AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“We’re leaving for the Outer Banks at noon,” Asa said. “Blue Harbor Island, a little place near Roanoke.”
“What nightmare has presented there?” Violet stood by the door to the office, already texting. Probably to let John know she was about to fly to sandy shores for a few days, two weeks tops. That’s the longest they stayed on a site, though they often returned if needed.
“Last month they found a woman, Amy-Rose Rydell. She’d been missing six months. They discovered her propped at the door to the Currituck Beach Lighthouse in Corolla. She’d been tattooed in roses from her neck to her mid-thighs. Local sheriff thought it might be one gruesome, but isolated, incident.”
“That didn’t pan out, huh?” Owen asked.
“No. Forty-five minutes ago, another missing woman from five months ago was discovered in the same manner at the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse entrance.” He glanced at his phone. “A Lily Hayes. Both late twenties. Neither woman had the tattoos before they went missing. Her tattoos were of lilies.”
“It’s bizarre,” Violet said, “but you know what I’m going to ask. What brings it to our door? The Manteo resident agency unable to assist?”
Asa pocketed his phone. “They’re on site now, but it has a religious undertone.”
Almost all of their cases had twisted religious ritualistic behavior, which is why Ty had a job with the SCU. His expertise as a religious behavioral analyst kept him busier than he wanted to be, but people to some extent were predictable if they had some kind of religious faith. Their beliefs motivated not only day-to-day behavior, but their killings as well, and that belief manifested in their signatures, aka their homicidal calling cards.
Ty knew firsthand about warped religious views; he’d been born into a cult and was thankful every day he’d left. Religions boiled down to two things—money and power. Dark purposes and greedy gain. Grubby paws that swiped at the objects they lusted over. From preachers peddling healing handkerchiefs to poor desperate souls riddled with sickness to gurus who ensured people who did good things could come back in the next life more prosperous than the one before. It was all a long con. A scam. A joke.
Ty wasn’t falling for any of that nonsense ever again.
Asa rubbed the back of his neck. “They each had a solid white index card nailed into their right palm that read in black print, ‘Bloom where you are planted.’ That’s a phrase used in Christian circles. Right, Ty?”
The Christians—his favorite group of twisted fanatics. How anyone could be duped into believing that a higher power loved a human enough to die for them so they could spend eternity together was ludicrous.
Every soul had a god—self. And no self would die for another human being. End of story. But millions had fallen into the trap, including three of his SCU members. To each his own as long as they didn’t push it on him.
“It’s a Christian phrase, yes?” Asa asked again.
“It was said by Bishop of Geneva, Saint Francis de Sales, but later made famous by an illustrator. I can’t remember her name. It’s often seen on bumper stickers with the Jesus fish as well as on home decor signs and stuff. Pretty self-explanatory.” He shrugged. “You may not like where you are, but make the most of it. You know, like me and paperwork.”
Fiona frowned, and Asa ignored him and turned to Violet. Violet had a superpower. She could slide into the brain of a serial killer and was rarely wrong. It was terrifying, but it came in handy for them. “Violet?” Asa asked.
She blinked a couple of times and cocked her head. “I need to see photos of the tattoos. Are they good? Hack job? Did he tattoo them and dump them, or did he keep them for a period of time after the tattooing?”
“I don’t know,” Asa said. “I wouldn’t think it would take four months to tattoo someone’s body.”
Violet closed her eyes again, her telltale sign she was becoming a killer. “I want them for myself. I enjoy seeing my ink, my brand, on them.” She opened her eyes. “Sexual assault?”
“I don’t know yet,” Asa said.
Violet returned to that dark place and Ty studied her, icy fingers scraping down his spine until he inwardly shuddered.
“I want them for myself but it’s not enough. I need the world to see them, see what I did. I want them under a spotlight—the lighthouse. It’s not about them, though. It’s about me. My handiwork.”
“We’re looking for a narcissist,” Fiona said.
Ty grinned. “Owen, did you do it?”
Owen gave him a you’re-not-as-funny-as-you-think look. “Ha ha. I’ll check the distance between the lighthouses.” Owen was a great geopattern theorist, and his work helped them triangulate where killers might live or work and where they hunted based on geographical patterns. Total old school when he had software that would accomplish the same task.
Asa handed Violet an iPad with preliminary photos of the bodies. Ty stood behind her to check out the artwork. “Professional and intricate.”
The flowers were identical to each other and the stems were perfectly straight.
“Ty, I rarely say it because it’s rarely sayable,” Violet said, “but you’re right. No way a captive woman would hold still for this. He’s meticulous and precise. Moving would cause a mistake, and he doesn’t make mistakes. Mistakes enrage him.” Violet handed the iPad back to Fiona. “It’s more than narcissism. I need to see the bodies, and I need to know if they’ve been sexually assaulted. Either way, it’s about power and control.”
“That’ll affect the profile,” Fiona said. Being in the SCU meant having access to the Behavioral Analyst Unit in Quantico, but Fiona had gone through the lengthy training early on, and she and Violet often worked up the profiles on their unidentified subjects, or UNSUBS, without calling for a BAU consult.
Owen clapped his hands together. “Well, let’s go get him.”
