Disturbed Mind (A Grace Ellery Romantic Suspense Series Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Virginia)
    DR. BRIDGET CARTER, the director of the forensic biology lab, has rustic red hair that’s tied into a tight ponytail and bright-green eyes that always remind me of moss. Half a dozen other people from the forensics laboratory are combing over the crime scene while Dr. Carter and I look over the body. The tow truck driver hangs around, waiting to be given further instructions or told to leave the car and go home. He doesn’t seem to mind much, but I have a feeling it’s because he's billing by the hour, and the county cops always pay their bills.
    “I would agree that the killer seemed to specifically destroy aspects of this man that would identify him,” she says. She lifts up his fingers with her gloved hands and flips his palm up. The fingertips are scraped off. “No teeth or fingerprints to check, so we’re going to have to rely on there being a DNA record somewhere. We might be able to reconstruct his face and we could attempt to identify him by that.”
    “But if it was a serial killer, then he wouldn’t have known his victim,” I say.
    “Probably not,” she says. “But then why would the killer go through such great lengths to hide this man’s identity? The only reason I could think of is that the killer knew the man and the man would lead back to the killer.”
    “Dr. Meadows!” Officer Ty Halloran rushes up to me. “I just got the call. The owner of the car…his name is Michael Rafters, but he reported the car stolen on April sixteenth. He doesn’t have a criminal record and he has a pretty good alibi for the time the victim could have been killed. He was on an Alaskan cruise three weeks ago. He doesn’t know anyone who’s missing or who would be in his car.”
    “Do you think this could have been the car thief?” I ask Officer Halloran.
    He shrugs. “I have no idea. Michael Rafters is from Ohio, so I don’t know why the hell a thief would drive here. At the very least, you would think he would head down south to Mexico.”
    “Ohio?” I ask. I vaguely remember Halloran telling me the car’s plates were from Ohio, but I had been too distracted by the gore of the victim to think too much about it. Now, my thoughts jump to Grace. She grew up in Byhalia, Ohio.
    “Yeah,” Officer Halloran says. “Weird, right? Who steals a car and stops in Pearland, Virginia?”
    “Someone crazy,” I say, shrugging. I turn back to Dr. Carter and the body. For a moment, all I notice is the slash mark around the body’s throat. Why would someone go from Ohio to Pearland, Virginia? Maybe the killer had relatives here. Maybe he was just passing through. Please, let him just be passing through.
    “I have something here,” Dr. Carter says. Her hand has lifted up the body’s arm and she pulls something out from behind his back. “It’s smudged all to hell, but maybe it was something left behind by the killer.”
    I take the piece of paper that she’s holding out. It’s actually a pamphlet drenched from the water and the ink is seeping down the paper. It takes me a couple of minutes to make out the title of the pamphlet:
    Dealing with Addiction: Therapy, Medication, and a Good Support System
    As my eyes trail down the page, a logo at the bottom catches my attention. It has the state of Ohio with the letters DRC inside it. Beside the logo, it states, Southeastern Correctional Institute.
    My heart skips a beat. It can’t be. Francis Tate was supposed to be in Southeastern Correctional Institute for another eight years. There’s no way he would be out by now.
    “Hey!” I call out to one of Dr. Carter’s forensic team members. “Can you put this in an evidence bag?”
    I hand him the pamphlet and take off my gloves. I walk away from the group as I pull out my phone. I get onto the Internet and search Southeastern Correctional Institute.
    I scan through the news section of the search engine. There’s nothing about a prisoner breaking out. Still, what are the odds that someone who was killed by a