“Sure,” Trent said testily. “You’re the boss.”

  When he left the room, Michael looked at Faith. “So what should we look for?”

  “Let’s get the security footage from the two shelters and see if we can find anything suspicious.”

  “That’s going to take a while.”

  “Yes,” Faith acknowledged, “but at least if he is our guy, then no one else will die while we prove it.”

  “The problem comes if he’s not our guy,” Michael said.

  “I know,” she replied. “So let’s figure that out as soon as possible.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Kelsey smiled at Max as the bulldog stuck his nose into a bush and snuffled around, looking for his chew toy. He found it a moment later and barked happily, pulling the toy from the bush and trotting over to Kelsey. She giggled at the way his butt waggled while he walked. She would never tell Max this, but her brother was right. He did look kind of dopey.

  But he was also the cutest little puppy she’d ever seen. He had the sweetest brown eyes, and he was such a cuddler! She liked cuddly dogs. When she was little, her grandparents had an Irish Wolfhound named Trixie who used to let her hug her all the time. When she was really little, she would even fall asleep with her head on Trixie’s belly. Her grandparents told her all the time that Trixie would never let them disturb her when she was sleeping like that. She missed quite a few days of kindergarten because Trixie refused to let her go and would sulk like a toddler whenever the grandparents insisted on waking Kelsey up.

  Trixie had gone to Heaven ten years ago, but Kelsey still kept her picture in her wallet.

  “We’ll have to get a good picture of you to go next to her, won’t we?” she said to Max as he plopped down next to her. He waited for Kelsey to take the chew toy before getting to his feet and panting excitedly.

  “What?” she asked. “What do you want?”

  Max barked helpfully, and Kelsey laughed. “What was that? I didn’t understand you.”

  Max barked again, and Kelsey held up the chew toy. “Oh, this? You want this?”

  Max barked excitedly and bounced up and down on his forepaws, a rather impressive feat for a dog whose head weighed more than his hindquarters.

  “Ah,” she said, “Hmm, well, I don’t know. Only good boys get chew toys. Are you a good boy?”

  Max barked again and ran in a circle, unable to contain his excitement. She loved when puppies did that.

  “All right,” Kelsey said, “but you have to prove it.”

  Max dipped his head, and Kelsey lifted the chew toy. "Okay… Go get it!"

  She threw the toy, and Max tried to spin around to chase it. He moved too quickly and lost his balance, slipping and falling face-first onto the ground. The first time he had done that, she had freaked out, but the woman at the shelter told her it was normal for bulldog puppies to be clumsy at first until they learned how to deal with their weight. She assured Kelsey that it would take more than a little spill to damage his thick skull.

  Max righted himself quickly and started after the chew toy, but after a few feet, he skittered to a stop. Kelsey chuckled. “Aww, did you lose it? Use your nose, boy!”

  Max looked at her, and the expression on his face sent a chill through her. He whined and took a step backward, looking ahead at the bush. Kelsey’s smile faded, and all at once, she was painfully aware of the fact that no one else was in the park. The park was typically pretty empty on weekdays, but it was unusual for them to be the only two here. “What is it, Max?” she asked, her voice tense. “What do you smell?”

  Max whined again and took another step back. Kelsey remembered the story that had run in the papers a few days ago about the college student who had been murdered by a home intruder. She was in a public place, and Max would absolutely come to her defense if she was attacked, so she hadn’t thought anything of going out alone, but looking at Matt’s reaction, she wondered if she had been wrong to be so cavalier about it.

  She stood and walked closer to Max, carrying the fabric leash the shelter had given her. “It’s okay, boy,” she said, “it’s probably a bobcat.”

  That thought actually reassured her. That made more sense. If it was the killer, Max would have reacted aggressively. He wasn’t afraid of people. Bobcats were a different story, though. A big enough bobcat could probably kill Max if it really wanted to, at least until he got a little bigger. Bobcats wouldn’t fight unless provoked, though. On the whole, they were very shy cats. All she needed to do was get the leash on Max and get to their car, and they’d be okay.

