Mike Omer - In the Darkness

He nodded, pulse quick, his breath held.

“If I ever see you drawing anything else, I’ll kick the living shit out of you. You got that?”

Another nod.

Allen turned away, shoulders hunched, and walked away, a slight sway in his steps.

He picked up the sketch pad, flipped through it. Fragments of his own sketches caught his gaze. Debra’s beautiful eyes wide with horror as mud was stuffed into her mouth. Her naked body trapped in a cage. That beautiful bare shoulder protruding from the earth as she tried to escape the quickening sand.

Zoe gazed through the passenger window of Lyons’s car as they approached the crime scene. The location did not possess the silence and privacy of the first burial site. It was near a highway, and vehicles drove by constantly. There was a trailer park, a gas station, and a bunch of warehouses nearby providing many curious spectators. And to cap it all, the media had gotten hold of the video link, and an enterprising journalist had managed to connect it to the phone call that was allegedly from Maribel to Delia and to the murder of Nicole Medina. Zoe counted five different media vans, and a sixth one pulled up just as they parked.

The officers that had been searching for Maribel Howe all morning were now trying to keep the crowds away using yards of crime scene tape. A large tarp tent had been raised around the grave site, hiding it from the prying eyes and camera lenses, but Zoe knew that images of this scene would be plastered online that very evening. And they would be linked to the killer’s website. There would be endless debate about the ominous “Experiment Number One and Two” videos, as well as theories about experiment number three. People would talk about the two Schrodingers, the scientist and the murderer.

He’d gotten what he was going for. Fame.

Harry Barry had called her three times in the past hour, and she’d ignored the calls. He was probably furious at the loss of his big scoop, but Zoe couldn’t care less. Her sister was being stalked by one killer while here another killer was accelerating. Should she leave right now and go back to Dale City? Should she stay? Both options seemed equally impossible.

She stepped out of the car and into the inferno of the high noon sun. Trying to ignore it, she followed Lyons, who strode toward the throng, homing in on the officer with the clipboard. They both signed their name in the log and moved into the crime scene.

Tatum was talking with an officer with a dog on a leash. Zoe walked over, lowering her head against the sun.

Tatum turned toward her as she got closer. “How’s the mother?”

Zoe shook her head. “Not good. Lyons called someone from the local Victims Assistance Unit. She still claims her daughter phoned her yesterday.”

“The killer must have used parts of the video’s audio to cobble up a daughter crying for her mother’s help,” Tatum said heavily.

“The police can call off the search in the area where Maribel supposedly called from. Since it was the killer’s doing, he probably called far from his home to throw us off.”

“Foster already figured that one out.”

“What do we have so far? The video is still running.”

“I talked to Shelton,” Tatum said. “They’re trying to pull the website down, but it’s tricky. Host and domain were registered via a Czech provider.”

“What about the phone uploading the video? It’s here somewhere, right?”

“We had officers canvassing the entire area with metal detectors, but no luck. Right now they’re trying to search the nearby trailer park, but some inhabitants are making problems. Foster is working on search warrants, but it’s a bureaucratic nightmare.”

The dog sniffed Zoe’s hand tentatively. She pulled it away, annoyed.

“This is Victor, the K-9 officer who located the body,” Tatum said.

“It was Shelley who located the body,” Victor said. “I was just tagging along.”

Zoe nodded at him curtly, then turned back to Tatum. “Do we have time of death yet?”

“The ME is still in there.” Tatum gestured at the tent. “Feel free to ask him. I saw enough.”

Zoe made her way to the tent and lifted the flap. She almost turned around and left as the smell hit her. It was stifling hot inside, and the stench was so thick and sharp it felt malignant.

A large rectangular hole was located in the middle of the ground, and one spotlight shone down at it. Zoe took three steps forward and saw the doctor’s bald head as he crouched by the body. It was horrifically decomposed, bloated, and misshapen, patches of black and gray on the skin. One glance was enough for her, and she took a step back to hide the body from her sight.

She tried to recall the doctor’s name, but all she could think of was his idiotic nickname.

“Uh . . . Doctor? Curly?” she said.

He raised his head, a face mask hiding his nose and mouth. “Agent Bentley.”

“Do you have time of death yet?”

“It’s really hard to say. Liquids have been expelled from the body, and there’s a buildup of gas as you can see—”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“The body was buried deep in very dry soil, well beyond the reach of insects, so the putrefaction is not as bad as it would otherwise be. I’ll be able to give you a good estimate after I check the stage of the internal organs’ decomposition. But that requires a full autopsy. For now, I can estimate that the victim died at least two weeks ago and no more than eight.”

“Thanks, Doctor,” she blurted and lunged for the flap of the opening. Once outside, she took a deep breath, and that turned out to be a mistake. The tent gave the sense that it contained the smell inside, but in fact, the stench’s presence was still very notable, and Zoe had managed to inhale a deep lungful of it. For a moment it was touch and go, and she almost threw up, but knowing she was being watched, she stumbled a few steps, taking shallow breaths through her nose until her stomach settled.

She took out her phone and wrote Andrea a quick message. Everything all right?

She watched the three dots blinking as Andrea wrote her response. Better. Your chief dropped by today. She’s nice. And Marvin is making me his famous hamburgers.

Zoe hesitated, then tapped, I missed the flight. There was another murder.

Oh god. That’s terrible.

I’ll get on the next one. They can manage without me.

The three dots blinked for a long time. Zoe thought that she would get a manifesto as a response, but in the end, Andrea simply wrote, You can stay another day or two.

Zoe imagined her sister writing an answer, deleting it, writing another, deleting again, struggling to decide how she really felt. She pressed her lips tightly and wrote, We’ll talk about it later.

Sliding the phone into her pocket, she scrutinized the area, trying to figure out what had made the killer choose this spot. It wasn’t as isolated as the first one—plenty of potential witnesses within a hundred yards. Then again, the grave itself was reasonably hidden by a small knoll and a cluster of trees. Though it was close to the highway, it was far enough from it, and there was a road that broke off the highway that he could use to get nearby with a van. It was good . . . but not good enough. She was missing something important here, and it frustrated her.

She saw Lyons talking to a police officer a few yards away, her face animated. The officer was holding an evidence bag with something metallic in it. Lyons took it from him.

Zoe hurried over. “What’s up?”

“They found the phone that’s streaming the video. It’s not connected to anything—the video is saved on the phone. Damn thing is still streaming.”