Flashback (Kendra Michaels #11)

“No. The message is really for you, but he’s giving me the option of passing it along to you or not.”

Kendra wrinkled her brow. “Why would he do that? You’re not my gatekeeper.”

“I think he’s actually being considerate for a change. After that maniac tried to kill you in your garage, I guess he isn’t sure if you’re up for more serial killer mayhem.”

Kendra rolled her eyes. “When has that stopped me before?”

“Well, never. But maybe it should sometimes.”

“In any case, it should be my decision.”

“Agreed. Hence, my decision to tell you about it.”

“Well, you haven’t yet. So what’s the mayhem?”

He paused a long moment before speaking. “It looks like the Bayside Strangler has struck again.”

Kendra had been bracing herself, but the news still took her breath away. “Where?”

“Old Town. The victim worked at a bar there and went missing last night. She was a junior at San Diego State. Her body was just found in the back of a pickup truck.”

Kendra nodded. “You know I’m going, right?”

“Of course.”

Kendra had never been to Old Town at any time when it wasn’t absolutely packed, so it was chilling to roll through the deserted streets as she and Lynch drove to the location of the Bayside Strangler’s latest victim. Young Tessa Davies had been found in the bed of a stolen pickup truck almost twenty-four hours to the minute after she’d been reported missing.

Work lights and police flashers signaled the exact location of the body. Lynch pulled over, and he and Kendra climbed out of his car and walked past the dozen or so onlookers.

Perry was working the scene with Metcalf, the medical examiner, and the SDPD forensics techs.

“Look at this,” Kendra said. “The FBI and the SDPD working together like one big happy family.”

“Well, maybe a slightly dysfunctional family,” Metcalf said.

Perry nodded in agreement. “Slightly. But nothing a little family therapy can’t fix.”

Kendra looked at the 1970s-era pickup truck parked on Calhoun Street, one of the community’s main thoroughfares. She turned back to the investigators. “The victim was found in the back of the truck… Was she covered up?”

Perry shook his head. “No, not at all. She would have been plainly visible to anyone walking by on the sidewalk.”

Kendra shook her head. “How long was she out here?”

“Somewhere between two and three hours,” Metcalf said. “There are a lot of bars in the area, so people walking by probably thought she crawled in there and passed out. That’s what a pair of local cops thought until they saw the bruising on her neck. They’re the ones who recognized her as a missing person.”

Kendra walked around the pickup truck, which was in amazingly good condition for a vehicle that was fifty years old. “What about this truck? Who owns it?”

“It was stolen from a farm about seventy miles east of here,” Perry said. “From what we can gather, it was driven into town and parked here just after dark with the corpse already in the back. The driver walked away without anyone spotting him, best as we can tell.”

“Ready to take a look?” Lynch said to her.

She took a deep breath. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

Perry grabbed the edge of a black tarp that had been spread over the truck bed. “We should make this as quick as possible. A little while ago, some sickos were flying their drone cameras overhead to try to get some shots of the body.”

“Don’t worry,” Kendra said. “I won’t want to linger over this.”

Perry lifted the tarp, revealing Tessa Davies. She was a pretty young woman, dressed to the nines for a fun evening out. Tessa was bound by the strangler’s restraints of choice, but her body was angled so that they could not be easily seen by passersby.