Page 13 of The Last Close Call

A “meticulous” rapist. Given the violence of the crimes, Jack had a hard time accepting it. But the surviving victims all had said he used a condom.

The most recent attack represented a turning point, a critical break in the pattern. Jack had been hoping for a break in his “meticulous” pattern, too, but now the samples collected at the autopsy were telling a different story.

“What else did Heidi say?” Jack asked.

“Not a lot. Seemed like she was in a hurry. She wants you to call her later.”

The road curved again, and again Jack tapped the brakes. This place was way the hell out here, and he checked his phone again to make sure he had the directions right. It seemed like he should have been there by now.

“Jack?”

“Yeah, I’ll call her and see what else she knows.”

“I have to tell you, she sounded skeptical.”

“She is.”

“Why?”

“Not sure,” Jack said, although he could guess.

Heidi, like most detectives, probably didn’t want to believe the unidentified subject she was looking for was a transplant from a different location where he’d struck multiple times before. That would make him a serial offender, one who had eluded police for years. Another factor was the jurisdictional headache such a development would create. It would be one thing if police in the other jurisdiction could offer a suspect list, or a giant case file filled with tantalizing clues. But despite years of effort, Jack had nothing close to that.

“So, you’ll talk to her?” Liz asked.

“Yeah.”

“Good, because it would be nice to get her on board.”

“Yeah.”

“Adding her case to the mix would get the L-T’s attention.”

“I know.”

Their lieutenant was another skeptic, probably for many of the same reasons as Heidi. If their string of unsolved rape cases turned out to be linked to a recent murder in San Antonio, the result would be a shitstorm—for both departments, but especially for Austin, which had been sitting on the cases for years.

A brown blur dashed across the road, and Jack slammed on the brakes.

“Shit!”

“You okay?”

“Almost hit a deer.” He looked at the scrub brush where the buck had disappeared.

“Where the hell are you?”

“West of town. Listen, I’ll circle back with Heidi and let you know tomorrow.”

“See you then.”

Jack clicked off and checked his rearview mirror for headlights, but he seemed to have this windy old road to himself. He pulled onto the shoulder and read Rowan’s cryptic message again.

Left on Juniper Rd, go a mile past the bridge until the big cactus on left. U cant miss it

Well, evidently you could miss it, because it had been over a mile since he’d passed the bridge, and he hadn’t seen a cactus anywhere. He checked for traffic and started to pull a U-turn.

And then he spotted it. A giant brown cactus on the side of the road. It was a saguaro, well over ten feet tall, made of rusted iron. The sculpture was spotlit from the base, and Rowan was right—he should have noticed it. He probably would have if he hadn’t been distracted on the phone.

---