“I was thinking about something Taylor said today,” she announced.
“What, specifically?” Tom asked.
“She said, ‘He’ll tie them to that table and use his machines and tools to break their bones, and there’ll be nothing you can do to stop him,’” she quoted verbatim. She didn't quite have a photographic memory, but she was pretty close, and usually remembered things in great detail—particularly quotes.Especiallyquotes from witnesses or suspects.
“That got you thinking of something?”
“Well, she said he tied her up, and earlier she was telling us about the room where she was kept. She mentioned a ‘weird-looking bench type thing with a whole bunch of leather straps attached to it.’ I was thinking that might be some sort of modified examining table. Like from a hospital or doctor’s office.”
“You’re thinking the killer could be a doctor,” Tom stated.
“I do,” she confirmed, seeing in her partner’s brown eyes that he had come to the same conclusion.
“It makes sense given that he likes to break bones but appears to take measures to set them, so they heal before he moves on to breaking another bone.”
“And what Taylor said about him using machines and tools, what if he has an x-ray machine? Some of the bones that had been broken on Kelly Mitchell and Christie Neil were small, individual bones in their feet and hands, and specific ribs. What if he uses the x-ray to help make sure he gets the exact bone he wants, and then he uses it after to make sure its set. He needs to set the bones because he doesn’t want anything to kill them before he’s ready. At least, that’s his goal.”
“That does make sense. We could look into any individual who’s purchased one.”
“Medical tools, too,” she added. “I was thinking that since some of the bones he’s broken in his victims are small, he’d need to be careful breaking them. In the autopsies, every single broken bone was at a different stage of healing. He did them one at a time, so to do a little bone in their hand or foot would be tricky. What if he used one of those things surgeons use when they do a rhinoplasty—”
“An osteotome,” Tom inserted.
“Why do you know the name of that?” she asked.
Tom shrugged. “I know a lot of useless trivia.”
“Okay.” She huffed a small laugh. “Well, if he used something like that and a hammer, that would help him break individual small bones.”
“The bones broken in each of our three victims are different,” Tom said. “He doesn’t start at one point and then work his way around the body. How does he choose them?”
There was no way to get an answer to that question until they caught the killer. And even then, he might not offer them any answers. Or they wouldn’t get a chance to even ask him questions; if he didn't want to spend the rest of his life in prison, he could always play the suicide or suicide-by-cop card.
“If we are looking for a doctor, possibly even a surgeon, we should start at the hospital. We could talk to Fin,” she suggested cautiously. “See if there’s anyone he thinks we should look into.”
Her partner raised a knowing eyebrow.
He obviously thought she was looking for an excuse to spend time around her ex.
Maybe she was.
But it also made sense.
If this guy really was a doctor, they were going to have to start looking for him somewhere. The hospital was as good a place as any to start with their search. And if they were going to the hospital anyway, then why not start with a doctor they knew?
And if in doing that, she got to spend a bit of extra time around Fin, then that was just an added bonus. Maybe if they spent some time together, where there was no pressure to discuss their shared history, then she might be able to make some headway in getting Fin to forgive her.
Right about now Chloe was up for taking advantage of any opportunity—no matter how small—to try and mend fences with the man she still loved.
*****
3:15 P.M.
She was wearing the reindeer beanie.
That was the first thing Fin thought when he saw Chloe climb out of the car.
Despite the anger he still felt toward her, his lips curved up at the corners into a small smile. She always looked so adorably sexy when she wore that silly beanie.