Free Devils Among Us (Devin Dushane Series Book 1) by Chastity Harris

back from him, flipping
into a few pages. “My gut tells me this was personal, not a random stranger.
Look at this—” she pointed to a section in the report “—six broken ribs, a
broken pelvis, cracked skull, shattered jaw and cheek bone…it would be easier
for me to tell you what wasn’t broken. The ME believed one of the first blows
knocked her unconscious, so all of this was just for the sake of violence. Take
a look at these crime scene photos, they’re brutal.”
    She dug the photos out of a box and slid them over to Shane.
“Whoa!” His gasp and look of shock were understandable.
    “I know, I know. It’s disturbing. It looks like a younger
version of me just broken and bloody, but look beyond that to the state of the
crime scene and her body. This was a very violent attack fuelled by rage.” He
was still looking a little green as he flipped through the images, but he was
able to regain himself enough to provide an opposing argument.
    “It still doesn’t mean it was personal. Lots of serial
killers have pent-up rage issues that they express through killing.” It was
true and logical, but Devin still didn’t like this almost stranger playing
devil’s advocate.
    “I know that,” she snapped. “I did my thesis on the
psychology behind serial killers. It’s just that this girl was so beloved, so
perfect, that for her to be singled out would be a pretty strong coincidence.
There were a lot of girls there that night. If it was random the killer could
have picked any one of them, and it would have been a lot more difficult to cut
her from the pack.  People would notice her absence.”
    Shane rolled her statement around in his mind a bit. “True,
but maybe the killer had been spurned by a girl like Laney. Maybe the perfect
beloved teen is the victim type he was searching out. That’s why he was at the Summit—he was searching out the popular teen queen in her natural element. The Summit back in its day would have been a perfect hunting ground.”
    She scowled at him. That had been her next line of logic.
The Summit was well off the beaten path, and there was only one road in and
out, it was your destination, not a pit stop.
    “Still, to find out about the Summit, he would have had to
be in town scoping for just such a spot. It wasn’t the kind of place that
advertised. He would have had to ask about it out right or done some serious eavesdropping.
Either way it would have been very suspicious behavior, and strangers don’t
exactly blend in around here.” Devin had been twirling a pen in her hand and
turned it to point to herself at her last words.
    Shane grinned. “Maybe you just stand out.” He couldn’t keep
a straight face when she cocked an eyebrow at him. “All right maybe we do a
head count every night before bed time to make sure no one has snuck in or
out.” Her snort was very unladylike, but he went on. “How do you propose to
find this very personal killer after all this time?”
    “First I want to know how the killer got her away from the
pavilion. The report says she was found in the woods more than 300 yards from
the pavilion. It’s unlikely that a teenage girl that likes to be the life of
the party would go walking alone, in the woods, in the dark. To take her by
force was risking exposure in a crowd that size. The police report can account
for 123 people that were there that night. I think it’s more likely that she
went willingly with her killer, more than that I think she trusted her killer
to walk off into the darkness with them.”
    Shane had no argument for her this time, he looked stumped.
“You rely heavily on the psych, huh?”
    Devin grinned at him. “Psychology, evidence and gut, but not
necessarily in that order. I wouldn’t be so good at my job if I didn’t look
where no one else thought to. Mostly, though, I’ll start where I always do—motive.
Who would have wanted Laney dead? We already said she was beloved and popular.
I mean she was the prom queen for