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morning of November 1, a Sunday. Sommer picked up the newspaper and opened it. She took a sip of her coffee.
    To her shock and sorrow, there it was: confirmation. Not Heather’s name, but a story about a young girl found in a ditch. Sommer read what the girl was wearing, along with the clothes cops had recovered not far from her body.
    Sommer, who had seen Heather get dressed in those same clothes on the night she disappeared, lost control of her emotions. She started bawling.
    Her boyfriend came out.
    “What’s going on?”
    “That’s Heather,” Sommer said, jabbing her finger into the text of the article. She handed him the story of the girl in the ditch. “That. Is. Heather.”

CHAPTER 8
    I t’s not every day, week, month, or even year that a body is discovered in your jurisdiction. Law enforcement personnel come under a tremendous amount of pressure to solve a case as the media and downtown brass begin to ask questions about the investigation and what stage it’s at—no matter how early or far into it you are.
    “The YCSO was working around the clock on this case,” one law enforcement official told me. “By the end of the first week, with no real leads, they were tired and beat down.”
    They didn’t have a clue as to what happened to Heather Catterton.
    No one knew it then, but as the second week of the investigation came to a close—and there were still no viable suspects on the radar—the unbelievable happened. It was a scenario that would ratchet up the investigation ten notches and turn it into a multijuris-diction, multiagency search for a potential serial killer. All while a ticking clock worked against law enforcement in what seemed to be a bogeyman on the loose, preying on women in Gaston County.

CHAPTER 9
    O n the night Heather Catterton’s identity was released publicly for the first time, her photograph was displayed on the nightly news. Randi Saldana, a twenty-nine-year-old (soon to be thirty) local Gastonia woman, sat in the living room of her sister, Shellie Nations, watching television. The two of them, close as sisters could be, talked as if it was just another normal night together, enjoying each other’s company. But as the news came on, Randi was quickly distracted by that image of Heather.
    “I know her,” Randi said. It was the face. She had seen Heather somewhere.
    “Where?” Shellie asked.
    Shellie, called “Shell” by her sister, did not recognize the photo. Heather was, essentially, just a child, and her pudgy, bubbly face indicated as much. Randi and Shellie were much older. Randi hung around different circles. But they had lived in Gastonia, nonetheless, which was where Heather had spent most of her life.
    “I got it,” Randi said, snapping her fingers. “Jail.” Randi had done some time just recently for several misdemeanors, drug possession, and fighting.
    “You mean it? You talked to her, too?”
    “Yeah.” Randi had also seen Heather around town, from time to time, she explained to Shellie. “And you know,” Randi added, “she would not have gone down like that without a fight. She was a tough chick.”
    Shellie listened as the newscaster explained what law enforcement chose to release publicly. By now, it was being reported that Heather’s death was considered a “homicide investigation.” She had been dumped on the side of the road in South Carolina; some of her clothing was found just to the north, in North Carolina. They also cleared up a notion that Heather had been officially reported missing, saying there was never a missing persons report filed.
    Shellie knew Randi was running around town with some shady characters lately. With the news of Heather’s body dumped on the side of the road Shellie grew worried.
    “Listen to me, Randi,” Shellie said, stopping and looking Randi in the eyes, “whatever you’re doing, you need to stop. You have to understand that ”—Shellie motioned to the television—“is what we’re scared could happen to