Page 16 of Into the Veins
The gut-wrenching musk of sour odors and intense humidity dove deep into his lungs, and he instantly brought the crook of his elbow to his mouth and nose. Didn’t help. The beam reflected back at him from two shelves of terrariums with clouded glass. Heading for the nearest tank to the door, he crouched in order to see through the glass. A ruby-eyed pit viper, approximately the same age and size as the six snakes the medical examiner had removed from Rachel Faulkner’s remains, half curled around a healthy growth of bamboo with the other half dipping into a pool of shallow water. Colson moved onto the next habitat. Same set up. Same species of viper, perhaps a few weeks younger than the first.
Someone was breeding them here.
Ruby-eyed green pit vipers were endemic to Southeast Asia. Whoever’d brought them here knew exactly how to care for and feed these snakes to thrive. Straightening, he scanned the room, counting eighteen separate terrariums. If the vipers left with Rachel’s body had been kept here, six of these habitats would be empty. Only that wasn’t the case. He scanned the rest of the terrariums. “Where are the rest of your friends?”
Twelve of the habitats had been emptied.
The roof creaked under an earthquake of thunder, and Colson stumbled away from the cages. Something brushed the back of his neck. He twisted, grip tight around his weapon. Something solid slammed into the dilapidated flooring. He failed to catch the rest of whatever he’d knocked over with full hands. His flashlight fell from his grip and hit the floor, spinning. The beam swept over the appliance. A food processor.
Holstering his weapon, he studied the blade that’d dislodged from the center of the device. A fine, crystalized powder coated the sides of the container still locked into place on the base. He hadn’t brought gloves to handle the evidence. He wouldn’t touch it, but he didn’t need to. “Now what are you doing here?”
He left the food processor where it’d fallen and gathered his flashlight. The beam highlighted a branch of small oval leaves reaching out toward the center of the shed, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He could still feel the edge of the leaf brushing against his skin. Sweeping the flashlight down the length of the medium-height planted tree, he plucked one of the green, underripe nuts from the closest branch. Rock hard. In a few weeks’ time, these nuts would turn orange if kept in this humidity. Someone wasn’t just breeding pit vipers. They were growing a Strychnos nux-vomica tree. The same tree from which the poison discovered in Rachel Faulkner’s toxicity report could be derived. Not a coincidence.
Colson moved the flashlight along the workbench and followed his instincts to another—taller—tree. This one with a few orange nuts left on its branches. “That’s what you needed the food processor for. You ground up the seeds inside to make the poison yourself. Very clever.”
And untraceable.
He’d found the killer’s work shed, but the disturbed dust on the floor suggested only one visitor in the past few days. CSU would photograph the prints and try to narrow down a shoe brand. This wasn’t where the killer had forced Rachel Faulkner to admit her online persona was a lie, and there wasn’t any sign of Blair. He checked his phone. No signal. Damn it. Craning his mouth toward the radio he’d borrowed from Garcia, Colson tried Blair’s deputies again. “Garcia, Thompson, come in.”
Static filled the shed and intensified the knot tightening in his gut. Thompson must’ve gone back down the mountain, out of range, and the frequency was too weak to reach through these woods. He was on his own. He scanned the small space again. Leaving the shed could compromise the scene, but leaving Blair to face Cardin Townsend on her own wasn’t an option.
The killer had left six ruby-eyed-pit vipers with Rachel Faulkner’s remains, but there were twelve empty terrariums here. If the marks along the trail had been left behind by Cardin Townsend dragging a body up the mountain, it stood to reason the killer intended to pull law enforcement deeper into her mind game by dumping another victim with the same MO.
But where the hell had she gone?
Colson pocketed his phone and stepped back out into the night. The woods quieted as he followed the trail back down the mountain. He had to have missed something. The maintenance shed hadn’t been on the map. It was possible Cardin Townsend had specifically chosen a branch of the trail that’d been hidden along the path and unmapped. Heart in his throat, he studied every bend in the pathway, every change in elevation, every plant and vine.
