Forgotten Bones Read online

  “But you’re not so sure?” Josh prompted.

  “I’m not sure of anything until we’ve exhausted all the background checks. The good news for us is that Reggie and Judy were provided details of each victim by Sergeant Tanoose. That means their social security numbers. Come Tuesday, I plan to get Harry to do a deep-dive background into each victim to see if any of these girls pop up on the radar anywhere across the country. Before we head out to Idaho, I want as many facts about our victims as I can get, not supposition or speculation, but hardcore details. That means finding out if they were dealing with abuse at home or if their homelife was chaotic.”

  “A very complex case,” Leo huffed out.

  “Unfortunately, yes. But then, I don’t know of any that are easy. And just when you think you’ve heard enough, there’s more, a lot more. Moving on to July Fourth, when Lucy Silver disappeared.” Skye held up a hand, anticipating Judy’s input. “Before you zero in on the red, white, and blue holiday angle, the Reservation celebrated with a huge annual powwow the day Lucy went missing. So, we could definitely be picking up on an early pattern. To me, if our perp isn’t part of the Reservation, July Fourth could still be significant to him, another holiday that hits his trigger point just as the others did.”

  “Maybe he’s single and lonely around those special occasions,” Judy tossed out. “And he’s on the prowl for companionship, even if it is little girls.”

  “You’ve already considered this angle before now,” Leo charged, scowling over at Skye. “We’re just your students.”

  “None of you are ever ‘just students.’ I only had to look at the dates of each abduction to figure out our guy sometimes ramps up around the holidays. But check the board. He’s missed a few special occasions since last Christmas when he grabbed Laurel Smith.”

  “So, he’s slowing down? Or moved on?” Winston piped up.

  “Don’t bet on it. I don’t buy that at all,” Skye reasoned. “Keep in mind that during the times it seems like he’s gone off the radar, he could’ve suffered an injury or had a family thing to deal with that he couldn’t avoid or ignore. There could be any number of logical reasons he broke the pattern. My guess is he’ll get active again before the end of summer. This summer. Which means we have a short three months to catch this guy.”

  “Ninety days. We’re on the clock,” Reggie said to Judy. “I can’t think of a better way to spend my summer than catching this guy.”

  Judy grimaced. “He means well, he really does.”

  “What’d I say that was so wrong? I want to nab this asshole.”

  Josh stood up and paced in front of the windows. “Same goes. I’m sure we’d all rather be in a tropical paradise somewhere than here, dealing with a list of young girls, probably dead, who were cast off in a dumpsite to be named later and forgotten by everyone but their families.”

  “Everyone else giving up their weekend sitting around this table,” Winston groused. “No one here is willing to forget them.”

  “I’ll pass on the tropical paradise,” Reggie noted. “Right now, Idaho sounds like ground zero to me.”

  Skye put her hand on his shoulder. “This won’t get any easier. How you guys choose to handle the information is up to you. Just find your comfort zone and dig in because we still have work to do. Victim Number Five was the youngest at eleven. Her name’s Nina Blackbird. Little Nina went missing in January during winter break. School hadn’t yet started up again when she was snatched right off the street between her house and the friend’s house where she intended to play computer games. No witnesses. No neighbors reported seeing or hearing a thing out of place.”

  “I hate to say this,” Reggie muttered. “But this guy’s good. He leaves nothing behind, not even a crime scene.”

  Skye held up a hand. “Which means we have to be better. Julia Newburn is Victim Number Six. Julia went missing the following June on her way to the local swimming pool. Do you see that our perp is breaking his pattern?”

  Reggie pointed to the board. “I was about to mention that. He missed Memorial Day. He’s no longer snatching the kids before a holiday.”

  “Yet, he’s still active. Proof that serials break their own patterns all the time. Take Victim Number Seven, Kamena McToyler. Kamena doesn’t live on the Rez but rather two miles outside of the area in a little town called Dog Creek, population two hundred. The Saturday she disappeared, Kamena decided to walk into town to get some snacks. She got there, bought a bag of pretzels and an Orange Crush, but never made it back home. That was November 5th.”

