Page 56 of Wired Justice

Guessing by the bloated level of decomposition, Julie had been dead a week or so. That fit with the timeline they’d established. “May her killer be broken on the wheel of karma, frying in hell for eternity,” she cursed softly.

Ginger, nosing around beside Sophie, lifted her head to sniff the air. She gave a loud bark and charged off again, yanking her leash so hard it tore the skin of Sophie’s palm. The dog galloped down the road, the leash bouncing off the pavement. Tank, excited by this new game, broke loose from Jake and ran after her.

Sophie stood up. “Ginger!”

Jake shook his head. “That dog is ridiculous.”

“Not if she is finding another body,” Sophie said. “She seems to have a nose for cadavers.”

Jake shot her a quick glance, and then squeezed her shoulder. “This happened long before we got here. We’re helping by finding them.”

“Too little, too late. A good American saying,” Sophie muttered.

“Go. Fetch those dogs. I will stay with the body until the detectives get here,” Jake said. “Call me if you find anything.”

Sophie nodded, and jogged down the road.

When she caught up with her dog, half a mile or so away, Ginger was down in the ditch, splashing, barking and digging at the grate of a culvert passing beneath the road as Tank looked on.

Sophie caught her collar, and Tank’s, and pulled both dogs back and away from the ditch. She tied the animals to a nearby tree.

She needed to see what was down there.There was a good chance something had washed down the ditch and come to rest against that grate, and the flowing water and overgrown bushes hid what it might be. She took off her shoes and socks, rolled up her yoga pants, and pushed down through the bushes toward the grate shielding the culvert.

The pile of submerged human bones pressed against the metal by a flow of water was anticlimactic after the intense emotion of finding Julie’s body.

Sophie got out her phone to try to call Jake or the detectives, but couldn’t get a signal.

She climbed back out of the ditch, smoothing her muddy clothing and rinsing her scratched hands, and sat down with the dogs.

Was the stream a dump site?It certainly seemed possible. Maybe they were about to solve some of the disappearances. But who was behind them? One serial killer, or some kind of crime ring?

Julie had been dumped off by the couple who robbed her. Then she’d been attacked and stripped of her clothing. She had escaped, and been captured again. Was it the same couple doing all of it, or multiple perpetrators?

No one had benefited from Julie’s death that Sophie could tell, at first glance at least. Her parents hadn’t paid a ransom; they’d never been contacted. Chernobiac had been fishing to extort but hadn’t implemented his scheme yet; and who were the people driving the black SUV that took Chernobiac’s cash?

The unmarked SUV that Freitan and Wong drove sped by, a light flashing on the dash. Sophie continued to wait as the medical examiner’s van and a squad car soon followed.

Finally, Jake jogged down the road toward her. Sophie rose and walked toward him, and he saw the answer on her face. He lifted a walkie-talkie they must’ve given him and said, “Sophie found something more.”

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