbed wire fence that ran along the road at the edge of the pasture. Jake could see what looked like a snarled bundle of wire hanging from a fencepost.

A short, sturdy-looking man of about Jake’s height and build stepped forward to greet him.

“I’m Graham Messenger, the chief of police here in Dighton,” he said, shaking hands with Jake. “We’ve had ourselves a couple of pretty awful incidents, at least for these parts. Let me show you.”

The chief led the way to a fence post and, sure enough, a weird bundle was hanging from the post, all held together with duct tape and barbed wire. Again Jake was able spot a face and hands indicating that the bundle was actually a human being.

Messenger said, “I guess you already know about Alice Gibson, the earlier victim over near Hyland. This looks like the same damn thing all over again. The victim this time is Hope Nelson.”

Crivaro said, “Was she reported missing before the body was found?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid so,” Messenger said, pointing pointed toward a stunned-looking middle-aged man standing near one of the vehicles. “Hope was married to Mason Nelson over there—the town mayor. She was working in their local farm supply store last night, but she didn’t come home when Mason expected. He called me in the middle of the night about it, sounding pretty alarmed.”

The police chief shrugged guiltily.

“Well, I’m kind of used to folks going missing for a spell, then turning up again. I told Mason I’d look into in today if she didn’t turn up. I had no idea …”

Messenger’s voice trailed off. Then he sighed and shook his head and added …

“The Nelsons own a lot of property in Dighton. They’ve always been good, respectable folks. Poor Hope didn’t deserve this. But then, I don’t reckon anybody does.”

Another man stepped toward them. He had a long, aged face, white hair, and a bushy old-fashioned mustache. Chief Messenger introduced him as Hamish Cross, the county’s chief medical examiner. Chewing on a weed, Cross seemed relaxed and mildly curious about what was going on.

He asked Jake, “Ever seen anything like this before?”

Jake didn’t reply. The answer, of course, was no.

Jake stooped down beside the bundle and examined it closely.

He said to Cross, “I assume you worked on the earlier murder.”