Case File: Canyon Creek, Wyoming. Paula Graves

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СКАЧАТЬ when he spoke, his voice still came out raspy and tight. “She was pepper-sprayed. In the face.”

      There was a brief silence on the other end of the line while the implications sank in for Joe. A second later, he said, “I’ll be there in ten minutes.” He hung up without saying goodbye.

      Riley put down the phone and stared at the BOLO, rereading the passage one more time to make sure he hadn’t misread. But the words remained unchanged—oleoresin capsicum found on the victim’s face, clothing and in her mucus and saliva.

      He sank heavily into his desk chair, his hand automatically reaching for the bottom drawer to his right. He pulled it open and took out a dog-eared manila folder, the only thing that occupied the drawer. He thumbed through the familiar pages inside the file folder, searching for the three-year-old Natrona County coroner’s report. His breath caught when he read the decedent’s name—Patterson, Emily D.—but he dragged his gaze away from the name to the toxicology report on the pages stapled behind the death certificate.

      Oleoresin capsicum. It had been found in her eyes, nose, throat and lungs, preserved, ironically, by the plastic sheeting her killer had wrapped her in before sinking her body in a lake off Highway 20.

      He heard footsteps pounding up the stairs outside his office. Joe burst through the doorway, his wife, Jane, right behind him. Joe grabbed the fax pages from Riley’s desk while Jane crossed to put her hand on Riley’s shoulder, her green eyes warm with compassion. “You okay?” she asked.

      He nodded, putting the coroner’s report back into the file folder and sliding it into the open drawer.

      “This is six,” Joe said, settling on to the edge of Riley’s desk with the fax pages in his hands.

      “Six that we know of,” Riley added grimly. “And we’re not sure about a couple of them.” The plastic sheet wrapped around the bodies of two of the victims hadn’t protected them from the water where their bodies had been dumped.

      “The plastic sheeting was enough of an MO for me,” Joe said firmly. “If this one hadn’t gotten away, she’d have shown up in a lake or river somewhere around here, wrapped in plastic, too. Maybe this time, the FBI will finally see the pattern.”

      The FBI didn’t want to see the pattern, Riley knew. He’d tried to get the feds involved the minute he’d started piecing together the murders three years ago, when Emily had become one of the killer’s victims. They hadn’t been interested. “The connection was too nebulous” or some such B.S.

      “I’ll give Jim Tanner a call in the morning,” Joe said, referring to the Teton County Sheriff. “He owes me a favor.”

      Jane put her hand on Riley’s shoulder again. “Come home with us for dinner,” she said. “It’s nothing much—just some leftover barbecue, but we have plenty of it.”

      “Even with her eating for three,” Joe added with a smile.

      “Two,” Jane corrected with a roll of her green eyes, “although one of us is half cowboy, so you may have a point.”

      Riley tried to smile at the banter, but it stung a little, even though he was happy as hell that his old friend had finally found a little happiness in his roller-coaster of a life. Seeing Joe and Jane so clearly happy, so clearly in love, was a reminder of all he’d lost three years ago when Emily had died.

      “Actually, I think I’m just going to head home and try to get some sleep so I’ll be fresh in the morning,” he lied, even as a plan began to form in his restless mind. He gave Jane a quick kiss on the cheek and nodded toward the door. “Let’s get out of here and I’ll talk to you both tomorrow.”

      He could see a hint of suspicion in Joe’s expression as the three of them walked out to the parking lot, where Joe’s dark-blue Silverado was parked next to Riley’s silver one. But his friend just gave a wave goodbye as Riley slid behind the truck’s wheel and backed out of the parking lot.

      He drove west, toward the small farmhouse located on the last parcel of what used to be his family’s cattle ranch a couple of miles outside the Canyon Creek town limits. But he passed the house and kept driving west.

      HANNAH WOKE TO SILENCE, her heart pounding. She lay in an unfamiliar bed, the unmistakable smell of antiseptic surrounding her. Her eyelids felt heavy and swollen, but she forced them open.

      The room around her was mostly dark, only a faint sliver of light peeking under the door. A darkened television sat on a wall mount in one corner of the room. Curtained windows lined the wall beside her bed.

      She was in the hospital, she remembered. She’d been attacked on the roadside and crashed while escaping. The memories returned in bright, painful fragments.

      She lifted her hand to her face. The touch of her fingers to her raw skin hurt a little, though not as much as the dull ache settling in the center of her forehead. She touched the left side of her head and found a bandage there. From the wreck or from the man’s attempt to slam her head into the steering wheel? Pressing lightly, she felt a sharp sting.

      And how had she gotten away? She couldn’t remember—

      The door to the room opened, admitting a shaft of light from the hallway and the compact frame of a woman in blue scrubs. The woman crossed to her bed and pushed a button on the wall. The room filled with gentle golden light, giving Hannah a better look at her visitor.

      She looked to be in her late forties, short and muscular, with sandy-brown hair and large blue eyes. A badge clipped to her belt read Lisa Raines, LPN. She smiled at Hannah as she reached for her wrist to check her pulse. “How’re you feeling, Hannah?”

      “Head hurts,” Hannah croaked, her throat feeling raw.

      “You took a bit of a bump. You have a concussion.” She said it with a slight chuckle.

      “You’ve told me that before, huh?” Hannah shifted into a sitting position, groaning a little as the room spun around her.

      “Yeah, you had a little short-term memory loss when you first got here, so you kept asking the same questions every few minutes.” Lisa slipped a blood-pressure cuff over Hannah’s arm. “You’re going to be fine, though. We didn’t find anything seriously wrong. We’re just going to keep you overnight for observation.” Lisa checked her blood pressure and took her temperature, jotting notes on her chart. “Everything’s looking normal. You must have a hard head.”

      “Has anyone called my family?”

      “You didn’t have any emergency contact information in your belongings. I can make a call for you if you like.”

      Hannah started to shake her head no but thought better of it. She’d told her mother she’d call once she reached Jackson Hole, just to check in. If her mother didn’t hear from her soon, she might send half of her brothers north to Wyoming to find her. “Could I make the call myself?”

      “Sure.” Lisa smiled and waved her hand toward the phone by the bedside. “I’ll be back in an hour to check on you again, but if you need me before then, just push the call button.”

      Hannah waited for Lisa to leave before she picked up the phone and dialed her parents’ number. Her father picked up after a couple of rings.

      “Hi, Dad, it’s me. I’m in СКАЧАТЬ