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him at the airstrip outside of Eau Claire. He’ll be there in an about an hour.”
    “Who am I expecting?”
    He stared at his closed office door where just outside John waited. The criminalist had spent a month dealing with the deaths of children at the hands of a sick bastard. He needed to decompress, but Ian had no choice. All of his other agents were on assignment.
    Moving his gaze from the door, he said, “John Kain.”
    “Got it. I’ll call you tonight. Seven sharp.”
    “Seven, it is. And Roy, use Celeste on this. If she’s anything like her mother...”
    “Your agent will cooperate with a psychic?”
    No, Kain did not believe in psychics. He believed in facts, evidence, hardcore science. In this instance, though, he’d have no choice. Ian would see to it. “Trust me. He’ll cooperate.”

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 2
     
     
                 
    Less than two hours later, John Kain knelt, resting his forearm on his thigh as he studied one of the four victims. Bruises marred her flesh, her inner thighs, her face and chest, while her mouth gaped open as if she’d died screaming. The thin line of purple running around her neck was telling. She’d been strangled. Beaten, raped, then strangled. Just like the other three.
    Roy, the sheriff who’d reminded him of Paul Bunyan, minus the ax and blue ox, came up beside him. “What are you thinking?”
    John stood, then scanned the area, the dense woods, the highway where the deputies had set up a road block. The smooth asphalt was littered with police cruisers, several CSU vans, and maybe a half-dozen deputies. “I can’t be sure, but I spoke with...Mitchell?”
    “Yeah.” The sheriff nodded. “He’s the lead with Eau Claire’s CSU team.”
    “Mitchell tentatively confirmed your suspicions, but will know more during the autopsies.”
    “Shit.”
    “My exact thought. You’re in a heap of it.” And he’d just plowed through his own pile in Chicago, the stench still lingering, still fresh.
    When he’d joined CORE, he’d known he would see just as much as he had when he’d been with the FBI, but Ian had promised downtime in between cases, something he’d never had with the Bureau. Something he needed now. What he’d witnessed while working with the Chicago PD and FBI Field Office would haunt him for a lifetime. And as pissed as he was about having a mini-vacation dangled in front of him, then quickly pulled away with one simple phone call, he still had a job to do.
    He would never say no to Ian Scott. Ian had resurrected him from the dead, had given him a job, a lucrative income, and the ability to do the only thing he knew how to—catch killers no one else could. 
    Mitchell approached. “We covered a fifty-yard radius so far, and didn’t find any of the victims’ clothing, but,” he said and cocked a brow. “We got a footprint about seven yards from where the three bodies were found, along with a button and a lighter scattered on the trail. Not much to go on, but considering how clean the site is...maybe we’ll get lucky and find a print.”
    “Thanks, Mitchell,” Roy said.
    “After we move the bodies, I’m going to have my guys do another sweep, take the radius out another—”
    “I wouldn’t bother,” John interrupted.
    Mitchell plucked off his Latex gloves. “Why’s that?”
    “You have one body here.” He pointed to the woman he’d just examined, her pale body stark white against the dark earth and brown leaves. “And three clustered together, what, thirty, forty yards away? He kept the clothes. You won’t find anything if you expand your search.”
    Mitchell crossed his arms over his chest and sent him a “you’re so full of shit” look. “And you know this how?”
    John turned to the sheriff, ignoring Mitchell. “No disrespect, but you’re small time here. I imagine you don’t have the manpower to patrol this area very often. If our guy scoped the area, he’d know his window of opportunity. It took me