At ten minutes to twelve on Monday morning, Sean walked into the Dare County Sheriff’s Department, located in Manteo, wearing a gray sports jacket over a black T-shirt and a pair of jeans. His weapon, holstered on his hip, hidden by the jacket. He hadn’t planned on working for another few weeks, so his suits, along with most of his personal possessions, were in a storage unit he’d rented while waiting for his apartment to be ready. He’d have to stop by and grab a few of them if he was going to be officially working the case.

He held his identification up to the bulletproof glass for the deputy at the front desk and was told Sheriff Griffin was already in his office waiting for him. The deputy slid a visitor’s tag through a slot in the window and pressed a hidden button under the desk. A buzzing noise sounded and he indicated for Sean to proceed through a wood and glass door a few feet to his left, which had been unlocked electronically. Halfway down the hallway on the left-hand side was the department’s detective bureau, and at this time of the day the room was brimming with activity. Some of the dozen or so detectives were at their desks, either going through reports or talking on the phone. Three others were sitting at a conference table in the middle of the room, leisurely eating a lunch of deli sandwiches, while in deep discussion over some case. It looked like almost every other detective bullpen Sean had ever walked into. He strode past the unit and entered the next door on his right. The lettering on the tinted glass read Sheriff Matthew C. Griffin. The secretary’s desk was empty so he approached the door to Griffin’s office and knocked. A deep “come in” was the immediate response.

Sean opened the door and found a ragged looking Griffin, wearing his navy blue uniform and gold shield, sitting behind a large, oak desk burdened with files, paperwork, and a desktop computer. The office was large and comfortable. In addition to the desk and two upholstered guest chairs, there was a conference table surrounded by eight straight-backed chairs. Beyond the table were three six-foot-tall bookcases overflowing with law enforcement manuals, pictures of the sheriff with various dignitaries, deputies, and family members. Scattered amid all that were a variety of trophies and plaques won by, or presented to, Griffin over the years. A large flat screen TV on the same wall as the door completed the décor.

“Welcome to my nightmare,” the sheriff said wryly.

Sean stepped into the room but didn’t sit. “Didn’t get much sleep, did you?”

Stifling a yawn, Griffin didn’t verbally answer, but nodded his head.

“Neither did I.”

The older man stood and stretched his back. “I spoke to your boss about an hour ago and he said if you didn’t mind taking the case, he was okay with it. Told me they’re actually short staffed at the moment, so he’s glad you could help out. Also said to call him if you need more help, but for now, you’re it. I’m forming a task force and contacted the State PD. They’ll be sending two detectives over later for a two o’clock meeting. Lynch will be the lead on this when he gets back tomorrow morning.”

Sean nodded. His SAC had called him right after hanging up with the sheriff and relayed the same information about him helping out on the case. It was also common for the State Bureau of Investigations to get involved in cases like this; they had more resources than the local guys. “Okay, where do you want to go from here? Reports or autopsy?”

Grabbing a navy blue windbreaker from a hook on the wall behind him, Griffin pulled it on. “The morgue. Pete’s holding the post ’til we get there. He’s got a busy day and wasn’t too happy about waiting.”

“Lead the way.”

Twenty minutes later, they were signing into the county morgue located about five miles from Griffin’s office. Matt took a container of medicated vapor rub from his pocket, applied a small amount to his upper lip and offered some to Sean. Most experienced members of law enforcement used the trick to lessen the stench of death and make it a little more tolerable. Unfortunately, there were many times, depending on the decomposition of the body, when even that didn’t work. Sean had never lost his stomach at a postmortem, but had come close a few times. Over the years he had seen many agents and police officers run for a trash can; even the ones who thought they were too tough to toss their cookies. It was a humbling experience for most.

A middle-aged, female receptionist told them Dr. Hansen was in autopsy suite Number Three, and when they entered the cool, sterile examination room, they found he was just beginning the examination of their victim. He was speaking into a dictating microphone as he visually inspected the body. Switching off the recorder for a moment, he turned to the newcomers with narrowed eyes. “You’re late. All the x-rays, photos, and external evidence collection are complete.” He nodded toward his female assistant. “Tess Bingham, this is Sean Malone, and you already know the sheriff.” She smiled at both of them before putting on a mask with a clear, plastic shield that would protect her face from any splatter of bodily fluids. The medical examiner turned back to the men. “We’re just about ready to open her. Any questions?”

