They didn't get any helicopters this time. In fact, Jeremy hadn't even bothered to report the excursion after the last few turned out so poorly. Lani drove them out himself, enduring the rough traffic in the afternoon to get them all the way out to Olympia. Jeremy briefly considered stopping at the hospital for another look, but the heat of the chase had them both excited for the first time in months.

  This felt like a real lead, a dash of hope when they'd been searching fruitlessly for months now.

  Dave met them outside the lab, ushering them in through a side door. "We're trying to keep it quiet for now," he explained as they walked. "You remember the hysteria the first time around. If news gets out that someone was found…"

  "Who found him?" Jeremy asked, taking out a pocket notebook.

  "Park ranger. He's here if you want to interview him. It was just a routine patrol though, I think. He didn't have a clue what he was looking at. No one did until they got him down to us." Dave lead them straight into the examination room.

  "Jesus, he looks like a contortionist," murmured Lani. He bowed his head slightly in respect.

  Jerry Hauserman was laid out on the nearest table. His back was nearly bent in half. One arm was torn clean off, and a hole the size of a cinder block was punched straight through his chest. His face had been beaten in to the point that it was barely recognizable.

  Jeremy turned to the forensic scientist. "You identified him by DNA?"

  "He was on file from the last time he was in prison, voluntary submission to clear his name on another case. Didn't take much to match up." Dave frowned. "I still have no clue what could do something like this."

  "Have the rangers been sweeping the forest?"

  "Yes. Started about eight hours ago. Scott found him this morning and the sweep started an hour later."

  Jeremy nodded. "We'll talk to the ranger, and then we're heading out there." He glanced over at Lani. "You good?"

  Lani lifted his head again and opened his eyes. "Let's go."

----------------------------------------

  As expected, Jeremy didn't get much out of the park ranger's interview. He found the corpse in the woods during a routine patrol, just as Dave had said. There didn't seem to be any particular reason Jerry Hauserman was in that part of the forest, though it was on a trail that lead close to Rallsburg if followed for a dozen miles. Real progress would have to come from the array of rangers now trawling through the thick Olympic forest south of Rallsburg.

  Jeremy and Lani joined one of the south-most groups, riding up as far as Lani's jeep could take them. When the terrain became too steep, they dismounted and continued on foot, catching up to the rangers ahead in short order thanks to radio communications and satellite locating. The wonders of modern technology.

  "What do you think we'll find out here?" Lani asked as they followed a few steps behind the line of rangers.

  "A killer."

  "You think a person did all this?"

  Jeremy climbed over a huge tree root blocking the path, feeling once again how out of shape he was. He resolved to get back into his workout regimen from training as soon as they returned to Seattle. "This confirms it."

  "How so?"

  "In Rallsburg you had a ton of fires, explosions, a wrecked town and a bunch of unexplained bodies. Could have been an accident, could have been on purpose. We had no clue." Jeremy paused for a moment while they waited for one of the rangers to return the latest call out. When he finally did, to a chorus of relieved voices, Jeremy continued. "Jerry Hauserman escaped whatever the hell happened there. He ran for it, then he somehow survived months on his own hidin' out here. Until they found him."

  "Who?"

  "Whoever can do that to people. Tear them up like ragdolls. This was the killer catching the rest of his prey." Jeremy looked him dead in the eye. "There might be more bodies out here we ain't found yet, if anyone else managed to make a run for it and got hunted down."

  "How many were we missing?"

  "Twenty one missin' from the total count. Twenty now, since we've found Hauserman."

  "You think they're all dead?"

  I hope not. "We'll find out. That's our job, remember?"

  Unfortunately for the agents, they found nothing but trees that evening in the sweep. After five miles and the sun completely vanishing below the horizon, they finally gave in. The ranger in charge promised to begin a new sweep further north as soon as the sun came back up. Lani thanked them for their time while Jeremy waited for the backup to arrive and drive them back to their jeep.

  It had been a long, hard hike for nothing whatsoever and he was getting increasingly frustrated. He should have been used to it after so many months without an inch of progress, but between the conversation with Maddie and the surprise lead in the form of Hauserman's death, Jeremy had an itch he hadn't felt in months. There was a real investigation for him to pursue.

