But what else was she supposed to do? What Brianne had done tonight with a man she’d barely met served as proof that Evelyn needed to go home and support her sister and parents. Using Amarok’s steady, durable kind of love and what it had done for her as an example, she felt she could help them heal, had to at least try.
She heard Amarok in the living room, speaking to his dog in a low voice, and felt her heart ache. If only they’d been able to catch Jasper. It would’ve changed everything for almost everyone involved. But Jasper had eluded them, as well as three police departments—one in Boston, one in San Diego and one in Phoenix. Now two more women had been murdered, Brianne was in a difficult situation and Evelyn had to give up the job she loved—and a relationship that was more fulfilling to her than anything else.
A cupboard closed. She figured he was getting a bite to eat. She hoped he’d had dinner earlier; he was working too hard and sleeping too little.
After waiting another fifteen or twenty minutes, Evelyn felt her stomach twist into knots and her eyes burn with unshed tears. Where was he? Surely he wasn’t planning on sleeping separately!
She was about to get up to see when she heard his tread in the hall. At last, she thought. But even after he came in, stripped down to his boxers and climbed into bed, he didn’t reach for her as he normally would have.
“What did Samantha have to say?” she asked before he could fall asleep.
Amarok didn’t seem surprised that she was wide awake, didn’t even comment on it. “She claims to have seen some shadowy figure hanging out in the alley behind her store, was afraid it was Jasper, stalking her.”
Evelyn frowned into the darkness. “Do you think it was Jasper?”
“Honestly? I don’t think it was anyone.”
“Samantha was just looking for your attention.”
“I wouldn’t put it past her.”
Neither would Evelyn. Of all the people in Hilltop—granted, that wasn’t very many, but still—how was it Samantha who’d spotted the man Amarok was searching for? Evelyn hated how she constantly threw herself across his path, but she didn’t say that. “How’d the autopsies go?”
“They were put off until Wednesday, and then it took until this morning to be able to get the notes.”
“Why so long?”
“Someone was sick in the office, but that doesn’t make my job any easier.”
Evelyn pulled the blankets higher. “What about the DNA evidence—the blood you found in the snow and on that tree? Have you heard anything from the lab in Philadelphia?”
“Nothing, but they said it would take a week or so.”
“Has Anchorage PD been able to identify the body of the woman found with Sierra Yerbowitz?”
“Yeah. Name’s Katherine Sharpe. She was a thirty-two-year-old prostitute.”
“So a completely different profile from Sierra Yerbowitz.”
“Completely.”
“Why do you think the perpetrator chose her?”
“Because she was accessible, her disappearance was unlikely to be noted and…”
“And?” she prompted.
“She had your basic coloring.”
“Of course.” Evelyn had been waiting for that. They’d already established that Jasper’s “perfect” kill was any woman who looked like her. This provided even more reason to think it might be him. “Have you talked to Leland about her? Did he or Sierra even know her?”
“They didn’t.”
“Then how did both women wind up dead and dumped in the same area?”
“They had the same murderer.”
She hugged her pillow so she wouldn’t succumb to the desire she felt to touch Amarok. “Were they killed in the same manner?”
“No. Sierra was strangled.”
“And the other girl?”
“Don’t even ask.”
Evelyn couldn’t help flinching. “She was tortured.”
He said nothing, which told her she was right. She closed her eyes in an attempt to stop the images that bombarded her brain—images of the shack where she’d been tortured herself—but it was no use. “Again, that indicates Jasper.”
“I think so, too,” he said. “I think he’s here, and I’m going to catch him.”
He sounded more determined than ever, and she was trying to maintain the same confidence. But it was difficult to believe anyone could catch Jasper when he’d gotten away with so much for so long. “I appreciate how hard you’re trying,” she murmured.
He stared up at the ceiling. “I’m going to do it,” he said again.
Rather than risk discouraging him by conveying her doubts, she went back to the subject of what he’d found so far. “What do you make of one victim being tortured and the other strangled?”
“He enjoyed killing Katherine. Drew it out as long as possible. But Sierra’s death was quick and purposeful. I’d say he killed Sierra because he felt he had to.”
“She got in the way, and he had to act quickly because he knew her brother and his friends were coming back.”
“I can’t say he knew who she was with. I see no evidence that he was watching the cabin. But it would’ve been an easy bet that she wasn’t out there alone, so he figured someone would be coming back.”
“The luggage would’ve indicated that.”
“Among other things. There was no vehicle at the cabin when she was kidnapped and/or murdered, three beds had been slept in, the amount of garbage, et cetera.”
“So she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“That’s what the evidence seems to suggest. The wear and tear on the posts of one of the downstairs beds says someone was restrained there. Only Katherine has any ligature marks. Sierra’s hyoid bone was broken, which indicates she was strangled.”
“So the blood on the mattress we found probably belongs to Katherine.”
“The lab that Anchorage PD is using is testing it, so it’ll be a while, but I have no doubt that’s what they’ll find.”
“She was tortured and killed at the cabin.”
“Yes.”
The memory of the vomit in the shed made Evelyn sit up. “And, for some reason, he didn’t dispose of the body right away. Maybe he had to be somewhere, or planned to prepare a place for it. So he cleaned up, just in case, and put the corpse in the shed. Then he changed the lock on the shed so no one could get in there before he could get back.”
Amarok laced his fingers behind his head as he continued to gaze at the ceiling. “That’s what it looks like to me—that he didn’t expect the cabin to be rented so late in the year or, even if it was, that the renters would need more firewood than he’d left out.”
“But with that storm coming, Sierra did need more wood, so she used the ax from the mud room to break in—”
“That’s when she found Katherine’s corpse.”
“And threw up.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, so if Katherine’s from Anchorage, doesn’t that suggest her killer is, too? Why would he bring her to a cabin way out here? How would he even know about the Barrymore rental?”
“Our killer is familiar with Hilltop,” he said. “That’s obvious from the scalp Easy found hanging from his rear axle. One of the victims, maybe both, were temporarily stashed along the road leading to Hanover House.”
“You think the perpetrator lives in Anchorage but works here?”
“Or vice versa.”
“But I haven’t seen anyone who looks like Jasper. Wouldn’t we have run into him somewhere?”
“Maybe he doesn’t work anywhere. Maybe he’s just hiding out.”
Evelyn lay back down. She wanted to rest her head on Amarok’s shoulder, as she’d done countless times before when she needed comfort, but she wasn’t sure he’d want to hold her. He was too consumed with building up his defenses, trying to protect himself against what he was going to feel when she left. “So it was sheer bad luck that the killer returned for Katherine’s body while Leland and his friends were out hunting and Sierra was there alone.”
He adjusted the blankets. “That scenario seems to fit the facts as we know them so far.”
“But if he hid Katherine’s body and killed Sierra once he realized she’d discovered his dirty secret, he didn’t want his activity in the area to be exposed.”
Amarok finally turned to look at her. “Which means what?”
“If it’s Jasper, killing those women wasn’t part of his plan. He was just trying to relieve the tension that builds up between kills and created a bit of a mess.”
“A mess…”
“A euphemism, but that’s how he would look at it.”