Shauna opened the door to her small condo, tossing her keys on the entrance table. She opened the closet, pressed her hand to the handle of the small safe inside, and locked her service revolver and badge inside. She had other weapons, ones that weren’t secured since she didn’t have children in the house. These were located in several places around the house. But her service weapon and badge were always secured.

She wouldn’t leave them in the lockbox long this evening. A look at her watch told her it was nearly six o’clock. They hadn’t gotten a whole lot more accomplished, but they hadn’t wanted to stop, either. Not while there was even a slim chance Carrie might still be out there. She was home only for a quick shower and power nap, and to grab clothes so she could change at the station for the next few days.

They had spent much of the rest of the day trying to track any student who could poke holes in the story Sawyer and his friends had given them. So far, they’d turned up nothing. The press, on the other hand, had made the connection to the Marsh Killings.

Ray Lansing’s headline that morning had screamed Marsh Killer Returned, Teen Girls Targeted!

So, they would keep interviewing. This was the part of an investigation that sucked. It was dry work, looking into backgrounds of every employee at the school, especially the new ones. Looking at students and parents, board members. Anyone who might have come into contact with both girls. The list was too damned long.

And they still had no idea how this could tie into the crimes from thirty years ago. Her teammates at the cold case division were scouring through reports, talking to people that had been interviewed years before. There were few witnesses to the girls’ disappearances back then. One girl had gone out for a jog and hadn’t come home. The other was walking home from school and hadn’t made it. Another was hanging out at a party with friends in the woods and wandered away from the group. No one had been able to offer any insight into what might have happened, other than the fact that there were never signs of a struggle found. No location that they could point to and say, “the girl was taken here.”

Shauna focused her thoughts on the thirty-year gap. Obviously, Sawyer wasn’t their original killer. “The father? An uncle or grandfather?” Shauna said aloud as she turned the water on in her shower. She liked it hotter than most and found ideas often came to her as she stood under the spray.

“Could someone in Sawyer’s family have been involved in the original killings?”

She shook off the thought as she poured shampoo into her palm and began to lather her hair. It didn’t make sense. They had looked already and no one in Sawyer’s immediate family had been incapacitated in any way for the long stretch of time between the murders. It simply didn’t make sense for their killer to have stopped for that long without something external stopping them.

“This killer doesn’t stop voluntarily,” she murmured as she rinsed and put conditioner in her hair, then began lathering her body with vanilla scented gel. She might wear pants and practical shoes to work, but Shauna loved smelling good.

When a killer behaves like this one, taking joy in the act, doing it again and again, they aren’t capable of stopping on their own.

Unless the killer hadn’t stopped.

“Travel?” It was a possibility. Sawyer’s father might travel for work. Was it possible he had been committing these killings someplace else? If he was killing women in small towns across the United States, the crimes wouldn’t necessarily get into the national database. It was always hit or miss if a crime ended up in a linked, searchable database, but with small towns, it was more miss than hit.

“Why come back to his own backyard now?” As she said the words, she wondered if she wasn’t spot on. Could Sawyer have slept with the girl and left her in his clubhouse as he and his friends said they had? The dad wanders out and finds her and isn’t able to resist?

Shauna finished rinsing and shut off the shower. She wanted to talk to Zach and see what he thought.

Who was she kidding? She wanted to talk to Zach, period.

The old attraction was still there, alive and kicking. If not a little stronger, in fact. The man was hotter than she remembered. He’d been just out of the military when they were together. Wasn’t a cop back then. Now, there was a maturity to him that made him all the more attractive and he hadn’t lost the tight, hard muscled body he’d had. He seemed to be in even better shape now.

What made it so hard to resist him was that he also seemed to have matured into a man who cared about others as he hadn’t back then. He seemed to carry a sense of honor and duty, a drive to bring Carrie home and to find justice for Adrienne that Shauna couldn’t help but be attracted to.

And that pissed her off. It wasn’t like she was going to do a damned thing about it. Shauna wasn’t stupid. Or crazy. She wouldn’t go down a path she knew would only lead to heartache.

Still, she wrapped herself in a towel and dialed the number Zach had given her. She had Ronan’s number, too, and could have just as easily called him. She didn’t.

“You okay?”

Shauna blinked and pulled the phone away from her ear. Why would he answer the phone that way.

“Shauna! Are you okay? Is something wrong? Talk to me!”

“Yeah,” she said, putting the phone back to her ear. “Why would you think anything’s wrong?”

“Sorry. I just thought if you were calling me so soon after we last saw each other, something might be wrong, and then you didn’t say anything.” There was silence for a beat, then, “what’s up?”

“I just wanted to talk over a theory with you. I was showering.”

A soft choking sound came through the phone, then Zach cleared his throat. “Yeah? What’s your theory?”

“What if there’s a family member who found Adrienne at Sawyer’s clubhouse after he slept with her and left her doped up and vulnerable? Maybe the father, an uncle, or grandfather who took advantage of her presence?”

“Why would that person have been inactive for so long?” He asked the question she had asked herself. It was what any good investigator would ask.

“What if he wasn’t? Inactive, I mean. What if this person travels?”

Zach was quiet for another minute and she realized he was very different from the man she’d known years before. The old Zach didn’t ever stop to think. He simply acted, spoke, did whatever he wanted. The new Zach didn’t seem to do that.

Shauna shook her head. Thinking of him as a new man wasn’t a good idea.

“The grandfather lives with them. He lived on his own up until a few years ago,” Zach said.

“Maybe he was traveling before that for business, or just to satisfy his urges, and he’s too old to travel now but hasn’t been able to resist?”

Zach grunted his agreement. “It’s worth looking at him. I’ll find out if either the grandfather or father travel extensively, or used to travel but have stopped. You get any sleep?”

“Not yet,” Shauna said. “I’ll get dressed and head back in.”

“No,” Zach barked, then gentled his tone. “Rest for thirty. You’ll need it. We’ve got the District Attorney getting us a search warrant for Sawyer’s home and clubhouse. I’ll call you as soon as we have it in hand so you can meet us there.”

Shauna shook her head. She doubted very much that either he or Ronan was resting at all. She sure as hell didn’t plan to either. Not until Carrie came home. One way or another.

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