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“I might believe she forgot if she was half an hour late, but four hours?” Chris said. “And now it’s pouring rain?”
Jo held up a hand to short circuit the growing panic in their tones. “Given the circumstances, I agree with you. There’s strong reason to believe something may have happened, and time is of the essence. We need to start searching, now.”
* * *
The wind shifted as they waited at the entrance to the park, blowing icy rain in a slicing diagonal, now with a barrage of leaves and twigs from the surrounding trees. Jo drew the hood of her jacket tighter in a futile effort to stay as warm and dry as possible, and said a prayer of thanks when the search and rescue team deployed by the State Police Special Operations Section arrived, again overseen by Incident Commander Roscoe.
“Same procedure this time,” he told Jo and Arnett when the initial team arrived. “We’ll send the K-9 unit and the helicopter out immediately, and organize the grid search as they do the initial hasty search. With luck we’ll get a resolution quickly enough to bring her back alive.”
As with Crone Ridge, the woods around Haptin Pond extended for several hundred acres to the north. Using the IMAT’s topographical maps, Chris showed them which of the two trails Naomie favored, and how far she normally went.
Ivan Geary nodded, and pointed down the road. “Rocket and I will start at the trail head entrance by the house, since we know she was most likely there. You have a shirt of hers?”
Chris handed over a sweater. “I grabbed this from her hamper. She wore it yesterday. Hopefully the scent will be strong enough even from then?”
“Don’t you worry. Rocket can pick up her trail from something she hasn’t worn in years.” He turned to Jo and Arnett. “You two coming with me?”
Jo glanced over to Roscoe. When he nodded, she and Arnett moved into place a few feet behind the dog.
Ivan held the sweater up for Rocket to sniff. “Find her,” he said.
Rocket took off; Jo tried not to think about what they might find as she and Arnett hurried behind. Still tugging the hood of her jacket closer, she alternated focus between Rocket’s slightly slanted gait and the trail in front of them. After about a quarter of a mile, Rocket veered off the trail into the forest, and Jo’s concentration intensified as her feet slipped and slid in the newly formed mud of the shifting forest floor.
As the trees drew closer together, the rain came in fits and starts: slowing to fat intermittent drops when the trees created mini canopies, then blasting them with downpours of water and leaves and twigs in between. She eyed the shrubs and moss and dirt ruefully—whatever footprints or other evidence might have been present was long since destroyed.
Rocket’s pace seemed to quicken, and he curved sharply to the right. Jo projected Rocket’s trajectory forward to a large boulder in the distance—a sickening déjà vu slammed through her.
Rocket rounded the boulder, with Geary right behind. Jo’s chest tightened.
“Good girl, Rocket. Good girl.”
Jo forced herself forward around the boulder.
Naomie Alexander lay naked, hair spread out behind and arms crossed over her chest like a woodland angel—but with her neck slashed, and a knife protruding from her blood-anointed abdomen.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE
As Marzillo and her team began the systematic steps of processing the scene, Jo pushed down the nausea roiling through her. The similarities flew at her, shifting her off balance like a swarm of bees: two of the rocks behind Naomie’s head had been used as a makeshift altar, complete with candles arranged in the same configuration they’d seen by Madison; the same symbol was drawn on her, and an identical hunting knife protruded from her abdomen; the hands clasped across her chest in the same position, and the expression on her face just as peaceful.
“The same killer, without a doubt,” Arnett said.
Jo nodded, then shook her head against her disorientation, afraid the memory of Madison’s scene would encroach on her ability to properly evaluate this one. But the harder she tried, the more crushing the sensation became, like a car alarm she couldn’t cover her ears to stop. She squeezed her eyes closed, took a deep breath, and opened them again, forcing her mind to hunt for any differences that might exist.
“Four boulders, not three, and smaller,” she said aloud. “The biggest one doesn’t look so much like a gravestone.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Arnett said.
“And these were the first large free-standing boulders we came across.” Jo circled the scene, noting how the vantage point changed the details. “The body is facing a different cardinal direction, so what’s important about the positioning is the relationship to the stones.”
Arnett gestured a circle. “And the killer cleared a section for her. Just dirt here, but everything else has a layer of scrub. Different from the first scene.”
“Her baby bump isn’t nearly as big.” Jo tried to remember how far along Naomie was. “I think she was just coming up on six months, and Madison was past seven. Janet, can you see if she’s holding a plastic baby figurine?”
Marzillo shifted position to reach the hands without disturbing anything else. “Rigor has set in to the smaller muscles of the fingers.” She pried the fingers apart, then lifted the arm. “But it’s not yet complete in the upper arms. Normally I’d say that means she’s been dead for two to four hours at most, but the cold would delay rigor somewhat. So, I’ll adjust to three to five hours.”
Jo glanced at her watch. “It’s ten now, so between five and seven o’clock. That fits with when she left the house.”
Marzillo lifted the second hand, revealing a figurine. “And here it is, the twin to our first plastic baby.”
