Page 31 of Dead Drift

She wrote down a number on a pad of paper she pulled from her purse.

Khaled read it and then slipped it into his jacket pocket. “Looks like we have a deal.”

She smiled. “I’m going to enjoy this one.”

14

How did it go?” Griffin stood as his wife exited the autopsy room.

“There are dentals there, so an identification will be made. It’ll just take time.”

“I was speaking with Crest while you were in there. He went back through the missing person’s database and two young women who share similarities with other victims popped up. I’m betting she’s one of the two.”

“Two missing persons?” Finley asked.

He nodded.

“So we may be dealing with more victims than we realized?”

“Yeah, I suppose we should have assumed not all the victims would wash up on shore. What is the likelihood the remains you just examined belong to a victim of our killer?”

“Based on the evidence, I’d say it’s very likely she was a victim of our killer. The ‘Shore Killer,’ according to the ME.”

“The Shore Killer?” Griffin shook his head. “I suppose it fits.” He grimaced. “It looks like we are indeed dealing with a serial killer, and one who’s still very active.”

“Agreed.”

“How long was she in the water?”

“We’re estimating a couple weeks.”

“She had a lot of damage to her remains for so short a time.”

“Something large fed on her,” Finley said.

“But you were able to determine she fit our victim profile?”

“She was in the same age range—late teens, had the same build. She was killed by a large caliber round at close range and had endured torture—broken fingers and deep knife wounds that abraded her ribs.”

Finley shook her head. “The increase in his killing is flat-out frightening. One in Maryland, two in North Carolina, five—and now what appears to be a sixth—in Houston, and maybe a seventh, if the other missing girl was his victim. My experience with serial killers tells me there comes a time when they lose control over their compulsion.”

Griffin exhaled. “I’m afraid you’re right, but as his compulsion increases, it also means the likelihood of him making a mistake increases. He needs to kill more often, and that’s when killers get sloppy.”

Griffin stopped and considered a possibility, something they had not factored in. “The killer had control over many aspects of the crime—the type of women he hunted, how he abducted them, how he tortured and killed them, and even where he dumped the bodies—but he didn’t have complete control over what happened to those bodies after he dumped them in the water. It is likely some stayed put and might never be found.

“We need to run a new search in the three states for all missing women who fit the other factors of the profile. Not looking for women who washed up on shore but for those who fit the other parameters. We may have way more victims than we realized.”

“Well, if the profile—”

“Profile . . . Shoot!”

Finley frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“I had Agent Evans at Declan’s office write up a profile on our killer as a favor. I was so engrossed in reading Burke’s files on the plane, I totally forgot he’d given me the report. What if there is something in Evans’s profile that could have been helpful in our previous meetings?”

“We can always call or revisit Agent Thornton or the detectives.”

“Very true.” He wondered what was in that report. He prayed it would include something to draw them even closer to the killer.