Ball cap pulled low over his eyes, Vince hung back, letting the two detectives take the attention of the media, then slipping past while they barked out “No comment’s.” If Dixon decided to go along with the idea of challenging their killer, Vince would be stepping into the spotlight soon enough. But the disclosure of his involvement would come on his terms, not the media’s.

Jane Thomas’s property was slightly larger than the average lot, and bordered on two sides by a narrow, shallow ravine, thick with trees. Their killer could have made his way around to the backyard garden this way without risking a neighbor seeing him. Karly Vickers was a small woman—105 pounds according to her driver’s license—easily carried by an average-size man in good shape.

He wouldn’t have been visible from the house, digging at the back of the garden. If he knew the garden was there, he wouldn’t have even had to bring his own shovel. One had been generously provided for him by the garden owner.

Still, it was a bolder move to bury a body here than in the park where Lisa Warwick had been found. Cocky. Theatrical. Personal? Did he have some axe to grind with Jane Thomas? Maybe she was the one with the enemy, not the victims.

It was interesting to him that the victims had been women trying to make their lives better, not women stuck on the low end of society.

Prostitutes were always favorite victims of serial killers because they were considered by the killer to be despicable, disposable, and easy prey. The other end of that spectrum was the killer who hunted young women perceived to be of good virtue, for lack of a more modern word. High school girls, college coeds, young single women.

This killer chose women trying to move up from poorer circumstances. Trying to fool people into believing they were something they weren’t? Was that it? Or were they simply vulnerable and accessible through the connection to the center?

Nothing was ever that simple.

Steve Morgan sat at a table on the stone patio, watching the swarm of law enforcement going over the yard. Vince walked over and sat down across from him.

“Hell of a thing, huh?”

Morgan looked at him, his expression unreadable. “Not the way you want to start your day: finding someone half-buried in your friend’s yard.”

“But she’s alive.”

“Unbelievable.” He shook his head at some private thought. “I heard Jane scream. She had gone to see what her dogs were barking at.”

“Where are the dogs now?”

“Jane’s assistant came and got them. Why?”