The Seventh Victim by Mary Burton Read Free Book Online

her back to the moment and she glanced over her juice glass toward her one-year-old German Shepherd. She’d found the large black and tan dog in an animal shelter when he was eight weeks old. According to the shelter owner, the dog had been left behind because of a bent ear and a crooked tail. Such imperfections had rendered him poor breeding stock and therefore worthless. In her mind the imperfections made him perfect. She’d taken him immediately, and they’d been inseparable ever since.
    Lincoln ran up to her and dropped a large stick at her feet. Wagging his tail, he barked. She picked up the stick and heaved it across the back lawn. Lincoln ran, pounced, and immediately brought the stick back to her. He could play this game for hours. She tossed the stick a second time.
    “Catch it quick, boy. We’ve got to get to our morning hike, so I can get into town and check on the displays.”
    Restlessness stirred in her bones as she finished off her juice. There were papers to be graded and prints to be made, but those were jobs for the heat of the day. Now she’d enjoy the precious cool morning. She grabbed her grandmother’s well-oiled rifle and locked up the house. “Ready to go for a walk?”
    Lincoln barked and wagged his tail, dashing toward the trails that led into the foothills.
    As she followed behind him, she dared to smile. She had a home. A car. A job. A show opening. Had her life finally turned normal?
     
     
    Beck could get by on a couple of hours of sleep a night for weeks on end. The trait, which had confounded his mother when he was a kid, served him well now.
    Last night, still jazzed from returning to work, Beck read the Lou Ellen Fisk file. The San Antonio woman had also been a student, working two jobs on top of fifteen credit hours. Liked by friends and other students, no one, according to the statements, could believe anyone would want to hurt Lou Ellen. There’d been mention of her boyfriend, but local police had cleared him. She’d been scheduled to leave Texas at the end of the semester.
    So far the two victims had more in common than he’d have liked. Young. Blond. Leaving Texas. White dress. He still didn’t know enough about Fisk to draw a firm link between the two cases, but the connecting threads were weaving together faster than he’d have imagined.
    Now as he crossed the lot toward his office, balancing a cup of coffee and the Fisk case file, his cell phone rang. “Beck.”
    “I hear you’re looking for me.”
    He squinted against the sun, already bright and hot. “And who might you be?”
    “I’m Mike Raines. I was the investigating officer into the Seattle Strangler cases.”
    Beck had never placed a second call to Seattle. But no surprise that Detective Cannon had called his former partner and given him the heads-up. He’d have done the same. “Who said I was looking for you?”
    Raines chuckled, accepting Beck’s test with grace. “Steve Cannon. He was the officer you spoke with yesterday.”
    He paused outside the front door of the Rangers’ offices, preferring privacy to the cooler inside temperatures. “What else did he say?”
    “Steve and I went to the academy together. He was there when my kid was baptized, and I was there for all his six kids’ christenings. We were partners for eight years. When you called he thought I’d like to know. He told me you’ve got a case reminiscent of the Seattle Strangler.”
    “Right now I can’t say for certain what I have.”
    “There are a couple of red flags you need to watch out for.”
    “Such as?”
    “Cannon said there was a penny.”
    Beck turned from the building’s front entrance, but didn’t acknowledge the statement, not knowing if he actually had Mike Raines on the phone.
    “Was the year 1943?” Raines prompted.
    He could have been speaking to the Almighty himself and Beck wouldn’t have given case details away.
    “I can appreciate you not wanting to talk. Shoe on the other foot, and I wouldn’t be