“Closer together there than here. Bigger cities so I guess he felt he had more cover. Lew’s emailing everything he has, so whenever we get the wireless backup, we can take a look at all the fine details.”
“But he’s sure?”
“MO is the same. Victims the same age and description. Only two possibles that don’t exactly fit.”
Her eyes snapped open. Her heart began to thunder. “Tell me.”
Cade looked down at his pad, then straight at her. “Two were women. Died the same way. Fit the general description, but not exactly.”
“God,” she whispered. “You know...”
Cade nodded. “You’re probably thinking exactly what Lew suggested. Our guy could be going for boys who remind him of himself at that age. But the women...”
She drew a deep breath. “The women could have been stand-ins for his mother. There’d be a resemblance.”
“That’s Lew’s thinking exactly. This guy has a grudge against mama.”
Her mind began spinning at top speed. She rose from the table and began pacing. “It’s fitting,” she said finally. “It’s coming together. Mother mistreated him. He hated her. He couldn’t get back at her, maybe because he was too young or too afraid, or maybe because she was his mother and he loved her anyway. And somewhere in that tangled mess, he’s doing to these boys what she did to him. He’s carrying out the same torture, following whatever reason she gave him for the mistreatment he suffered, essentially doing what she would have done. Reenacting, fulfilling her stated purpose, whatever. It could even be some kind of sick tribute to her. But every so often, he acts out his rage against her. It’s not logical, but it freaking fits.”
“If you start looking for logic in the mind of a serial killer, you’d need to be a pretzel,” he said heavily. “One other thing that was omitted from the autopsies here, but was picked up on some of the others—genital bruising.”
“Perimortem?”
“Definitely. And only on the boys.”
She swore and sank slowly back into her chair. “I could write his history now.”
“So could I. Now we need to turn it into action. That’s where Gage comes in.”
She looked him straight in the eye. “That’s where I come in. If I look enough like those boys that Gage noticed it, then I may well look like his mother. I need to see photos of the women.”
“Lew’s sending them,” he said grimly. “They’re definitely coming.”
* * *
The storm had bollixed everything up. Gage said he’d be over as soon as he could, but he didn’t want to come in his official vehicle. He joked about hitching a ride on one of the plows.
Looking out the window, DeeJay could well believe that might be necessary. Craig Stone from the forest service called and said it would probably be afternoon before he could make it. Everything was still on hold, and the snow was still falling.
DeeJay turned from the window to Cade. “I have to keep telling myself that we have a little time, that the timer on this bomb isn’t set to four minutes or something.”
“I hear you. But considering the stakes, it might as well be.”