Walking closer, she looked carefully and saw where the surface of one of the branches was stripped clear around, and it looked like it had been pulled back by a rope or something. As she followed the branch farther back, she realized that it pulled back easily enough and would send quite a whip flying into somebody’s face, if that were the plan. As she studied it, moving it back and forth, Dr. Smidge arrived.

  He looked at it, nodded. “That’s exactly what I was coming to check.”

  “You’re thinking he pulled this back.” She demonstrated. “It looks like the only place would be to try and secure it right here.”

  He nodded. “Yes, so now look where the other end of the rope was tied and related footprints—but carefully though.”

  Cautiously the two of them moved around to the most likely spot.

  “It’s also possible,” she suggested, “that he just stood right here, holding the rope himself.”

  Smidge immediately grabbed her arm and pointed at the nearby ground. “You see where the heels were dug in over there? Either he strained to pull it back to tie it off or stood here, holding it back himself.”

  She frowned. “The only way you could do that is if you knew they were coming.” But, as she understood by now, that wasn’t difficult information to come by. She turned and looked up the hill. “Look over there. See those tracks sliding down the hill?”

  He nodded, and, slowly walking on either side of the footsteps, they headed up to where more tracks revealed where the killer had stopped and watched and waited. They both crouched to get a better look at the ground.

  “So, chances are,” Kate suggested, “that he had the rope tied to the branch with the rope hanging where he could get to it. Then, as soon as he knew that they were coming, he slid down here, grabbed the rope, and pulled it back. When they came around that corner, he let it fly right in their faces.”

  “So Jenna must have been slightly in the lead at that time and took it right across the bridge of her nose,” Smidge noted, “which is why the damage was here.” He pointed across the brow area on his face. “It’s actually cracked. She would have gone right down, probably without a fight. The other one, Robin, would have been stunned, and he must have come with a stick and hit her over the head. There’s no evidence she got a shot of bear spray off.”

  “And then what? He grabbed the rope off the branch, tied it around their necks, and tried to strangle them with it?” Kate asked the coroner.

  “Unconscious bodies are not cooperative at all,” Smidge declared. “It would have been quite hard to get their heads into a position where he could have choked the life out of both of them simultaneously. And who knows? He might have heard somebody coming and pulled the bodies off into the shrubbery here. That could have been a change in his plan, causing him to panic a bit.”

  “But he must have had the garrote with him.”

  Dr. Smidge nodded. “I suspect he did. You know, a contingency plan perhaps.”

  She winced at that. “And it could have been any wire?”

  “Yes, and garrotes are not hard to make. They just need some handle on either end. They’re damn impossible to get away from, and it would have taken just a matter of minutes to kill both women. Particularly since both were most likely unconscious by then.”

  “No defensive wounds then?”

  He looked at her and shook his head sadly. “Not a one. They were out cold, but apparently he didn’t want to leave them to be found alive.”

  She murmured, “He wanted to be positive they were dead.”

  “Yes,” he confirmed. “We’ll need to bring forensics back to take a look at these areas.”

  “Okay.” She nodded. “Though I’m not seeing much. No cigarette butts, no trash, nothing’s here.” She tracked around the area. “And I know that I saw forensics over there, when they worked the scene, but I don’t think anybody was thinking of a branch that came out of nowhere.”

  Smidge snorted. “If you look at the extended crime scene, very little is here.” Finally he stood, brushed his hands to clean them off. “Well, I’m good. I can go home and smile now.”

  “Good for you,” she said, “your job is done.”

  He laughed out loud, perhaps the first real genuine laughter she’d heard from him. “Mine is, now the baton passes to you.”

  “Wait, what about tests?”

  “Not back yet, but I’m not expecting much, and nothing was found in the first round. Both were incredibly healthy, strong individuals,” he repeated. “Now it’s up to you to fill in the blanks.”

  *

  When his phone rang at home, Simon was surprised to see the front desk of his apartment building calling. “Hello, Harry. What can I do for you?”

  “The detective is here.”

  “By all means, send her up,” he replied in surprise.

  “I already did,” Harry replied, but he hesitated.

  “What’s up?”

  “She, … uh, she doesn’t look all that great,” he stated in a rush.

  “Ah, okay, good enough. Thanks for the heads-up.” And, with that, he hung up the phone and walked over to the elevator.

  When it opened, she stepped out, stared at Simon, and asked, “Harry let you know I was here?”

  “Yep, he did.” Simon smiled. “It’s his job, you know.”

  She nodded. “And he better do it because we don’t want you ever blindsided. If you ever get a new doorman, and then somebody comes, saying it’s me, but it’s not me—”

  “Well, generally speaking, I don’t have anybody coming up here trying to take me out,” he noted, with a smirk.

  “No, but you did have a lot of girlfriends coming up, using all kinds of different tricks to get into your bed,” she argued, waggling her eyebrows.

  “Well, you, my dear, are welcome in my bed anytime.”

  She snorted at that. “If only it were that simple.” She gave him half a smile.

