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“He hunted down women in the wilderness with a gun and a knife.”
“Where?”
“Alaska.”
“Fuck!” Griffin swears next to her, and Cara moves the phone away from him.
“Shenton,” she says, “have the results come back on the ESDA test from the note?”
“Wait … Yes. Just this morning. They found some writing. Could be another code.”
“What does it say?”
“Just a few numbers. Nine to four. Ten to twelve. I can just make out a word: Sat.”
Cara frowns. “Send it across to me. Anything from the CCTV?”
“No, sorry. But the lab came back on the notebooks.”
Cara and Griffin both sit forward. “And?”
“Fingerprints and some DNA. But no match.”
“Run it against all police profiles first,” Cara barks.
“We did. Nothing. We’re onto the national database now.”
Cara can’t believe it. She feels the disappointment cut through her. She was sure it was someone on the inside. “Call me as soon as something pops,” she adds, about to hang up when Toby interrupts her.
“But boss, I had a thought.”
Outside Griffin’s room, two nurses start talking loudly. Cara turns the volume up on the speaker, annoyance bubbling.
“Go on.”
“He’ll know you’re close behind,” Shenton says. “He’ll know you’re looking. So he would have taken her somewhere where he feels safe.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’ll go somewhere familiar. His home. A work space. Somewhere where he can control the surroundings.”
Cara feels the dread rising again. “But how do we know where, when we haven’t a clue who he is?” she shouts, her voice shrill.
She looks at Griffin. She sees her helplessness, her fear, reflected in his eyes.
The Echo Man has taken Jess, to God knows where, to do God knows what. It’s all her fault. And she has no idea what to do.
CHAPTER
73
HE IS CLOSE. He can feel it.
He looks across to her, slumped in the front seat, as they rattle on in his shitty VW. A line of blood runs down her forehead where he hit her, but apart from that she is untouched. She won’t be like that for long.
He’s glad the end is in sight. He’s tired, so weary of all this shit.
He feels as though he’s two people. The one with Cara. The respected professional. And the other: the one that’s killed. He is two souls, struggling for possession. Bundy knew it. Gein, Dahmer, Brady. All of them had wrestled with the evil half while going about their daily lives. Catching a bus, doing their jobs, loving their families.