  Josh frowned into his coffee cup. “So, our killer cuts a wide swath through the area looking for his prey, takes two African American girls back to back?”

  “No doubt in my mind his pattern is beginning to vary. That tells me that during his ten-year active period, he’s veered into unknown territory more than once, probably been all over the state on the hunt at one time or another.”

  “Damn,” Leo said aloud. “That’s gotta mean more victims than what’s on these boards. How the hell are we gonna nab this guy? And what type of guy travels all over the state? That could be significant.”

  Skye rocked back on her heels. “Put that brain of yours in tactician mode. Geographic profiling could help us narrow down the search. Whoever this guy is, he has to have access to a fairly good-sized piece of land.”

  “The dumping ground,” Reggie said softly to no one in particular. “Our perv can’t live in an apartment building or a typical house in town. He has to have a place out in the boonies with complete access.”

  “Unless…” Judy began. “Unless he’s like Bundy and just takes his victims somewhere in the woods to assault them, kill them, and then dispose of the bodies right there in the same location.”

  “I love you guys,” Skye said with affection. “That’s why we keep both scenarios in mind.”

  Winston bobbed his head in agreement. “Keep in mind the authorities never found Bundy’s dumpsite until he told them where to look…from death row…and only when it benefited him when he desperately needed to buy time. Before then, he strung the cops along and only doled out a portion of the truth. When Bundy wanted them to know, that’s when he was forthright with some of his secrets. Not until it helped him, did he divulge anything.”

  “Exactly right,” Skye remarked. “The authorities still have never found all of Bundy’s victims, not the fifteen-year-old he snatched off her bike in Colorado or the women back east on many of his frequent visits to New England.”

  Josh didn’t like what he was hearing. “So, basically, you’re saying the entire state of Idaho is up for grabs.”

  “Well, yeah. I mean, look at Gabby Knight, Jaime’s little sister. Gabby, Victim Number Eight, disappeared during an outing with her family at Sawtooth Lake. She went off to collect rocks, and no one ever sees her again.”

  “That’s near Sun Valley,” Reggie lamented. “That’s almost three hundred miles from the Reservation.”

  “Yep. In the opposite direction. Was he stalking Gabby? The Knight family in general when they went on vacation? Did he know Gabby’s brother Jaime? Did he zero in on Jaime’s sister after Denise went missing and waited for his opportunity to snatch the younger girl? These are questions we need to answer independently of the others. That’s why it’s critical that we take each victim, each abduction, and treat it like it just happened yesterday. Before we ever set foot in Idaho, I want you guys to know these girls and their families, inside and out. Before reviewing these cases as a whole, we need background on each one, more than what’s in the files Tanoose provided. Until you can recite these girls’ stories chapter and verse, we stay put. We do our homework here, so we don’t make mistakes there. Any questions?”

  “Why?” Winston asked.

  “Because I don’t want Grayhawk crawling up my ass every time we dare ask questions. I want us fully informed. No guesswork. I want to know more than he does. I want us talking to the families and getting their perspectives. What do
they think happened to their daughters? Maybe they have an idea. Maybe they saw someone suspicious hanging around the neighborhood that they failed to mention to the cops. We hit the ground running, so we’re better prepared to anticipate this guy’s next move.”

  Winston rolled his eyes. “So basically, we have to worry about a sadistic psychopath who likes little girls and deal with an egotistical, narcissistic cop?”

  “Wow, I hadn’t thought of that. Aren’t you the clever one?” Skye said to Winston, her tone dripping with sarcasm. She turned serious. “Please, let’s not prejudge Quade Grayhawk. Not yet, anyway. It doesn’t matter that he’s uncooperative. We’ve figured out ways around that wall before. Instead of dealing with him right off the bat, it’s not illegal for a group of people to go camping…in Idaho…during the summer months. Judy, tell them how many campgrounds are in that area?”

