Page 32 of Nowhere to Hide

Stone stood and watched over my shoulder.

I had a feeling he had them on a murder board in his damn apartment, but the reports distracted. They were important, but I wanted to see all the women in a single space.

Once all twenty-seven were lined up, I took three out of the mix and set them aside.

“I don’t think this is all of them,” I said quietly.

“Why?”

I pointed at the scarf in one of the earlier photos. It was a simple silk one that you could buy in any clothing store. It was loosely tied around the wrists of a blond, almost like an afterthought. However, two photos in our chronological order later the the silk knots became more refined. Then suddenly it changed over to white rope with intricate knots that dug into the skin. “Feels like there’s a step missing. I could be wrong.”

My instincts said I was right, but I hadn’t trusted them in so long.

I pushed away from the table and went to the mini-fridge for another beer. I paused over the bottle of bourbon, but took the safer green bottle of beer and popped the top off with the edge of the counter. I took a long pull, waiting for Stone to reply.

Maybe I was reaching.

Instead, he dug into his messenger bag and took out another thicker file.

I slowly walked back to him.

“These were cases I pulled that had too many differences from the others.”

He flipped through the packets until he added another three while he fished through the rest. I picked up one and felt the zing.

Ropes. Knots. They climbed the girl’s wrists in a complex pattern.

“This was labeled sexual assault. The woman lived, but she disappeared so I couldn’t talk to her.” Stone set more beside my bottle that I hadn’t even realized I put down. “These two were found in the harbor near the lighthouse. No ropes found at the scene, but...” He tapped the photos. “Those marks look a helluva lot like the ones on Priscilla Barlow.”

My throat burned. The stacked red marks, these with postmortem bruising. “She struggled.”

“Yeah.” Stone’s voice was tight. “I can’t fucking prove that they overlap. They are a mix of runaways, prostitutes, and Jane Does.”

“Have you called the FBI?”

“I had to go through channels and my captain vetoed me.”

I frowned at him. “Why?” At Stone’s direct stare, I sighed.

Because no one cared enough about these girls.

The first stirring of something dented the numbness I’d been living in. This wasn’t my problem, but I found myself sitting down and pulling one of the folders forward. “You got somewhere to be?”

Stone sat on the other side of the booth. “Nope.”

“Good.”

A few hours later we had a more cohesive timeline. Some of the extra files he had in the maybe pile stayed there. They were sad cases, but a lot of them were overdoses or domestic violence. I wasn’t a cop, but I was trained to pick up details. I itched to take this to Nyx.

She could comb through the details with one of her programs a helluva lot faster than we did and find things that overlapped, but I’d lost out on using her as a resource. Nyx—aka Nina Kendrick—was a genius-level software engineer. She was the head of cybersecurity at The Kendrick Group and an alpha level white hat hacker.

This project would be exactly one she’d help on.

I cracked my knuckles and stood. “You want a pizza or something?”

Stone looked up, his eyes unfocused. Then he rubbed his hand over his middle. “I forgot to eat. That sounds good.”

“Don’t get too excited. It’s basic, but I do have a pizza stone.”