The doctor frowned, concern filling her world-weary face. Her eyes turned serious. “Are you any closer to finding him?”
Ellie’s shoulders slumped. “No. We’re not.”
Clayton moved toward the stainless steel gurney where the remains of who they believed to be Sally Batten had been laid out. His face was hard and closed.
Samantha gazed after him. “I won’t ask how the profiling’s going, then.”
He didn’t so much as glance in the doctor’s direction. Ellie suppressed a sigh, knowing how personally he took their lack of progress.
She understood how he felt. She was part of the taskforce. She’d lost count of how many nights she’d lain awake tossing and turning with frustration over their inability to come up with something. Anything. It gnawed at her insides.
She’d even given up straightening her hair. The extra twenty minutes it took every morning seemed an abominable waste of time when there was a killer on the loose.
The strain of the fifteen-hour days she’d been putting in was starting to tell. Apart from her wild and unkempt hair, her nails hadn’t seen a file for weeks and were now chipped and dry. She couldn’t remember when she’d last slept the night through. Insomnia had become her friend.
Not that the Fed seemed to be suffering. At least, he didn’t appear to be on the outside. Despite their early morning trek through the bush, his suit pants looked as crisp as ever.
His eyes, although ringed with fatigue, still burned with grim determination, as if he’d never let the killer get the better of him. She sighed, hoping that was true.
“So, we’ve got a young adult female. Judging from the width of her pelvis, I’d say somewhere between the age of sixteen and twenty-five.”
Samantha turned the torso over and inspected it closely. “No obvious signs of violence. No punctures or bullet wounds.” She ran her hand over some small lacerations. “Looks like she’s been gnawed on by an animal—a dog or a fox, most likely, judging by the teeth and claw marks. It looks like it had only just started in on her. I wonder what disturbed it?”
Ellie grimaced and tamped down her impatience. She couldn’t care less about the dog or the fox—or whatever had decided to sample the contents of the bag. It had nothing to do with the investigation and she didn’t give a damn. Precious seconds were ticking by.
Clayton cleared his throat and pinned the pathologist with his gaze. “How did she die, Dr Wolfe?”
Moving further down the table, Samantha bent low over Sally’s neck and examined it closely. “Probably strangulation, like the last one. It’s a bit difficult to tell because any bruising has been camouflaged by the decomposition, but an x-ray will tell us if there are any broken bones.”
She looked up at them over her protective mask and clear, plastic glasses. “Bones in the neck don’t always break, but there’s a fair chance in most strangulation cases. And of course, there’s also the blood loss. He’s severed two arteries cutting off her legs. That’s enough, in itself to cause her death.” Samantha looked down at the remains. “Any idea who she is?”
Ellie looked at Clayton and sighed. She cleared her throat and looked back at the doctor. “We think it’s Sally Batten. DNA will tell us for sure. We have samples that can be used for comparison back at the station.”
Clayton pushed forward. “What about her legs? Can you tell us anything about how they were removed?”
Dread settled in Ellie’s belly at what Clayton hadn’t said. She couldn’t prevent the thought forming.
Was Sally alive when they’d been removed, like the others?
The pathologist moved lower. Bending over the girl’s torso, she examined the place where her right leg used to be. After a few moments, she straightened and turned to them, her face grim.
“It’s like the others. Saw marks across the bone and blood in the tissue. I’ll have to check under the microscope, but I’m guessing it’s a hacksaw. A microscopic comparison will tell us if it’s the same one used on the others.”
Clayton stared at the girl’s remains, his eyes blue steel. “Let’s see if the bastard left behind a calling card. I want every surface, every nook, every cranny, every fingernail examined and everything and I mean
everything
bagged and sent to the lab.”
With a curt nod, he strode across the room toward the exit. “And make sure the trash bags aren’t forgotten this time,” he threw over his shoulder. Yanking off his gown and gloves, he tossed them into the waste disposal before disappearing through the doorway.
Samantha eyed Ellie for a moment with baleful eyes. “He might be cute, but he could do with some work on his manners.”
“You bring out the worst in him, Samantha. Besides, he’s under a lot of pressure. We all are.”
Stepping away from the gurney and its sad offering, Ellie pulled off her protective gear and tossed them into the bin.
“Well, at least he’s easy on the eye. I hope you find some time to have a bit of fun with him. You know what they say about all work and no play…”
Ellie ducked her head in an effort to hide her blush. “Call me when you get the lab results.”
Samantha shot her a knowing look. Ellie turned and bolted for the door.
* * *
Ellie couldn’t get the pathologist’s words out of her mind as she waited for Clayton outside the station. He’d gone inside to collect the address of Sally Batten’s parents and thoughts of him kept playing through her head.
His blue eyes, sparkling with good humor, shadowed with anger, burning with determination. Smiling, frowning, laughing, arguing, thinking, teasing, plotting, joking. He was all she could think about.
Which wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all.
She barely knew him. So what if her gut told her she could trust him? She’d proved in the past she couldn’t rely on that.
Take Robert. Her heart had come alive the moment she’d laid eyes on him at the Academy. By the end of their first night of training, she’d known he was the man she would marry. Twelve months later, he’d abandoned her and their unborn child at the altar.
So much for gut instincts.
But there was something about the Fed that drew her in a different way. Maybe it was the hint of vulnerability she saw in his eyes in unguarded moments. Or the shadow of sadness that sometimes passed over his face, like that morning when he’d been on the phone.
And then there was his kindness and compassion when he’d spoken to the families of some of the victims. Surely, she couldn’t be wrong about that?
With a groan of frustration, she pushed the thoughts aside. There was a maniac terrorizing the young women of western Sydney. She didn’t have time for anything else, no matter how tempting.