  “Twenty, and that’s if we stay near the Reservation. There are a dozen more north and south within a fifty-mile radius. Since there is a national park in the area and a national forest that attracts millions of tourists each year, we should be able to blend in, no problem until we’re ready to admit why we’re really there.”

  “We’re going as a group then?” Leo asked. “Because camping has never been my thing. I’ve never even put up a tent.”

  Josh heard Sierra waking up over the monitor and stood up to fetch her. “Skye and I thought we’d reserve a lodge under the guise of a corporate retreat-type deal. There’s one property in particular that offers individual cottages. We’re looking hard at that one. But anyone who doesn’t want to tag along, feel free to stay here and man the War Room. We always need plenty of tech support back here while we’re in the field.”

  Leo watched his boss disappear into the hallway, heard his footsteps on the stairs. Turning to Skye, he wanted to know, “Have you talked to Emmadine yet? Because she just texted me that she’s really eager to meet you guys.”

  “We emailed her. Hopefully, she’ll stop by this weekend.”

  “I’ll suggest she come this afternoon if that’s okay,” Leo offered, clicking the keys on his phone. “Will Emmadine see this stuff on the boards, though?”

  “Probably. It stays up until we catch this guy. Why? Is that a problem for her? You think she’ll have a problem with what we do?”

  “I don’t know. You were worried about her freaking out over seeing Sierra interact with Kiya, but I’m more concerned about how she’ll handle…our team, our unit, hear us discussing murder, kidnapping, rape. She still thinks I’m a full-time programmer. I don’t talk about the cases we solve. Not ever. Emmadine doesn’t know about my other life. That’s what I call it. My other life.”

  Skye pulled out a chair and took a seat next to him. “Sounds to me like you’re having second thoughts about Emmadine entering this part of your domain. Say the word, and we’ll call off the interview.”

  “I’m concerned about it. Yeah. But she’d be perfect for this job. I don’t want to stand in the way of her getting it. She’d be an asset to Sierra. Emmadine loves kids. And animals.”

  Skye finally sent him a wicked grin. “You’re just not sure about the wolf, though, right?”

  Leo returned a wide smile. “That might freak her out some. Not sure she’s ever been around a spirit guide before.”

  “It would freak out anybody. Tell you what, let’s let Emmadine decide for herself how much of this she wants to experience.” Skye scanned the list of names. “It’s been my experience that finding out monsters are for real is a kick to the gut.”

  “But someone has to find this particular monster,” Leo said with some heat. “He can’t be allowed to walk around and do this to little girls.”

  Skye got to her feet. “He has a ten-year head start. I’d say we’re playing catch up. Which means we better get back to finding a way to stop him.”

  She cleared her throat again and prepared to finish the task. “Victims Nine and Ten, Katie Acoma and Teresa Sokoloff went missing a month apart. At fourteen, Katie went missing in August, three days before school started. And yes, that’s Labor Day weekend. A month later, at the end of September, Teresa didn’t come home from school. She was sixteen when she vanished. Looking at the timeline, our perp takes the winter off but comes back in the spring to grab his eleventh victim—fourteen-year-old Sonja Lake. Sonja had gone to the rec center for an art class. The file said she loved to draw and had a passion for it. She did make it to her class, which lasted about an hour and then presumably headed home. She never made it. Her mother reported her missing around six-thirty that evening.”

  Skye took a deep breath before going on. “He waits another ten months on a cold March evening before grabbing Victim Number Twelve, Lily Redfern. Lily was thirteen when she disappeared on her way to a babysitting job two streets over from where she lived. Lily never made it there. The family she was due to work for that night called her father to report she hadn’t shown up. Dad got worried, called the police, who searched long into the night. But they found no trace of Lily. Not a footprint in the snow, nothing.”

  Judy stared at the boards and let out a loud sigh. “These girls must’ve known each other, gone to school together. Even if they weren’t friends, running in the same circles, they must’ve crossed paths with each other at school-related events. That could mean they all might know the killer. Maybe they got in the car with him willingly because they trusted him.”

