Page 47 of So Wicked

“That’s normal,” Faith replied. “I wish I could tell you it gets better.”

“Hey, thanks for the encouragement,” Slade said. “Makes me feel a whole lot better.”

“I’m in the same boat you are.”

He crossed his arms and shook his head, staring intently down at Lee’s body as though looking at her long enough might tell him everything he needed to know. “I just feel like we’re so close. I feel like the answer is right there if we can only reach down and grab it.”

Faith smiled slightly. “My partner and I sometimes describe cases like this as puzzles. Each crime scene and each lead gives us a few more pieces of the puzzle but always edge pieces, parts that don’t tell us what the picture is. The more pieces we get without that final piece, the more frustrating it is not to have that whole picture.”

“The more answers you get, the more questions bother you,” Slade summarized. “Yeah, my old mentor talked about that. He said you have to learn to be patient and follow the evidence, even if that means taking the scenic route to the answer and not the direct route.” He shook his head. “It’s just hard to do that when your killer is dropping people at a rate of more than one per night. You realize he killed two people last night?”

He sighed and rubbed his face again. “What am I saying? Of course you do. Damn, I hate this.”

“Let’s focus on Lee,” Faith said. “Did she have any complaints of malpractice? Any complaints of any kind?”

“I don’t know yet. Let me look.”

He pulled his phone out and sat on a gravestone. The stone informed Faith that Brutus was the best dog ever, and that Zoey and Mikey couldn’t wait to see him in Heaven. She looked at Turk and a powerful image came to her of laying him to rest and kneeling in front of his gravestone.

Dogs had such short lifespans. Almost all pets did. They lived for a decade or two, but they left memories that lasted a lifetime. They were all the best qualities of humanity distilled into bright, perfect stars that blazed brilliantly and never truly faded.

Many of Faith’s cases involved crimes against animals or vengeance taken against those who harmed animals. She hated that. It suggested that animals could sometimes pull the worst out of people and not just the best.

Except that wasn’t true. The bitter, brutal truth was that some people were just the worst. Some people had a warped and twisted sense of love and justice. Some people didn’t have a sense of either.

But why vets? Why people who helped animals? This was the first time Faith could recall where people who helped animals were targeted. Dr. Patel had made a mistake and harmed an animal, but she was the only one. It made sense to kill her. Well, not really, but from the perspective of a vengeful killer, it did. But the others? Why?

“No complaints,” Slade said. “She had a clean record. Her animal hospice was ranked number fourteen in the country and number two in the state of Indiana. She was divorced once, no kids, but according to records, the divorce was amicable, and the ex-husband moved to South Korea.”

“And there’s no connection at all with the other three?”

“No. She went to school in Washington State and had a practice in Wyoming until the divorce seven years ago. Moved here and as far as I can tell so far, she wasn’t affiliated with any of the major animal hospitals or medical centers.”

“What about patients? Animals that might have been seen by all of our victims at one point or another?”

“That’s going to be a project to uncover, but I’ll get my team started on it. Not like we have anything better to do.

Faith should try to encourage him and tell him that they'd find an answer eventually, but she wasn't any more confident than he was. Or rather, she was confident that they'd find an answer eventually, but not that they'd find it in time. Indianapolis could only run interference for her for so long before her location was leaked. Then, she would be a liability to Slade and not an asset. Slade's time on the case was numbered too. The other detective would be able to take over soon, and then they'd both be on the outside.

Then, God knew how long it would take them to find answers. It could be like the West case where keeping Faith away meant years before he was caught but he would be forced to lay low. Or it could be like so many other cases where the killer kept killing, and no one managed to stop him until he got old and tired and decided to stop.

Slade sighed and stood. "Well, that's all we can learn so far. We know that the killer hates vets. That's about it. That's true, and he's a freak who likes Celtic mythology. We know that if we don't figure out an answer soon, we're both going to be put on timeout, where we'll get to sit on the sideline and watch more people die without being able to do anything about it. We know… not enough. That’s what we know. Not enough.”

Faith didn’t reply. She didn’t have anything helpful to say. Slade was right. That’s what it all boiled down to. They didn’t know enough.

The three of them turned the scene over to CSI. With nothing more for them to learn unless they were handed a miracle, Slade drove Faith to Jacob’s house.

The sky was nearly dark when they reached her home. Another day spent learning nothing. Two more vets dead and another night approaching. Slade dropped her off with nothing more than a simple good night, but Faith was sure that he was thinking the same thing she was.

How many more would die tonight?

CHAPTER TWENTY

Faith didn’t feel like sitting still in the house, so she waited for Slade’s car to disappear around a corner, then led Turk toward the neighborhood park. The night air was chilly, not quite bitingly so but close. Winter was deepening.

Because of the cold and the lateness of the hour, everyone else was inside, so Turk and Faith had the park to themselves. The only sound was the crunch of their feet in the soft snow.

Faith focused on the soft glow of the moonlight on the gentle blanket of snow, the trees rising on either side of the path—close enough to feel cozy but distant enough not to crowd her—and the calm of the winter air. Her mind slowly calmed as well, and after a few minutes, she was able to think about the case without the anxiety that plagued her earlier.

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