Page 48 of Hunting Justice
He retrieved his laptop from the living room and returned to his chair. “Ready to see what else Ken left for us?”
“Go for it. I want to get to the bottom of all this.”
“You and me both.” Jonah booted up his computer and accessed the files he’d saved. “I plan to reopen the cases Ken left me, but from what we’ve discovered so far, I want to see everything he included.”
She briefly pointed to the only icon they hadn’t opened yet. “Then let’s take a look at that folder.” Fingers wrapped around the warm mug, she scooted forward on her seat.
He clicked on the final folder. One by one, photos of a Chinese symbol on skin popped up.
The images stole her breath. Her hands around the cup shook. Proof of her serial killer glowed on the screen. She struggled to fill her lungs.
“Noelle?”
“No…that…” Words refused to form.
“Take it easy.” He removed the mug from her hands, then covered her fingers with his, his entire focus on her. “Tell me.”
“That’s the symbol for truth. The killer repeated over and over that the truth would be revealed.”
“What truth?” Jonah’s tone softened.
“I have no idea.” She closed her eyes. Dread pooled in her belly. When she’d mustered the courage, she looked him straight in the eyes. “My serial killer tattooed the same symbol behind my ear.”
“I’ve never seen it.”
She clutched her hair that hid the tattoo. “I wear my hair down or styled to cover it as much as possible. And when people do see it, there’s nothing weird about it, so they never ask.”
He motioned toward the side of her head. “May I?”
At this point, she’d do almost anything to end her nightmare. She leaned forward and flipped her hair to the side.
But the possibility that the man who’d wanted her dead was still out there hunting victims bothered her more than the tattoo that she’d never asked for.
* * *
The walls of the kitchen pressed in, sucking the air from the room. Jonah tamped down his anger at the faded Chinese symbol tucked behind Noelle’s ear. His fingers traced the lines without touching her skin.
He glanced at the photos, then back to Noelle. “Yours is a tattoo.”
The line between her eyes deepened, and she nodded.
He gestured toward the laptop. “Those are burns.”
Her eyes widened. “As in this guy branded these women?”
“It appears so.”
Her respirations increased to an alarming rate. Her chair scraped on the floor. She stood.
The horror in her gaze would star in his nightmares for a long time. “What is it?”
“It’s a copycat.” She wrapped her arms around her waist.
He studied the photo, unsure of what she’d picked up on. “How can you be sure?”
“All the original victims had the same symbol, but inked, not branded.” She ran her fingers up the sides of her face, into her hair, and gripped it, like she wanted to pull it out.
“Do you have evidence that you can show me?” He’d never seen anything in the photos in her office that hinted at the tattoo.