Page 43 of Prodigal Son

“Where are you going?”

“I need to find my phone in this pigsty!”

“For what?”

“Because I lost it!”

“Maybe it’s with my crossbow.”

“I didn’t steal your stupid crossbow!” Her phone was usually attached to her hip. “Can you call it?”

A generic ring came from her bedroom, but it wasn’t her typical ringtone. She followed the sound to her nightstand and pulled open the drawer. Not her phone, but her iPad. At least now she could use the Find My Phone app.

She sat on her bed and sent out a signal to locate her linked devices. The last known location of her phone wasn’t too far off the hiking trail where her crew usually parked, but the battery was dead. “Great. My phone’s in the woods.”

“So, put in a claim with your provider and get a replacement. You’re not going back there—at least not alone or unarmed.”

“You’re being ridiculous.” Yet some part of her agreed with him, and she suffered an instant aversion to the thought of returning to the woods.

He pointed to the wall. “Open your fucking eyes, Destiny! Whatever’s killing women in those woods is far from finished.” He swept his arm across the mess in her living room. “I read all your clippings. I don’t think it’s human, and it ain’t some animal.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Look.” He rushed over to the wall where he’d hung a map. “Here’s where all the bodies were found over the last twelve months, each one suffering similar lacerations and abuse. But get this, I found records of women who were murdered in Jim Thorpe dating back all the way to the last century, each victim bearing similar markings, all basically left unsolved.”

“The woods are dangerous, and good little girls should stay in safer places.”

They both froze. The words shot out of her as though triggered. She had no idea what made her say something so out of character.

Vito’s eyes bulged as he blinked at her in confusion. “Uh, do you fuckin’ hear yourself? What the hell was that?”

Her face scrunched. “I have no idea. It just came out.”

“Whatever. Look, I need you to be normal for a second, okay? See, here, on the map?” He lifted a paper with dates scribbled on it. “Here’s where the first victim was found last year. Here are the next four. Nothing special, right? But then look here. There’s a pattern. The ones that were sexually assaulted were all murdered in this vicinity, up by these higher altitudes. The ones that were more or less tortured and drained were done more sporadically. These two were found within two days of each other, but the autopsy estimated the time of death to be the same date and roughly the same time. There’s no way that thing could have been in two places so far apart at once.”

Destiny recognized bits and pieces of her own notes, now overwhelmed by her brother’s. He’d taken this to a whole different level. “Did you buy red yarn to do this?”

“That’s how you do it.”

“Do what?”

“Track. I saw it on Homeland.”

She laughed, picturing him making a special trip to the arts and crafts store just so he could play detective. “All right, settle down, Agent Starling. Why don’t we focus your investigator skills on finding my phone.”

“Enough with the fucking phone. Don’t you get it? There are two killers out there.”

The moment he said it, she could see it in the patterns and dates. How had they not realized that before. “Two?”

“Yes! This one is definitely male, but the ones responsible for the deaths out here…” He circled an area on the map with his finger. “No sexual assault, just blood loss and some pretty fucked up dismemberment.”

She cringed, recalling the pictures.

“Except…” Vito gripped his chin and cocked his head.

“What is it?”

“This one, the Sharon Foster chick… Her body wasn’t destroyed like the others. She had blood loss, but then she was just sort of dumped according to the police report.”

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