Once Lured. Blake Pierce

bodies that are left in view are just dumped. This kind of display suggests that he’s pretty cocky.”

      Riley was pleased that Lucy had paid good attention in class. But somehow she didn’t think that cockiness was this killer’s point. He wasn’t trying to show off or taunt the authorities. He was up to something else. Riley didn’t yet know what it was.

      But she was pretty sure it had something to do with the way the body was laid out. It was both awkward and deliberate. The girl’s left arm was stretched straight above her head. Her right arm was also straight but placed slightly to one side of her body. Even the head, with its broken neck, had been straightened to align as well as possible with the rest of the body.

      Riley thought back to the photos of the other victims. She noticed that Lucy was carrying a tablet computer.

      Riley asked her, “Lucy, could you bring up the photos of the other two corpses?”

      It took Lucy only a few seconds to comply. Riley and Bill crowded next to Lucy to look at the two images.

      Bill pointed and said, “Metta Lunoe’s corpse was a mirror image of this one – right arm raised, left arm to the side of the body. Valerie Bruner’s right arm was raised but her left arm was placed across the body, pointed downwards.”

      Riley stooped down and took hold of the corpse’s wrist and tried to move it. The whole arm was immobile. Rigor mortis had fully set in. It would take a medical examiner to determine the exact time of death, but Riley felt pretty sure that the girl had been dead for at least nine hours. And like the other girls, she’d been moved to this spot shortly after she’d been killed.

      The more she looked, the more something nagged at Riley. The killer had gone to so much trouble to arrange the corpse. He’d carried the body across the square, up six stairs, and had meticulously manipulated it. Even so, its overall position didn’t make sense.

      The body wasn’t aligned with any of the gazebo walls. It wasn’t related to the opening of the gazebo or to the courthouse or anything else that Riley could see. It seemed to be laid out at a random angle.

      But this guy doesn’t do anything random, she thought.

      Riley sensed that the killer was trying to communicate something. She had no idea what it might be.

      “What do you make of the poses?” Riley asked Lucy.

      “I don’t know,” Lucy said. “Not many killers actually pose their bodies. It’s weird.”

      She’s still really new to this job, Riley reminded herself.

      Lucy hadn’t caught on that the weird cases were exactly the ones they routinely got called in for. For seasoned agents like Riley and Bill, weirdness had long since become numbingly normal.

      Riley said, “Lucy, let’s take a look at the map.”

      Lucy brought up the map that showed where the other two bodies had been found.

      “The bodies have been placed in a pretty tight cluster,” Lucy said, pointing again. “Valerie Bruner was found less than ten miles from where Metta Lunoe was found. And this one is less than ten miles from where Valerie Bruner was found.”

      Riley could see that Lucy was right. However, Meara Keagan had disappeared quite a few miles to the north in Westree.

      “Does anybody see any connections among the locations?” Riley asked Bill and Lucy.

      “Not really,” Lucy said. “Metta Lunoe’s body was in a field outside of Mowbray. Valerie Bruner’s was just along the edge of a highway. And now this one right in the middle of a small town. It’s almost as if the killer was looking for places that have nothing in common.”

      Just then Riley heard shouting from among the onlookers.

      “I know who did it! I know who did it!”

      Riley, Bill, and Lucy all turned to look. A young man was waving and shouting from behind the tape.

      “I know who did it!” he cried again.

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      Riley took a careful look at the man who was shouting. She could see that several people around him were nodding and murmuring in agreement.

      “I know who did it! We all know who did it!”

      “Josh is right,” a woman next to him said. “It’s got to be Dennis.”

      “He’s a weirdo,” another man said. “That guy has always been a ticking bomb.”

      Bill and Lucy hurried toward the edge of the square where the man was shouting, but Riley held her position. She called out to one of the cops beyond the tape.

      “Bring him over here,” she said, pointing to the man who was doing the yelling.

      She knew it was important to separate him from the group. If everybody started pitching in with stories, the truth would be impossible to untangle. If there was any truth in what everybody was yelling about.

      Besides, reporters were starting to cluster around him. It wouldn’t do for Riley to interview the guy right under their noses.

      The cop lifted the tape and escorted the man toward them.

      He was still yelling, “We all know who did it! We all know who did it!”

      “Calm down,” Riley said, taking him by the arm and leading him far enough away from the onlookers to be able to talk to him unheard.

      “Ask anybody about Dennis,” the agitated man was saying. “He’s a loner. He’s weird. He scares girls. He annoys women.”

      Riley got out her notepad, and so did Bill. She saw the intense interest in Bill’s eyes. But she knew they’d better take things slowly. They barely knew anything just yet. Besides, this man was so agitated that Riley felt wary of his judgment. She needed to hear from somebody more neutral.

      “What’s his full name?” Riley asked.

      “Dennis Vaughn,” the man said.

      “Keep talking to him,” Riley told Bill.

      Bill nodded and kept taking notes. Riley walked back to the gazebo, where Police Chief Aaron Pomeroy was still standing beside the body.

      “Chief Pomeroy, what can you tell me about Dennis Vaughn?”

      Riley could tell by his expression that the name was all too familiar.

      “What do you want to know about him?” he asked.

      “Do you think he might be a viable suspect?”

      Pomeroy scratched his head. “Now that you mention it, maybe so. At least he might be worth talking to.”

      “Why is that?”

      “Well, we’ve had a lot of trouble with him for years. Indecent exposure, lewd behavior, that kind of thing. A couple of years ago it was window peeping, and he spent some time in the Delaware Psychiatric Center. Last year he got obsessed with a high school cheerleader, wrote letters to her and stalked her. The girl’s family got a court injunction, but he ignored it. So he did six months in prison.”

      “When was he released?” she asked.

      “Back in February.”

      Riley was getting more and more interested. Dennis Vaughn had gotten out of prison shortly before the killings had started. Was it merely a coincidence?

      “Local girls and women are starting to complain,” Pomeroy said. “Rumor has it that he’s been snapping pictures of them. It’s nothing we can arrest him for – at least not yet.”

      “What else can you tell me about him?” Riley asked.

      Pomeroy shrugged. “Well, he’s kind of a bum. He’s maybe thirty years old and he’s never held down a job that anybody can remember. Sponges off family he’s got here in town – aunts, uncles, grandparents. I hear that he’s been real sullen lately. Holds it against the whole town that he had to do prison time. He keeps telling folks, ‘One of