Page 47 of Coordinates of Death

He came closer and peered over her shoulder. It was a Polaroid of a young girl in pigtails. A caption was written in the white space below.

A, do better this time.

“Who is this?” Kordell tapped on the child’s face.

“My sister, Anna. This is the second time he’s shown me pictures of her. Somehow he knows about my family.”

Kordell searched his memory bank for any conversations about her sister but came up empty. “Did you tell me about Anna when we were younger?”

She shook her head. “I don’t talk about her much. It still hurts.”

Another secret. But he had lots of skeletons in his closet too.

Dirk approached. “No prints inside either. What’s the picture?”

Aurora held it up.

“This is why I believe the killer is a copycat, Aurora.” Dirk stuffed his tools into his backpack. “SBK never targeted you before. You’ve obviously ticked someone off.”

“Or SBK took two years to study Corporal Aurora Hunt.” Dr. Sharpe changed positions, examining the victim’s feet. “There are too many similarities for it not to be him.”

“You said you wounded SBK,” Kordell said. “Perhaps he was hurt badly and went into hiding to recuperate. Did you check hospitals?”

“Don’t you think we know how to do our jobs, watcher?” Dirk laced his question with sarcasm. Again.

“I went to the hospitals in Sweetwood Falls and surrounding areas. We didn’t find anything within a two-hour radius.” Aurora tucked the picture into an evidence bag, ignoring Dirk.

“There’s obviously a reason he went into hiding. Maybe—”

“Well, well. How did I miss this?” Dr. Sharpe asked.

They turned to see what he was referring to.

The victim’s boots didn’t match.

Coincidence? Something told Kordell that wasn’t the case. Everything the killer did was with purpose and intent.

Aurora squatted beside Dr. Sharpe. “Take her boots off.”

He removed the right. Nothing out of the ordinary stood out. Dr. Sharpe gently eased the left boot off.

A collective gasp filled the cave.

The victim’s left foot was missing.

Kordell knew what that meant.

SBK had chosen his next victim and was ready to play.

Aurora sat in their police station’s conference room hours later, writing up her report for their long day. The team had searched the cave for the victim’s missing foot, but SBK had obviously kept it as his trophy to use later on. Which meant he’d already kidnapped his next girl. Lord, please help us find this one alive.

A soft knock interrupted her thoughts.

“Come in.” Aurora had secluded herself to get away from her coworkers to concentrate. It was now midevening, and she wanted to finish so she could get home to soak her weary bones in her tub. The jets in her jacuzzi would help.

Kordell entered and plopped himself down. “Just talked to Mic. The team is en route but won’t be here until well after midnight. She said Dad wants the team to meet with yours in the morning. Can you set that up?”

Aurora inwardly cringed. Somehow she didn’t think that meeting would go over well with Wheeler or Dirk. Neither of them seemed to want any help with this case.