“Sure, go ahead,” Jordan said.

“Are you sticking around?” Andy asked.

“Just standing back and observing.”

As Jordan backtracked her steps to the front door, she imagined other motives behind this killing. With the border 220 miles away, human trafficking was common here. Though coyotes raped and sometimes killed their victims, they generally discarded the bodies on a barren patch of earth in the open sun. Some might take the time to cover the remains with a little dirt or brush, but she had never seen any wrappings this elaborate. Drug dealers and pimps were not strangers to violence, but they rarely went to such lengths with their dead, unless they were sending a message.

The house was marked for renovation, so whoever had left Jane Doe here had known she would be found eventually. Maybe he wanted her found. Maybe it was a sign of misguided respect or contrition for what he had done. Maybe it was a message to someone. Or maybe he simply wanted his work displayed.

But until she could find out more about the victim’s identity, any stab at motive would be conjecture.

Her attention was drawn back to the bound hands tied with precise, tight knots. Like the drawstring, they were double knotted.

Jordan guessed the killer had played with the tension on the bag before he killed her. How many times had he brought her up to the point of death and then carefully loosened the drawstring so she could suck in enough oxygen to stay alive? Had she been a willing participant or a victim? Jordan had seen a lot of crazy shit over the years, but her money was on murder.

Had she been the killer’s first victim? Had he been playing out this erotic scenario for months—if not years? The thick plastic wrap and packing tape, even finding this location, required planning. Forethought. Jordan remembered the woman she had found bound, gagged, and struggling to breathe two years ago, when she’d still been a patrol officer. She’d saved that one, but she had been minutes away from losing her.

“Christ,” she muttered. “What do the footprints look like, Andy?” she asked. “Any idea how many sets?”

“From what I can see, there’re the deputy’s prints as well as another set.”

“Only one other?”

“Yep. The contractor smelled the decomposition and didn’t enter the house.”

“We can assume they are the killer’s prints, and he likely carried her in here?” Jordan asked.