"They do.And I'm guessing you're seeing the same thing Jessica Ramirez."
"I am."Kari stared at the route map on her screen, the chaotic lines that had seemed like an anomaly suddenly taking on a different significance."Someone's hunting them."
"That's my read.The ultra-marathon community is small, tight-knit.Word is spreading, and people are starting to panic.Three elite runners dead in two weeks, all training for the same race."
"What race?"
"The Sonoran 100.Hundred miles through the desert, one of the toughest ultra-marathons in the region.It's scheduled for six weeks from now."Maria exhaled."All three victims were registered.All three were serious contenders."
Kari's mind raced through the implications.A serial killer targeting competitive runners, using the desert itself as a weapon.Chasing them until their bodies gave out, then arranging them like sleeping angels in the wilderness.
"Why am I just hearing about this now?"she asked."If there's a pattern, if someone's targeting these runners—"
"Because the first two victims were found outside tribal land.Jennifer Hayes was in Maricopa County, Jordan Rodriguez was near Tucson.Different jurisdictions, different departments, and nobody connected the dots until Jessica Ramirez turned up on the reservation."Maria's frustration was audible."I've been tracking this since Jordan was found, but without a clear connection to my jurisdiction, I couldn't get traction.Now that you've got Jessica..."
"We have a link."
"Exactly.Three victims, same MO, same target demographic.This is a serial case, Kari.And it may keep happening unless we stop it."
Kari took a deep breath and let it out slowly, absorbing the implications."What do you want to do?"she asked.
"Officially, I can't work this case.Wrong jurisdiction, wrong department, too many bureaucratic hurdles to jump."Maria's voice took on a conspiratorial edge."But unofficially...we were a good team, Kari.You're on the reservation, I'm in Phoenix, but we can share information.Coordinate our investigations without stepping on each other's toes."
"You want to work this together.Off the books."
"I want to catch whoever's doing this before they kill again.If that means bending some rules about jurisdictional cooperation, I can live with that."Maria paused."Can you?"
Kari looked at the route map on her screen, at the desperate zigzag path that ended in death.She thought about the other two victims—Jennifer Hayes and Jordan Rodriguez—whose final hours had probably looked exactly the same.Running until they couldn't run anymore, dying in the desert while their killer watched.
"Send me everything you have on the other two cases," she said."Autopsy reports, GPS data, witness statements—anything that might help establish a pattern."
"Already compiling it.You'll have it within the hour."Relief colored Maria's voice."Thank you, Kari.I know this complicates things for you, but—"
"Someone's killing runners in my desert.That makes it my problem whether it complicates things or not."
"That's the Kari I remember."Maria's tone warmed."We'll talk soon.And hey—when this is over, let's actually get that coffee we've been promising each other for two years."
"Deal."
Kari ended the call and sat for a moment.Her phone buzzed with an incoming email from Maria—the first batch of files on Jennifer Hayes and Jordan Rodriguez.Kari opened them and began to read, looking for the thread that would connect three dead runners to whoever was hunting them.
The answer was out there somewhere.She just had to find it before the killer found another victim.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The drive to Flagstaff gave Kari time to think.
Maria's files had confirmed what she'd suspected: all three victims had moved in the same circles, trained in the same communities, chased the same impossible goals.If Kari wanted to understand who might have targeted them, she needed to understand that world—the culture of ultra-marathon running, the relationships between competitors, the places where their paths might have crossed.
Jessica Ramirez had listed a Flagstaff address on her race registration, but her actual training had taken her across Arizona.According to her social media, she'd been a regular at several running stores and training groups in the region.The closest to her listed address was a place called the Dusty Trail Running Store, which hosted weekly group runs and served as an informal gathering spot for the local ultra community.
Kari had called ahead, explaining that she needed to speak with anyone who knew Jessica, and the owner—a woman named Connie Marks—had agreed to gather some of Jessica's training partners for an informal meeting.
The store occupied a strip mall on the outskirts of Flagstaff, sandwiched between a yoga studio and a shop selling crystals and incense.Kari arrived to find four people waiting in the back room, surrounded by racks of running shoes and shelves of energy gels.They sat in a loose circle on folding chairs, their faces carrying the particular mixture of grief and disbelief that Kari had seen too many times before.
Connie made introductions.There was Derek, a lean Black man in his forties who taught high school biology and ran ultramarathons on weekends.Cora, a physical therapist with sun-damaged skin and nervous hands.Miguel, barely out of college, who kept glancing at his phone as if expecting bad news.And Rachel, an older woman with silver hair and the kind of quiet intensity that came from decades of pushing physical limits.
"Thank you all for coming," Kari said, settling into the remaining chair."I know this is difficult, but anything you can tell me about Jessica might help us understand what happened to her."
