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Until it did.
The doors closed and her phone rang.
Asa Kodiak. Special agent in charge of their SCU division and one of the very few people Violet would consider a friend besides Fiona. She answered. “What?”
“And a good Monday morning to you too,” he said through his grit-and-gravel voice.
The elevator opened, and she hurried outside, escaping into the fresh October air. Third week in the month and it was only now starting to feel like fall in Memphis. “I don’t have time for pleasantries.” She frowned at her sticky pants. “I’ve had enough of that for one morning.”
Asa grunted. “We have a case. We leave in an hour and a half.”
And that was why she and her entire team kept bags packed. Quick exits. “Where?”
“East Kentucky. A place called Night Hollow. Branches out from a little town called Crow’s Creek.” He sighed. “Three bodies found around midnight by some people partying in a cave. All female. The latest victim is pretty fresh. Not sure how long she’s been deceased. I want to get there quickly and try to preserve the integrity of the scene. Who knows how contaminated it might be by now. Bodies been removed by the coroner already. Couldn’t leave them for animals and weather to eat away any possible remaining evidence.”
“Why us?” Where was the strange and bizarre that rang the SCU bell?
“The victims’ eyes have been removed and their eyelids sutured shut.”
“So?” It was grotesque but would still fall under Violent Crimes.
“And a series of numbers have been carved across the forehead of the most recent body. Some nicks on the skulls of the other two suggest they’d also had the same forehead carvings, or similar ones.”
Ah. Now it was getting strange. “They have any idea what the numbers mean?”
“Not a clue. It gets worse, but I’ll brief everyone when we meet.”
“We flying or driving?”
“Both. Flying first. Meet at the airport and pack for two weeks. Not sure how long we’ll be there. Louisville agents will be there waiting on us to pass the baton. Cami is setting up our room arrangements.”
“Who’s handling the crime scene processing? Locals or the ERT?” she asked.
“Evidence Response Team.”
Their people. Good.
“Everything is going to the Quantico lab.”
“Kentucky State Police didn’t want in?”
“They’ve passed the buck to the FBI. I’ll fill you in more on that when we have the team together,” Asa said. “Media is already swarming. Dubbed him the Blind Eye Killer.”
“Lovely. See you in an hour.”
The back door leading into the kitchen stuck, and he put some grit into it. He’d have to fix it. The fact Mama hadn’t already ridden him about it must be a fluke. Nag. Nag. Nag. All the time. Every day.
“Sonny! That you?” Mama called in her high-pitched squawk. The tone like vermin scratched along his spine.
“Yeah,” he returned then muttered, “but I hate being called that, and you know it, you hag.” He entered the tiny kitchen, the linoleum fading and peeling back at the edge of the dingy cabinets.
He plopped a plastic bag with two foam containers of food from the Meat and Three Veg on the table. Mama’s house slippers swished against the old hardwood as she shuffled toward the kitchen. “What’d you get?” she asked.
“Beans, greens and cornbread.” He removed a box and placed it at her seat at the head of the four-chair table. But it had only been him and Mama sitting at it for more than twenty years.
After situating their food, he poured two sweet teas. She grunted and wrapped her bony fingers around the glass. Her hair had been pulled back in a severe bun at the nape of her neck. She’d never worn it any other way.
Once he’d seen it spilling down her back. When he’d been spying on her and Mr. Franks next door. His daughter had been pretty. And Sonny had wondered what her hair would look like spilling down her back.