The two lawmen stood about five feet away from the corpse since neither had donned any covering that would protect their clothing. Sean eyed the red slashes on the victim’s torso. “Any idea what he’s using to carve the lettering?”

“I’m pretty sure he’s simply using a sharp utility knife such as a Leatherman or Swiss Army. It’s not precise enough to be a scalpel and not crude enough for anything jagged like a steak knife.”

Hansen raised his eyebrows as if to ask if there were any other questions. When Sean shook his head slightly, the coroner turned the recorder back on, and put on his own protective mask. Picking up a scalpel from a nearby tray, he proceeded to make a “Y” incision from the victim’s collarbones to her sternum and straight down her abdomen, exposing the inner workings of the human body.

Neither Sean nor Matt visibly reacted to the invasive procedure, since they had both watched their fair share of autopsies, but it didn’t mean they weren’t affected by it. No one should have to suffer the indignity which came with being naked on a cold slab as their insides were exposed and examined to determine their cause of death. The worst part came when Tess started up the bone saw and began to cut through the ribs so they could be temporarily removed from the upper torso. This was done so they could remove the lungs and heart to be weighed and given a thorough examination. Small cross sections of the organs would also be taken for further analysis if needed. The rest would be placed back inside the chest cavity for the victim’s burial. The same saw would then be used on the victim’s skull to expose the brain and the process repeated for that organ. Sean thought the grinding noise was a hundred times worse than a dentist’s drill and always found it very unsettling.

At the end of the extensive autopsy, the results were what they had expected and then some. Death by ligature strangulation. The killer had slowly drained the victim’s life from her body . . . several times. Hansen reported, “It appears, this time, the killer choked her until she was no longer breathing, then revived her in order to do it again and again. He’s evolving—fine tuning his craft as he goes, which I would expect from a serial.”

Griffin grimaced and murmured, “Bastard”.

Sean asked, “Can you tell how many times?”

“My guess is three or four. Some of the ligature marks overlap so it’s difficult to tell, but no more than five times. As with the other two vics, there’s no trace evidence from what he used, but my guess is a scarf or something similar. There are marks which look like they came from creases in the fabric.” He pointed to the victim’s limbs. “There are also ligature marks on her wrists and ankles, so she was tied up, too. The empty stomach and acid irritation in the esophagus indicates she vomited at some point, but I don’t know if that was before or during the attack. The drug toxicology reports will take several days, but her blood alcohol level was point-three-oh percent.”

“Jeez. That’s almost four times the legal driving limit.” Sean stared at the body on the table. “She was drunk as a skunk.”

Griffin shook his head. “Hopefully, she was passed out for most of the attack.”

“Oh, by the way,” the pathologist added. “We managed to get a skin cell sample from under two of her fingernails. Looks like she might have scratched the guy.”

The sheriff’s eyes widened. This had been an unexpected lead. “Really?”

“Yup. Sent it upstairs to the lab already.”

After thanking Hansen for waiting for them, Matt and Sean took the elevator two floors up from the morgue to where all the physical evidence found at the scene and on the body was being scrutinized by trained technicians. The head of the county’s criminal investigation lab, Hank Cunningham, was standing just inside the department’s door reading through a file when they walked in. His eyes lit up upon seeing the sheriff. “Oh, good, you’re here. I was just about to call you.”

After introducing the man to Sean, Matt asked, “You got something for us?”

“Yup. Managed the get a print off the penny this time. Ran it through AFIS and got a hit.”

Griffin couldn’t hide his excited surprise. “You’re kidding? Please don’t tell me it’s to an unsolved crime with no name attached.”

“No, we actually got lucky for once.” He handed over a printed report.

Sean read from the page over the sheriff’s shoulder. “Stuart Crowell. Twenty-five years old. Petty larceny and burglary. Spent two years in the Virginia state prison system. No parole violations and hasn’t missed a meeting with his probation officer since his release six months ago.”

“Doesn’t exactly sound like a serial killer, does he?” the sheriff asked no one in particular.

“Still need to check him out, though. Unfortunately his print could have ended up on that penny anywhere.” Sean sighed heavily. He had a feeling the lead wouldn’t pan out—investigations in extreme crimes like this were never that simple—but they still had to follow up on it. He looked at Cunningham. “Anything else? Was her clothing found?”

