Page 53 of Shielding Aubree

Aubree narrowed her eyes at the agent for a moment, struggling to realize why her near-death experience would be of any interest to anyone outside of her life.

"What specifically?"

Alara reached out her leg and with the toe of her boot, she kicked the door closed.

"There were certain 'markers' in the report that caught my attention. I'm not from New Mexico," Alara explained, "I'm from the San Antonio area." She scrolled through her phone and opened a file before turning it around so that Aubree could see it.

Alara swept through half a dozen photos.

Women.

All of them looked to about her age and likeness.

Alara gave her the names to go with the faces and continued. "These women all went missing somewhere between work and home. All of them died in their cars, apparently victims of crashes and related injuries."

Aubree narrowed her eyes at Alara's words. "Apparently?" She sat back and thought through the other words the agent had used. "Related injuries."

One end of Alara's mouth quirked up. "I had a feeling you'd get it. It wasn't until we looked deeper into the deaths when we were putting the pieces together. It wasn't pretty when we requested to disinter five bodies across three states."

"Five." Aubree felt the weight of that single word on her shoulders. "In Texas?"

Alara shook her head. "Two in Texas. Two in Louisiana. One in New Mexico." It seemed like Alara waited for the words to sink in before she continued. "One body had been cremated."

Aubree fixed her gaze on the other woman. There was something about the sound of her voice or the look in her eyesthat said there was more to the story than what the FBI agent was saying.

"What does that body have to do with me?"

"Very smart." Alara smiled and nodded, slowly. "That body had been found within fifteen miles of your crash. The time frame was nearly identical." Alara touched a button, and the screen of her phone went dark. "They only found her because they were looking for you, Aubree. The medical examiner had initially classified it as an accidental death like the others. There's no real way to determine if she was the victim of the same unnamed subject that we're tracking."

Aubree's mind was working a mile a minute. "Two in each state. That tells me that you weren't expecting three here in New Mexico." Aubree breathed in to calm her nerves. "Why do you think I'm involved? If they are killing two per state, then he has his two. Wouldn't it make more sense that he'd move on to another state."

She felt her hands shake and laid them on her thighs under the table to calm them, but her heel started to bounce with nervous energy.

Alara opened her phone again and opened another app. This time when she set the phone down on the table, Aubree's throat went dry.

The image on the phone was her own face. An evidentiary photo taken by her father and submitted in the report.

Aubree saw Alara point to the darkened area around her throat in the photo. "I see from the notes that it was your father who took the photo."

"My mom said it was because he was just upset that he hadn't been there for me, so he wanted to document it, but I knew the look I saw on his face. There was something bothering him about the accident."

Alara nodded. "It's an instinct thing."

The FBI Agent touched her fingertip to the screen and flicked the image to the side.

The image that came up after it looked like it came straight out of a horror film.

It was the same image as before, but the contrast was bumped up so high it looked like the image had been burned with fire in places.

"It's not a perfect rendering," Alara explained. "But I went on a hunt for evidence, and you can see it here." Her finger trailed along one side of Aubree's neck and then the other side, slowing over the darkest shadows. "Do you see what I see?"

Aubree felt her heart stop for a moment and then when it started up again it pounded against her ribs like a timpani drum.

Breathe.

Her fingers pinched her thigh just above her knee, searching for purchase enough to cause herself some pain.

Breathe, Aubree.

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