  “You don’t think it is?”

  “Nope, I sure don’t,” she murmured. “An awful lot is going on these days.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  She shook her head. “You know I don’t really, but I probably need to.”

  “Oh, that’s interesting. What’s going on?”

  “I just wanted a male take on this.”

  He stopped and stared at her, his head tilting to the side. “So, it’s very gender specific.”

  “Yes.” She glanced at the beer in his hand and smiled. “Have you got another one of those?”

  “I do. Are you driving?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Am I getting an invitation to stay?”

  He stopped, looked at her, and frowned. “You know there is always a standing invitation for you.”

  She smiled. “I do know that. Either way, I’d still like a beer.”

  “Good enough. And is that suntan lotion I smell on you?”

  She shuddered and then laughed. “If you do, it’s by osmosis or something. I was down at the beach to clear my head, and far more people were down there than I expected.”

  “Well, on a beautiful summer day, late in the afternoon? It’s a perfect time for a swim and for people just getting off work. It’s a great way to spend the evening.”

  “You’re right,” she agreed, rolling her head. “Clearly I haven’t done enough of that stress relief.”

  “No, you’re too busy putting away all these killers.”

  “I wish to God they would stop with the killing,” she muttered.

  “Don’t we all,” he agreed. “Now what’s going on?”

  She frowned and hesitated.

  He handed her the cold beer and pointed. “Come on. Let’s go sit and enjoy the view.”

  “Outside maybe?” she asked, sounding hopeful.

  He looked at her in surprise and replied, “Absolutely.”

  He opened the patio doors, and they stepped out onto his huge balcony.

  She sighed. “I don’t spend enough time here,” she noted, walking over to the edge.

  “You do know that you’re welcome to move in, don’t you?”

  “Not happening,” she stated instantly. “I just meant that, when I’m here, I don’t spend enough time enjoying this.” She waved her arm around the wide-open space and the view completely open before them. She tilted her face up to the sun. “It’s so gorgeous.”

  “It is.” He reached out, gently placed an arm on her shoulders and coaxed her over to one of the huge long couches he had set up outside. “Let’s just sit and relax.”

  She nodded and collapsed onto the nearest couch. She laid back, her eyes closed, the sun on her face, and didn’t say a word.

  He waited, not wanting to push. Obviously something was going on, but he had no idea what, and the reality was that she’d tell him when she was ready and not a moment before.

  Finally she opened her eyes. “Outside of the awful child abuse that happened in your world,” she began, waving a hand as if to move quickly past it, “were you ever abused in an adult relationship?”

  He stared at her in surprise, not even sure where to start with that one. “Are you asking about something specific?”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “I guess it’s something that I don’t really understand, even though I come from an abusive history myself.”

  “But not sexual abuse,” he confirmed, “right?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Not really. … I mean, like you, I was a victim way back then, but in a different way. And no, I was never raped, although a lot of people would say tough relationships spawn their own sense of emotional and mental abuse.”

  “They absolutely do,” he agreed. “So why don’t you tell me what this is about?”

  “I spoke to the ex-husband today, Barry Little.” Then she slowly went on to explain about his claim that the victim, Jenna, had been the one to beat him up.

  “It happens,” Simon stated, staring out at the city. “I think it happens more than we’d like to think. Guys are conditioned to not hit women. You’ll get the abusers for sure,” he noted, “but any decent guy has learned somewhere along the way, and many from a young age, that we’re not allowed to hit women. They’re smaller, frailer, and they can get damaged a lot more than we think from the blow of our fist, simply because we’re so much stronger. So, to think that some female would actually hit me would be difficult, but, yeah, I’d probably take it without telling anyone,” he answered, with a nod, “at least until it became something that was obviously a bad scenario for me.”

  “What do you mean, a bad scenario?” she asked. “When does something like that become too much?”

  “It should never happen in the first place, but just because somebody loses their temper and reaches out and smacks me across the face, I can’t say that I would sit there and cry foul. I mean, it’s not right maybe, but it’s still not something I would do.”

  “And if it were ongoing?”

  “That’s a different story,” he declared. “If ongoing, I would break off the relationship.”

  “But what if you really cared?”

  “This really bothers you, doesn’t it?”

  She shrugged. “I guess I need to understand it, and I don’t know if it even changes anything.”

  “In a lot of ways,” Simon noted, “it makes it worse for Barry, doesn’t it?”

  She nodded. “That’s what I was thinking, and I was just discussing that with the coroner. Because it does add another element, making it not so much about revenge but about stopping the abuse.”

  “Exactly,” he agreed, “but this was a well-thought-out murder, wasn’t it?”

  She nodded.

  “So, we’re talking premeditation, so first-degree murder in this case, and the question is, if it was this guy trying to kill his ex-wife, he might have been happy to take out the running partner and best friend as well because she may have had elements of the same bitchiness,” he suggested quietly. “You may want to check with the other husband on that.”

