Page 10 of Corpse Roads

“You hear from Theo about those traffic reports?” Enzo muses.

“He’s still working on it. The last girl went missing nearly two months ago and there’s no body yet. Perhaps she’s still alive.”

“You really believe that?”

Meeting his intelligent amber eyes, I shake my head. This man knows my thought processes better than I do at times. We’ve worked together for so long, our minds and bodies are completely in tune.

Building Sabre up to the reputable firm that it is today has taken absolutely everything from us. Even loved ones. We sacrificed it all, but we never lost our love for each other.

“She’s dead. But why is there no body?”

He tugs a photograph down from the wall to examine it closer. “Something’s changed. Maybe the killer was spooked? Or they’re dragging it out this time. Who knows?”

“She’ll turn up eventually. They all do.”

My blasé attitude when discussing death should disturb me, but honestly, it's self-preservation at this point. We’ve handled many messy cases since dismantling Incendia five years ago, though none quite on this scale.

I’ve seen things that I’ll never forget and suffered for it, but I still go to sleep every night knowing we’ve done our best to make the world a safer place.

“Perhaps we should revisit the last victim. Maybe we missed something,” Enzo suggests, replacing the photograph of the missing woman.

“We picked that crime scene apart, along with the SCU. There was nothing to report, clean as a fucking whistle. We’re not dealing with an amateur here.”

We lapse back into tense silence, studying various reports and brainstorming for new ideas. It isn’t until the door to my office slams open that we startle back to the real world. We’re both far too accustomed to losing ourselves in death and destruction.

The blur of blonde curls and bright-blue flannel reveals our techie and third team member, Theodore Young. He drops his laptop on the table and straightens his usual graphic t-shirt, this one depicting some complex mathematical symbol that worsens my headache. It’s rare that he makes an appearance outside of his computer lab these days.

“It’s a miracle.” Enzo smirks.

“Are we sure he’s real and not a mirage?”

“Throw something at him to check.”

Frowning at us both, Theo slides his phone from his pocket and hands it over to me while mouthing the word Sanderson. Great, that’s the last thing I need. The SCU is breathing down our necks for results they can’t find themselves.

“Rodriguez,” I greet.

“You’re a hard man to track down, Hunter.”

“Apologies. We were in a meeting.”

Sanderson snorts like the annoying bastard he is. This man is the definition of a middle-aged pencil pusher, happy to dole out the dirty work while he keeps his hands clean.

“I got somethin’ for ya.”

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I force some patience. “Be more specific.”

“Next victim has turned up. Meet me at the hospital, half an hour.”

“Same MO? Body dumped and carved up?”

“Nah,” Sanderson answers grimly. “She’s alive.”

The line goes dead. I toss Theo's phone back to him, my mind spinning with possibilities. Relaying the information to the others, they both look equally stunned. I refasten my tie and grab my car keys from the desk, already racing against the clock.

My desperation to get this fucking case behind us overrules any misgivings I may have about working with a man like Sanderson. We need results. I’m done facing victims’ families with zero answers.

Enzo grabs his leather jacket as Theo’s eyes bounce around the room, like he expects me to drag him along too. Field work is not his forte.

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