Detective Rhys Evans drained the last of the coffee from the travel mug as he stared out the windshield of his unmarked Ford Explorer. A line of identical vehicles—many of them bearing the black-and-white insignia of Dark Falls’ patrol units—stretched out along the side of the road in front of him. His gaze settled on the back end of the silver Ford Explorer he’d parked behind. He recognized the vehicle with its DFPD1 plate—Chief Forsythe’s—it stood out like a falcon in a sea of crows.

A normal 10-67 brought a quarter of the precinct on-site. This particular dead body had brought almost everyone out, including Chief Forsythe, which was unusual and a strong indicator of just how screwed they were.

He shoved the travel mug into the cup holder and took a few seconds to roll his shoulders, hoping to alleviate some of the tension cinching his muscles tight. The 10-67 wasn’t the problem—hell, he’d handled his share of stiffs during his eight years with the DFPD. The trouble was the description of the victim and the location of the body… hell… those two things unleashed a tsunami of unwelcome memories.

Memories he’d suppressed for years… memories he had no intention of giving free rein to now.

He grimaced, casting off the last of the nightmare images knocking at his brain, and glanced up at the puffy gray sky. If they were lucky, the weather would keep most of the lookie-loos inside and they could keep this situation under wraps for a while longer. The roads were still slick and crusty from the previous day’s snowstorm, which had partially melted and turned to ice overnight. Spring in Dark Falls, Colorado, was unpredictable. From snow to heavy rain to warm sunshine was not uncommon—often within hours.

The smart man prepared for everything.

He grabbed his battered sheepskin jacket from the passenger seat beside him and thrust open the driver’s door. Frozen slush crunched beneath the thick treads of his boots as he exited the vehicle and stepped into the cold, crisp air. He paused to pull on the brown jacket. After turning the collar up, he buttoned the coat all the way to his chin. Warmth instantly cocooned him from the waist up. Too bad he couldn’t say the same for his jean-clad legs. His thighs were already feeling the bite of the chilly Colorado morning.

Ice crunched with each sliding step, and his breath hung in plumes of frosty white as he made his way to the crime scene. Fuck, he was ready for spring… real spring, that was… not this half-assed get-your-hopes-up shit.

Benjamin Page, one of the newer crime-scene techs, stood guard in front of the perimeter tape, the obligatory clipboard in hand. Rhys glanced at the cheery yellow plastic tape; long swaths of it were already glazed with ice. The perimeter had been established for a while. He was one of the last to arrive.

“Who found her?” Rhys asked as Page scrutinized his clothing, making sure nothing would contaminate the crime scene.

“A golden retriever.” Benjamin used a boney index finger to push his wire-rim glasses up to the bridge of his nose. After carefully logging Rhys’s name and unit on the intake form, he passed the clipboard over. “According to her owner the dog dug under the fence and went roaming.”

Rhys signed his name in the empty space next to the entry Page had made and handed the clipboard back.

Everyone who crossed the perimeter tape and entered the crime scene was logged in… at least while evidence collection was in process. That was for chain of evidence and prosecutorial purposes. Those who crossed into the second perimeter around the actual crime scene were often called to testify in court. Keeping an accurate log of personnel who accessed the site was essential.

“How did the owner locate the dog?” Rhys lifted the tape and ducked beneath it.

The nearest house was a couple of miles away. It wasn’t like the owner would have seen her dog from her backyard. This section of the Colorado State Forest was on the very outskirts of Dark Falls, barely within city limits. If the body had landed a half a mile to the east, the state patrol and sheriff’s department would be wrestling over jurisdiction.

“Apparently Sassy, the dog, is an escape artist. The owner has one of those GPS tracking devices attached to her collar. She followed Sassy here on her cell phone.”

Great. No doubt the animal had already disturbed the crime scene. Of course, without the canine interference, who knew how long the vic would have remained undiscovered.

Except for teenagers and their endless attempts to fuck with each other, this section of Colorado’s National Forest was generally avoided. Superstition had set in years ago, after the first few bodies had been discovered. People claimed that there was something unclean out here… something sinister… like the evil that had taken place beneath the canopy of the aspen and ponderosa pine had infected the soil and sky and trees.

It might be fourteen years since the X Factor Killer had been caught. Twelve years since he’d been convicted and three years since his death in prison, but the forest still carried haunted memories for the citizens of Dark Falls.

Rhys turned in a slow circle, but there was no sign of a woman with a golden retriever. “Where’s the witness?”

“Officer Underwood took her home.”

That sounded like Connie. The kid was always Johnny-on-the-spot. His enthusiasm made Rhys feel damn ancient and jaded most of the time.

“Who took her statement?”

“Detective Sevier.”

John Sevier was a good detective—sharp, intuitive. But Major Crimes would still track the dog owner down for another round of questioning. In the interrogation room this time, with the video feed on and the rest of the unit watching on the big-screen television in the conference room.

You never knew what might pop up under a second round of questioning or what someone else might notice that everyone else had missed.

When it came to murder, every avenue was investigated.

Assuming the victim had been murdered.

Rhys suspected she had been; his instincts had been humming since he’d gotten the call an hour earlier. The location and markings were too damn suspicious for anything else. Unless… unless some malicious prick had found a dead drifter and decided to play a nasty prank on the town.

