Frank’s flashlight beam cut through the moist night air like the Reaper’s scythe, illuminating the names of the dead in the Saints Peter and Paul Cemetery outside the town of Loretto.
He’d already swept the light across the small graveyard twice, yet not one plot of land below any of the tombstones appeared recently filled.
Kane isn’t here.
Abandoning the night for the lit interior of his Blazer, he climbed behind the wheel and studied each of the three outdated maps of Minnesota he’d brought, crosschecking them with the newer ones on his computer. Even with the global positioning system on his laptop and other technical equipment he’d installed in the vehicle, his quarry eluded him.
“Where are you, dammit?”
He’d already checked three local burial grounds, and not one held a plot for anyone named Kale Kane. Even if Catherine had gone to the extent of having him buried beneath a marker declaring him as someone else, there still hadn’t been any new burials in any of the local cemeteries. Not in this area, at least. He hadn’t spoken with anyone to confirm the fact, but each of the cemeteries he’d inspected had been small enough so a simple check of the ground sufficed.
But it has to be here.
Frank knew it the moment he arrived in Judge Anderson’s neighborhood. His previous bout of déjà vu had proven correct, and when the cluster of newer homes came within sight, he realized the second of Melissa’s two crime scenes sat atop the same land Kale Kane had grown up on.
Frank had been there before, when he questioned Kane’s parents about a rusted orange van registered in their name. The van had been spotted outside a small pawnshop in White Bear Lake, where someone sold a silver pendant that belonged to one of the missing women. A description of the victim’s jewelry comprised one of the few details Frank had released to the press, and the shop’s owner phoned in his discovery the moment the seller left the store.
Frank remembered the sense of high-octane anticipation he experienced on the drive to the business—and the feeling of defeat when he discovered the pawnshop’s security camera had failed to record the transaction, capturing only static for the duration of the seller’s visit. He’d gathered other bits of information to investigate, namely the ID the seller used to pawn the pendant, but the real break came when he stepped outside to leave and noticed a drive-up bank across the street.
The bank had an ATM machine that faced the pawnshop.
The ATM machine had a camera.
And that camera succeeded where the shop’s camera failed, recording both the suspect’s departure from the store and the rear end of his vehicle when he pulled away from the curb.
But his excitement soon crumbled beneath dueling emotions of elation and anger when the bank manager printed out the four still shots and handed them over. After all his hard work, after facing the victims’ families and promising them he’d bring the killer to justice, he finally had a photographic glimpse of the mystery man who’d evaded capturer over the last seven months. But because the camera’s lens worked best at taking close-up shots, not one of those pictures revealed the man’s identity, or even the license number on his van.
The wheel-cover over the spare tire attached to the rear lift gate of Frank’s Blazer still showed the dent where he’d vented his frustration.
Nevertheless, two eyewitness descriptions of the van, a data link to the Department of Motor Vehicles, and a pot of coffee started him on the kidnapper’s trail. And that trail had led here, to this area, where Kale Kane’s creepy alliance first began sometime in the past.
Now, he searched the night again, knowing Kane’s remains had to be here, somewhere close to home.
And if he could locate them, he’d find the accomplice.