  “I was thinking about that,” she said. “What are the chances that the two women were also that much alike at home in the family relationships?”

  “It’s definitely something to check up on,” Simon noted. “Yet you can be certain that Agnew will be ashamed of it too, and he won’t want anybody to know. And so, if it was him doing the killing, he’ll be incredibly cautious about anybody finding out. Motive can be everything, and he won’t want anybody to understand that he had one.”

  “So, if he killed them, he’ll be even harder to prosecute,” she stated, with a nod.

  “Obviously you’ll have to do everything you can to track it down because he knows that, if he does get caught, his motive will come out, and that will be a double whammy. So, for Agnew, it may not even be as much about the guilt over killing her but more about the shame of being an abused husband.” After a moment of silence, Simon added, “And to answer your question, no, I’ve never been in an abusive relationship with a girlfriend. But have I ever been hit by a woman? Yes, but never twice.”

  She nodded. “That’s what I expected. It just brings up a whole new perspective.”

  “I get it,” Simon agreed. “The question is whether there’ll be another murder as well.”

  She looked at him, startled.

  He shrugged. “Remember that woman in my last vision?”

  “Yeah, I remember.” She winced. “I was just hoping that there hadn’t been any further connection.”

  “Well, there isn’t, and yet there is,” he added. “I feel her again, like she’s right here, breathing, always beside me, always just connected.”

  “You can’t tell her to take up tennis instead of running?”

  He burst out laughing. “No, and she’s a runner, but she’s not as hardcore as these other two women were.”

  “And yet she was ready to get up at some godforsaken dark hour and go out onto the paths.”

  “You know you would do it too, don’t you?”

  Chapter 6

  “I’m considering going running tomorrow morning.” Kate glanced at Simon.

  “Do you think he’d kill again that fast?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “If I could install some cameras up and down the pathway, that would make me happy.”

  “Can you get a surveillance team to do that or something?”

  “There’s a million reasons why we can’t,” she replied.

  “And that just makes it that much more awkward. Even with cause and effect.”

  “Public security, privacy rights, blah, blah, blah,” she complained, with a shrug. “We’re going through the street cameras around the area, but it’s such a heavy traffic spot that it will be difficult to pinpoint anybody. And the same vehicles come and go on a regular basis. The IT department’s got a long list—and we’ve got Reese and her two assistants helping them as much as they can—but, short of something to narrow it down, nothing is happening. The rope that was used was cheap and could have been bought in any hardware store,” she added. “They were killed by a garrote, probably handmade, according to the coroner, or at least it wasn’t an easily identifiable piece of wire, just plain old wire. And they were knocked out by a branch first.” She explained the setup to Simon.

  “Wow.” He relaxed a little farther back, bringing his knee up to rest his beer bottle on. “When you think about it that way, it actually takes quite a bit of planning.”

  “And the mode of killing wasn’t random. Whether it was random that he chose them as his victims, it wasn’t random once he decided on them.”

  He frowned at her.

  She shrugged. “Think about it. He’s up on the top of a nearby hill, and he’s looking for his victim. Is he looking for that particular victim?”

  “Maybe. Is he looking for those two victims?”

  “Maybe,” she murmured. “So, it might have been that they weren’t random in the sense that he chose them because he saw them coming. But it’s still possible that they were random in the sense that anybody could have been coming along and would have been good enough to have done the job on them.”

  “Right, and those random killers are much harder to catch.”

  “They’re damn hard to catch,” she murmured. “Stranger killings are always bad. In this case, if it happens again, then you know there’ll be a massive outcry from the public—and with good reason. This is a popular running trail, and, all of a sudden, it’s been tainted by killers.”

  “Not to mention the ongoing danger of the killers,” he noted, with a sidelong look at her.

  She nodded. “It’s a PR nightmare, and the department would obviously do our best to try and solve it quickly. Stranger abductions generally take longer because we can’t solve them until we get more victims and find a pattern or connection.”

  “Ouch,” he murmured.

  “Exactly,” she said. “You know I’ve done everything I can so far, and it’s only a matter of time before I get pulled off the case.”

  He nodded. “Anything else you can do?”

  “I’ll do it tonight. … Or maybe I can just call.” She frowned. “I really want to talk to that other husband, Agnew, and ask if he was in the same boat.”

  “But you won’t know that over the phone.”

  “No,” she replied quietly. “He might be capable of hiding it over the phone. I need to see his face.” She checked her watch. “I think I’ll run up there right now.” She hopped to her feet. She tossed back the rest of her beer, handed the empty bottle back to him, and said, “Maybe I’ll go for a run afterward.”

  “Or go tomorrow morning, like you said earlier,” he suggested.

  She frowned, then shrugged. “Or how about I do both?”

  “You need the exercise?”

  She nodded. “Honestly? Yes. This tension is coiling up inside me.”

  “Then we’ll both go,” he stated. “Let me get changed real quick, and we’ll go talk to Agnew now. Then you can run the pathway and wear off some of that energy at the same time.”