Page 8 of For Rage

"I'll be right there," Morgan said, then hung up and sped out of the room.

***

Morgan stood behind Amy, the forensic analyst, in front of a computer screen as Amy showed the toxicology results from the two previous victims. There had been a short break between the first two, but the last two had been killed within a couple days of each other.

"Check this out," Amy said. "The last victim, Mia Jones—the girl found in the amusement park maze—had trace amounts of a specific kind of poison in her bloodstream."

"What?" Morgan's heart sank. This hadn't been in the file.

"It's a recent find," Amy clarified. "It almost went undetected. We think she was force fed a high concentration of leaves from a Bleeding Woodbine, which is a type of plant with berries and leaves that are very toxic to humans. Normally, toxicity can take a while to be fatal, but if given a high enough amount, it could kill within an hour. We're checking to see if we can find it in our most current victim too."

The current victim. Right. The woman Morgan had found at the governor's estate. Grace Alba, thirty-four. She had a name. A life. A family. A husband. A—

"But that's not all I wanted to show you," Amy said. "Look."

Morgan focused on the screen. On it were pictures of Grace's autopsy. There were bruises along her arms.

"We didn’t see this type of bruising on any of the other victims," Amy clarified. "We're wondering if Grace already had the bruises when she died."

Morgan frowned. If it wasn't the killer who'd bruised Grace, then who?

"She had a husband," Morgan said.

Amy nodded, tight-lipped. "We can't say who did it for sure, but the bruises seem to be older."

Morgan's mind raced, connecting the dots as she thought about the latest victim's husband. Could he have been the Maze Killer all along? Was it possible that he was so cunning that he'd been able to disappear without a trace every time one of the murders took place?

But then again, why would he kill his own wife, after all the other girls? Maybe he was chasing the fantasy with the first three, then finished it off with the real thing.

"Can you run another check on this poison, see if it's in Grace?" Morgan asked, still staring at the photo of Grace's bruised arms.

Amy nodded. "We're already on it."

Morgan took a deep breath, her mind racing with possibilities. She needed to keep her cool, to think logically and rationally. "Okay. Thank you, Amy. Keep me posted on any updates."

As she walked out of the lab, Morgan's mind continued to spin. The fact that the latest victim's husband might have been the one to bruise her arms was a strange coincidence. Was it a coincidence at all?

She needed to talk to him. She needed to find out more about their relationship, their history. Maybe there was something there that could give them a clue about the killer's motive.

And she would. But one other thing concerned her, and that was the fact that if what Amy was saying about the poison was true, then that meant the girls really were already dead before they even had a chance to find them.

When the killer sent the FBI that note, it was already too late.

If that were true, then that meant the next victim—wherever she was, whoever she was—might already be beyond saving.

CHAPTER FOUR

The toxicology reports confirmed it: Grace Alba had been poisoned, the same way the other women had.

Sitting in the conference room at HQ with Derik, Morgan worked through every file the police had on the previous victims—and everything they were learning about their latest. All of these victims had things in common. For one, their red hair. Two, their age, mid to late thirties. The manner in which their bodies were found suggested the killer was an able-bodied male. The botany aspect also added another layer to the killer's potential profile. The Bleeding Woodbine poison found, so far, in each victim.

"According to the database," Morgan said, getting Derik's attention, "Grace's husband, Jim, works as a construction worker. Think he'd have the knowledge and access to the Bleeding Woodbine?"

Derik shrugged. "It's possible, but it could also be a coincidence. We don't know if Jim had any interest in botany or if he had access to the plant."

Morgan sighed, frustrated. She wished they had more concrete evidence to go off of. The fact that they were still grasping at straws made her feel uneasy. They needed to be methodical, to gather evidence and build a case against the killer brick by brick. But the sense of urgency was weighing heavily on her, knowing that they could be running out of time to save the next victim if they didn't act fast.

"We could be looking for a chemist with a unique knowledge of plants," Derik pointed out.

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