  She knelt down to put the leash on her when a shadow grew behind the bush. She watched in horror as the shadow stood to its full towering height. The shadow was the silhouette of… she thought a man but couldn’t be sure. It had long limbs and a slender build, but still dwarfed her, standing well over six-feet tall with hands that looked nearly three times the size of her own hands. Its face was wrapped in black cloth. It looked almost like a cross between a ninja and a mummy.

  “Oh God,” she whispered.

  The figure rushed her. She drew in breath to scream for help, but the figure was on her before she could make a sound. It wrapped shockingly strong arms around her and lifted her clear off the ground. She felt a massive hand clamp shut around her mouth and nose and kicked and struggled as both of her airways were blocked.

  Then the figure cried out and released her. She fell to the ground and saw Max, her little hero, Max, with his mouth clamped tightly around the attacker’s leg. The figure cried out again and fell backwards to the ground, landing heavily. He lifted his massive hand and began hitting Max, but Max didn’t react to the blows. His eyes blazed with fury, and He growled and shook, his teeth tearing into the attacker’s flesh.

  The attacker screamed again and tried to kick Max off, but he held on. Her eyes met his for a moment, and the look on his face, fear buried underneath determination to protect his human, shook her into action.

  She reached for her phone and started to dial nine-one-one. The killer—and she knew for sure now that was who he was—cast shocked eyes on her and bellowed. She had time to think, yes, it’s definitely a man, before he grabbed Max around his neck with both hands and started throttling him.

  Max’s eyes bulged, but he held on, ready to die if he needed to. Kelsey reacted instinctively. Her safety forgotten, she shrieked and rushed at the killer, beating him with both hands and screaming, “Let him go! Let him go, you asshole!”

  The killer was as unperturbed by her blows as Max was by the killer’s choke. Desperate, she jammed both of her thumbs into the killer’s eyes. He yelled and released Max, but the choke had finally sapped Max’s strength, and when the killer stood, Max slid from his ankle, panting and trembling.

  The killer grabbed Kelsey under her arms and lifted her off the ground. Kelsey's eyes widened in shock as he lifted her clear over his head and threw her. She sailed through the air and landed in the dirt on the other side of the path, her head narrowly missing the concrete.

  That narrow miss probably saved her life, but the force of her landing still knocked the wind out of her. Her teeth clicked shut around her tongue, and she was saved from the pain of the bite by the fog that settled over her as her brain rattled in her head.

  She rolled over, her vision swimming, and saw Max standing in between the two of them, growling fiercely. The killer watched him warily, and Kelsey looked over to see her phone a few yards from her. She rolled to her hands and knees and started crawling toward it.

  Then it started ringing. Kelsey dimly recognized the charge nurse’s number. She was late back from her lunch.

  The killer heard the sound, and his eyes snapped toward the phone. His eyes widened, and he rushed toward it. Max lunged for him, but the poor dog was still disoriented from earlier and overshot, skittering and tumbling to the side, rolling over as he passed.

  Kelsey reached for the phone. She got her fingers around it just as the killer’s boot came down. She felt the bones in her hand snap, felt the shattered glass of her phone dig into her palm. She opened her mouth to scream, but the killer’s massive hands wrapped around her head. He lifted her clean off the ground, wrenching her neck painfully. He tightened his grip, and for a terrifying moment, she thought he was going to try to crush her skull with his bare hands. Instead, he moved one hand to close like a vise around her neck and yanked her forward until his eyes, blazing with fury, filled her vision.

  She heard Max bark and heard him yelp as the killer kicked him, catching him squarely in his ribs. The killer’s hands tightened, and her vision faded into white. She tried to scratch his eyes again, but he pulled her closer until she could smell his sour breath through his mask.

  There was so much hate in his eyes. Why did he hate her so much?

  She felt a rush of blood in her ears. Her eyelids closed, and she couldn’t stop the motion if she wanted to. She must have passed out because the next thing she remembered was the feeling of her head slapping against the killer’s back as he carried her over his shoulder. She managed to open her eyes and saw Max struggling to his feet, whining plaintively.

