Height...approximately six foot three. Tall enough that he had to slice downward when his hand curled around the victims’ necks.
Weight...two hundred pounds. He’d left shoe imprints in clay outside one of the vic’s homes. The killer’s mistakes. Uncle Sam’s crime-scene team could do some damn incredible things with their technology. Like...
Determine the guy’s weight based on the depth of those impressions. Get the man’s height based on the length between his steps and the size of the shoe. A height that had matched dead-on with the M.E.’s estimates.
The killer had even left one other valuable piece of info behind in those shoe impressions. A few bits of clay that could be tracked back to only a handful of locations in the U.S....and one of those locations was right here in Whiskey Ridge.
The killer had screwed up on that second kill. When he’d gone after Julian Forrest, an ex-marine, the killer had counted on the forecasted prediction of rain to wipe away his footprints.
That rain hadn’t come.
Did you screw up this time, too?
He was about to find out.
Jasper exhaled. “The kill’s fresh,” he told Gunner. “We need our team searching the area. Cale Lane is here, and unless I’m wrong, it sure looks like he’s trying to cover his tracks.”
By killing.
Because Reed Montgomery wasn’t like the last three victims that had been killed in their homes. Victims who’d opened the door to the killer because they had known him.
They all knew Cale. In one way or another, those three victims had all traced back to Cale. One of the men had trained with him in Georgia. Another had been on a mission with Cale in Syria. One had worked with Cale for a month in an African desert.
All three of those victims had been EOD. They’d been executed.
Reed...he’d been executed, too, but not because he was EOD. He’d died for another reason. To protect the killer’s identity.
Jasper ended the call. He killed you because of what you knew.
Now Jasper just needed to find the evidence that Reed had possessed. Evidence that had been worth killing for.
* * *
CALE LANE WATCHED the house, his eyes narrowed as his fingers curled around his weapon. He preferred to use a knife on his kills. Much quieter than a gun. More personal. You were able to get right up to your target. With a knife, there would be no mistakes. No miscalculations on those up-close kills.
Jasper Adams knew all about close kills. The man had been killing for over ten years.
And now that man was with his sister. Cale had seen them go into the apartment together. Seen the way Jasper’s fingers lingered on Veronica’s arm.
He’d warned Jasper to stay away from her.
Jasper should have listened to him.
Now his old buddy was going to get
caught in the bloody battle. There was nothing Cale could do to change fate. Death was coming. No, death had already taken over Whiskey Ridge. He could feel its dark shadow all around him.
The only thing to do now... Cale had to make sure the blood that spilled didn’t belong to his sister. But anyone else...
Fair game.
Chapter Five
The computer was just sitting there. Okay, not so much sitting as hiding beneath a pile of papers. But as Veronica paced the small den, she caught sight of the laptop, and before she could think of the million reasons why she shouldn’t open it, she was on the couch, the laptop in her hands.
Immediately, the password screen popped up. Her eyes narrowed. She didn’t know Reed. Knew nothing about him except...
Last Chance. She typed the letters quickly, not looking at the keys. Her gaze darted back to the hallway. Jasper was still in there, with the body.