“Nope.”

Matt glanced up from the report. “We didn’t find the other women’s clothes, either. He’s dumping them somewhere else or keeping them as trophies. And we haven’t found the kill sites, yet. None of them were killed where they were found.” Addressing Hank again, he asked, “Did you get a chance to run our vic’s prints?”

The technician shook his head. “Nothing in AFIS or any other government data base. She’s never been fingerprinted for any reason.”

“So she’s still a Jane Doe for now. Shit.”

“We’re still processing trace evidence from the body and the scene, including the fingernail scrapings, but nothing else appears out of the ordinary right now. Except, of course, the penny and body carving. I’ll call you if we find anything.”

“How long for the DNA from the scrapings?” Griffin asked.

“I sent a sample up to the state lab and asked for it to be a top priority, but it’ll still take weeks.” Cunningham held up his hand at the sheriff’s scowl. “And before you ask, yes, that’s the fastest they can do it.”

Griffin wasn’t happy about that but he nodded anyway.

“Did you save any samples?” Sean asked.

Cunningham nodded. “Yes, I always hold some back in case the sample is lost.”

“If you send it to the FBI lab, we might be able to get it back faster. I’ll have my SAC call and put a rush on it.”

“That’d be great. I’ll fill out the forms and overnight it before I leave.”

Sean pulled out one of his business cards and jotted down his cell. “Here’s my number if you need me. What’s the number here? I’ll call you when I have a contact name for you to address the samples to. That way they don’t get tossed into a long-term-wait bin.

The head tech grabbed a nearby notepad and wrote down the phone number and extension for the lab. The two men were about to leave when Sean stopped and asked, “What year was the penny?”

Cunningham eyebrows shot up in surprise, then he loudly repeated the question to a young male technician across the room.

“1993,” was the reply. “Same as the other two.”

Matt eyed Sean. “What’re you thinking?”

“I don’t know yet. Were the other two in the same condition?”

“Yes.” It was Cunningham who responded.

Sean let the info spin around his mind a few times. “It’s a little odd they all had the same year and seem pretty clean, despite their age. They’ve been in circulation for what? Twenty-three years? Maybe the year means something to the killer.”

Obviously following the fed’s train of thought, Cunningham nodded in agreement. “I’ll have my techs run a few tests to see if anything was used to clean them up, but I have a jar of change sitting at home. There are plenty of older coins that look shiny, while newer ones look old. Depends on who had their grubby little hands on them.”

Thanking the head tech, the two men left. On the way to the parking lot, Griffin called dispatch on his cell phone and told them to have deputies track down Stuart Crowell for questioning. The dispatcher informed him he had two detectives from the SBI waiting for him at the station. “Tell them I’ll be there in twenty minutes. By the way, who’d they send?”

The sheriff smiled as he hung up the phone. “Well, it looks like I got lucky.”

“How’s that?” Sean asked.

“Not only do I have Sean Malone, the famous FBI agent, on the case, but I have his brother Brian Malone, one of North Carolina’s finest investigators.”

Sean grinned for the first time all day. “The Malone brothers ride again. Yee-haw!”

After making a quick stop at a deli for a takeout lunch, they headed back to the station, where they entered through a side door with Griffin’s passkey and commandeered a conference room. The sheriff immediately left the room again, hurried into his office, and then brought back the files from the two previous homicides, as well as the thin file he had started on the current victim. Within days it would probably be as thick as the others.

Just as they were getting ready to sit at the large table, Brian Malone entered the room, along with a man in his early thirties. Both were dressed in sports coats, ties, and khakis. Sean’s brother stood six foot three while the other man was about two inches shorter and a tad broader. Brian introduced his partner to the sheriff. “Matt Griffin, Rafael Montoya.”

As the sheriff shook his hand, Montoya added, “Call me Rafe.”

“Nice to meet you, Rafe. Feel free to call me Matt.”

Montoya nodded, then turned to Sean as Brian said, “And this guy is the sorriest son of a bitch you’ll ever meet.”

Sean gave his brother a playful, but hard, punch on his left shoulder. “Yeah, well, I can honestly say, you taught me everything I know.” He extended his hand to the other investigator. “Sean Malone.”

Montoya shook the offered hand. “Nice to finally meet you. Brian’s always talking about you, KC, and your uncle.”

