The Fifth to Die: A gripping, page-turner of a crime thriller

“There is no way someone had time to kidnap Lili Davies, put her clothes on Ella Reynolds, and bury her under the ice at the park. There is no way. There just isn’t enough time.” Porter shuffled his feet. The temperature must be in single digits. “That means he would have been out at the lake during daylight hours, while it was open. Somebody would have seen him.”

Nash thought about this for a second. “In this weather, the park is nearly deserted. The only real risk would be when the unsub carried the body from his vehicle to the water. Unless someone got close, nothing else would really jump out as a red flag. He would just look like some guy out by the lagoon, maybe ice-fishing or something. If he set up with a fishing pole, I bet he could spend the day without anyone giving him a second glance.”

“Logistics aside,” Rodriguez said, “what’s the point?”

Porter and Nash exchanged a glance. They both knew serial killers rarely had a point, at least not one that made sense to anyone but them. And although they only had one victim, if she tied to this second missing girl, they might be looking at a serial.

“Do Ella Reynolds and Lili Davies know each other?” Porter asked Rodriguez.

Rodriguez shook her head. “Her parents only knew the name from television.”

“We should check with Lili’s friend Gabby,” Porter suggested. “What time did she leave for school?”

Rodriguez glanced at her notes. “Quarter after seven.”

Nash closed his eyes and crunched the numbers. “That only allows about twelve hours from the time Lili disappeared to the time Ella was found frozen in the lake.”

“Look at you doing math.” Porter said, and snickered.

“If this is one guy, he’s fast. Efficient,” Nash said.

Porter turned back to Rodriguez. “Sophie, right?”

She nodded.

“Go back in and search the girl’s room. Look for anything out of the ordinary. Get her computer — check her e-mails, saved documents. Look for a diary, photos . . . You find anything at all, you call me. Find out her route to school. Does she walk or get a ride? With friends or alone? Got it?”

Rodriguez chewed on her bottom lip. “What does this mean for Lili?”

Porter wasn’t ready to go there. He turned back to Nash. “Let’s go wake up Eisley.”

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Porter (#udea7f158-b983-5a4e-ad3d-8efab2e28c4d)

Day 2 • 4:18 a.m. (#udea7f158-b983-5a4e-ad3d-8efab2e28c4d)

The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office and morgue was off West Harrison in downtown Chicago. At this hour, Porter and Nash ran into little traffic, and they found the parking spaces out front to be relatively deserted. The guard at the front desk looked up at them with groggy eyes and nodded a hello. “Sign in, please.”

Porter scribbled Burt Reynolds on the clipboard and handed it to Nash, who wrote Dolly Parton before returning it to the desk and following him to the bank of elevators at the back of the lobby. Porter wasn’t a fan of elevators but he was even less a fan of several flights of stairs.

The second elevator from the left arrived first, and he followed Nash inside before he could change his mind.

Porter hit the button marked 3. “Dolly was hot back in the day.”

“Still is,” Nash replied. “A true GILF.”

“GILF?”

“I’ll explain when you’re a little older, Sam.”

The doors opened on an empty hallway.

Nash eyed the vending machine, then gave it a pass, heading for the double doors at the end of the hallway.

They found Tom Eisley at his desk. He glanced up at them as they came in before returning to whatever he was reading.

Porter expected him to say something about the time. Instead, he asked, “Have either of you ever seen the ocean?”

Porter and Nash exchanged a look.

Eisley closed the book on his desk and stood. “Never mind. Not sure I’m ready to talk about this yet.”

“I take it you’re working on our girl?” Porter asked.

Eisley sighed. “I’m trying. We’ve been warming up her body since they brought her in here. She wasn’t quite frozen, you understand, just way below normal temperature. It’s going to make time of death difficult to determine.”

“Do you know the cause?”

Eisley opened his mouth, prepared to say something, then thought better of it. “Not yet. I’m going to need a few more hours. You’re welcome to wait, if you’d like.”

Before they could respond, he disappeared through the door leading to the autopsy room.

Nash nodded at Porter. “Sounds like this might be a while.”

Porter fell into a yellow vinyl chair near Eisley’s door, his eyes heavy with lack of sleep.

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Porter (#udea7f158-b983-5a4e-ad3d-8efab2e28c4d)

Day 2 • 7:26 a.m. (#udea7f158-b983-5a4e-ad3d-8efab2e28c4d)

“Gentlemen?”

Porter’s eyes fluttered open, and it took him a moment to realize he was in Eisley’s office at the morgue. He had slid down in the yellow vinyl chair, his neck cricked from being at an odd angle. Nash was slumped over at Eisley’s desk, his head resting on a stack of papers.

Eisley picked up a medical text, lifted the book about three feet above the desk, then released. The book crashed down, loud and hard, and Nash snapped back in the chair, drool rolling down his chin. “What the —”

“Chicago’s finest, hard at work,” Eisley chided. “Follow me.”

Porter glanced up at the clock on the far wall — about half past seven. A little over three hours had passed since they arrived here. “Shit, didn’t mean to fall asleep,” he mumbled. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket — three missed calls from Clair, no voice mail.

Eisley led them past his desk and through the double doors at the back of his office into the large examination room. Both Porter and Nash grabbed gloves from the box hanging on the wall near the door.

Noises echoed in here.

This was always the first thought that popped into Porter’s head when he entered. Everything sounded different due to the beige tile on the floor and walls. The second thing that always hit him was the temperature — he didn’t know what the actual temperature was in the room, but it felt like it dropped nearly twenty degrees. Goose bumps prickled the back of his neck, and a shiver ran over him. The third thing, the one he’d never get used to, was the smell. It didn’t smell bad, not today anyway, but the room smelled strong. The heavy scent of industrial cleaners attempted to mask the underlying odor of something else, something Porter preferred not to think about.