Face of Death

To leave such an obvious trail—right to a set of tire tracks which could be analyzed—was not like their man at all. Not only that, but the victim had not died where he found her. That was unusual in itself. Their man picked his victims carefully, and there was no chance for them to run or be discovered. They were left out in the open, with the confidence that he would be long gone before anyone had any idea of his presence.

No, Zoe could not see his hand here at all. She followed the blood marks, at times simple drips, at others larger pools. The calculations rushing by her eyes told her of a heart beating fast in panic, a dead run, a stumble here and there. Hands clasping the wound shut after a few steps had gone by, narrowing the range of blood flow to either side but not at all stopping it. Occasionally spraying out further droplets, creating a splatter pattern that was entirely unique.

Though the ground here was too dry and solid for clear footprints, she could ascertain the steps from the blood surges and pools. It came down heavier whenever the woman’s feet landed, shaken loose by the impact. The woman’s throat had been cut, sending the blood from high up, letting it gather into a wider-ranged pattern than it would have with a lower wound. The amount indicated an artery spill, no mere flesh wound. There was no wonder she was dead. This much gone already, and not even into the woods.

The blood was telling her things, almost too many to take in, in one moment. Distance—the woman was leaning forward as she ran, her body pitched, not quite as far off the ground as her neck would be if she stood straight. Spacing—speed, very fast, the run of someone who rightfully feared for her life. Two millimeters, three centimeters, two inches. All of those gaps told a story of desperation. And the loss of blood built a picture, too, pint by pint, Zoe counting in her head as she went. Nearly two before she even entered the woods.

Under the trees, the signs were clearer, though distorted in their own way by the effects of nature. The landscape became 3D, blood spots landing on tree trunks and exposed roots, rocks and low-growing leaves. It made no difference to the numbers. They still told her everything. Adjust for a two-inch raised mound of earth, calculate the distance from the ground to the woman’s neck. Know that she was nowhere near upright. Her body collapsing downward as she moved forward. Three pints.

Zoe felt how the woman stumbled and fell but got up to run on, how she was almost crawling now, how she crept on as far as she could. The blood pattern was different here, coming down from a wound that was only a foot or less above the ground, less of a splash and more of a flow. No more crown marks of splatter. Four pints, then four and a half.

Then she had finally fallen, and Zoe was looking down at the obscenely wide open eyes of a dead girl, her neck gaping open like a second smile, her hands clutched in a death grip at the hem of her torn shirt.

Zoe dropped into a crouch, ignoring the deputy who was stationed over the body and even the presence of Shelley coming up behind her. She had to read these signs, figure out what they meant, see what everyone else was missing. Was this his work? Or not?

The girl lay in place on her back, but the blood patterns beside her told another story. She had moved, or been moved, an entire body width away; she had at first lain on her stomach, her hands clutched to her throat. The blood had spurted out of both sides of her neck where the wound could not be closed, forming two pools that must have spread out below her like macabre wings. From the width of the pools alone, combined with what she had already seen, Zoe knew it all added up to more blood than someone could live without. Another two pints in the pools alone. It had been the exsanguination that killed her.

Wings… Zoe peered closer, her eyes widening slowly as she realized what she was looking at. The symbolic association of the blood pools was that of a Rorschach blot, a pattern in something that was not really a pattern. It was almost perfectly symmetrical, just like one of those famous cards. That meant something—she knew it did, feeling it in the bottom of her gut. It would have meant something to him.

Where did that come from, that certainty? There had been no patterns to speak of at the crime scenes so far, had there? Zoe pushed that thought aside for the moment, focusing on the body in front of her. She had to determine, first, if this was really their killer.

The blood pattern, the thin cut to the throat which could have been done with razor-sharp wire, the choice of victim and location, the timing—this was him, after all. But something had gone wrong. She had slipped out of his grasp and managed to run, albeit not very far. She had almost escaped. He was usually in more control than that.