Page 76 of The Grave Between Us
“I haven’t found any rule-outs listed on NamUs or in any other database.” Jacob shook his head. “It looks like they didn’t run any DNA against the remains. I’m not sure why.”
“Give the locals a call. Ask them to run Boyer’s DNA against the remains. See if they’ll put a rush on it for us but keep our investigation under wraps.”
Jacob nodded.
“I think you’re on to something, though,” Noah said. He pulled out his own notepad and flipped through the notes he’d scrawled overnight. His handwriting had gotten worse and worse as the hours wore on. “North Dakota came up in my searches, along with a few other hot spots, more than what feels like coincidence.”
“Coincidence could be an unrecognized pattern. Something no one else has seen,” Sophie said. “Yet.”
Noah nodded. “I was checking where personal vehicles were found after men were reported missing, especially near state or national parks. A lot of the time—most of the time, in fact—the cars were found in the parking lots and hadn’t been touched. But there were handfuls that were found away from the missing men’s last reported locations. At strip malls, apartment buildings, hotels, or different parks. And the cars had broken windows.”
“Where?” Sophie asked. “And how many cars?”
“North Dakota, four cars. Upstate New York, five cars. Wisconsin, three. Wyoming, four. All from men reported missing within the past eight years, since Ingram’s escape.”
“Might be the start of a geographic profile,” Jacob said. His hands gripped the armrests of his chair, kneading the fabric. “That’s good work.”
“Sophie, what do you have?” Noah asked. “You said you were changing gears?”
“I was getting overwhelmed,” she said, rubbing her fingers against her forehead. “I decided to work backward from now. We know this asshole is here now, right? Brett Kerrigan, your house…” Her face twisted. “And Iowa 141, two weeks ago. I started pulling reports of men who’ve gone missing in Iowa, from Brett Kerrigan and going back in time.”
She pulled out a small stack of missing persons reports, public posters, and local law enforcement dispatches. She licked her thumb and started paging through, reading the top line of each. “Brett Kerrigan, last Saturday, Oak Haven Meadows. Recovered deceased. Julio Marquez, February 5, Cedar Rapids. Twenty years old, Hispanic. Local police think he went missing voluntarily. Warren Cabrillo, January 2, Waterloo. Fifty-four years old, Hispanic. Aiden Dumont, January 23, Seven Oaks Recreation in Boone, thirty-one, Caucasian—”
“Wait.” Noah sat forward. Grasped his coffee cup and the edge of his desk. “Wait, say that last one again.”
“Aiden Dumont. He was at Seven Oaks, that little spitball-sized ski area north of here? Dumont spent a half day cross-country skiing, and he was last seen on the security cameras heading to the parking lot. His car was missing from the lot, but he never made it home.”
“What day did you say?” Noah’s voice shook.
“January 23. A Saturday.”
“Oh God.” He slumped forward, head in his hands. “Oh God, that’s it. That’s the intersection. That has to be it.”
“Boss?” Jacob got up from his chair and came around Noah’s desk, crouching in front of him. One big hand landed on Noah’s shoulder, and Noah raised his head to meet Jacob’s gaze. His lumpy face was etched in worry, concern pouring from him. “What do you mean, that’s it?”
“This whole time, Cole and I have been wondering why now? Why did this happen all of a sudden? What the hell triggered all this? It can’t have just come from nowhere.”
“Why do you think Seven Oaks has something to do with it?” Sophie asked.
“Because we were there that day. We took Katie so she could try snowboarding. We were there all afternoon.”
“You think Ian saw you guys there?”
“He must have. Let me see the missing persons report.” Noah held out his hand, and Sophie passed it over.
A nuclear warhead detonated inside Noah’s heart. The report, with Aiden Dumont’s photo stapled to the front, fluttered to his desktop, settling sideways, half beneath the scattered notes he’d amassed all night. He stared at Dumont’s eyes—the color of cognac, the color of old leather—and his blond hair, cut long on top, tapered on the sides. The perfect length to run fingers through. The perfect length to grab hold of. The perfect length to brush over the tops of eyebrows, to tease his lover’s eyes behind a curtain of cornsilk and sunlight.
The other features matched, too. An angular jaw, sharp in places. Clean shaven. Lips on the thinner side.
It was like looking at a photo of Cole.
“Jacob,” he murmured. “Get me the photo of Lane Boyer.”
Jacob wheeled back to his papers and rummaged through, then pulled out the missing persons flyer. He set it down on the desk, next to the picture of Dumont. “Holy shit,” Jacob breathed.
“Sophie, where’s Brett Kerrigan’s file?”
She was already in action, flinging folders left and right until she found Kerrigan’s. She tore through the pages, then pulled out the photo his fiancé had given to the police and laid it next to the others.