  Lani drove them back along dark, sparsely populated streets, through Olympia and Tacoma and back into the Seattle area. He dropped Jeremy at his condo, promising to write up the new report for their agitated chief in the morning.

  Jeremy dragged himself inside and collapsed on the couch.

  "What happened to you?" asked Maddie, pajama-clad and holding a mug of tea. She walked over from the small kitchen and sat down opposite the couch in his favorite lounge chair.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  "Hiked five miles with the rangers and remembered how much I hate hiking," Jeremy grumbled into the pillow.

  "With the rangers?"

  "New lead." He rolled over and popped open his laptop on the coffee table, booting it up. "Someone got killed in the same way as those strange deaths in Rallsburg, but it was only two days ago."

  Maddie's eyes widened. "So that means—"

  "He's not done yet."

  "Jesus Christ," she murmured. "You're chasing a serial killer?"

  "Maybe. I don't know what this is yet."

  Jeremy connected his laptop to the secure tunnel and opened up his work desktop. He started to pull up his notes to record everything from the day, but stopped. The video of the hospital was still open, right where he'd left it, and it reminded him of a nagging question in his skull about Hauserman.

  "Why didn't he show up anywhere?" he muttered out loud.

  "What?"

  "The guy we found tonight." Jeremy spoke up. He wasn't normally the type to bounce his thoughts off other people, but his sister Maddie was definitely smarter than him and could often spot connections he never quite made. "Jerry Hauserman. He was out there in the woods for four months. Why didn't he try to go back to civilization?"

  "Maybe he tried to go home? Back to Rallsburg?"

  "He was found so far south he may as well have been out of the forest. He was a bit malnourished, but definitely alive until they caught up to him."

  "And murdered him."

  "Yeah." Jeremy leaned back on the couch, trying to think. "What's the motivation here? Revenge? Terrorism? Just a random psychopath?"

  "Can't be terrorism."

  Jeremy resisted the urge to make a sarcastic quip. "Why?"

  Maddie sipped her tea, looking queasy. "Terrorism is about achieving a political goal through violence and fear. The killer hasn't said a word. No message, no agenda, no beliefs or anything. He's killing all the people from that town and we ain't got a fuckin' clue on why. If he's a terrorist, he's a shitty one. He's not accomplishing anything."

  "Not terrorism, then," Jeremy agreed. He looked down at the hospital video, the only other clue he had to go on. Maddie came around to sit next to him so she could see the screen as well. "You know you aren't supposed to do that."

  "So turn me in," she said lightly, reaching forward to tap the mouse. "This is security camera footage?"

  "From St. Peter Hospital in Olympia."

  "Where that kid disappeared. Will-something?"

  "William Carbonell. Plus three others, and one body left behind we couldn't identify."

  "They made it out," she said, taking another sip of tea. "They're running from something."

  "No shit."

  "Why, though?"

  "Because they've got something to hide," Jeremy realized aloud. "Something happened in that town, they all knew about it and the killer's suppressing it."

  "And the guy from today?"

  "Hauserman couldn't show up anywhere because he knew if he did, we'd bring him in. We'd question him and he can't answer those questions." Jeremy felt the tingle in his chest, a signal to his brain that he'd stumbled onto a piece of the truth. "They're all hiding from us as much as they are from the killer."

  "Sounds right to me." Maddie yawned. "What's next, though?"

  "I don't know," he said, feeling a bit defeated after the revelation only a moment before. "It feels right but it doesn't put me any closer to finding them or the killer. The rangers will keep sweeping the forest, but they don't need me for that."

  "You'll figure it out," she reassured him. Her phone buzzed, but this time she picked it up and chucked it across the room to the chair she'd vacated. "They can go fuck themselves for the rest of the night."

  He smiled. "So how did your dance with the devil go?"

  "When was the last time you spoke to that old bitch?" Maddie sighed and leaned back against the end of the couch, stretching out her legs. "She wants me to go stump for her, just like I thought. I'm the one up for election this year and she wants me to help her."

