Then that’s it. I call the police, she decides.
There’s no newspaper, only a small balsam--scented jar candle. She recognizes the label from the gift department at Vernon’s Apothecary on Market Street. She was just talking about these candles in the teachers’ lounge last week.
Okay. Okay, this is good.
And even if it didn’t turn out to be just a harmless little gift . . .
How could she have considered calling the police?
Even if she asked them not to make the case public or involve her husband, this is a tiny village. Everyone gossips. Everyone. It would get back to Jake, and she’d have to tell him.
Besides, what happened last week wasn’t a crime. It’s not as though the cops will put the anonymous package sender on their most wanted list and alert the FBI.
Your life isn’t hanging in the balance here. Your marriage, maybe, and definitely your personal integrity and peace of mind—-but not your life. Not unless . . .
Again, she thinks of Vanessa.
Again, she wonders . . . and keeps right on wondering as she endures the next ninety minutes going through the motions with her students in the tutoring room.
When at last the school day drags to a close, she’s come to a decision.
Alone in her car, she takes her cell phone from her pocket and begins dialing.
More than twenty--four hours after discovering the body, Sully continues browsing through photos of young women who have recently gone missing in the tri--state area. There are always so many—-far too many. But she’s no closer to identifying the victim than she is to finding her killer.
“Sully.”
Something in Stockton’s tone causes her to glance up sharply from her computer screen. Seated at his adjacent desk and focused on his own computer, he’s shaking his head. “Come and look at this.”
She jumps up and hurries over. “Did you find her?”
“No, but I found this in the unsolved case files.”
Leaning over his shoulder to see the screen, Sully finds herself looking at a female corpse.
Nude . . .
Covered in bloody slashes . . .
Bald.
She curses softly. “Who is she?”
Stockton wordlessly clicks over to a new screen, revealing another photograph. This one shows a smiling young woman with long red hair.
“That’s the victim?”
“Right. It’s a selfie she posted on Instagram a few hours before she went missing last March in Erie, Pennsylvania.”
“So she still had her hair when she disappeared.”
“But not when her body turned up a few days later, dumped by the side of a road.”
“Son of a bitch shaves their heads.”
“Looks that way.”
Forensics already confirmed that the strands of hair that turned up near their victim had been cut or shaved off, as opposed to ripped out in a struggle.
“Are there others?” she asks, pulling up a chair.
“Aren’t there always?” Stockton asks grimly, and clicks over to another case file.
Mick has been looking for the right opportunity to anonymously present Brianna’s first Secret Santa gift from the moment he arrived at school this morning. Having memorized her schedule back in September, he did his best to stay one step ahead of her as she went from class to class. That plan resulted in three tardy slips on his own schedule, and the small gift bag containing the bead charm was still in his backpack when the final bell rang.
That leaves him with two options: he can either deliver the gift to her house, or slip it into her bag or coat when she leaves them in the employee closet at the restaurant tonight.