I look at the doc. “Was she gagged?”

“Not that I can tell. No sign of tape residue. No visible fibers in her mouth.” He grimaces. “She bit her tongue.”

He listened to her scream, I think. “So he has a place that’s private. A place he can come and go as he pleases. A place that’s desolate where no one could hear her.”

“Or a house with a basement or soundproof room.”

The need to move, to work this case, pumps through me with an intensity that’s almost manic. My mind whirls with all the things I need to do. The people I need to question. I must decide which tasks to delegate and which to take on myself. I’m going to need the help of all my officers. I’ll need to call in my auxiliary officer, too. My exhaustion from earlier is gone. In its place is the steel resolve to find a monster.

As if realizing I’m finished here, the doctor snaps off his latex gloves. “I’ll call you as soon as I finish.”

“Thanks, Doc. You’ve been a huge help.”

I’m midway to the door when I remember I have one more question. “Do you have the complete autopsy reports on the vics from before? I’ve only got the summaries.”

“I believe they’re in archive, but I can get them.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d pull everything you have and send copies to my office ASAP.”

He holds my gaze, and his expression darkens. “I was just out of my residency back then, Kate. I assisted Dr. Kours on all four autopsies.” He laughs, but it’s a humorless sound. “I swear to God I almost went into dentistry after seeing those bodies.”

I don’t want to hear what he’s going to say next, but I don’t turn away.

“You see something like that and it sticks with you.” He crosses to me. “Amanda Horner died exactly the same way as those girls.”

Though I’d anticipated this moment, his words send a chill through me.

“I’m sure you noticed that the number carved into the victim’s abdomen jumps from nine to twenty-three,” the doctor says. “That concerns me.”

“We’re not even sure if we’re dealing with the same killer,” I reply. “Could be a copycat.”

He tosses his gloves into the biohazard receptacle. “I don’t want to believe there is one man, let alone two, who are capable of this kind of evil. I sure as hell don’t want to believe they sprang from this town.”

He removes his glasses and wipes the bridge of his nose with a handkerchief, and I realize this veteran doctor is upset by the things he’s seen today.

“It’s his signature,” he says. “I’ll stake my career on it.”

I stare at him, telling myself he’s wrong. But for the first time, a tiny grain of doubt assails me. Some little voice in the back of my mind demands to know if, in the hysteria and horror of that dreadful day sixteen years ago, the shotgun blast failed to do the job.