Buried Page 5

  “One, I disagree with your assessment. You know perfectly well that she was more than qualified to receive that promotion. And two, I fail to see the problem. Agent Altair was promoted and then went on to bring down one of the most prolific serial killers in the history of the United States.”

  A young senator whom Holt barely recognized leaned forward and spoke into his microphone. “A serial killer who worked right under your nose, and alongside Agent Altair, for years. How is it, Janice”—he smiled, clearly aware that his using her name annoyed her—“that no one in your entire organization at Quantico suspected that you worked with, and I quote, ‘one of the most prolific serial killers in the history of the United States’?”

  Holt briefly imagined flipping the table and storming out of the room before forcing herself to calm down and answer the question.

  SOUTHERN RANGER STATION, SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK, VA

  Dana began the autopsy with a visual inspection of the first body. Her assistant hovered nearby, ready to help.

  “We’ll start with the most recent victim because her body is the most well preserved. Victim is wrapped in thick sheet plastic,” Dana said into a small recorder. “She’s bound in fetal position. I see what appears to be a nylon rope tied around her wrists holding her in said position. Based on visual cues alone, she appears to be a young woman, perhaps mid-twenties, with short blond hair. I’ll remove the plastic now.”

  As Dana cut away the plastic, Piper peeked through the door. “You guys mind if I come watch?”

  Sayer grunted an okay. “Just stay back.”

  Piper gently shut the door and tiptoed over against the back wall. “I’ll be quiet as a mouse.” She took off her brown park-ranger hat and held it as a sign of respect.

  Dana peeled back the plastic and gently rolled the body from the gurney onto the sterile silver table so the assistant could gather the plastic into a large white bag. “Labeling the plastic and sending it to the lab for trace and fingerprint analysis,” Dana said into the mic.

  She paused to take a series of photographs, then rolled the victim onto her back, still hunched in fetal position. With the plastic gone, Sayer could clearly see the black rope wrapped tightly around her wrists. The gloved assistant held the woman’s arms in place while Dana expertly snipped off the rope and put it into an evidence bag. Together they gently unfolded the woman’s arms and legs.

  “Limbs are pliable. Rigor mortis has completely passed. Based on that and the relative lack of bloat, my preliminary time of death estimate is three to three-and-a-half days ago.”

  Sayer focused on the victim. Her skin appeared slightly spongy. Despite the scrapes and bruises on her cheek and nose, it was clear that the woman had been pretty, with a slightly pointed chin and high cheekbones.

  “Visual inspection suggests major damage to her torso and face.” Dana leaned in to look at her hands. “There are also multiple defensive wounds on her arms and hands.”

  Sayer swallowed a few times to push down the bile rising in her throat. She pulled her worry beads from her pocket to keep her hands busy while she observed.

  “The injuries to her face show no clear weapon marks, suggesting that they were likely done with something blunt, possibly bare hands. I’ll admit, I expected to find defined cut marks based on the bladed weapon we found with the bodies. But no sign of any weapon marks here.”

  “So should we assume that the machete is associated with the bones instead of with these bodies?” Piper asked.

  “I think it’s a safe assumption that it’s not associated with this body.” Dana leaned in close to the victim’s face and frowned. “I’ll examine these injuries in more detail after I complete the visual inspection of the remains.” She lifted a small handheld light and spoke into the recorder. “I’ll now examine the body with a UV light for signs of sexual assault or other bodily fluids.”

  She looked over at Piper, who was still hugging the wall. “Would you kill the lights?”

  Piper barely tore her eyes away from the dead woman long enough to flip the switch.

  The UV light flickered on and Dana held it over the body.

  Sayer’s stomach lurched with horror. She stared down at the victim’s body, which lit up head to toe under the UV light.

  “Oh, my god,” Dana whispered.

  “What is that?” Piper’s voice rose and she took a half step closer, clearly repulsed but also wanting to get a better look.

  Hundreds of lines fluoresced like stripes along the woman’s arms and legs.

