Getting a 13 tattooed should not have been a death sentence.

She pulled the SUV up to the curb, inching forward as she studied the house numbers in the dark.

There was Dana's unit, an ordinary house for an ordinary person that should not have been selected as a victim.

The house looked eerily still. There was no noise on the quiet street except the idling of the SUV.

The driveway was empty in front of the garage. There was no obvious movement, despite a few lights being on.

Maybe Gabe was right and that was a sign that no one was home.

Her chest felt tight, doubt taking a hold of her. Maybe Bellisario had made Gabe her partner to ground her, to pull her out of this obsession. There would never be anyone quite like Vallejo again and to try and apply Vallejo logic to every case was a mistake.

Maybe.

It went against her very instincts to consider the thought. Hadn't her instincts led her here? Led her to dig Marcia Reuben out of an old file box.

There were too many unanswered questions that all seemed to point back to Vallejo's crime spree.

Ruby cut the engine. The headlights went out, leaving her in a deep, dark quiet. Waiting.

Then movement flickered behind airy curtains, blocking Ruby from getting a better view. She sat up straight, tensed to hear or see any other hints of danger.

Her heart jumped into her throat. For the briefest moment, she was frozen in place.

Then there was a scream.

Ruby reached immediately for the radio.

“I need back-up. Forward this address. Possible home invasion and premeditated assault,” she said. Before she could listen for a response, she leapt out of the car.

She couldn't let him kill another woman.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

Ruby had learned her lesson from the Thorne takedown. She was alone, without the benefit of someone to cover other exits if she chose to bust down the door. Stealth could still give her the advantage and she couldn't pull that off if she burst in, guns blazing.

Instead, she circled around the back of the house, scanning for any sign of the killer. Her flashlight panned over an old trailer.

Her heart felt tight in her chest. There it was, all the clues falling into place. It was the same trailer from Vallejo’s newspaper. There was no way it was a simple coincidence that a chosen victim happened to have a trailer in her backyard just like the one Ruby had grown up in, in another state, in another time. Dana Jacobsen was most definitely the next victim.

It made her skin crawl thinking about how much more Vallejo might know about her, but it wasn’t something she could dwell on in that moment. She had more important things to worry about than herself.