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Kimball says FBI Special Agent Cal Coulter will be leading the investigation into the woman’s death.”
    Mona clutched the steering wheel in a white-knuckle grip. A woman had been murdered at Graveyard Falls? Found on the very day of the memorial service for the other three girls?
    That was eerie.
    And Cal had been called in to work the case? It had been three months since she’d seen him. Three months since Brent’s funeral.
    That hurt.
    She’d thought they were friends. That he cared about her. In fact, she’d met both Brent and Cal during her parents’ murder investigation. She’d thought she and Cal had connected. But Brent had flirted outrageously with her and asked her out. And Cal hadn’t shown any interest after that.
    She rubbed the charm at her neck. She’d been so lonely since she’d lost her parents, even more so after losing Brent and the baby.
    But Cal was in Graveyard Falls now working this new case. Maybe they could reconnect.

    Cal paced outside the autopsy room, hoping the medical examiner worked quickly. The stench of formaldehyde, death, and body wastes permeated the area, permanently infused in the faded walls of the basement room in the hospital.
    Before he’d left the falls, one of the investigators had sent photos of the victim to the tech team at the Bureau, along with the woman’s fingerprints.
    Cal also wanted to know more about the wedding dress and lipstick.
    His phone buzzed. Peyton Duke from the tech team at the Bureau.
    He punched Connect. “Agent Coulter.”
    “Coulter, I have an ID on the victim.” The sound of keys clicking on her keyboard echoed in the background.
    Cal’s pulse spiked. “That was fast. What’s her name?”
    “Gwyneth Toyton. She’s twenty-five, a student at TCAT–Knoxville.”
    The Tennessee College of Applied Technology. “Do you have an address for her and contact information for next of kin?”
    “I’ll text you both addresses. She rents an apartment near the campus. Father deceased. Mother is on disability and lives in a rental house a few streets from her apartment.”
    “I’ll have the deputy make the notification to the mother, while I check out her apartment.”
    Cal disconnected the phone, called the deputy, then stepped into the autopsy room, pausing to adjust to the strong odors.
    “Dr. Wheeland, the victim’s name is Gwyneth Toyton. I’m on my way to her apartment. Do you have anything yet?”
    A frown marred the doctor’s face. “Cause of death was asphyxiation due to strangulation.”
    Just as he expected. “Rape?”
    The doctor pushed his goggles onto the top of his head. “No. No vaginal bruising or fluids.”
    So sex wasn’t part of the motive. “Any DNA?”
    “I scraped under her nails and combed through her hair, although I think the particles beneath her nails are coat or glove fibers, not skin. I’ll let you know once we analyze it.”
    Cal told Wheeland to call him if he learned anything else, then headed down the long hallway in the basement to the elevator. The frigid temperature took his breath away as he stepped from the building, making him sprint to his car.
    The wedding dress and garter disturbed him. But those thorns in the woman’s throat seemed especially sinister and mimicked the Thorn Ripper’s MO.
    Mona would probably be able to give him insight. She’d helped the police on cases in Knoxville. At one time Brent had suggested to her that she become a criminal profiler.
    But she had wanted a family.
    A family with Brent.
    He struggled to banish the resentment that that fact stirred. Mona had deserved better.
    Gwyneth Toyton’s face flashed in his mind. So had she.
    He couldn’t turn the clock back and prevent her death. But he could get justice for her.

    Mona fought a case of nerves as she parked at the antiques gift store in town. The fact that a girl had been murdered and left at the falls where three murders had occurred thirty years ago, and on the very day of the yearly memorial, seemed too