“Better if I could get a connection on my cell phone.”
She couldn’t, either. Either the snow was blocking the signal or the tower had gone down in the wind. Either way, they were snow locked and dependent on a landline.
She picked up her tablet again, but that hadn’t changed, either. No wireless connection since late afternoon.
“Bad,” she said, stating the obvious.
“I’ll call Gage,” Cade decided. “He’s probably busy as hell with people who have real problems, though. Maybe Dispatch can tell me something.”
She watched him head toward the kitchen but felt very little interest in what the storm was doing. The night shut them down as much as the storm had. Their predator was in his cave, wherever that was, and thus not doing anything that might leave a clue for them.
Not that they were doing so well with clues. The spiderweb idea haunted her, though, and even as she tried to think of something else it kept stalking the edges of her mind. Some kind of information or message lay there, but she couldn’t pick it out. Couldn’t imagine how it revealed anything about their killer’s psyche.
These killers almost always took trophies of some kind. Usually smaller ones, but the idea was the same: they could relive the experience, refresh it in their minds, enjoy once again whatever it was they got from their kills. Like a photographic memento, but apparently much stronger.
So what was with the spider connection? Did he feel like a spider? Or did he admire spiders? Why imitate one? She kept feeling that was a key, possibly a key that would help them either pinpoint this guy or figure out a way to draw him out.
As profilers, they were supposed to be proactive, thinking one step ahead of their subject, finding ways to get him to screw up or ways to locate him. Right now looking for spiderwebs was useless.
And that assumed she was even right about what she thought she saw in the netting and the way he wrapped his victims.
Dang, she wished she could let it rest, but she had a stubborn mind, and once it got onto something, it didn’t want to let go.
Cade returned. “Cell comms are down in most of the county. Police wireless is down. Roads are blocked in every direction, and with all this blowing, the plows aren’t making a dent. Even satellite communications are spotty, Velma said. The whole damn place is in lockdown.”
“I guess so.”
He sat across from her, resting his elbows on his jean-clad knees and clasping his hands. “I can almost smell the burning rubber. You’re still thinking.”
“Yeah. And I’m beginning to wonder if I saw something that wasn’t there. I may be going down a blind alley and wasting time.”
“The problem isn’t a blind alley. We’ll go down lots of those. It’s inevitable. The problem is that we don’t know what it tells us about our killer. He built an unusual display. Everyone’s pretty much agreed on that. I think your description of a spiderweb is the best, but it’s not telling us anything except that he may prefer to view his victims from above when he can. And what does that say?”
“Not a damn thing.”
“Yet.” The correction was quiet. “Stick with it. I am. It’s the best explanation I’ve heard yet for a guy who is breaking some of the usual paradigms for his sort.”
“Well, we assume he is. This is just too weird.”