  Across her abdomen, in large block letters, the words HELP US glowed a bright blue.

  “What on earth?” Sayer said.

  “I’ve … never seen anything like this,” Dana said.

  “Is that written in blood?” Piper asked.

  “No.” Dana slowly slid the light along the victim’s body. “Blood doesn’t glow like this unless you use luminol. This is much more likely semen or saliva. Given the quantity here, I’d guess this is saliva.”

  “It says HELP US…,” Sayer said, heart hammering her chest. “And those marks on her ams and legs?”

  “I’d say it looks like someone tried to deposit as much DNA here as possible.”

  “Like someone smeared saliva on her in stripes,” Sayer said.

  Dana swallowed hard and nodded.

  Piper asked with a shaky voice, “So now what?”

  Dana gestured for her assistant. “Now we swab all of this for DNA analysis. Once I’m done with our first victim, I’ll swab the other victim for DNA and send the samples up to Quantico tonight. Let’s follow directions and see if we can, in fact, help whoever wrote us a message on a dead woman’s body.”

  UNKNOWN LOCATION

  The faint roaring sound slowly woke Hannah Valdez. She opened her eyes. The bright light made her cringe and a relentless pounding filled her head as she slowly regained consciousness. Blinking rapidly, she felt as if someone had stuffed gauze around her eyes and into her mouth. Only after a few moments contemplating her inability to move did the sudden thought sear through her brain that she didn’t know where she was. A wave of panic and confusion swept through her and she struggled to sit up. A second wave of panic peaked even higher as the name Sam! pierced Hannah’s muddled head. The thought of her young daughter sent tingles of fear down to the tips of her toes, and the will to sit up finally overcame the thickness in her limbs.

  She remembered leaving the gym, clipping her two-year-old, Sam, into her car seat … and then … what?

  From her barely upright position, Hannah’s eyes swept the room as she tried to orient herself. The scent of bleach burned her nose.

  A roaring sound rumbled in the distance. A train? A river?

  Hannah sat on a cold floor. Rough stone walls made her squint, and she could not seem to clear her mind. For a moment she was sure she was in some kind of windowless tomb, buried alive and left to die.

  Then her eyes settled on a metal door. A cry escaped her lips as she struggled to one knee. Something heavy hung around her neck and she reached up to feel a bulky necklace. A thick plastic box hung against her throat, two dull prongs poking into her bare flesh.

  On her hands and knees, she crawled to the door and pulled herself to her feet. She supported herself on the doorframe as the blood rushed from her head, the entire room disappearing from view. As her vision cleared she began banging on the cold metal.

  “Help!” she tried to cry out. Instead of a full-throated shout, her voice came out in a husky whisper.

  The sudden movement surged blood through her body, overcoming her ability to stand. Hannah’s knees buckled and she vomited as she fell back into unconsciousness, her body smacking loudly on the rocky floor.

  SOUTHERN RANGER STATION, SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK, VA

  Sayer stepped out of the makeshift autopsy suite to call her data analyst and tech wizard, Ezra, to make sure he was on board and to request a jump to the front of the line with the rapid DNA machines. The Quantico DNA lab
had just reopened and they were going to need a rush on this.

  She got voice mail and left Ezra a message.

  After she hung up, Sayer watched the rain through the window for a long moment. The horrific implications of the writing on their victim tightened her chest with a potent combination of rage and disgust. Were there more victims out there right now being held somewhere? Or was it already too late?

  Questions rumbling around her head, she glanced at the time. She still had an hour before Kyle Nelson was supposed to arrive to talk about his missing sister, so she returned to the autopsy room.

  Under the harsh light, Dana had the flesh from the victim’s face grasped in two clamps. She began to peel it down like a mask as she narrated, “I’m removing the flesh from the face and skull.”

  Piper stood in the corner looking slightly green. To her credit she hadn’t fled or puked. Sayer briefly wondered why she had wanted to watch all this in the first place.

