And now these bones.

A girl, in her mid-teens. The techs had found her pelvis, but some of the other bones had been scattered, the skeleton not intact, fragments missing or in the wrong place, as if animals had dug through the shallow grave and pulled her apart. One of her ulnae had been located six feet away, under the hedge, pulled from her right arm. There were other scattered bones as well, and what was left of her had been hauled away in bags to be reassembled in the morgue. A gruesome job, but one he thought he might have the stomach to observe.

Who are you kidding? Just the thought of her beautiful body being torn apart churns your stomach.

He scowled into the darkness. “Damn it all to hell,” he muttered and glanced at the excavation site, a shallow grave at the base of the statue of Mary. What kind of sick bastard killed and buried her with a private marker?

Had he buried her here so he could return and relive the killing? Or pay penance? Leave flowers on her unmarked grave? It had happened time and time again; even now there were dried remnants of roses that had been placed at the base of the Madonna, roses now saturated with rain and mud and carted off to the lab.

You son of a bitch, he thought, I’m gonna find you, and I know just where to look.

“Hey, Mac!” One of the techs waved him over to the base of the statue. The Madonna was tilted, still serene, arms uplifted to the heavens, well, now…kind of skewed, but you got the idea.

Rain slipped icy fingers down his neck, but he ignored it as he picked his way over the sticky clods of mud. His boots weighed double their usual amount, they were so caked with the gooey dirt.

“Yeah?” No one called him Sam. No one ever had, or probably ever would, he guessed.

“You think you found her, huh?”