Mike Omer - In the Darkness

“Let’s assume that the video wasn’t live.” Foster voiced Zoe’s gnawing worry. “There’s a small delay. Hopefully no more than a few minutes. We should determine what are the likeliest areas in the route of nine-oh-two.”

He took a marker and drew a circle near the crossroads where they’d stopped the patrol car. “This is where he reached. He drove down Burma Road, all the way from 87. Before that he drove up to 87 from Fisher Lake.” Foster drew the route. It crossed some of the areas they’d marked as good digging areas.

“You can ignore all this section, I think.” Tatum pointed at the northern part of the route. “Too close to Grape Creek. He wouldn’t dig so close to a large population.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Foster said. “What about the rest?”

Zoe looked down at her page of scribbles. For the past hour she’d been playing with the variables of Rossmo’s formula—the formula used for geographic profiling. She’d managed to nail a set of variables that worked well for both Nicole and Maribel. She could shift the values a bit, according to her estimation of the killer’s psyche.

How confident had he been with his third victim?

She thought of Harry’s email. Short message, with none of the rage of the previous email. The tone was almost smug. He was very confident. She jotted a few numbers.

“Do we have an area that’s between eight and ten miles from his home?” she asked.

“Earlier you said six to eight,” Foster pointed out.

“I told you it was inaccurate,” she said irritably.

“Well . . . that rules out the road by the lake completely. And South Burma Road.”

They all scrutinized the map.

“So either here . . . or here.” Lyons pointed out two digging areas on North Burma Road.

“Any guesses?” Foster asked.

“The southern one,” Zoe said. “It’s not Tulia—it’s a different type of soil that Dr. Yermilov said was okay for digging but not ideal.”

“So?”

“He buried her in a shallower grave. There must have been a good reason.”

Foster grabbed the mic of the portable radio. Zoe listened to him dictate the coordinates, feeling numb. She prayed she’d gotten it right.

He drove past three patrol cars on the way, and his heart thudded like a hummingbird’s when he arrived at the spot. He looked around nervously as he got out of the car. Being spotted now would be the end.

He was so nervous and dizzy that it took him a few minutes to find the exact spot where the girl was buried. He was sobbing in frustration by the time he finally noticed it. It was irony at its worst—thumbing his nose at the police for being unable to find the victims, only to be thwarted by the same problem. But there it was—he saw the imperceptible signs. The layout of the pebbles scattered on the sand. The slight irregularity in the slope of the soil. No one but him could have possibly found it.

The laptop and the burner phone were inside a bag covered in sand next to the pit. He unplugged the laptop from the cable, turned off the phone, and tossed them both into the back of his van. His anxiety abated as he did it.

Now for the girl.

On the way to the spot, he’d managed to convince himself that she’d positively seen him. He had to get rid of her before the police found her.

He grabbed the shovel from the back of the van and plunged it into the soil. The grave was shallow, he knew, and he could dig down to the box in a few minutes.

He had no intention of digging it up completely. All he needed was a narrow hole all the way to the box.

Scoop after scoop, the pit in the ground grew deeper. The sun was high and blazing with infernal heat. He was drenched in sweat, the back of his neck tingling with sunburn. His motions were jerky and quick, fueled with fear and rage.

The shovel thumped against the wooden box. He scooped some more sand and widened the hole, uncovering the box’s brown surface.

Any hope he had that the girl was already gone evaporated as she began screaming through the gag.

He ran to the van, put back the shovel, and picked up a large sledgehammer, congratulating himself for keeping it in the van. He dragged it back to the pit, his muscles screaming with pain.

Two or three blows on the box’s top was all it would take. The girl’s head was just beyond the wood.

He raised the hammer and swung. The angle was awkward, and he twisted his hands at the last second, his shoulder nearly dislocating itself. The hammer hit the wood sideways without much strength. It barely scratched the surface.

The girl’s screams became frantic as he swung again, hitting sand this time. Damn it! The hole was too narrow to get a good swing.

He shifted the hammer, tried for another tactic. Bringing the hammer vertically down with all his strength.

Slam.

A large piece of wood shot up, tumbling in the air. This was better. This would get it done.

Slam.

Another dent. Good.

Slam.

He was sweating, his arms trembling. Just a few more of those, and he’d—

And then he heard them. The sirens.

He frantically slammed the hammer down again and again.

Slam. Slam. Slam.

But the wood was too tough. If he had a few more minutes, he could get it done. But they were getting close. He had to run.

Letting out another sob, he ran back to the van, pulled the door open, and jumped in. The sledgehammer’s handle jammed into his chest painfully, and he whimpered, struggling to move it out of his way as he started the engine.

He couldn’t go back the way he’d come. He heard the police sirens from that direction, knew they were hurtling over the dirt road in his direction right now. Instead he drove forward, van juddering over the rubble, its frame creaking noisily as he accelerated, driving off.

“Five-thirteen, this is nine-oh-two—do you copy?”

The patrolman’s voice vibrated as if he was running. He’d addressed Foster directly, disregarding dispatch, protocols bending and breaking under the strain everyone could feel in their guts. Everyone was silent in the room. Zoe’s eyes locked on Foster as he answered.

“This is five-thirteen, go ahead.”

“I’m here with kilo twenty-two,” the patrolman said. That was the K-9 unit they’d sent to the northern part of Burma Road. “The dog’s pulling hard, and there are fresh tire marks on the ground, over.”

“Nine-oh-two, five-thirteen. Which way are you headed?”

“Five-thirteen, nine-oh-two. We’re heading west. I . . . hang on.” A pause. “There’s a pit ahead. Someone was digging here.”

Zoe and Tatum exchanged looks.

“Why isn’t it covered?” Zoe muttered. “I don’t like this.”

“Nine-oh-two, proceed with caution,” Foster said. “Suspect could be nearby.”

“Copy, five-thirteen. We’re getting close to the hole. The dog is heading straight to it.”

They waited, time ticking by, nerve racking. The rest of the channel went silent, all radio chatter lost as dispatch and the rest of the patrol vehicles listened in.

“Five-thirteen, this is nine-oh-two. We reached the pit. There’s definitely something wooden buried here.”

“Nine-oh-two, this is five-thirteen. Can you hear the girl?”

“Negative. Digging.”

“She might have run out of air,” Tatum said.

“Or maybe there was acid in that thing after all,” Lyons said.

“There was no acid.” Zoe gritted her teeth, hoping she was right. Facing a dead, acid-burned corpse would be devastating. She tried to convince herself she was right, but she couldn’t. She had no way of knowing what the killer was really thinking.

“Nine-oh-two, this is five-thirteen,” Foster said but then didn’t continue.