Without answering he climbed from bed and walked down to the kitchen for a cup of water. His T-shirt stuck to his chest and he peeled it away as he swallowed the water. The last year had gone wrong. So terribly wrong. Things had gotten far away from him, and he didn’t want to admit that it all might be falling apart. The debacle last year—with the bunker and escape, the hunt and the pressure and the media—should have been enough to stop him. To wake him up and bring to him the realization that things could not continue without great wreckage finding him. Yet he was helpless. He could no more convince himself to stop than he could convince the girls he loved to love him back. On this front, though, he was sure things were changing. He simply needed more time.

He knew, however, that he could not sustain this level of incompetence and expect to survive. His sloppiness since the bunker escape last year could not be ignored. He had spent his life on details, and warned his underlings against shoddy work. Taught those around him the need for precision and accuracy. The necessity of paying attention to every facet. Now he had fallen prey to the same careless errors he preached to avoid. The body turning up in the bay was a direct result of panic and inattention to detail. The knots securing the body to the cinder blocks were not closely considered; the consequences of this error were still unknown. The press had lost interest after the initial story broke, and the passing weeks had given him hope that he might be able to dodge the bullet. But more errors had followed. The careless application of the plywood that secured the cellar window had nearly allowed another escape. And his desire to make her comfortable by providing a frame for the box spring was an error so egregious he was sickened every time he thought of it. The quarrel that followed was unfortunate, and losing his temper was a sign of incompetence.

The sloppiness of his actions was dangerous, and he was scared. His trepidation had caused him to run from the woods the other night, too afraid to dump her body into the grave he dug. And now, so soon after their time together ended, she had been found. They called her Paula, and it sickened him. Just like before, when the jogger and his dog had disturbed the resting place he’d created for his last love and the news anchors called her Nancy. The names insulted him. He was offended by how the media spoke of his loves as though they knew them, used foreign names to label them and displayed pictures of their faces for all to see. They pretended, sitting in their studios and staring into cameras, that they held a connection to his girls. The truth, he knew, was that the media had done nothing but forget these creatures existed.

He walked up the stairs and threw his soiled shirt into the laundry basket. Instead of climbing back into bed, he took his pillow to the couch and lay down. Things needed to change, but he wasn’t sure it was possible. Under the guilt and fear, beneath the ugly image of the latest one’s bloated face zipped and stashed in black vinyl, was something else. He tried to ignore it, but knew he couldn’t. However subtle at the moment, his thirst would grow. Unquenchable by the woman who lay upstairs, oblivious to his needs. It was a thirst for connection. For trust and dependency. He knew he would someday find it. Perhaps he already had.

And though the heavy burden of melancholy sat on his shoulders from the way things had ended with his last love, there was hope buried under those emotions. Hope and desire. He knew they were the dominant emotions that would prove victorious. For now, he would weather this latest storm and bide his time. Get through these missteps. Let things settle and calm. Then focus on what’s important.

He tossed on the couch as he fell asleep. Night sweats found him as the image returned. The black vinyl bag uneven with her remains.

CHAPTER 36

Saturday morning, Livia was on the road before dawn. She passed the occasional eighteen-wheeler making a long haul from the north, but otherwise the highway was hers. She considered Casey Delevan, Nancy Dee, Paula D’Amato, Megan McDonald, and whether she could convince the police that a connection existed between them all. She wondered if Nicole played into that connection, and whether the delusional grandeur of a demented club had anything to do with all these missing girls.

Livia’s mind returned to her fellowship interview, where she stored in her suppressed thoughts the idea that Nicole’s body could turn up the same way Nancy Dee’s and Paula D’Amato’s had. She thought of Nicole’s body being transported to her autopsy table, where it would silently beg Livia to find the answers it held and put to rest the many questions Livia and her parents still asked about the night Nicole disappeared. Instead though, Casey Delevan had arrived in her morgue. And in place of answers, the case had only caused more speculation that sent Livia into bordering states searching for revelations about other missing girls.

