Page 61 of The Last Close Call

“Olivia Salter.” Bryan looked at him. “Why these two?”

“They were the first. I figure maybe he made a mistake early on, we just haven’t caught it yet.”

Jack stood up from his chair. He moved Shana’s box to the floor and then hefted Olivia’s onto the table. Hers was heavier because it contained a pair of ten-pound hand weights.

Jack removed the lid and slid the box toward Bryan. “Take a look. Tell me if anything jumps out.”

Bryan reached for a file folder that contained the crime scene photos. As he slowly sifted through them, Jack used his gloved hand to pick up the bag with one of the hand weights.

Olivia’s attacker had surprised her in her bedroom after she stepped out of the shower. They’d struggled on the floor, and he’d grabbed the hand weight from under her bed and hit her in the face with it, knocking out a tooth.

Like Shana’s ID card, the hand weight had been sent to the lab, but no prints or DNA from the UNSUB had been recovered.

Jack replaced the weight and picked up an envelope containing a carpet sample. He remembered standing in that bedroom as a crime scene tech used a utility knife to carve out the square.

“Where’d the blood on the carpet come from?” Bryan asked.

“Olivia.”

“No, I know. I’ve read the report. I meant was it from when he hit her?”

“Yeah. He knocked her tooth out.”

Jack glanced at the photos in Bryan’s hands and saw that he’d come to the picture of the faint shoeprint from the kitchen floor near the back door.

“Size twelve, right?” Bryan held up the photo.

“Yeah. Different shoe than the recent one.”

At Evelyn Wood’s house back in November, he’d been wearing size twelve Adidas sneakers.

Jack studied the photograph. The dirty shoeprint had prompted detectives to search the creek bed near Olivia’s house, where they’d discovered a hide. It was a carefully selected spot, camouflaged from view but offering an unobstructed line of sight to Olivia’s back porch and her bedroom window.

“He watched her,” Bryan muttered.

“Every time. That’s his MO.”

Bryan frowned down at the photo. Then he flipped back through to the shoeprint on the kitchen tile.

“Where do you think he finds them?” Bryan asked.

Frustration needled Jack. “I wish I knew.”

For years, Jack had been trying to figure it out. They’d compared the victims’ daily routines, hoping to discover a connection. But they hadn’t come up with anything. All the victims—with the exception of Amber Novak in San Antonio—lived in what could loosely be called “central Austin.” But Jack hadn’t been able to find a place where their paths intersected. They didn’t frequent the same gym or grocery store or coffee shop. Two victims were students, the others were young professionals. Some were single, some had boyfriends, one had a husband.

In each case where there was a man in the picture, the attack had occurred when he was out of town.

Which told Jack he didn’t just watch the victims. He surveilled them. He followed them and studied them and conducted elaborate reconnaissance. He figured out when they left for work and came home and liked to exercise. He slipped into their homes when they left doors unlocked—possibly even while they were there—and gathered information. He learned floor plans. He unlocked seldom-used doors to make entry easier. He picked up spare keys and collected souvenirs—lingerie, jewelry, photographs. Whatever caught his interest, he helped himself.

Jack had no doubt that right now, to this day, he had a stash somewhere, a collection of mementos from the women whose lives he had shredded. And he probably went through it from time to time.

Just like Jack came in here and combed through these boxes over and over.

“He’s sick, you know.” Bryan held up the picture of the creek bed behind Olivia’s place.

“I know. And I don’t give a shit.”

“You don’t care that he’s probably a mental case?”

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