Free The Seventh Victim by Mary Burton

males. And most who showed interest were easily dissuaded by anger, sarcasm, and humor. Her shields. God, she wanted to love, wanted to be held, but behind each new man lurked the fear that he was her attacker.
    The lingering unknowns and lost memories no longer sent her into hiding as they had after the attack. These days they drove her to her camera.
    Though she needed to finalize details for her gallery opening, the need to create overrode practicalities.
    Lara’s upcoming show, Mark of Death , featured murder scenes from around the country that she’d photographed with her one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old bellows camera. Since only a handful of people knew about her attack, many considered such subject matter odd and more than a little quirky in one so young. But it didn’t take a shrink for her to know why she took the pictures she took. In each new image she searched for the spark that would trigger her memory.
    “Come on, Lincoln, let’s get our lunches packed so we can hit the trail and shoot some pictures before class this afternoon.” She thought about yesterday’s murder scene. As it was only twenty-four hours old, the cops would still have it roped off. She’d not get close for days.
    But the first crime scene that Beck had mentioned was well over a month old. That scene would be open now. She made herself a cup of coffee and toast and headed to her computer.
    Lincoln followed and lay down at her side, keeping a careful eye on her toast, just in case crumbs should fall to the floor. Since he was a small puppy she’d never been able to eat in front of the dog without sharing. He’d had her number since day one. She tossed a piece of buttered bread his way, grabbed her reading glasses, and searched San Antonio, Woman’s body found, April .
    She got a hit almost immediately. The woman Beck had mentioned had been in her twenties. She’d worked in a bar and, according to the articles, been liked by friends. She’d been a student. She’d been months shy of graduation.
    The murder scene was off I-35 north of San Antonio. The articles did not mention that she’d been wearing a white dress or that she’d had a penny in her hand. But then the Seattle cops had not released many details at first. They’d been guarded about giving specifics until the fourth victim had been discovered. That’s when they’d mentioned the white dress. There was no label in those dresses, but the hope had been that someone might come forward with a description of the man who’d commissioned the dresses. But the tips, from what the media had reported, had led nowhere. The fifth and sixth victims had been wearing the same dress and when she’d been found, she’d been wearing the same dress.
    She ran her hands over her arms, remembering the feel of the dress’s cotton sleeve. She couldn’t recall wearing the dress during the attack, but one of the shrinks had convinced her to put on the dress, hoping she’d remember. The dress had smelled of sweat and the backside of it had been stained with grass. She’d stood in the doctor’s office for over an hour willing her brain to release one single detail that would help catch this killer. Nothing had come that day or the next or the next.
    Inwardly, she’d begun to crumble under police questions and the constant talk in the media about The Unidentified Victim. Who was she? How had she crossed paths with the killer? One reporter had offered a bounty to anyone who could identify her.
    Fear of discovery coupled with not knowing her attacker had simmered to boiling until finally she’d fled Seattle.
    She’d not had a plan when she’d left the West Coast. All she’d wanted was to get away. And so she’d bounced around aimlessly for months, working odd jobs that kept her gas tank filled and food in her belly. She’d been aimless. Lost. And about nine months after Seattle she’d wandered into a pawnshop and spotted a digital camera. On a whim she had spent what little savings