Side Effects: An FBI Psychological Thriller Read Online Free PDF

said.
    “What?”
    “Who the hell takes pictures of nature at night?”
    “It’s possible,” I said. “Owls, foxes, raccoons… just need an infrared camera. Or maybe he wasn’t even taking pictures of nature.”
    “Well that makes even less sense then. What else would you take pictures of out here?” He waved a hand all over our forested surroundings.
    “All right, Option B isn’t as likely as Option A,” I said. “How about Option C?”
    “Option C,” Morris said.
    I waited.
    “Option C…” Morris said again, looking uncertain if he wanted to continue.
    “Yeeeeessss…?”
    “Option C—the microfiber cloth belongs to our guy.”
    “You had to second-guess that?” I asked.
    “What’s he need a camera for?”
    “Scouting ahead? Making sure the area was secure enough to do his thing?”
    “Yeah…maybe.” He frowned. “So he sits back here and takes pictures what—fifteen feet away, looking for the ideal spot to dig his grave? Why bother? It’s fifteen feet.”
    “Maybe he was—” My surroundings disappeared. My whole world was suddenly a solitary page in the file, a page I had not consciously studied while flipping for the teens’ statements, yet somehow it had registered all the same.
    “What?” Morris said. “More? You smell more? ”
    I ignored him and immediately opened the file. Found the page I wanted and hurried back towards the crime scene.
    “ What? ” Morris pleaded behind me as he followed.
    I ducked under the tape and approached grid block D where a square of earth had been sectioned off a few feet from the base of the grave. It had been sectioned off because a manhole-sized circle had been cleared away among the surrounding foliage. It looked deliberate. Local PD thought it might have been a spot where the victim was kneeling before being struck with the shovel and then dumped into the hole.
    I squatted and studied the circle. Morris loomed over me.
    “You gonna tell me what the hell?” he said.
    I handed the file up to him. “Read.”
    He did. “Local PD marked it off because it looked like a deliberate circle made in the earth. They’re right too”—he looked around—“the rest is completely carpeted with leaves and twigs.”
    “Local surmised this was where the victim was kneeling before being struck, thus the circle.”
    “Yeah?”
    “You kneel on the ground, it’s going to flatten debris, not clear it,” I said. “And a circle this big?” I spun an index finger over the spot.
    “If he’s kneeling long enough, squirming and shifting, doing his goddamnedest to escape the cuffs like all the others had, he could move things around,” Morris said.
    “Except this guy didn’t have the extreme ligature marks on the wrists the others had, remember?” I got as close as I could without disturbing the evidence. “I don’t see any indentation in the earth either. You’re on your knees long enough to move stuff around and clear a big spot, you’re going to leave a depression, yes?”
    “Most likely.”
    I stood and backed up until the circle of earth was directly in front of me. Directly in front of that was the grave. I pulled my phone from my pocket, aimed it down at the grave, and snapped a picture. I looked at my phone. I’d captured everything.
    I handed the phone to Morris and said: “I think I know what his trophies are.”
    .

CHAPTER 5
    Morris had given Detective Sill the microfiber cloth when he and his partner returned from dinner. I kept my theory about the killer’s trophies between Morris and me for the time being, telling Sill and his team instead that it was likely—and it was, of course—that the cloth was best explained with Option A; it had been dropped by a guy or girl snapping pics of nature days ago, but they should keep on looking just in case.
    Plausible as it was, Morris’ veteran gut wasn’t wild about Option A. He liked Option C—my theory. I was pleased. My gut liked my theory too.
    And so now, sitting in the car while