Page 49 of Nothing Left

“I’m glad we could help,” Juliette said, still wishing that they could be of more help. Any moment, once these formalities were over, she feared he was going to ask if they’d found the killer. But to her surprise, he didn’t.

“I wasn't allowed to use my phone in there. They took it from me at the security checkpoint. But Heather was very insistent that I phone you as soon as I was out. She says she remembers something about that night. She's had a flash of memory come back, and she thinks it might be important. She wanted you to know as soon as possible."

Juliette felt a newfound sense of purpose. They might have been knocked down, but they weren't out yet.A memory flash, now, might be the game changer they needed.

"What did she remember?"

"It’s the zigzag nightmare. That’s what came back to her. More of it, anyway.”

Juliette felt shivers run down her spine at the clearly vivid recall Heather had experienced. She'd mentioned that zigzag, and it had obviously been preying on her mind.

“What did she remember?” she asked.

“She remembers that she was lying on the bathroom floor and that there was a man with his back to her. He was wearing a blue T-shirt, and there was a long, zigzag scar on the back of his left arm."

"Blue T-shirt. Long zigzag scar." Juliette nodded, feeling as if a door had been opened. This was the monster. A fragment of memory that might just lead them to the killer.

"Thank you so much for this," she said in heartfelt tones before she ended the call. This information could not have resurfaced at a better time.

She remembered that in the second-hand jewelry store, the suspect had worn a long-sleeved jacket. Now, she knew why. It was to hide that scar.

The scar might have been there for a while, and if it was, and he’d been arrested, it would be listed in the suspect’s identifying features.

"We're looking for a long, zigzag scar," she said and saw the focus intensify in Wyatt's and Sierra's eyes. “On the back of the suspect’s left arm.”

Now, with this new information, the search was racing along. Profile after profile was pulled up, read carefully, and then discarded as they read through the identifying features.

There were a lot of suspects who had been arrested for burglary, a lot who fit the basic parameters. As an hour went by, and then another, Juliette realized that without this identifying feature, they would have had an impossible task. There was no way they would have been able to reach all these suspects tonight - it was a week's worth of work, at least.

But as profile after profile flicked by, she felt frustration building because she wasn't seeing what she needed. Where was the scar? Where was the one identifying characteristic they had to pinpoint?

They had one profile that caused a moment of excitement when Sierra identified a scar on a convict’s right arm. There was another with two missing fingers. But neither of them matched the profile exactly, although Juliette placed them both on a shortlist.

She was beginning to wonder if they should leave this search and go out and question the two they had so far. But she forced herself to be patient, reminding herself that a few more minutes, and a few more suspect profiles, might bring them the answer they needed.

"Let's give it another half an hour," she said, seeing that the others were tired and that they were fighting to focus. A timeframe would help them to concentrate, knowing that it was for only a little longer.

It was Wyatt who drew in a quick breath as he pulled up yet another profile, taking the text and putting it into Sierra’s translation app that was proving very useful for the basics.

"Wait a minute! Look here!"

"What do you have?" Juliette leaned over to scan the computer screen.

"This man, Mateo Lopez. He tried to get away during an arrest and slipped and fell. He injured himself on a steel railing that he'd been climbing after burgling a house. They found lock picks on him. The barbed spike cut into his left arm and sliced it open. He had to be taken to the hospital under police guard and have it stitched."

“How long ago was that?”

“That was five years ago. That would have left a serious scar, right?"

Juliette looked at the photo. The cut was long and gory. It was definitely zigzag, and it was on the back of his arm. And in all other respects, this man's description matched up with what they were looking for. She could imagine that if Heather had opened her eyes while this man was dumping her friend in the shower, then that scar would have been close by, visible, and etched on her memory.

"We've found him," she said. "Now, let's go get him."

CHAPTER THIRTY

Mateo Lopez lived in a ramshackle, though scenic, area of Barcelona, a place where the streets were narrow and the buildings were lined up against each other like dominos. Speeding into the area, Juliette soon found it more difficult to make progress as she fought her way through the warren of streets. Lights and sirens didn't help when there was no place for the traffic ahead to go. That's how narrow the roads were. She shot forward, then had to brake again. Forward, and brake. Horns blared around them. The turnoff she needed was still half a mile ahead.

In the passenger seat, Wyatt was updating station commander Delgado on their progress.

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