  “Max,” she mouthed, but no sound came out. “Go away. Save yourself.”

  Max didn’t hear, but he wouldn’t have listened even if he did. He was a little hero. He steadied himself and ran after them, barking his little head off. The world tilted around her as the killer tossed her into the trunk of a car. He stooped down, and when he stood again, he had Max in his arms. He lifted her little hero over his head and threw Max hard. She heard Max yelp and heard the slap of his poor body hitting the concrete.

  “Don’t,” she whispered. “Please don’t hurt him.”

  The killer looked down at her. He reached forward and grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking her head back. She felt his other hand press tightly around her throat. This time, she went all the way out, darkness settling over her like a blanket.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Faith looked out the window and frowned at the slowly descending sun. She hated sitting still. She hated watching the day slip slowly by with nothing to show for it.

  Evans was in his cell. According to Trent, when police tried to interrogate him further, he only said, “You’ve already decided I’m guilty, so what could I possibly say to you?”

  Faith wanted him to be guilty. She wanted to believe that they had their guy. He fit the profile, after all. He had past records of violence, and he had threatened to kill a woman using the same M.O. as their killer.

  But…

  God, she hated that word. She wasn’t even sure why she was having second thoughts. Evans seemed as though he was being honest with them, but Faith wasn’t a profiler. He could have been lying, and if he was really, really good at it, she might not be able to tell. And the evidence pointed to him.

  So why was she still so unsure?

  She sighed and turned to Michael. “Anything?”

  He returned a sigh of his own and shut his laptop in frustration. “Nope. Nothing. He’s squeaky clean. Everyone there looks squeaky clean. At least according to the security cameras.”

  Faith sighed again. “Well, that kinda sucks.”

  “I mean,” Michael shrugged. “You’re still pretty sure this is our guy, right?”

  “I am, but pretty sure isn’t the same as beyond a reasonable doubt.”

  “Well, we’ll keep working on it until we’re at that point, but if we’re sure we have him, then we should charge him.”

  “I’m not ready to give up looking for evidence,” Faith said. “The worst thing we could do is stop looking and then end up learning he’s not our guy. He’s in custody now, so if he is the killer, he’s not doing anything to anyone else. I’d rather spend this time making damned sure he’s the right guy, because if it turns out he isn’t, then at any minute, we could get a call telling us someone else has been murdered.”

  “So what do we do then?” Michael asked. “What lead have we not followed up on yet?”

  She leaned back in her chair and pursed her lips. “I don’t know,” she admitted, “but something doesn’t feel right.”

  “Care to expand on that?”

  “I would love to expand on that,” she said, “except I have no goddamned idea what the issue is.”

  Turk growled irritably at them, and Faith sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just frustrated.”

  “Yeah,” Michael said. “Me too. Life would be a lot easier if we had gotten any evidence at the scene.”

  “Can we get a search warrant for his house?”

  “Fargo PD is working on it, but the judge won’t be in until the morning. They don’t have the e-warrant system yet, so we’re waiting at least until nine a.m.”

  “Well, at least we know we’ll have a direction to go in,” Faith replied. “We might be stuck waiting for that. If we can find incriminating evidence at Evans’ house, then we can wrap this up and send it to prosecution.”

  “And if not?”

  “Then we start praying we’re not wrong.”

  They fell silent and stared pensively at the afternoon sky. Faith didn’t like this. The puzzle was starting to make sense, but there were still too many missing pieces. “We might need to cast a wider net,” she said.

  “How do you mean?”

  “We’ve been focusing on the profile and finding people who only fit that profile. I think we should look at everyone who interacted with these owners and their dogs.”

  “You want to look into everyone who worked at the shelters?”

