“She works the lunch and dinner crowds,” the sheriff said.
“Good to know.” Grant nodded toward Avery. “We can hit the county courthouse and see if they have any information on commercial or residential buildings with basements.”
“We need something we can sink our teeth into. Three victims are three too many.” Agent Bradley pushed to her feet. “Those women never had a chance to fight back.”
“Based on what the M.E. reported, the man injected them with drugs that effectively subdued them.”
Avery nodded. “He had complete control over them.”
“That’s right,” Grant said. “The drugs helped him to control them first. He didn’t just kill them. He wanted to watch them die.”
Avery gasped. “Watch. Them. Die.”
She hurried to the whiteboard, grabbed up an erasable marker and wrote three letters on the board.
W T D
When she turned back to the others, her face was pale, her eyes shadowed with grief. “Watch. Them. Die.”
“Sweet Jesus,” Bree murmured. “The letters carved into the victims’ chests.”
Avery’s heart pinched hard in her chest.
“The man subdued them, then killed them slowly through asphyxiation, so he could watch them die.”
“And that wasn’t enough. He staged them in a bed of roses like a testimonial of his power,” Avery added. “He wants us to know he can kill and get away with it.”
“He’s teasing us,” Bree smacked a hand against the smooth surface of the table. “We can’t let him get away with it. No other woman has to die.” She buried her face in her hands for a moment, then pushed her fingers through her hair. “Okay then. Let’s get to that library.”
Melissa nodded and led the way out of the conference room.
“We’ll be at the courthouse and then the diner for lunch and a good round of gossip,” Grant said.
“Good luck,” the sheriff said. “I’ll look into who might have access to benzodiazepine and haloperidol.”
“If you add Benadryl to those two drugs, you get a B-52 cocktail,” Grant said.
Avery’s eyes widened. “They used B-52 cocktails back in the 1970s and 80s to rapidly sedate patients in a highly agitated state—like someone with schizophrenia.”
“That’s right,” Grant said.
Sheriff Taylor stood and hitched up his belt. “I’ll check with the local hospital and medical clinics to see if anyone is missing those drugs.”
Grant hooked Avery’s elbow and led her out of the room. Once outside the station, he helped her into the rental car and slid in behind the wheel.
Avery opened her phone and searched for directions to the county courthouse.
As Grant pulled out onto the street, she guided him to the courthouse, using the map.
An hour after arriving, they left the courthouse with a list of forty homes in the area with basements and their addresses.
“That’s a lot of basements we might be looking into,” Avery pointed out.
“We need a way to narrow the list down,” Grant said. “Maybe our visit with the town gossip will help.”
“I hope so,” Avery said. “Searching forty homes and businesses could take all week. Not to mention, it might alert the killer to the fact we’re closing in on him. He could decide to move out of the area altogether.”
“I don’t think so,” Grant said. “He’s deposited all the bodies around Shadow Valley. Not anywhere else. This place holds meaning to him.”
