“Roy Finton, this is the FBI!” Derrick shouted as she entered the space.
The sound of a clock ticking somewhere echoed as the wind wailed, gaining in intensity.
No one appeared to be inside.
Using his flashlight to illuminate the interior, Derrick cast a beam across the cement floor. A shiver rippled through Ellie as cold air wafted around her. The mausoleum-like house was like a refrigerator, carrying the scent of death and a deep kind of evil she’d never felt before.
Satisfied no one was inside, Derrick flipped on a light in the hall as they crossed through the entryway to the living area. More cement floors, and a black leather chair and stone countertop sat in an empty, plain kitchen.
Ellie forced herself to go to the refrigerator, half expecting to find jars of blood inside, but it was almost bare. A few condiments, sandwich meat and a leftover slice of pizza.
The desk in the corner held stacks of papers and bills. No typewriter to make the notes. No daffodils anywhere.
They moved down the hall to a bedroom. A king-sized oak bed was draped in a black comforter and the closet revealed pairs of jeans and work shirts, boots covered in mud, and an army-green duffel bag.
Ellie tugged on gloves and inspected the inside of the bag. There was some dried blood inside, but no knives or evidence he’d used the bag to carry wildflowers or bramble. In the outside pocket she found a suture kit that he could have used to sew the victims’ mouths shut.
Derrick snapped close-ups of the mud on the boots. “We’ll send these to the lab and have them tested to see if the soil matches our crime scenes.”
Ellie checked the dresser drawers for photographs of the victims but found none. But her stomach knotted as she discovered bags of women’s underwear, all lacy and risqué, along with makeup and tubes of lipstick in varied shades, from hot pink to coral to red.
Derrick’s brow climbed his forehead as he lifted a sheer black thong. “Doesn’t match the underwear on the vics.”
“I know, but he could dress them in this for play, then change when he disposed of the bodies.”
Ellie gestured to the caddy of lipsticks.
“We need to compare the red lipstick here to the blood-red colour the killer uses.” A shiver rippled through her as she spotted combs, brushes, and hair spray. “These brushes should have DNA.” If the hair collected matched the victims, they’d have Finton.
Where the hell was the man? Was he out on the trail with his next victim, posing her body right now?
Derrick gestured toward a small bookshelf, making a low sound of disgust as he lifted one of the titles. A book on necrophilia. “There are others along similar lines: Dressing the Dead, Hairstyles for the Viewing, Makeup to Make Her Pretty, Preserving the Dead,” Derrick muttered. “Ancient Burial Rituals.”
Spotting a laptop, Ellie crossed to it, booted it up, and began to scroll through his browsing history. “Good god,” she whispered as she found chat rooms where he’d communicated with others whose proclivities included necrophilia.
Cord was right.
“He’s a sick perv,” Ellie said, her skin crawling as she skimmed several posts. “Just the kind of man who’d leave women posed the way we found the Weekday victims.”
“Let’s search that shed outside,” Derrick said.
Dread clawed at Ellie, but she led the way.
Outside, thunder rumbled, the wind bowing trees, leaves flying across the yard. Crossing to the shed, they found it chained with a padlock. Ellie retrieved an ax from the trunk of her Jeep, using it to hack the padlock open.
Shining her flashlight into the dark space, her stomach rose to her throat. A steel table sat in the middle of the wide-open room, a silver-gray coffin against the back wall.
On the opposite wall hung pictures of dead, naked women with Finton touching and kissing their pale, lifeless bodies.
Sickened, she had to look away for a second. But the coffin drew her. If Finton was the killer, then Shondra might be in there.
Shaking with the memory of being locked in the casket, she held her breath as she reached to open it.
One Hundred Five
“Thank you, God.” Ellie sagged as they saw that the casket was empty. Knowing she must be reliving the trauma of being locked inside one herself, Derrick caught her arm to steady her.
So McClain hadn’t lied about Roy Finton being a sick son of a bitch.
Ellie mopped sweat from her forehead, her breathing erratic, and closed her eyes.
“Are you okay?” Derrick asked.
She shook her head, surprising him, then spoke in a brittle tone. “Even if Shondra is still alive and we find her, there’s no telling what he did with her all this time.”
“She’s tough, Ellie, just like you are,” Derrick murmured. “And you’ll be there for her.”
“Like I was when he took her?”
He squeezed her shoulder. “You had no idea he would target her.”
“Like you had no idea a predator would take Kim,” Ellie said softly.
Their gazes locked, bonded for a moment by their shared memories, their guilt.
“We have to find Finton.” Pulling away from her, Derrick moved to the wall and studied the photographs. All women, twenties to thirties. Pretty, busty and blonde.
But none were of the Weekday Killer victims.
Finton seemed to have a type, unlike the killer. Then again, these could have been women he’d mistreated but hadn’t murdered. Perhaps he even chose the opposite type, and that was part of his pathology—he killed women who didn’t fit the image of the ones that aroused him.
Ellie released a long sigh. “I wonder if the families know what he’s up to.”
“Two complaints were filed, but somehow the charges were dropped,” Derrick said. “But he’s not getting off this time.”
“Or going back to his business,” Ellie said, her voice determined as she grabbed her phone.
She called a crime scene team, alerting Bryce and her captain that Finton still had to be found and brought in.
“Get his picture and issue an all-points bulletin on his car,” she told the sheriff. “I’m sure Angelica Gomez will be glad to run with the story.”
Derrick’s mind raced with questions as she hung up.
“Finton fits the profile,” Ellie said.
“Then why didn’t he keep the pictures of the victims? And why contact you personally?” Derrick asked. Something still wasn’t adding up.
“Because he hated Cord and wanted to frame him. Maybe he saw me in the news with Cord when we rescued Hiram’s victims. At one point Angelica even called Cord a hero,” Ellie said. “That could have triggered his rage.”
Derrick conceded with a shrug, but he still wasn’t convinced. “McClain directed us to Finton. Have you considered that he may be framing Finton to save his own ass?”
“No.” Ellie’s face blanched. “Cord may be troubled, but he’s not a killer.”
“Are you sure about that?”
She turned away, her mouth tightening into an angry scowl. “Like you said, let’s just follow the evidence.”
“What if the evidence proves it’s McClain? Or what if he and Finton have stayed in touch and they’re committing the crimes together? Each one could be pointing evidence at the other to confuse the police.”