The station door swung open. The Fed strode toward her and her pulse took a crazy leap. She watched him surreptitiously from underneath her lashes. So much for the pep talk. Her libido thought she had all the time in the world.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
He stared at the television screen and felt the excitement curl deep inside his gut. It blossomed into heat and spread throughout his body. His fingertips tingled and he was momentarily lightheaded from the surge of emotion.
The pictures flashing across the screen showed a swarm of police surrounding the wooded bushland where he’d dumped her. Sally Batten. That’s what they said. He was surprised it had taken them so long to find her.
It hadn’t taken them anywhere near as long to find Angelina. Images of the girl flooded his thoughts. She’d been nothing like Sally, but Angelina was special because she was the one who’d started it. It was Angelina who had given him the idea. It was almost as if she’d whispered it to him through the window of his car. From the moment he’d seen her, he’d known what he had to do.
He’d spied her at the bus stop outside the university and immediately fell in love with her tall, slender body and long, golden-brown hair. He loved all of them, but the ones that looked like Rapunzel held a special place in his heart and even though her hair was darker than what he normally preferred, she’d been perfect in every other way.
He’d always been in love with Rapunzel. Even when his mother had destroyed every doll she could find, he’d managed to save Rapunzel. He could still remember with a clarity that surprised him, how he’d pressed his lips against her long blond hair and had taken comfort in the painted blue eyes that had peered up at him with sympathy and understanding. Rapunzel knew what it was like to be imprisoned. She knew exactly how it felt to be controlled by a woman who wanted him dead. They had so much in common that way.
And she brought him comfort, like the soft, silky underpants and the sweet-smelling dresses he’d stolen off the neighbors’ clotheslines. Nothing made him feel more whole than when he slid the apparel over his skinny, boy’s body and felt them envelop him in their warmth and acceptance.
He only wished he’d been more careful. If he had, his mother would never have found out, would never have screamed vitriol at him with disgust and hatred burning in her eyes…would never have hunted down every doll and piece of stolen clothing in the house and destroyed them.
Not that it had made a difference. It didn’t make him stop. Yes, he’d cried tears of anger and wished her dead. But he didn’t stop. He couldn’t. All it did was to teach him how crucial it was to be more careful. A lot more careful. It was a lesson he hadn’t forgotten.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ellie pulled the unmarked car over to the curb and parked outside the house where Sally Batten had lived with her parents. The garden was dry and overgrown. The lawn was yellowed. Her stomach churned with dread. The sad display was surrounded by a dilapidated picket fence that may have once been white. It looked as tired and neglected as the last time she’d been there with Luke. It felt like a lifetime ago.
“This sure as hell doesn’t get any easier,” she murmured.
Clayton looked just as tense as she felt. “You’re right about that.”
They’d barely spoken on their way to the Battens’ Mt Druitt address. Thoughts of the body they’d left in the morgue not long ago and the parents they were about to visit had filled her mind. She still hadn’t found the right words. Two months ago, their daughter had been studying to be a dietician at the local University. She had a boyfriend and a part time job. She was just another young woman getting on with her life. Now she was dead.
Taking a deep breath, she filled her lungs to capacity, holding it for as long as she could—a technique she’d used countless times to help her calm down. Carbon dioxide escaped her lips in infinitesimal amounts until there was nothing left.
All she felt was lightheaded.
She grimaced. So much for relaxation techniques…
Clayton studied her with a quizzical expression, one eyebrow cocked. “You ready?”
Eyeing him solemnly, she snatched another breath of air. “I guess so.”
* * *
George Batten
opened the door and introduced himself before they had a chance to knock.
“I seen you sittin’ out there for the last little while. You had that look about you. Figured you’d be comin’ in.”
His grizzled face was covered in white whiskers that matched the color of his hair. Bleary, red-rimmed eyes and dirty, loose overalls contributed to his generally unkempt appearance. Ellie put him somewhere in his mid-fifties.
She held out her hand. “Mr Batten, I’m Detective Cooper. We met a few weeks ago.” She indicated Clayton with a bob of her head. “And this is Federal Agent Munro. I’m afraid we’re here about your daughter.”
George Batten seemed to deflate before their eyes. The bulky form that had filled the doorway only moments before, now somehow seemed smaller as fear and uncertainty darkened his bloodshot eyes.
His voice was rough with emotion as he ushered them inside. “I shoulda’ known that was what you were here for. Tell me, Detectives.” His eyes pleaded with Ellie’s. “Is she still alive?”
Dread pooled in the pit of her stomach. She glanced at Clayton and saw from the tension around his mouth that he was equally affected. She took a sharp breath, needing to get it over with.
“I’m sorry, Mr Batten. Some hikers found a body in bushland a few hours ago. We’ll need to confirm her identification by DNA, but we think it’s Sally.”
A low moan escaped him. He shook his head back and forth. “No, no, no! I can’t tell Robyn. I can’t! I can’t tell her, Detectives. Sally’s her baby. It’s gonna kill her.”
“We need to speak with both of you, Mr Batten,” Clayton interjected quietly. “It’s important. If we’re going to have any chance of finding out who did this to her, it’s imperative we get as much information from you as possible.”
The calm timbre of his voice seemed to register and the man made a visible effort to pull himself together. Though George’s lips still trembled with emotion, he drew in a deep breath and let it out on a heavy sigh.
“Of course, Detective. I understand. If you’ll just excuse me a minute, I’d… I’d like to talk to me wife.”
Ellie leaned back against the cold red brick wall of the house and sighed. No matter how many times she did it, it never got any easier. She cringed when she heard the loud keening cry of a female from somewhere inside the building. The tightness in her chest was suffocating and she fought to keep her breathing even.