He crunched his way across the first perimeter, his skin and chest tightening beneath the constant furtive glances that followed him. Sevier was waiting at the second perimeter tape—red this time.

“You’re late.” There was no accusation in the comment; instead, concern narrowed the light brown eyes studying him. “You okay?”

The question stopped Rhys in his tracks and tensed the muscles of his back. Fuck… he’d expected the concern… the questions… those little sideways looks everyone was giving him. He just hadn’t expected them to dig under his skin like slivers of ice.

“I’m fine.” He kept his voice neutral, his face blank, and ducked beneath the tape to join Sevier. “When did you start buying into Cantu’s theory of oversharing?”

Eric Cantu was Sevier’s partner. He was also the Major Crime unit’s company comic and pop psychologist. Christ, it was bad enough having Cantu mothering the hell out of them, encouraging everyone to express their feelings. Having two dithering hens in the unit would be two too many.

Sevier simply shrugged. “The boss fill you in?”

“About the carvings? Yeah.” Rhys buried his immediate visceral reaction. But remnants of the nightmare slipped through.

A white face frozen in terror… glazed blue eyes… icy blond hair stuck to the snow… a dark red X-9 carved into a bleached-white forehead…

He locked down the corresponding surge of rage and horror. Even now, so many years later—those early, raw emotions dug their claws into him sometimes, catching him unprepared. He’d spent the past forty-five minutes drinking coffee and girding himself to make sure they didn’t latch onto him here… now.

“Whoever did this… the perp? He’s a mimic. A fucking copycat.” Sevier scowled and blew out a deep breath that hung in the air like a frosty question mark.

Rhys grimaced. No shit.

While he’d been a clueless kid when Kenneth Hamilton had been carving up young women and dumping their bodies in this section of the Colorado State Forest, he knew many of the detectives who’d been instrumental in catching the bastard.

Hell, Gerald Osborn and Craig Patel had been the lead detectives on the case back then. They were sharp as needles, methodical, and unbiased. They didn’t jump to conclusions; they followed the evidence. There was no fucking way Hamilton would have been arrested and convicted without a sea of evidence supporting the case.

The bastard had been guilty. There was no question of that in Rhys’s mind. Regardless of how vehemently Ariel had insisted that her father wasn’t the killer… couldn’t possibly be the killer—

Rhys swiped a hand down his face. Christ, he needed to get his mind under control. These damn memories were not helping.

He sighed and pinched the flesh between his eyebrows. This new victim with her blond hair and blue eyes and the X-10 carved in her forehead had just muddied the Hamilton case significantly.

Someone was out to fuck with them.

With Sevier beside him, Rhys converged on the ME who was squatting over the partially exposed body. Chief Forsyth and Captain Scanlon hovered overhead, hunched into their winter jackets. The two women looked incongruous next to each other. While both occupied positions of power in a typically testosterone-driven environment, they were physical opposites. Chief Forsyth was fine-boned and petite with blazing red hair, blue eyes, and an unbending will forged by ten years serving the streets of Linden, New Jersey. Tall and lean with dark hair and eyes, Captain Scanlon towered over the chief.

Both women were good bosses. Easy to work for without being pushovers. They let their people work in peace, without constant handling, but would step into a situation when the circumstances required it.

The fact that Dr. Grunholdt and Chief Forsyth were both here attested to the departmental tremors this discovery had set off. While it was unusual for the Chief of Police to show up at a crime scene, it wasn’t unheard of. Rhys could remember a handful of other high-profile crime scenes Forsyth had showed up on.

But the ME?

Grunholdt’s presence at a crime scene was unheard of. Sometimes assistant medical examiners were dispatched to crimes scenes, but most of the time death investigators were used to handle the legwork and assess the need for an autopsy. In the eight years Rhys had served in the Dark Falls Police Department, he’d never seen Grunholdt at a crime scene… until now.

Scanlon glanced over as they clomped their way closer. Straightening, she ditched the ME to intercept them.

“We have a problem.”

From the tight knit of her tanned forehead and the grim look darkening her eyes, it was a big problem. The fact that several strands of thick black hair had escaped her habitual bun told Rhys how rattled she was. The boss’s hair was always ruthless corralled.

“She’s fresh, blond, young, blue-eyed, and pretty,” Scanlon continued. “She’s also carved. COD appears to be strangulation.” She paused, her mouth tightening.

Sevier and Rhys exchanged what-the-fuck-now looks.

“Cursory examination indicates evidence of double ligature marks.”

Son of a bitch.

Rhys sucked in a shocked breath of icy air. His throat and lungs seized. Then burned. From the cold air… yeah… sure… the air.

“That signature was never made public.” Sevier’s voice was as tight as their captain’s face.

Hence the big problem. The signature of an X carved into the forehead followed by a number had been leaked to the press early in the original investigation, around seventeen years ago. After the signature had broken, the press had dubbed the killer the X Factor Killer.

The double ligature marks though… hell, the detectives had withheld that from the public. Only those in the need-to-know sphere had been aware of the ligature signature. For this bastard to have adopted it, along with the dump site, the victim profile, and the forehead carving—yeah, this new perp had just fucked the entire major crimes unit… collectively… up the ass.

They needed to find this bastard.

And they needed to do so now.