Snuff by Melissa Simonson Read Free Book Online Page B

literally nothing to go on for months except untraceable burner cells and a bunch of dead girls.  She’ll be able to confirm…” she trailed off, shaking her head.  “Confirm what I’ve been thinking.”
    John hadn’t seen a cop look so angry in quite some time.  The last time had been eighteen years ago when clutching the sides of a sink, looking in the mirror of the Sex Crimes Unit’s bathroom after a technicality had set a rapist free.  She cared—possibly a little too much.  Her fingers wouldn’t have bitten so hard into the insides of her elbows if she didn’t, but he had a feeling she’d never admit it.  She seemed the type to be embarrassed she had emotions in the first place.  
    “Well I’m sure you don’t need me to point out that he doesn’t have a type.”
    “Great observation, Nancy Drew.”
    John wondered if the Nancy Drew barb insulted him.  Ultimately he decided it didn’t.  After all, Nancy Drew solved every case.  “The range in age and appearance is telling.  Normally it would mean he’s an opportunistic offender, not preferential, but I’m not sure that’s the case.  Seems he’s a mixture of both.”
    “He’s dyed the hair of three girls, including Brooke.  So those kidnappings seem opportunistic.”
    “That he’s gone so far as to dye hair and dress some in costume tells me he’s looking to fit a scenario, which makes him preferential.  But it’s hard to find women who perfectly match fantasies.  If he’s doing snatch and grabs it says he hasn’t put time into stalking , though he may have staked out parking lots that don’t have security cameras as a countermeasure.”
    “What are you getting at?  You’re contradicting yourself.”  
    “I’m not buying that this is the work of an individual.”  He took control of the laptop and flipped through the photographs of each dead woman.  “We’ve got an African-American track star, a slightly heavy quasi-Goth, a trophy wife, an adolescent girl, an Asian-American woman, a soccer mom, and two girls next door.  No one man has this wide a variety of types.  I mean, I suppose it’s possible, but it’s very unlikely.”
    “You mean to tell me you’ve never dreamed of banging the girl next door and a MILF and a goddamned geisha?”
    He couldn’t hold back a laugh.  It had to be that way she had with swearing.  It really was fantastic; she must have had years of practice, careful refining of her craft, finding the perfect balance of fucks and damns , adding just enough wonderful inflection in all the right places. 
    “No, I’ve never dreamt of banging the girl next door or MILF or a geisha.”  The woman who lived next door to John growing up was eighty years old.  No matter how the Girl Next Door was depicted in Playboy, he couldn’t help flashing back to old Mrs. Collins.   “Such extensive damage to reproductive organs is the sole constant I can see, and only a woman could make a man hate women this much.  Or maybe he hates the fact he was ever born.  Is there any other constant you’ve noticed?”
    “Dead girls were wrapped in blankets.”
    “That points to—”
    “Remorse, yeah, I know.  But there’s nothing remorseful about what happened.”
    John’s chair creaked like the bones of an old woman as he leaned back.  “Which means two offenders, at the very least.”
    “Yeah, I thought that, too.”  Lisette ripped the elastic from her ponytail and shook her hair out.  “Brooke told me she and Abby were filmed by this asshat.  Fair to assume it happened to all the girls.  Filming torture porn doesn’t scream remorse , and from what Brooke’s said, there was only one perp present.  Blankets could have been to cover the bodies when he tossed them out of his van.  Keep them from being found sooner.”
    “ Has anything similar happened a few months prior to these abductions?  Women reporting dressing room cameras or something?”
    “ You know how many pervy voyeurs are in