Page 13 of D for Dead

‘She could have written that herself.’

‘Possible,’ Withers agreed. ‘But it’s thick ink. Most people who write on their hand use a biro. Besides, why use both hands?’

With that he lifted the right hand to reveal another reference; ‘page 323’.

‘Okay.’ Rebecca nodded, her tired mind working overtime. ‘So it’s a clue from the killer.’

She thought back to the Alphabet Murders; the killer’s calling card had been the victim’s initial carved into the back of their neck. Ink pen was less perverse, but didn’t match the rest of this killer’s MO, whose victims had been dispatched in a particularly cruel way.

‘What is he trying to tell us?’ she mused.

Withers placed the girl’s hands back by her sides.

‘Find the book he’s referring to,’ he said grimly, ‘and I’m guessing you will have a much clearer idea of what it is you’re dealing with.’

* * *

Finding the book the killer was referring to should have been an impossible task. Fortunately, it had been made easy for them.

The car belonging to the dead boy was found later that afternoon in a secluded spot on the outskirts of the city, known for courting couples. A squad car had found the abandoned vehicle and called it in. Twenty minutes later, Jake and Rebecca were on the scene.

With the car came ID. Ben Hogan and Kasey Miller were both nineteen and students at the local college. The bodies at the morgue had yet to be formerly identified, but it was looking likely that this was the missing couple. Ben’s wallet and Kasey’s purse had been left in the car, and the keys were still in the ignition, suggesting the killer had abducted them from this spot and driven them to the New Hope Baptist Church.

Why he had picked that spot had been confusing, until the book had been found.

Jake was on his haunches, using a miniature flashlight to sweep the interior of the car when he found the paperback under the front passenger seat. Slipping on the regulation white gloves, he carefully retrieved the book.

Grave Encounters by Amy Gallaty. A cheap looking novel with a tombstone on the cover.

Nice.

‘What have you got?’ Rebecca asked, coming up behind him.

‘Maybe nothing.’ But he didn’t think so. He had worked enough years in homicide to recognise the clues were being set up too neatly. Like a game. ‘It was 323, right?’

‘Yeah, 323, chapter twenty-six,’ Rebecca confirmed.

Carefully he opened the book to the correct page, careful not to disturb any evidence the killer may have left, and read.

The words described in gruesome detail the scene they had found at the church. The female victim buried alive; her boyfriend stabbed to death in an open grave beside her.

Jake’s lips twisted.

Sick son of a bitch.

Reading over his shoulder, Rebecca let out a low whistle. ‘Oh boy. He actually did it word for word.’

Jake closed the book, flipped it over and read the author biography. It was brief, but told them she resided in Oregon.

So she was a local author. Coincidence?

Bagging the book, he passed it to one of the officers combing the crime scene and turned to Rebecca.

‘What do you reckon?’ he asked, keen to see if her thoughts were on the same track as his own.

She rubbed at her temples and closed her eyes for a brief moment, gathering her thoughts. Jake suspected she was regretting her marathon drinking session.

‘Someone with a grudge against the author, perhaps, or a fan of the book? I doubt she is our killer.’