01 A Cold Dark Place Read Online Free PDF

a vicious killer was off the street was evident on every face .
    “Where are you on identifying the anonymous tipster?” Danbridge asked her.
    Crap . “Call was made using an untraceable cell and the voice was electronically enhanced. It’s a dead end.”
    SSA Hanrahan met Mallory’s gaze. If she’d given them anything useful she might have smiled, but she’d contributed nothing.
    Danbridge’s lips tightened. “Keep on it. Don’t let those IT geeks drop the ball on this.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” Mallory wanted to be involved in the Meacher investigation, not investigating an anonymous phone tip but she bit down on her frustration.
    Danbridge moved on with the briefing. “We found photographic evidence of what appears to be Meacher torturing fifteen different women. Comparing those photographs to images of missing or murdered women using a preliminary facial analysis program the BAU brought in, we are almost positive at least ten of those victims’ remains have been recovered.” Which left five victims unaccounted for—presumably dead.
    “We have teams of people collecting DNA from the farmhouse and tomorrow we’re sending cadaver dogs to search out any possible bodies buried on the property. We’ll enter the DNA samples into CODIS. The work will continue until we identify every woman featured in those photographs and videos.” Her boss’s knuckles whitened. “Meacher was forty-four years old and we believe he’s been killing since his late teens, early twenties. Again—this is based on photographic evidence and the details need to be verified. We know he moved at least four times over the last two decades and we need to search each of those properties for potential evidence.”
    How to increase the property value of your home—not.
    Danbridge was finishing off. “Although there’s no criminal prosecution for Meacher we need to make sure the scene is processed carefully so that we can find his killer and gain closure for all the victims ’ families.” The woman’s eyes blazed. “We are treating Meacher’s death as a homicide. Special Agent Randall will be case officer on that investigation.”
    Mallory’s gaze shot to Lucas. He sent her a wink. Chances were the tipster and killer were related in some way, so hopefully that meant she’d get to help him out once she’d finished pissing off every IT technician she knew.
    The meeting broke up and Mallory snuck out behind Lucas and went back to work. It was November and the anniversary of her sister’s abduction loomed large, as did her mother’s annual request to pose for photographs.
    Not this year.
    Payton was dead. She’d finally accepted it. Maybe it was the twin thing, but for years after her abduction she’d sensed her sister was out there somewhere. Now there was nothing but a cold and empty void. Try explaining that phenomenon to her mother. I don’t think so .
    When she got back to her desk she had a message from Mike Tanner saying he’d managed to narrow the call down to the eastern seaboard of the United States—which was a real bonus given that millions of people lived there. She investigated different units that electronically disguised voices but couldn’t pinpoint exactly what unit had been used, and according to Mike, neither could NASA.
    Mallory leaned back in her chair. The shooter had hit the exact same bull’s eye twice on a moving target. That was a hell of a shot. He’d also cleaned up after himself—no shell casings. It was almost like this guy was a professional hit man.
    That was crazy, right?
    She frowned and opened ViCAP. Entered “suspected killer” and “nine-millimeter” and got several thousand hits. She palmed her face. Okay . She typed in “suspected killer found dead.” Still a lot of hits. She delved deeper into some of the files—it included suicide, accidental death. Damn . She rubbed her eyes. “Suspicious death” “suspected killer found dead.”
    Still a lot of hits but manageable. She went