Rain pooled along one side of the trail, and Colson slowed. The vines that stretched across the forest floor were thinner here. He kicked at the dirt at the edge of a large clump of Tiarella leaves, revealing a small rise in a smaller trail before it continued west through the trees. Crouching, he cleared as many leaves from his view as possible and froze.
His flashlight reflected back at him from the brass police badge sinking deeper into the dirt. Raised lettering had been grooved with soil, but he clearly read King County Sheriff’s Department. Colson’s hand shook as he pulled it from the earth. “Blair!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Adrenaline shot Blair’s stomach into her chest.
Damp earth and twigs caught in her hair as she clawed free from unconsciousness. Heavy footsteps echoed between her ears. What… Where was she? An outline solidified above her, pulling her along the path by her ankles. No. They weren’t on a trail. At least not one maintained regularly. The ground was too rough, the thickets of weeds and dead leaves undisturbed.
Soft wisps of exhales reached through the darkness. Cardin Townsend? With her back to Blair, her attacker’s frame seemed more feminine than masculine, but athletic.
Her head swam from the blunt force trauma to her skull, distorting the lines of the trees shifting with each pull along the path. She couldn’t be sure of their location without a source of light while her attacker seemed to be able to see through the dark.
The backs of her hands skimmed the trail and low-level vines as the shadow dragged her farther from safety. She tugged at her wrists, the edge of a zip tie cutting into her skin. Numbness crawled from her toes and down toward her knees. Raising both hands from above her head, she ignored the burn of scrapes and friction stripped across the sensitive nerve endings of her fingers and reached for her weapon. Her holster was empty. She patted her vest. Her radio and badge had been taken, too, and her pockets emptied of her cell phone.
Pressure intensified around her ankle as rain pelted against her face and neck. The night sky churned as the storm frenzied faster and faster. Lightning exploded and highlighted the ski mask covering her attacker’s face. She’d heard movement in the trees where the drag marks had ended, had stepped closer to get a better look.
Then pain. Darkness.
Her skin stung at the base of her neck, and she lightly feathered her fingers over the sensitive area. The world tilted on its axis in an ear-ringing flash of light as she made contact. Thick fog hazed her vision and blurred the trees around her, so dark against the violent clouds above. Her fingers tingled, her movements sluggish. She’d experienced head damage through her career as a Seattle PD officer and King County’s sheriff. This wasn’t…normal. She tried to counter the dryness in her mouth. “Where… Where are you taking me?”
Her attacker twisted her chin over her shoulder slightly, but never slowed. “Don’t worry, Sheriff Sanders. I’m going to take good care of you. Just relax, and let the drug do its job. This will all be over soon.”
The drug?
“What did you inject me with?” Something wasn’t right. Blair blinked in an effort to make sense of what was happening. Her skin burned. While she’d understood the words leaving her attacker’s mouth, the woman’s voice was pitched too low. Sweat built in her hairline despite low temperatures and the cold rain. “What did you do?”
“The fear is normal, Sheriff. I imagine your legs and hands are numb as well. You might even be experiencing some nausea and sensory distortion. All normal side effects of ketamine.” The trees disappeared from her peripheral vision as her attacker hauled her into the middle of a clearing and dropped her feet to the ground. The reverberation exploded through her and intensified the headache at the base of her skull. Crouching beside her, the suspect reached out, brushing a strand of hair away from Blair’s forehead. “I’m sorry it had to end this way, but I can’t have you and that private investigator ruining my plans. Don’t worry. You’re not the ones I want to suffer. I drugged you to make sure you don’t feel a thing.”
Her attacker’s words slurred together, roller coasting through baritone notes. The numbness spread up her thighs and into her lower torso, and panic slithered into her veins. Her heart felt as though it would beat straight out of her chest. She kicked out, jerking her attacker to one side, but not hard enough to free herself from the zip ties around her wrists and ankles. She tried to sit up, to grab onto anything, but her body wouldn’t obey her brain’s commands. No. She blinked to clear her head, but the drug already had its hooks into her nervous system. She’d never used dissociative drugs—or any drug for that matter. She didn’t have a tolerance. “Assaulting an officer of the law is a felony.”