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Forty yards ahead, jutting into the Roanoke Sound, was the Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse. Unlike the other white brick towers with the black stripes, it had a seaside cottage vibe with a sloped red roof and gabled windows with black shutters. The only things identifying it as a lighthouse were the fenced-in observation deck and the cupola-style lantern room.
The team slowed as they approached the Dare County sheriff and his deputies, including Grady Dorn. Asa had called in the ERT out of Charlotte. The ME was on his way.
“She’s got a note stabbed into her palm, but it’s not like the others,” Dorn said. “We set up a perimeter to keep out media and anyone who got word this early and decided to play the vulture. She fought. Valiantly if I had to guess. Feet are bruised and cut up, abrasions on her knees and hands, along with splinters. Maybe fell on a boardwalk? She’s also got a knot on her head where she might have fallen or been hit. Not a single open bloom on her. Some broken fingers and a broken wrist.”
Ahnah had been a fighter. Bexley said she’d never yield to him. At least...at least she’d fought to the bitter end.
Bexley stood far enough away that she didn’t have visual access to the scene, but she’d refused to wait downtown.
“Agent? Agent, are you okay?” Dorn asked. Ty’s vision blurred; spots formed before his eyes. Could he do this?
Rain leaked into his poncho, and rivulets dripped into his eyes from the hood.
As they walked up the boardwalk, the victim’s hair came into view.
Red.
Ty’s shoulders slumped, and he let out the breath he’d been holding. Turning back, he waved to Bexley to signal it wasn’t Ahnah, but another fighter. A small measure of guilt nipped at him for feeling relief it wasn’t Ahnah, because it was someone.
Tanned skin with little pink flowers tattooed down her right arm and neck and probably her back. Posed in a sitting position, her legs stretched out in front of her. One hand on her left thigh and her other arm out with the palm up, the note nailed into it.
His brain filed through the list of missing women with flower names and their pictures. He didn’t recall seeing a redhead. Didn’t mean the killer hadn’t taken someone who hadn’t been reported missing.
“Something’s not right,” Fiona said, and put her hand on Ty’s arm, pausing midway on the boardwalk. “Her hair...it doesn’t look right.” A gust of wind swept across the frothy waters and blew her hair to the side and then completely off her head, revealing she wasn’t a redhead at all.
Nor was she a brunette like Ahnah.
Blond. Pulled into a bun on top of her head.
The killer had put a wig on her just to toy with them again!
Fiona ran forward, whispering, “No,” then startled and reeled backward. “Asa!”
Asa darted past Ty while he remained, his feet cemented to the wet wood.
He grabbed Fiona and held her face to his chest.
Ty forced his feet forward and rounded Asa, who was embracing Fiona.
The atmosphere tilted and he wobbled, then righted himself. His mouth opened to deny the horror, but he didn’t have enough breath to speak, cry or mutter a prayer or even a curse. His lungs squeezed and his chest cracked with a sharp stabbing pain.
Her fingers were crooked on her left hand where they’d been broken, and her hand was twisted at an odd angle where her wrist had been broken too.
How had he gotten to her? It didn’t make sense.
“Oh, God in heaven. God. In. Heaven,” Owen said as he approached, clutching Ty’s arm.
Violet inhaled sharply and knelt, ignoring protocol.
She tipped their admin assistant’s chin upward. “Camellia,” she whispered. “Camellias are flowers. Pretty pink flowers.”
Cami’s once blue, sparkling eyes stared back, milky and hollow.
Dead.
Chapter Eighteen
Manteo