As the sun crested the horizon behind her and stretched the shadow of her car into a thin black ghost along the road in front of her, Livia realized she was chasing more than the ghost of her lost sister. Maybe it had taken Casey Delevan’s decomposed body to force her into action. Maybe a year of denial and avoidance had finally run its course. Perhaps action was the only logical next step if forgetting about Nicole was the alternative. Whatever the reason, Livia knew she couldn’t stop until she possessed the answers she craved. And if those answers didn’t fully provide closure for herself, or quell the guilt about her fledging relationship with Nicole, perhaps finding a resolution for the Dee and D’Amato families would provide something else. A balm needed to heal wounds that would otherwise remain exposed and gaping.

She had pulled all the strings her feeble position as a fellow in forensic pathology allowed in order to convince the coroner of Decatur, Georgia, to meet her on a Saturday. The sun was at its peak by noon when she found the headquarters building of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The parking lot was mostly empty. Livia entered the front door and gave her name to the security guard behind the desk. He picked up the phone to announce Dr. Cutty’s arrival, and a few minutes later a fiftysomething woman entered the lobby.

“Hi,” she said. “Denise Rettenburg.”

“Livia Cutty. Thanks for meeting me today.”

“I’ve got a case, so I had to come in anyway,” Dr. Rettenburg said. “Follow me. Thanks, Bruce,” she said to the security guard before leading Livia into the building. They approached an elevator where Dr. Rettenburg pressed the up button.

“So why is Raleigh so interested in Paula D’Amato?”

The doors opened and Livia followed Denise Rettenburg into the elevator.

“Maybe for no reason,” Livia said. “But we’ve seen a few cases of young women with similar findings, so I wanted to have a look to see if we can make any connections.”

“Sounds like police work.”

“Right now, it’s nothing more than suspicion. I need some facts before I take anything to the police.”

Dr. Rettenburg smiled. “You sound like a Dr. Colt fellow. Facts first.”

The doors opened and they shuffled out of the elevator and walked the empty hallway.

“So this is a personal inquisition, or does Dr. Colt know about it?”

“Dr. Colt is familiar with the case that got me onto my suspicions. A homicide case from late summer. But about the D’Amato case, I’m down here now on my own.”

Dr. Rettenburg seemed to analyze this last statement. “Who are the other cases?” she asked. “The other girls you think D’Amato is connected to.”

“Two others. One is a girl named Nancy Dee. You know anything about that?”

“No. A Raleigh case?”

Livia shook her head. “Virginia. But same MO as D’Amato—her body was found in a shallow grave in the woods. She died of an acute overdose of ketamine.”

Dr. Rettenburg looked at Livia as they walked. “Ketamine?”

“Yeah. Tell me, was ketamine found in Paula D’Amato’s toxicology report?”

“It was.”

“Was that the cause of death? Ketamine overdose?”

“No.” Dr. Rettenburg slowed and pointed to the doorway of her office. “She was beaten to death.”

*

The autopsy photos were fanned out on Dr. Rettenburg’s desk and Livia took her time studying them. They showed Paula D’Amato’s body on the morgue table, her skin pale and blue and stretched in the same bloated way she’d seen so many other bodies in the last few months. Paula D’Amato had died recently, that was certain. Her body was not decomposed and death had come shortly before the autopsy exam.

“What sort of timing did you come up with?” Livia asked.

“About forty-eight hours at time of exam. In the woods for two nights, we suspect. The only thing that slowed down the carnivores was the body bag.”

Livia leafed through crime scene photos next, which showed a black vinyl body bag lying in a wooded area heavily covered by leaves. Corners of the bag were ragged from the animals eager to get at the rotting flesh it held. The body sat on the precipice of a shallow grave, a mound of dirt next to it.

“What are the thoughts on the crime scene?”

“That’s the million-dollar question,” Dr. Rettenburg said. “No one quite knows what to make of it. Detectives figure the perp got interrupted in the middle of digging the grave. The site wasn’t too far into the woods, so it’s possible someone spooked this guy and he had to abandon the disposal. That’s the working theory currently. Problem is, Homicide thinks the guy had lights set up.”