“Ha! Proof that he loves me.”

Brian pointed at his brother. “What he didn’t say is that I’m always trashing you.”

He smiled. “That I believe. But ya still love me.” When Brian opened his mouth to argue, Sean quickly held up a hand and stopped him. “Don’t deny it or you won’t get the sandwiches we brought for you.”

His grin widened when his older brother glared at him quietly. Everyone knew the way to control Brian was with food. The man could eat nonstop, yet was one of the fittest guys in the SBI thanks to his longtime discipline of running every morning.

The sheriff left the room to attend a brief meeting that was on his schedule as the three other men sat down at the table and spread out their lunches and the files. Brian began scanning through several reports while he ate. Sean, on the other hand, preferred to finish eating before reading. He knew he would lose his appetite if he examined the details of the cases during lunch. It had taken almost a full hour since the autopsy for his stomach to settle.

They ate in silence for several minutes. When Montoya got up to use the men’s room, Sean eyed his brother. “Did you know Bonnie’s niece is in town?”

Brian didn’t look up from the file, but answered absently, “Little Gracie? Dan mentioned she moved here, but I haven’t seen her yet.”

He felt relief at his brother’s nonchalance. Hopefully Brian wouldn’t be interested in Grace, because the more Sean thought about her, the more he wanted to see her again. And soon. “She came over last night for dinner with Bonnie and Dan.”

Brian lifted his gaze from the report. “Yeah? She still gawky looking?”

“Um, not really.” Mentally kicked himself, Sean knew he should have kept his mouth shut.

His reluctance to elaborate didn’t go unnoticed. “What does ‘not really’ mean? Don’t tell me she’s hot.”

Hot didn’t begin to describe Grace; she was downright gorgeous. Calling her hot was like saying an erupting volcano was a campfire. Sean shrugged, grabbed one of the files and pretended to be suddenly engrossed in it. But Brian wasn’t buying it. “Uncle Dan said she was opening her own PT practice. Maybe I’ll go see her for my back pain.”

Sean’s head whipped up and his eyes narrowed at his brother. “What fucking back pain?”

“The pain I just got,” Brian teased, dramatically shrugging his shoulders. “I could go for a good back massage.”

The younger Malone growled to himself. If he could, he would have kicked himself in the ass. Now that Brian knew he had an interest in Grace Whitman his brother was going to drive him nuts. They’d always had a healthy rivalry when it came to women. “Can we get back to the case, asshole?”

An evil grin spread across Brian’s face as he crumpled up the paper his sandwich had been wrapped in and tossed it like a basketball into the garbage can in the corner of the room. Grabbing his lower back, he moaned loudly. Sean wanted to kill the asshole right then and there.

A half hour later, the three men were elbow deep in the case files, each making notes on pads of white, legal-size paper. They all glanced up when the conference room door opened. A young, dark-haired deputy whose name tag read Montgomery stepped in. “The sheriff told me to tell you we got a missing person call that sounds like it might be last night’s homicide. Name’s Daphne Jones. He thought you’d want to check it out since he’s still stuck in the budget meeting.” He handed Sean a piece of paper. “Larry Cumberland’s at the residence now taking the initial report. He said her picture matches the description. I’m Ned Montgomery, by the way.”

“Special Agent Sean Malone. This is my brother Brian, and Rafe Montoya with SBI.” Sean said as he stood and shook the deputy’s proffered hand. “How long has she been missing?”

“Last seen by her roommate on Saturday night. Her friends thought she ditched them at some club. Supposedly no one’s seen her since.”

Brian’s gaze went to his brother and then his partner. “Who’s coming with me?”

Montoya shrugged his shoulders. “Doesn’t matter to me, but I’d rather keep reviewing the other two cases. You can fill me in later.”

Grabbing his discarded sports jacket from the back of his chair, Sean nodded. “That’s fine with me.” He stopped Montgomery before the deputy had a chance to step out of the room. “Do you know if patrol has located Stuart Crowell?”

“Not yet. But I’m the desk deputy until 2000 hours, so I’ll call you as soon as I hear anything.” Sean gave the deputy his cell phone number and then followed his brother out the door.

