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invitation to play a game of cat and mouse with him?
    Would that game turn into a hunt?

    Anxiety riddled Josie as she drove back to her grandfather’s house. She rationalized that she was being paranoid, that she’d imagined those hands shoving her into the street, but what she’d felt was real.
    Determined not to be caught off guard, she scanned the neighborhood and property for strangers.
    She’d come to Graveyard Falls two years ago to visit her grandfather because he was ill. As a child, she’d never understood his animosity toward her or the terrible rift between her mother and him.
    The moment she’d set foot in the old house, tension simmered in the air. Dark secrets and sadness permeated the walls as thick as the dust that had settled into the weathered wood and crevices.
    Even now, sadness lingered as if it weighted the air and made it stale, hard to breathe. Wind whistled through the eaves so sharply that it sounded like a baby’s cry.
    She flipped on the lights as she entered, the wood floor creaking as she crossed the room to the table where she’d left her notes on the Bride Killer and Thorn Ripper cases.
    Staying here was both unnerving and cathartic. She’d wanted to make peace with the fact that her grandfather hadn’t wanted her, that he’d put Johnny in jail when Johnny was innocent, and wrecked her mother’s life. For years she’d wondered why he didn’t love her, if she wasn’t lovable.
    If he hadn’t been so stubborn and sent her mother away, he would have known that she wasn’t Johnny’s child.
    Even if she had been, she hadn’t done anything wrong. A decent man would have loved his grandchild no matter what.
    She rolled her shoulders.
    It didn’t matter. What was done was done. All she could do was accept it and move on.
    Just like she’d had to accept the abuse in the Linder home and what they’d done to innocent victims.
    Although acceptance and forgetting were two different things. The sight of the victims’ jewelry hanging on Charlene Linder’s skeletal bones was forever etched in her mind.
    She studied the photograph she’d received today.
    Was this a random murder?
    Or would there be another?
    Shaken, she went to her bedroom to change clothes, but she froze at the sight on her bed.
    A Mitzi doll.
    No, not just a Mitzi doll.
    This one’s face was slashed, blood dotting its porcelain features.
    Just like the woman’s face was slashed in the photograph.

    Dane showed the picture Josie had received to Lieutenant Ward. “We need to know if any of your people sent this.”
    Irritation lined the man’s face. “You realize that by asking my team, I’m implying that I don’t trust them.”
    “I’m sorry,” Dane said. “It’ll take time to trace the text, and if someone on the inside did this, we need to know now. Maybe it’s some kind of ploy to get money for offering Josie the inside scoop.” Hell, he hoped it was. That would be preferable to the killer having sent it. “Maybe he wants to be included in her next book.”
    Lieutenant Ward called the team together and explained the situation. “I handpicked you for the team, but for the record and to eliminate the possibility that this was an inside leak, it’s necessary to check your phones.”
    The team consisted of three males and one female.
    The female showed no reaction. She handed her phone to her boss.
    A tall, dark-haired guy with glasses had been snapping pictures with the team’s camera. He set it down on the ground at Dane’s feet, then removed his cell phone from his pocket and shoved it toward his boss. He definitely was annoyed. “I haven’t sent any photographs to the lab, much less anywhere else.”
    “I’m sorry about this,” Lieutenant Ward said. “Under the circumstances it’s protocol.”
    Dane’s respect for the lieutenant rose a notch. He appreciated that Ward hadn’t shoved him under the bus.
    The other two men exchanged irritated looks but complied with Ward’s order.
    Dane