It wasn’t hard to figure why someone had brought Gina Kemmer up here to kill her.

He turned again to Tom Scott. “You didn’t find any sign of our missing math genius?”

Scott shook his head. “Nope. Nada.”

It was hard to picture Zander Zahn shooting someone. But it was even harder to picture him stabbing someone, and he had certainly done that. Where the hell had he gone?

But anybody living out in this area could have known about this spot. Anybody who hiked these hills. Anybody who might have taken a long walk with Marissa Fordham.

“You guys owe me big time,” the evidence tech said, making his way back up the ladder with a big brown paper evidence bag hooked over one arm.

“Whatcha got there, Petey?” Hicks asked.

“Black clothes with what looks to me like dried blood. Looks like they were drenched in it.”

Scott pulled him up the rest of the way out of the hole like he was a toy and set him on firm ground. He opened the bag and Hicks reached in and pulled out a large black sweatshirt that was rumpled and stiff. They all shined their lights on it.

“Drenched in it,” Mendez said. “Somebody took a fucking blood bath.”

And odds were good the blood that someone had bathed in was Marissa Fordham’s.

“Gentlemen,” he said. “We’ve finally got ourselves some evidence.”

Chapter 68

68

“We’ve finally got something,” Dixon said. “Hallelujah.”

“I’ve got deputies canvassing the area residents to find out if anybody saw anything Wednesday night,” Mendez said, shrugging out of his coat. “It’s the freaking wilderness out there, but maybe we’ll get lucky.

“Has there been any word on Gina Kemmer?” Hicks asked.

“She’s critical,” Dixon said. “It’s anybody’s guess if she makes it through the night.”

“She made it this far,” Mendez said. “She should have been dead out there three times over.”

“Let’s hope she’s still got some fight in her,” Dixon said.

“Do we have someone on her room?” Mendez asked. “The killer is the only one in the state who isn’t going to be impressed with her story of survival.”

“The state?” Dixon said. “Try the country. I’ve got the networks on my ass for interviews. I’m told there’s hardly a hotel room to be had in town. Between Marissa’s murder, Haley, Zander Zahn, and Gina’s story, the eyes of America are on us. Again.”

“Our killer is going to start getting twitchy now,” Vince said. “If he wasn’t already. It was one thing to leave a four-year-old behind with the potential to ID him. It’s something else to have a grown woman able to do it. He’s going to start feeling cornered now. He’s made too many mistakes.”

“Darren Bordain was pretty twitchy today,” Mendez said. “He refused a photograph, refused a polygraph. And his alibi for the night of the murder is Gina Kemmer, who has been conveniently missing.”