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Facing each other, they raised the sheet of plywood

Logan looked down expectantly but saw nothing except a hole in the ground littered with construction debris

Kelsey hurried around to his side "Slide round, heedless of her clothing--her tailored pants and jacket, her crisp white shirt He caught her arled just a few feet froht, We are a team We understand each other

She dropped the rest of the way and righted herself He twisted around, sliding into the hole hi

Old broken boards were everywhere So were plywood shavings and sawdust, with the occasional coffee or soda cup and fast-food wrappers

He began to raise boards and sift through trash, and then Kelsey cried out

He turned

There, protruding fro

And the hand was ht

"Fentanyl," Kat Sokolov said when they were back at the office

Kelsey tried to recall what she knew about the drug It was legally used as a painkiller and had improved the quality of life for ly, unscrupulous people were now selling it for use on the streets Like all good things, it had been corrupted

She waited for Kat to continue Kelsey’s mind see day Logan hadJackson and getting Kat down to the construction site so the body could be recovered without losing any evidence thatthe scene along with local forensics and keeping the "tearaph every an and Jackson Crow had kept watch to ensure that nothing that could provide a clue--a fiber, a fingerprint, a hair--was overlooked

And once Vanessa Johnston had been reround, she’d been rushed in for autopsy while local investigators had set out to question every member of the construction team, from the contractor to the delivery boys Kelsey had to adet much help from that direction The site had been closed down for several weeks due to lack of funds Vanessa Johnston had only beenfor about a week Still, there was the fact that the lock on the gate was new and there was no other point of entry, unless one scaled the wooden walls with their arrow-tipped tops It was extremely unlikely that anyone could have crawled over the fence, especially carrying a corpse or a drugged or unwilling wo the perimeter and discovered that two of the side-by-side slats were no longer eh when pushed to create an entrance allowing passage for a e as a huh no one had heard anything, and only one woman complained about noise at the site

"Birds!" she’d told the officer "Birds shrieking and cawing at all hours of the night I called in to complain twice"

And she had; the construction site was on a list for the cops to check out

The physical evidence at the site could take weeks to examine, even with all of Jackson Crow’s power and contacts There were hundreds of wooden boards, there was dirt, bricks, refuse, and many other surfaces to be tested

Vanessa Johnston’s body had not decayed to the same extent as the other bodies Kat was optireat deal more about time and method of death than she could with the earlier victiht about Vanessa’s family and friends, those who had feared for her and would now learn the worst…

Everyone seemed as exhausted as she was Jane had done what she could to establish ies of the deceased; Kat, too, had worked without a break Sean caed in without pausing for a meal

Now they sat, the six of the the events of the day and discussing what they’d found out, with Sean listening

"Fentanyl," Kat repeated She looked at Logan and Kelsey "I’m sure you’ve coesic, and it’s a hundred times more potent than morphine For chronic pain, it’s often delivered to patients through a patch It’s also coery Like I said, fentanyl’s hit the streets, and God kno many overdoses there’ve been because of it It’s sometimes mixed with Rohypnol--co that we’ve missed the combination because of the deterioration of the previous bodies and because we needed to use GC-MS testing But that’s how the killer is grabbing these woh to prick them with some sort of needle or slap on a patch I’m not positive of his method because I haven’t been able to find a needle h I’ll continue searching on Vanessa Johnston to is that potent?" Kelsey asked "In o into drinks, and I’ve worked cases where the wo that happened to them for hours afterward In one rape, the woman didn’t believe she’d ever been with the ht because the police found video"

"Yes, a roofie is a date-rape drug," Kat said "Memory can be co the person out--right after the killer gets her to coly Why? I have no idea As far as I can tell, the woured he had to have asoany kind of scene, soan said

"I’ll start on a grid, although I don’t suppose we knohere Vanessa was last seen?" Sean asked

"Let’s begin by putting all the woested "And then indicate where the bodies were found Let’s include Sierra Monte in the investigation, so we’ll need the Longhorn in the grid, as well We know she was taken froly convinced that Sierra Monte’s death was connected with the others He also wondered if--and how--the Galveston diaht be involved

"I’ll have preliminary sketches of the other women for you tomorrow, and we’ve decided it’ll be necessary to re flesh and soft tissue on several of the skulls In a few of the other cases, that’s e’re down to, anyway," Jane said "I can provide ies that will be almost real," she added "There are even formulas you can use to come up with the most likely hair and eye color"

"That will help," Jackson said "We need to identify the other woreed "And we have the best people in crian has seen to that He knows the local technicians and scientists and labs The place itself is a ot to be some bit of evidence"