Within twenty-five minutes they were sitting at the kitchen table in a two-bedroom apartment in nearby Kitty Hawk talking to Cheryl Armstrong. The top floor unit was one of six occupying a three floor walk-up in the town, which was part of Dare County. Several pictures provided by Cheryl told them their victim was indeed her roommate, thirty-two-year-old Daphne Jones, a receptionist at a local insurance agency. A comparison of her dental records would confirm it, but Sean was certain the results would match. They’d gotten a brief report from Deputy Cumberland but the brothers wanted the woman to start from the beginning. But before that, they had to fill her in on how her roommate had died. Cumberland hadn’t disclosed the details yet.

Hating this part of the job, Sean squatted next to Cheryl’s chair when she asked to know what had happened for the third time since they’d arrived moments ago. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but Daphne was murdered.” Cheryl gasped, her eyes filled with horror. Before she could ask any questions he couldn’t answer, he continued. “I can’t give you the details at the moment, but we need your help to find out who did this to her. Okay?”

Her hand covered her mouth as tears began to roll down her cheeks, but she nodded her assent. Brian sat in a chair across from her at the small table, with a notepad to jot things down, while Sean stood and leaned against the nearby counter, taking the lead. “I know you’ve already told the deputy what happened, but I’d appreciate if you repeated everything to us. Sometimes people remember things they didn’t think of the first time they tell their story.”

Cheryl took a deep breath as she wiped her teary eyes with a tissue Deputy Cumberland had silently handed her. “A b-bunch of us girls went out Saturday night. We-we went to dinner at Martino’s in-in Jarvisburg. It’s a new r-restaurant on Central Avenue.”

“What time was that?”

Clearing her throat, she got her stuttering under control. “About six thirty. I drove Daphne and our friend Janet, and we met Diane and Michelle there. We were there until around nine, then went to Visions, that nightclub in Elizabeth City.” She looked at Brian and then Sean to see if they knew the bar.

“I’m familiar with the place,” Brian said, gesturing with his hand for her to continue.

“The place was packed as usual, and we were all running into people we knew. It wasn’t anything new to lose track of one another for a while, you know?”

He nodded. “Go on. When did you realize Daphne was missing?”

Cheryl sniffed several times before answering. “We honestly didn’t think she was missing. We just figured she met a guy and ditched us. It wouldn’t have been the first time . . . but she wasn’t a slut or anything. She didn’t do it a lot, just every once in a while.”

Both Brian and Sean winced slightly at Cheryl’s use of the word “slut.” The sheriff hadn’t revealed to anyone outside the department what had been carved into the victims’ torsos.

Brian made some notes on his pad. “Okay. When was the last time anyone saw her and what time did you notice she was gone?”

“Um. . . the last time I saw her was about eleven, I think—we were in the ladies room together. Around one thirty or so the rest of us started to look for her because Janet had had too much to drink and wanted to go home. We searched the whole place and couldn’t find Daphne. At two thirty the bar was closing, so we figured she’d hooked up with someone and left.”

“Why didn’t you report her missing when she didn’t come home yesterday?” Sean asked.

Her gaze went to his and she shook her head. “I didn’t know she didn’t come home. When I got up her bedroom door was shut, so I figured she was sleeping. I spent most of the day babysitting my nieces while my brother and sister-in-law went to a wedding. When I got home, I went straight to bed. It wasn’t until ten this morning when her boss called to find out why she wasn’t at work that I realized she was missing.”

After asking a few more questions about Daphne’s routine, ex-boyfriends, and whether or not she’d reported seeing anything or anyone out of the ordinary lately, Brian finished by inquiring, “Does she have family in the area? We’re going to have to contact them.”

“Her family’s in Chicago. She has no relatives near here. Their address and phone number are in her journal on her dresser. She told me if anything ever . . . ever happened to her, th-those were the people I should contact.” She pointed to Daphne’s bedroom. As Deputy Cumberland went to retrieve the book, the reality of her roommate’s murder finally hit and Cheryl began to sob loudly. “Oh my God. I can’t believe she’s dead. We should have looked for her.”

Sean placed a comforting hand on the distraught woman’s shoulder and spoke in a soft, reassuring tone. “Your friend was probably far away by the time anyone realized she was missing. None of this is your fault. Place all the blame on the person who killed her.” As Cheryl looked up at him with red eyes he continued. “And I promise you, we’ll do everything we can to find Daphne’s killer and give her justice.”