  “Or maybe,” Winston barked. “This old guy drags them kicking and screaming into his ride, subdues them, then hauls ass out of there.”

  “Which is why we need to re-canvass the neighborhoods where the abductions took place,” Skye suggested, sensing the frustration already building.

  “Then we should do our homework this weekend and get ready for Idaho as quickly as possible,” Reggie proposed. “The longer we wait, the more at risk other girls are.”

  “I think so, too,” Judy agreed.

  “You would,” Winston snapped. “Since you started sleeping together, you two share the same brain.”

  Reggie tightened his eyes on Winston. “There’s no call for that. Just because you can’t keep a woman, no need to blame us because we’re happy together. It’s not our fault Jennifer Mack dumped you.”

  “She didn’t dump me. She’s busy going back to school, trying to catch up on what she missed out on when Elias Pope had her. After the torture he put her through, she’s…seeing a therapist twice a week. Between law school and counseling, she doesn’t have much time for anything else.”

  Skye had been patient up to now but listening to the grownups bicker like children over nothing, she lost it. “Cut the crap, okay? Stop acting like you’re in a kindergarten class. You’re all professionals for chrissakes. Act like it. It’s not like I want to stand up here all day trying to hold your interest. You either are, or you’re not. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to finish telling you what Tanoose sent Reggie about Victims Thirteen through Fifteen.”

  Drawing in a few calming breaths had Skye taking back some composure. “The interesting thing about Thirteen is that she’s the oldest we know about. Eighteen-year-old Chyna Eastwood vanished after her shift was over at a fast-food restaurant off Interstate 90. It was after midnight, and she was last seen walking through the parking lot.”

  Leo shook his head. “Such a shame that the night manager couldn’t have made sure she got to her car safely. It would’ve taken all of five minutes.”

  “Probably less time than that. But here’s the thing about Chyna. I’m not discounting that she’s a victim, but I think this is where Harry should begin his background checks. At age eighteen, Chyna doesn’t fit the other victims. Although, we can’t rule out that he got desperate and settled for an older girl, someone outside his preferred age range. At this point, we just don’t have enough information. And as I said before, speculation is part of our job, but let’s try to deal with facts as far as our victims are concerned. Finding out if they took off on their own is as much
a part of solving this as catching the guy.”

  “Does that mean Teresa Sokoloff could’ve left on her own, too?” Judy wondered.

  “In my mind, sixteen is borderline. That age seems a little on the old side to fit this guy’s profile. You only have to look at Denise Littletree. The cops thought she was a runaway and quit looking for her. Grayhawk obviously disagreed. And he probably has already checked her social for any activity. That means he’s holding some information that we don’t know about yet.”

  “But his info could be dated,” Leo pointed out. “You don’t know when the last time was that he checked. Denise disappeared in 2011. That’s eight, nine years or so. Her social might have surfaced by now, job-wise and all.”

  “Then we’ll keep that in mind. Moving on to Fourteen. Farrow Sandoval, thirteen years old. Farrow went missing last summer along the route to a convenience store where she’d gone to buy a bag of ice because her family’s fridge was on the fritz. The ice was for a cooler they intended to use to try and salvage what was in the refrigerator. It was July and very warm for Idaho. Farrow never made it to the store and was never seen again. You already know about the last victim, Laurel Smith, who disappeared back in December. So, there you have it. Fifteen girls from one central area. Eleven are Native American. Two are Caucasian. Two are African American.”

  “So, he doesn’t have a type then?” Judy said aloud as she got to her feet.

  “I’d say he does have a type but keeps an open mind when he’s hunting for his next victim. He’s opportunistic, a predator who preys on whoever pops up on his radar at the right time. There are gaps in his activity that equate to months, at one point over a year. Gaps don’t mean he’s inactive. So don’t believe for a minute that he stopped. He probably switches back and forth to different locales, places he feels comfortable patrolling, places where he won’t stand out. Maybe because of work.”