  Dana paused for a long time, carefully inspecting the woman’s face with the flesh removed. “You know, there are a number of breaks to her facial bones. I thought I could do this here without any scanning tech, but I really want X-rays of the bones before I go any further.”

  She stood up and stretched. “Let’s call around and see if we can find a nearby hospital I can use. Though before we do that, let’s cut the plastic off the other body and do some basic trace and DNA collection. That way we can get the initial DNA analysis started tonight, then I can finish up the autopsies in the morning after I take some X-rays.”

  “Sounds good,” Sayer said.

  Dana changed gloves and went to the next table with a sterile scalpel. She looked up at Piper. “I should warn everyone, I can make out some blistering on her skin through the plastic, which means that this body is in pretty active decay. Some of the soft tissue will be close to liquefaction.”

  “In other words, it’s going to smell really bad,” Sayer said.

  Piper nodded wordlessly.

  The medical examiner unzipped the body bag covering the second victim and sliced the plastic sheeting. With the plastic off, the putrescent stench of rot thickened the air. Sayer swallowed repeatedly, trying unsuccessfully to prevent the smell from coating her tongue.

  Piper let out a strangled gagging sound but stood her ground.

  Without the plastic holding it tightly, the woman’s body slumped loosely on the table. Her greenish flesh looked much more bloated than the first victim’s.

  Dana spoke into her microphone. “I’m now doing initial DNA and trace gathering on Jane Doe Two. She’s bloated but her skin is still intact. I’d estimate time of death between two and two-and-a-half weeks ago. Like Jane Doe One, Jane Doe Two shows extensive evidence of trauma to the face and body. I’m gathering DNA and will complete the autopsy tomorrow morning after X-ray analysis.” She bustled around the body with a series of swabs, scraping under her loose fingernails. She finished by sweeping the UV light over the body.

  “No sign of writing on Jane Doe Two.” Dana clicked off the mic and spoke softly. “Hey, Sayer? I’ll wrap them back up so we can take them down for X-rays.” She looked at her watch. “I think we can get the X-rays done tonight and then I’ll finish the autopsies first thing.”

  Sayer nodded and left the room, wanting to talk to Max before Kyle Nelson arrived.

  * * *

  While Dana and her assistant prepared the bodies for transport to the local hospital, Sayer went outside to find Max and Kona. She stood under the narrow overhang, staring out at the pouring rain, processing the terrible images of the dead women. Standing exposed on the side of the building, she wished she had on her ballistic vest. A few minutes after Dana and her assistant pulled away in the van, Max and Kona emerged from the woods.

  “Keeping watch?” she asked.

  Max nodded, shaking the rain off his jacket while Kona shook her fur. “Just walking some circuits around the grounds. Someone just tried to kill two FBI agents. I think we should all be on high alert. How’s the autopsy going?”

  Sayer grimaced. “Well, we found HELP US written on the victim in some kind of bodily fluid. Dana’s taking the bodies down to the hospital to get X-rays before she cuts them open.”

  “Someone wrote HELP US on the body?” Max said, forehead creased.

  “Yeah, on her stomach, someone wrote HELP US, probably with saliva.” Sayer let the words hang in the air for a moment. “So, what’s the deal with Kyle Nelson? I thought he was going to punch you out at our crime scene.”

  Max paled. “Yeah, sorry about that. That was about Kyle’s sister … Cricket. I mean, Catherine Nelson, but everyone called her Cricket.” He put his face down in his hands and took a long, deep breath before looking back up at Sayer. “Oh, man, this is complicated. Cricket disappeared seventeen years ago … and I helped her do it.”

  UNKNOWN LOCATION

  “Wake now.”

  The soft voice trickled slowly into Hannah Valdez’s consciousness. The stench of bleach seared her nose before the rest of her senses returned.

  “Wake now.”

  Someone shook her and she snapped awake, memories crashing through her body like a tidal wave.

  Something wet wiped her face. Hannah instinctively jerked her head back and it slammed into something hard.

  Starbursts exploded.

  She blinked rapidly and forced her eyes open.

