While the Savage Sleeps Read Online Free PDF Page A

at Callahan, almost as if making sure he’d heard him correctly, then stepped forward to examine the gaping hole in Alma’s body. He turned back toward Callahan again, shaking his head slowly.
    Callahan continued. “Took out all her organs. She’s hollowed out … empty as air.”
    Cameron glanced around the room. “So where are they?”
    Callahan walked behind Alma’s desk, pulled open the top drawer. The killer had organized Alma’s internal organs, neatly, from small to large.
    “ The heart, spleen, and kidneys are in this one.” Callahan closed the drawer and opened the next two, one at a time. “The stomach, intestines, lungs, and the rest, are all in here. I’ll give ’em one thing: this killer knew what he was doing. The organs seem to have been removed with surgical precision.”
    It was true. Alma’s body had been prepared in a meticulous, almost clinical manner. The procedure seemed to follow the most stringent of guidelines employed for field dressing an animal carcass. The killer had even severed the jugular to drain the blood. Alma’s corpse was nothing more than a hollowed-out shell, stripped of its organs, stripped of its dignity.
    Cameron placed his hands on his hips and looked down at the floor, studying it. There were blood smears everywhere, but not a footprint to be found: the suspect had covered his tracks, albeit, sloppily.
    But the message seemed clear: Alma was his prey, stalked, killed, and then processed for transport and eventual consumption; only the perp had done neither, instead, leaving her violated body behind and on display so everyone could witness his vulgar accomplishment first-hand.
    Again. Just like Witherspoon, Cameron thought, then felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He drew air into his lungs, and exhaled. It felt like the first time he’d breathed since arriving there. “What about a suspect?”
    “ A couple of ideas, nothing concrete. The last person to see her was her two o’clock appointment.” He tilted his pad up and glanced at it. “Ryan Churchill. Next appointment was at three-thirty. Luckily, a teacher came in and found her before the kid did.” He hesitated. “It was Laura Hightower. She stopped by to pick up some student assessment reports. Not too lucky for her, though. Pretty shook up. They had to take her to the emergency room. Damned near had a nervous breakdown.”
    “ Understandable,” Cameron said. “Anyone talk to the kid?”
    “ Nope. Nobody can find him. We’re looking.”
    “ Let’s make that our number one priority, then … and check his locker for clues as well.”
    “ For sure, boss.”
    Cameron couldn’t help but feel like he was singing the same old song, only in a different key. He sat on the edge of a student desk just across from Alma’s, thinking. As he did, the movement caused the computer monitor to light up, going from power-save mode to illuminated. The flash caught his attention, and he glanced down at it for a moment, then away, then back down at it again. He jerked, almost falling off the desk.
    “ Shawn?” Cameron said, now crouching down, face level with the screen.
    Callahan had been taking notes. He stopped and looked up. “Yeah, boss?”
    “ You won’t believe what I’m seeing here.”
    The deputy walked around and stood behind Cameron, looking at the monitor.
    “ Make sure this computer’s been dusted for prints,” Cameron said, “I think we have a confession.”

Chapter Eight
    Sheriff’s Station
    Faith, New Mexico

    With the poem as evidence, Ryan Churchill was now the number-one suspect in Alma Gutierrez’s murder.
    Now all they had to do was find him.
    But that was going to be a challenge. Nobody had seen or heard from him since Alma was killed. Like a shadow before the setting sun, the boy seemed to have faded into the scenery, no sign of him anywhere.
    Cameron walked into Frank’s office with an old, tattered book in his hand, which he dropped onto the desk as he passed by, then