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ago, and it looks like her wounds are an identical match to the woman that was killed the other day. Everything matches up except the number of lacerations to her thigh.”
    I leaned in and counted them. There were five this time.
    “Do we have a name?” Maddie said.
    “She had an ID card from a university not far from here in her back pocket. Her name is Sasha Winters.”
    “She looks a little old to be a university student.”
    A car drove up and parked and out stepped public enemy number one and two.
    “Uh-oh,” Maddie said. “Get ready for an ass-chewing sandwich.”
    I retrieved my cell phone from my pocket with haste and snapped some photos of the victim and the crime scene and then slid it back into my pocket.
    “Why is it that wherever I go, you seem to follow?” Coop said.
    “I was with Maddie when she got the call.”
    “And that makes it alright?” he said.
    “It makes it the truth.”
    “Here’s some truth for you—I want you out of here. Now.”
    I looked over at Nick whose crossed arms told me all I needed to know about where he stood in all of it, and then I turned toward Maddie.
    “I’ll catch a ride back to my lab with one of my guys,” she said. “You go on.”
    “Call me later?” I said.
    She smiled and nodded.
    Coop frowned and Maddie gave him a hard stare and then looked back and me and said, “You bet I will.”
     

CHAPTER 17
     
    The next morning I reappeared at the crime scene, but the difference was the body wasn’t there and everything had been cleaned up and life at the park was back to usual. It was hard to tell anything happened there at all. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for or why anything of any significance would have been left behind, but I wanted to explore the area anyway. It was of particular interest to me that the killer dropped his bodies off in the same place he picked them up. He was bold, and had one mad pair of cojones. That much I knew.
    Maddie called me the night before with some privileged information she’d been given about the victim. The girl had gone to the park the night before to study, like she often did during the week. Her mother told the police that there was a specific bench she liked to sit on so they dusted it for prints, but I knew Sinnerman’s wouldn’t be among them. I sat on the bench and scanned the area and wondered if he watched her and for how long. I envisioned him hunkered down somewhere while he watched and waited, and I searched around to see if I could find the most likely spot. Some nine or so yards away, the leaves on a lofty oak tree sprawled out in all directions across a pale blue sky. It was the only one of its kind in the immediate area and the perfect place to disguise oneself.
    I approached the tree and crouched down and scanned the ground that surrounded me. There were no footprints, but there was a patch of dirt that appeared to have been smoothed over by something, like it didn’t belong with the sediment around it. In my stooped position, I had a clear view of the bench. I stayed there for a few minutes and absorbed the scene and then withdrew my phone from my pocket and took a picture of it. I didn’t know why; it just seemed like it was the right thing to do. I tilted the lens downward and zoomed in and snapped a photo of the disheveled patch of the dirt. The more I looked at it, the more I noticed something odd. The dirt around it was undisturbed and looked like it had been for quite some time.
    I brushed the rough patch of dirt back and forth with my hand. It was loose, and in no time, I’d dug a good three inches at least. I extracted the mound of dirt into my hand and stared down into the miniature hole I’d formed. I felt like a kid in grade school who had nothing better to do to pass the time at recess. I tilted my hand to the side and watched the dirt tumble back into the hole and with it, a little piece of debris about the size of a nickel dropped into the hole as well. It was dirty and crumpled