  “I need to clean you up,” a soft voice said.

  Hannah’s vision slid into focus on the woman hunched over her.

  Her blond hair hung in thick clumps. Cuts and bruises in varying stages of healing mottled her face and arms. Between the bruises and her sunken cheeks, Hannah couldn’t tell if she was fifteen or fifty. The woman held out a damp cloth, about to wipe Hannah’s face again.

  Hannah remembered waking in this room. Was that minutes ago, or days? And where was Sam?

  The thought of her daughter shocked her entire system with a buzzing rage unlike anything she’d ever felt. She violently grabbed the woman’s wrist and got in her face, spit flying as she shouted, “Where is my daughter?”

  “Shhhh.” The woman looked down at the box hanging at Hannah’s neck, eyes wide with fear. “He might be here.…”

  “Where am I?” Hannah persisted.

  “Just let me clean you up, please.”

  “Answer me!” Hannah yanked the woman forward, almost pulling her off her feet.

  The woman blinked a few times and hissed, “Careful!” She gestured to her collar.

  Hannah let go of the woman’s wrist and felt the box the size of her fist hanging tight around her throat. Its metal prongs poked uncomfortably against her bare flesh. She realized that this woman wore a similar necklace.

  The woman pressed her mouth into a thin line, eyes pleading. “Please.”

  Overwhelmed by the horror of everything happening, Hannah wretched as bile flooded her mouth. A thick ball of the bile dribbled down her chin.

  Hannah’s voice dipped low, emotion building in her chest so violently she half stood up, pushing the woman away. “Please, just tell me if you have a little girl here.” She tried to keep her tone calm and even. “My daughter…” her voice broke, unable to complete the sentence.

  The woman’s eyes flickered to her face. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know if she’s here.”

  The fear on her face and her injuries made Hannah want to take her in her arms and protect her. But, at the same time, she wanted to wrap her hands around the woman’s neck and throttle her, force her to tell her where Sam was.

  This woman clearly had a key to Hannah’s door and could move about freely, but she was also obviously injured. Was she one of Hannah’s captors? Or was she a victim as well?

  The wildly conflicting emotions turned into a sob that broke from her mouth, body shuddering. “Sam,” Hannah whispered, “my baby, please.”

  The corners of the woman’s chapped lips twitched strangely. “Just let me clean you up.”

>   She resumed her rote wiping, gently removing the bile from Hannah’s chin.

  Too weak and dizzy to act on her rage, Hannah let her.

  SOUTHERN RANGER STATION, SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK, VA

  Sayer stared at Max expectantly. “I’m going to need you to explain exactly what you mean. You helped the chief of police’s sister disappear?”

  He blew out a hard breath. “Well, this isn’t the story I expected to be telling right now.…” He looked out at the rain.

  Sayer tried to wait but was all out of patience. “Max?”

  “Yeah, sorry. This is just … back in high school I had a reputation.”

  “As?”

  “I don’t know, a good guy, I guess. It started when some assholes were really hassling a girl at a party out on an old farm. They cornered her in the barn and I heard her scream. I went in and ran them off.”

  “Ran them off?”

  “To be more precise, I punched the lights out of one of them.” Max smiled at the memory. “They were seniors and I was a freshman.…”

  “Okay, so you were seen as a safe person by the girls at your high school.”

  “Right,” Max said, “which is probably why Cricket came to my house in the middle of the night.”

  “When was this?” Sayer asked.

  “About four days after our high school graduation. We were in the same class but, honestly, I barely knew her. Only in that way you know someone in a small town, you know? I was about to ship off to the Air Force Academy for a summer program. I’m not sure if she had college plans or what. Like I said, we weren’t exactly friends.”

  “But she showed up at your house in the middle of the night?”

  “Covered in blood.”

  “Okay.…”

  “Yeah, I know. She had a split lip, bruises around her neck where someone had clearly tried to strangle her. Her knuckles were split open and she had a major cut on her hand. She said that her dad was trying to kill her and that she had to get away.”