  "Courtney in a nutshell," Jeremy agreed. "Did she at least offer to return the favor?"

  "Fuck no!" Maddie laughed bitterly. "How the fuck did she ever get elected without understanding quid pro quo?"

  "Money, rich old fucks on her father's side, a total willingness to backstab anyone she meets?"

  "Right, I forgot, she fucking cheated."

  Jeremy grinned. "Go easy on her, she never learned how to make friends."

  "Because we're the poster children for loveable public figures."

  "You did manage to recruit my goddamn partner into your web," he pointed out.

  She laughed. "You oughta treat Lani better. He's a good kid. He cares about you."

  "Unlike a certain sister." Maddie chucked a pillow at him, which he dodged easily. He got up and headed for the kitchen. "Did you save any of that tea for me?"

  "Check the stove, you asshat," Maddie shot back. She stretched out languorously on the couch with an exaggerated sigh. Jeremy returned with his mug of tea to find the entire thing occupied. He promptly sat down right on her legs. "Hey!"

  "You took my spot." He picked up the laptop while Maddie twisted awkwardly around to get her legs free again. She finally managed to sit up again while he clicked play on the video once again. He wasn't really expecting to see anything, but it had become such a habit to watch it any time he felt idle.

  "I can see why you'd watch C-SPAN when this is your go-to home video," Maddie said dryly, watching the silent, almost unchanging footage over his shoulder. "What happened to just turning on some porn before bed?"

  "Says the Pornography Senator."

  "Freedom of speech, bitch," Maddie said triumphantly. "I'm just protecting their rights."

  "They aren't even your constituents. No one makes porn in Washington."

  "I got a lot of good press off that one in my base though. Since I'm a middle aged single woman with no family, I take whatever I can get."

  "Congrats," Jeremy deadpanned. "Meanwhile, you got tarred and feathered on national news."

  "Yeah, but who cares about that anymore? As long as you're still getting your votes, the news can say whatever it damn wants. Half the people watching don't even believe it anymore."

  "Doesn't that say something about your base, though?"

  "Like what?"

  "That they don't trust national news anymore?"

  "Oh, Jere-bear," said Maddie sadly. "It's so much more complicated than that."

  "Explain it to me sometime, then," he said mildly, clicking over to the next video. The timestamp had run out of the first one, putting them somewhere in the middle of the night on the fifteenth—right around when Will disappeared. He was working through every video following last sighting of Nicole inside the hospital, one street at a time as far out as they had access to.

  "Ask me again when it's not one in the goddamn morning."

  "You could've gone to sleep." Something caught Jeremy's eye. He paused the video.

  "And miss out on such scintillating conversation with my little brother?"

  "Word a day app?"

  "No, McDonough used in a floor speech a couple days ago."

  Jeremy zoomed in on a portion. It was painfully blurry, but he could still make out enough detail. The shot was from the street six blocks away from the hospital, facing east. A police cruiser was passing underneath. The camera only shot in black and white and it was incredibly grainy, but he'd definitely spotted something.

  "What is it?" Maddie asked, noticing his change in posture.

  "That car."

  "It's the Olympia five-oh. What about 'em?"

  "It's not," Jeremy said firmly. He pulled up a picture to compare. "The color scheme is wrong."

  "The video's in black and white."

  "The shades are wrong. Look." He opened a photo of the typical cruiser in an image editor and dropped the saturation down to zero. When he brought them next to each other, it was clear—the squad car in the video wasn't a normal police vehicle. He picked up a state cruiser picture as well, just to be sure.

  "So it's an old car with a paint job or some shit."

  Jeremy could see just enough detail on the rear of the car now. "Those scratches. On the rear bumper on the left side. That bullet hole just below the back window." He pointed each of them out as he spoke. The bullet hole looked like gunk on the camera lens until he pointed it out specifically frame-by-frame in the four frames they had recorded before the car passed out of view. "I know that goddamn car."

  "Huh?"

  He took a deep breath. "I rode around in it for years. I was there when we popped the trunk to duck that shooter. That's Jackie Nossinger's cruiser. I'd bet my fucking life on it."