To Catch a Killer. Kimberly Van Meter

he added, and she agreed.

      “I know. It’s the trees. Messes up the line of sight on the cell towers.” She smiled and let the call go to voice mail. She’d call him after she’d had a chance to talk to the M.E. Until then, Colfax would just have to wait.

      An hour later while Dillon met with the incoming task force team, Kara went to the morgue. This part of the job was her least favorite, especially when it dealt with kids. She steeled herself for the inevitable sadness that followed when the coroner slid that little body out from its metal locker.

      She acknowledged the coroner, a short man with a balding pate, and flashed her credentials. “Cause of death yet?” she asked.

      “Petechial hemorrhages combined with the bruising around her neck point to asphyxiation,” he answered, opening the locker and pulling the metal slab forward with the young girl on it. So young. Snuffed out in a blink.

      Kara swallowed the lump in her throat and pulled her camera free as she gestured. “May I?”

      “You’re the boss.”

      She carefully detailed the marks left behind by Hannah Linney’s tormentor and silently promised, just as she had with the other two victims of the Babysitter, to bring him to justice.

      “Any sign of sexual trauma?”

      “None.”

      She nodded and exhaled the breath she’d been holding. So far, neither of the Babysitter’s victims had been sexually assaulted but serial killers sometimes varied their routine for reasons unknown.

      Kara was drawn to Hannah’s flaxen hair and couldn’t help but ache for the mother that had given birth with high hopes for her daughter only to have them end in such horrific circumstances. Somewhere a mother wept with a ragged heart, sobbing one word over and over. Why?

      She cleared her throat with difficulty. “Was there anything with the body? A small piece of paper, anything at all?”

      The coroner frowned in thought, then slowly shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of, but you could ask the chief for sure. He’s heading this case personally. He’d have the crime scene photos.”

      In the first two cases the Babysitter left something behind. It was his sick way of letting the cops know that he was one step ahead. Laughing. Kara was certain something had been missed. She made a mental note to return to Wolf’s Tooth first thing tomorrow morning.

      Nodding to the coroner, she indicated she was finished and hurried from the room, anxious to get back to the motel and away from the fear that clotted in her heart whenever she thought of how vulnerable children were in the world.

      It made her want to call home and talk to her nine-year-old daughter, just so she could hear Briana’s voice and know that she was safe, unlike the poor children who had somehow gotten caught in the Babysitter’s net.

Chapter 2

      Matthew caught Kara leaving the morgue. His first instinct was to ignore her and keep walking, but there was something about her drawn expression that slowed his feet before he could form a different directive in his brain.

      The minute she realized she was not alone in the hall, her features relaxed into the blank, professional mask that Matthew knew came from training and not from her true feelings. That intimate knowledge of her personally should have given him an edge but it just made him feel as if he’d trespassed somehow.

      “Did you get what you needed?” He gestured toward the morgue.

      “Yes.” As an afterthought, she added, “Thanks.”

      “Enough with the ‘thank yous,’” he said, narrowing his gaze. Tiny lines of fatigue bracketed her eyes—he hadn’t noticed them before. Shake it off. If the woman couldn’t sleep, that was her problem. “Listen, you and I both know I was just being courteous. I don’t need thank-yous. You’re here to do a job and I’m here to help on my end. Everyone has the same goal—to catch this freak—and I’m not going to stand in the way of that.”

      She regarded him for a long moment and he wondered what was going through that mercurial mind. “Glad to hear it. Did you find anything unusual at the crime scene?” she asked, switching gears.

      “Aside from a dead body?”

      “Paper, fabric, wood chips that obviously didn’t come from the area … anything like that?”

      “No. Why?”

      She shook her head. “I’ll need to be apprised of any trace evidence that was collected. I’ll want to send it to our labs for analysis,” she said.

      “Just make sure it makes it back when you’re through.”

      “Of course. We don’t do things sloppy.”

      “I’ll have to take your word for it. And you didn’t answer my question.”

      And she clearly didn’t want to. She looked at him as if he were a nuisance with impertinent questions. She was definitely of the “need to know” camp and it was apparent he didn’t share the same clearance. Finally, she answered briefly. “The killer left something behind in the first murders.”

      He shifted. The conversation he most wanted to have with her kept moving to the forefront of his mind, but he managed to keep on topic. “I’ve been following this case in the press—” She made an expression that said who hasn’t? “It’s getting quite the coverage but I don’t remember that bit of information. Can’t hardly open a newspaper without seeing something on the case. The press is having a field day with the grisly Babysitter nickname. How’d they come up with that one?”

      She spared him a brief look, irritation in full bloom, but he didn’t know if it was directed at him or the media. “Catch phrases and nicknames sell papers and boost ratings,” she said, disdain just under the surface. “And somehow … the press got a hold of information that was sensitive to the case.”

      “Such as?”

      “In both cases the person watching over the child, a caregiver of some sort, was killed when the victim was taken. So the press dubbed him the Babysitter Killer, which then was shortened to the Babysitter.”

      “Catchy,” he murmured, wondering what kind of sick person did these kinds of things to kids and their caregivers. “I knew when I saw the body it was that Linney girl. What made you think it was the Babysitter involved and not some other nut job with a thing for kids?”

      “The evidence. The killer likes to tie them up, which leaves distinct ligature marks on the skin.” She sighed. “Hannah had the same marks as the other two. And when we find something left behind with a message, there will be no doubt.”

      “No doubt?”

      “No, there’s not.” She met his gaze squarely. “Not one.”

      Her confidence was both impressive and bordering on smug. He found both irritating.

      “I read that one of the victims, Drake Nobles, was the son of Senator Nobles?” When she jerked a short nod in the affirmative, he shook his head. He wouldn’t want to be in her shoes. “Getting pressure yet?”

      She stiffened. “No more than any other case. We don’t place priority that way. Someone’s out there, killing kids. That makes this case move to the top.”

      He smiled, knowing full well she was probably getting squeezed by her superior who was no doubt taking it from the senator, but he was amused by her attempt to appear otherwise. “Well, I’m sure it can’t be easy being in your place. Head of the CARD Team assigned to this case. Kids dying on your watch. Must suck. Especially for someone who’s as ambitious as you.”

      She swallowed and her eyes registered the veiled reference to her past,