Page 46 of So Wicked

Alex blushed a little. “I mean… you know.”

Faith rolled her eyes. “All right. You’re free to go.”

Alex slumped with relief. “Thank you, man, thank you. Hey, I’m sorry I said y’all were trippin’.”

“Quit the drugs, Alex,” Faith suggested. “They’re bad for you.”

“Yeah, for sure. I’ll try, man.”

On their way back to the car, Slade asked, “You don’t want to call the boss just to make sure?”

“I’ll call her on the way to the crime scene,” Faith replied. “But I think we both know this one was a dud.”

Slade sighed. “Yeah, I know. Damn it.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Faith said. “It happens.”

Slade didn’t look comforted by that. That was perfectly fine because Faith wasn’t comforted by it either.

They got in the car without another word and left to look at the latest dead body their killer had left behind for them.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

This scene was no different from any of the others. Faith had to hand it to their killer. He was nothing if not consistent. “Are you sure I’m okay to be here?” she asked Slade.

“For now, yes. If someone says something, I might have to send you away, but I’m firmly entrenched in the philosophy of ask for forgiveness not permission, at least as it pertains to this case.”

His words were bold, but his tone was lifeless. Faith didn't blame him. All of the work they had done, all of the risks they had taken, and yet here they were staring at another dead body. Another victim was taken regardless of every effort they'd made to prevent it.

“Victim is Dr. Jessica Lee, forty-four. She is a licensed veterinarian, but she didn’t have a clinic or general practice. She wasn’t an animal surgeon either. She ran an animal hospice in Sheridan.”

Lee was a petite, attractive woman who looked far younger than her years. Faith was grateful that this killer took his victims without mutilating them. At the very least, their families could identify them without being scarred even further.

Then again, this was pretty scarring. The more Faith looked at the stoneware jars of honey and wine and the bright yellow flowers placed carefully over the victim’s eyes, the more it seemed somehow worse than if she’d been shot or bludgeoned to death. The respect the killer showed the victim was an affront, a mockery of the respect they should have been shown.

Turk carefully sniffed around the body, picking up clues that could later be used to identify their killer. The problem was that in order for Turk’s clues to work, they had to have a lead.Turk couldn’t find a needle in a haystack the size of the Greater Indianapolis area. That was up to Faith and Slade.

She wished Michael was here. His perspective on things always helped Faith know which direction to look. Faith might get the credit for solving most of their cases, but without Michael to bounce ideas off of, she was adrift. She needed him. No offense to Slade who was doing a damned good job for a suburban cop who’d probably never had anything more challenging than a garden variety murder of a spouse to deal with before now, but he didn’t have the instincts that Michael had.

Her stomach turned. Garden variety murder? She shook her head and looked away from the body. This job was desensitizing her too much.

“Did Dr. Lee attend the veterinary panel with the other victims last year?” she asked Slade.

He shook his head. “No. I checked the list when we got here. She wasn’t invited.”

“Is there a reason for that?”

“None provided, but she wasn’t unique. A lot of other vets weren’t invited. At first glance, it looks like the vets at the panel were primarily clinicians and surgeons. I don’t know much about veterinary medicine, but maybe animal hospice care is still an outlier industry. In any case, our other three victims were at the conference, so I don’t know if it tells us anything that Lee wasn’t.”

Turk snorted and looked mournfully at Faith. He hadn’t found anything new here.

“That’s okay, boy,” Faith said. “Mommy’s not doing a very good job either.”

“I don’t get what we’re missing,” Slade said. “I feel like this should be obvious. They were all vets. Three of them were female vets in their forties, too.” His eyes widened. “Do you think thatmight have something to do with it? Like, maybe this guy hates female vets?”

Faith shook her head. “No. Chen was male. Serial killers don’t step outside of their boxes. There’s no such thing as a ‘one-off’ kill. If he hated female vets, Chen would still be alive.”

Slade sighed. “Yeah. I guess that should have been obvious.” He rubbed his face with both hands. “God, I just feel like I’m in so far over my head.”

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