He grabbed his hat and strode toward his vehicle. He drove southeast toward the initial scene where Jane Doe #1 had been found. In early-morning commuter traffic, the drive took him thirty minutes. When he arrived in Southeast Austin, the sun was already warming the morning air and burning off the fog. Out of the car, he settled his Stetson on his head and carried the crime scene photos in a manila folder. He strode across the dirt and scrub grass toward the old house. The crime scene tape had been ripped off the front door and dangled in a slight breeze. It was impossible to contain a crime scene unless a uniformed officer was posted on-site, and given the staffing constraints, that was not possible.

He opened the door, and stale air, still ripe with decomposition, rushed toward him. He opened the folder and compared the image of the wrapped naked body lying on the wide-plank wood floor to the empty room before him. This house was similar to the second scene, and given the mode of murder, the killer had already decided on a distinct pattern and victim type.

He walked the room, his footsteps thudding against the wooden floor. In the distance, traffic mingled with the shouts of someone calling for a friend.

Rubbing his chin, he squatted by the stain on the floor left by the decomposing body and compared it to the picture taken by the forensic technician. In several of the shots, Jordan Poe stood in the background, her arms crossed, her face grim. She did not strike him as a tender soul, but he sensed this one troubled her deeply.

Rising, he flipped through the pictures to the second scene. The two crime scenes were damn near interchangeable. He had submitted the case details to the FBI’s ViCAP and CODIS systems, hoping this killer had struck in another jurisdiction or had had his DNA collected. No matches yet, but that could change.

He walked out the back of the house toward a small garage. Lucas had documented tire tracks and identified them as all-terrain tires, which could very well fit the blue pickup truck a witness had spotted near the second crime scene. If the truck was an older model, it would not have GPS and would not be trackable. He hoped, given the BOLO issued on the truck, that the killer was rote enough to keep using it.

He pictured the killer parking in the garage, pulling the unconscious victim from the bed, and carrying her into the house. In the quiet of the night, he would have several hours of privacy to toy with his victim.

Spencer passed back through the house, locked the front door, and returned to his vehicle. He called the Austin Police’s missing person division and found his call routed to Detective Marla Rivers. They traded quick introductions, and he got to the meat of his call.