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Two teams were formed,the larger one focused on Victoria Park, with the other searching nearby Irwin Lake. Each had a Search-and-Rescue canine, which had been given a possession of Lawler’s to establish her scent. Ethan had started the dog and handler on one end of the shoreline, he and Alexa on the other. The lake was only a kilometer long and a third of a kilometer wide. With the SAR unit, the two of them could handle this and the other small lakes in thevicinity.
Alexa was at his side. She was silent, but her silence spokevolumes.
“The two of us could cover twice as much ground if we splitup.”
It was a recycled argument. She’d used logic, and then irritation when Ethan had first apprised her of the plan. Neither worked. “It’s too dangerous. The UNSUB contacted you directly. He could have remained near the body, waiting for you to come. It’s stupid not to takeprecautions.”
“Only if they makesense.”
They’d left the stretch of the lake with cottages and houses built close to shore for the end of the search. The offender had always left the bodies in remote areas up until now. But everything was upended as of this morning. The killer had never reached out before. He’d never tried to engage a member of the taskforce.
“Contacting you was an aberration.” Ethan stepped over a tree limb and turned to give her a hand. Ignoring it, she hopped over on her own. “When offenders suddenly change their behavior, we damn well better be cautious.” And he wasn’t going to take chances with her safety. He might not want to crack open the vault of their past together, but he wasn’t going to put her at risk,either.
That was all there was to the protective instincts that had surged to the surface. Ethan told himself that and tried to believeit.
“That defies logic. He could hardly be lying in wait at every one of the rivers, streams and lakes in thearea.”
Her reasoning might be sound, but his reaction came from a visceral place, not a logical one. Contrary to his vow just days ago to keep his distance, it appeared as though he’d have to keep Alexa near him at all times. His unwillingness to dredge up the past paled compared to the need to keep her safe, even if her job did sometimes place her in similarsituations.
“What did your husband think of you going to work for the Mindhunters?” He regretted the question as soon as it left his mouth. More so when she shot him a quick, startledlook.
“I’ve worked for Raiker for five years. Danny died the year before I took the job.” The smile on her lips was wistful. “His cancer was in remission when we got married. It came back with a vengeance six months later. He was gone six weeks’ shy of our third anniversary. I thought then about what your dad told us. That none of us get through life unscathed. It was difficult to hear at the time, but he was right. We all have to find a way to live with pain without letting it defineus.”
A bird shrieked overhead as Ethan bent to pick up a branch in their path and threw it toward the woods. He didn’t want to remember the conversation she referred to. Out of self-preservation those memories were buried deep. They seeped out despite his best defenses at times, usually picking the midnight hours to haunt. When mistakes were magnified and regret sliceddeep.
“What about you?” When he cocked a brow, she elucidated. “Are youmarried?”
“Divorced.” He wondered how long it would be before he could say the word without an accompanying flood of relief. “Charlene was fond of saying that she’d married a hockey player, not a Mountie. After a knee injury cut short my time on the team, she never really adjusted to our new lifestyle.” Mostly because of the vast difference in paychecks for the two professions. He gave a mental shrug. She deserved credit for knowing what she wanted. And it had been readily apparent that what she didn’t want was a washed-up hockey player, no matter what job he choseafterward.
“And you were surprised at the career choices I made.” There was a teasing note in her tone. Apparently, she was over her pique of minutes ago. Alexa had never been one to hold onto agrudge.
“I had a lot of time to think when I was in rehab for my knee. I wanted to do something that would make a difference. I haven’t regrettedit.”
The sand rimming the lake gave way to a grassy shoreline, hemmed by thick trees. The grass was tall enough that something lying in it wouldn’t be visible from a distance. Across the lake, the shore was punctuated with dwellings, but this part was undeveloped. Next to them was a marshy area where reeds rose from the water like fingers pointing accusingly at thesky.
A couple of flat-bottomed fishing boats dotted the placid water. The stillness of the scene would have been peaceful if it not for the reason they werehere.
He even recognized the area ahead of them. “Were you ever out here when you lived in Truro? We’d have keggers sometimes, deeper in the woods there.” He indicated the crowded cluster of trees that stood like silent sentinels just feet away from the water. “A pulp company leased a lot of the land on this side of the lake back then. There weren’t near as many houses here either. No one to care what we were upto.”
“No, I was never here. And I can honestly say I never attended a kegger in mylife.”
He wasn’t surprised. “Another shameful void in yourchildhood.”
Her expression was sober as she nodded. “The voids weremyriad.”
Ethan had thought her pampered when they first met. Part of an overprotective family that sought to keep the world at a distance lest it proves too unpleasant for their precious daughter. His first impression couldn’t have been further from the truth, but he hadn’t known that until later. She’d been unlike any girl he’d met before, and he’d been captivated. It had taken persuasion, the likes of which he’d never had to use before even to get her to meet him outside of the library. Then he’d lured her to football games. Hockey matches. Baseball games. Once or twice he’d even managed to get her to agree to accompany him to a party, although she’d never seemed comfortable in crowds. She’d been stingy with the details she’d revealed about her home life, but he’d sensed a darkness there that was the polar opposite of his own family—his father an outspoken single dad raising three rambunctious boys on hisown.
He could see the handler and the dog at the far side of the lake. They were covering a quarter of the perimeter themselves. The search-and-rescue animal didn’t have to rely on visual cues. With three hundred million olfactory receptors in its nose, the hound was more valuable than having an additional half dozen people on thesite.
Alexa veered farther away from him to avoid a soggy area of ground. “When I recognized the words from the Bible verse in the offender’s message this morning, I couldn’t help thinking ofReisman.”
“Your st—your mother’s husband?” Not her stepfather, he recalled. She’d always been adamant about that. Nothing about the man’s treatment of her had been the least bitparental.
She nodded. “Some people will use religion to rationalize anything. Abuse, murder, discrimination, war. Reisman used it as a weapon to force my mother and me into the roles he decreed proper. If my suspicion about the UNSUB is correct, he may see himself as an emissary with a holy justification for hisdeeds.”
“And how does knowing that help us catchhim?”
Her voice was unperturbed. “By allowing us to think like the offender. Calculate his responses. Predict his actions based on what we know about hismotivation.”