  She nodded. “Current employees too. Anyone who worked there within the past three months. We’ve been set on finding someone physically powerful, but we’re only going off of the fact that Rebecca Green’s door was heavy and the victims were hit really hard. If you know how to swing something right, then you don’t have to be exceptionally strong to do damage with a baseball bat. Breaking down Rebecca Green’s door doesn’t seem to be within the reach of a normal person, but maybe we’re wrong about that. Maybe there was a weakness in the hinge or the door that we didn’t see.”

  Michael nodded. “Well, I hate it, but I hate sitting still less.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Faith said. “You want Moorhead or Fargo?”

  “I’ll take Moorhead. I like Leah. She reminds me of my aunt.”

  Faith smiled wryly. “Well, don’t tell her that. She’s only five or six years older than you. And don’t waste too much time making friends, either.”

  “Yes, Mom,” he replied. “So you’ll take Fargo?”

  “Yeah, I’ll go talk to them.”

  “All right.” He lifted his coffee cup. “Here’s to hoping to hell we’re not just wasting time.”

  “Here’s hoping we already have our man, and it doesn’t matter if we’re wasting time,” Faith said.

  "Hear, hear."

  The agents separated. Faith took Turk and headed for the Fargo Rescue Shelter. The shelter was still open when she arrived, but a sour-faced man with a potbelly grouchily informed her they would be closing in fifteen minutes.

  She pulled her FBI ID out of her jacket and said, “I’ll stay as long as I need.”

  She normally tried to take the high road interacting with civilians, but she’d had a frustrating past few days, and she wasn’t in the mood to deal with someone else’s attitude right now. The man’s eyebrows lifted, but he didn’t challenge her further.

  The manager of the shelter was somewhat more polite than the receptionist. He actually smiled when he greeted her. However, when Faith asked for employment records, he balked. “I’m afraid I can only provide the start date and date of termination. It’s our policy not to reveal personal information to anyone, even law enforcement. If you can get an order from the judge for this information, I’ll be happy to help.”

  Faith stared at him incredulously. “You have to be kidding me.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’m so sorry, but I do have to insist. If you’d like…”

  “What I’d like is…” Faith took a breath and calmed herself. “Sir, I have visited three different crime scenes and seen women beaten to death horribly. Think the goriest horror movies you’ve seen. I would very much like to not see anything like that again. Now, you absolutely have the right to deny me this information without a court order, but I would encourage you to consider how you’d feel if your sister or mother had their skulls shattered by a baseball bat and maybe think about bending the rules just this once.”

  The manager flinched and paled. Faith wasn't particularly proud of herself for forcing the issue like this, but she really did need that information. Her tactic seemed to work. The manager swallowed and said, "All right. I'll let you look through my computer. That way, it doesn't look like I gave you anything, just that I was reviewing records."

  “Thank you,” Faith said.

  “Um… how long do you think you’ll be?”

  “As long as I need.”

  The manager thought better of asking any more questions and opened the appropriate files before stepping outside. Faith sighed and rubbed her temples, than started through the records.

  Most of them, of course, were innocuous. A few employees had criminal records, but none of the crimes were worse than drunk and disorderly. It still struck Faith as odd that the shelters had no problem hiring people with records, but she imagined it was hard to find people willing to work for low pay with abandoned dogs and problem animals and things like that. They had to take whoever they could get.

  Then she found something. A man named Tommy Cowell had hired at the shelter a little over a year ago. Tommy was young, only twenty-two years old. He was also tall and lean. According to his driver's license, he was six-foot-five and weighed two hundred twenty-two pounds. At that size, he would be significantly stronger than an average man, but he would appear to be thin and not particularly imposing, especially if the weight was mostly muscle and he had low body fat content.

  His appearance alone wouldn't have captured Faith's attention, but when she looked into his background, she found more evidence that he fit their profile. His last name, Cowell, was not his birth name. It had been assigned to him by the state. Apparently, he was found as an infant outside of a fire station and sent to the Fargo-Moorhead home for boys. From there he had floated in and out of foster homes, where he was described as well-behaved but introverted. One foster family stated that he had difficulty making friends and seemed to be overall a very sad and lonely boy.

 

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