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kept close to his back, her essence sneaking in between the vile odors to throw him off balance. Suddenly she gasped, and his gaze zeroed ahead onto the crime scene. A younger guy, whom Waller introduced as Deputy Bluster, approached, but Vincent barely looked in his direction. Instead, he balled his hands into fists to control his rage. This one was definitely a murder.
    The killer had nearly decapitated the woman and had left her bloody corpse at the edge of the mountain ridge next to a camping area, as if to announce his boldness with the extent of his violence and the public location where he’d left her remains.
    Her thoracic muscles had been sliced through, so her head dangled sideways; her cotton dress was shoved up her hips, exposing bruised thighs. Cuts and abrasions also marred her wrists, arms, breasts, and legs. Her own blood had been smeared all over her body, as if the killer had had a party with it.
    Vincent dragged in a labored breath, battling rage. He wanted to kill the maniac who’d done this and cut him up into a zillion pieces.
    Instead, he tugged at his collar, loosened his tie, and inhaled sharply, fighting the darkness inside him. He couldn’t afford one of the blackouts he’d been having recently. He’d lost time, woken up in odd places, sometimes with blood on his hands.
    The state crime-scene unit roared up, descending upon them, then began to comb the area for trace evidence. Sheriff Waller and Tim Bluster questioned the scant few visitors at the park who’d ventured out this morning. A couple of homeless bums sleeping off their drunk on park benches, a pair of teenagers who’d sneaked out to have sex, and a morning jogger who’d discovered the body.
    The young girl hovered next to the boy, who’d turned as pale as buttermilk. “We didn’t see anything,” the boy whined.
    “He’s right,” the girl said in a haunted whisper. “We fell asleep in our sleeping bag by the creek.”
    “Buddy, you know Dina’s mama is going to skin your hide for sneaking up here with her,” the sheriff said.
    The boy’s knees knocked together. “You don’t have to tell them, do you?”
    “Please.” Dina pulled at the older man’s arms. “She’ll ground me forever.”
    Sheriff Waller shook his head. “You’re material witnesses, kids. I can’t keep this from them.”
    “But we told you we didn’t see anything,” Buddy argued.
    “You didn’t hear someone screaming?” Vincent asked.
    The young couple shook their heads vehemently. “She must have been dead already,” Buddy said.
    “And we had our iPod playing,” Dina added with a sniffle.
    Sheriff Waller clicked his teeth. “All right for now. Go on home, but I’ll talk to you again later.”
    Hand in hand, they ran down the hill toward the VW they’d parked on the side of the road, and Vincent and Waller approached the jogger. He was slumped on a log, head in his hands, a green cast to his pallor. The stench of vomit drifted over the bushes.
    “Who would do such a thing?” he said, mumbling to nobody.
    “That’s what we intend to find out,” Sheriff Waller said.
    Clarissa rubbed his shoulder in sympathy. “What’s your name?”
    “Riley Adams.” His face was stark with horror, his lips blue from chewing on them. “I just came for a run and I stumbled over her. God . . .” His shoulders sagged as he dropped his head forward again. “I’ve never seen anyone dead before. So sick . . .”
    “Did you see anyone else in the woods? Hear anything?” Waller asked.
    He shook his head back and forth, digging the toe of his sneaker into the dirt. “Just those old drunks.”
    Vincent stepped closer to examine the area near the corpse. “Sheriff, it looks as if she might have been killed somewhere else, then her body dumped here. See how the brush has been crushed on the path?”
    Waller jammed his hands on his hips and studied the scene. “You’re probably right. Maybe forensics will find something.”
    Vincent nodded. Dammit,