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consciousness,” Vince announced as he took a seat in what they so aptly called the “war room.”
    This was the room where Cal Dixon gathered his six full-time detectives to plan their strategy for a major investigation. They had spent a lot of time in this room in the last year. The walls and whiteboards were still covered with photos and information regarding the See-No-Evil cases, which were still being actively worked in preparation for the upcoming trial of Peter Crane.
    Dixon was lucky; most larger departments didn’t have the luxury of forming their own task force for a murder investigation. Because the crime rate in his jurisdiction was relatively low, Dixon could pull all of his investigators together to tackle a high-profile case as one unit. And Dixon, himself a homicide detective for years with LA County, could turn his administrative duties over to his second in command and spearhead the investigation.
    “She was admitted with severe dehydration and hypothermia,” Vince went on. “I can confirm she was strangled manually—at least partially.”
    “What do you mean—partially?” Dixon asked as he organized some papers on the podium.
    “The kid is tiny. Any adult could easily have crushed her larynx entirely. But that didn’t happen. She also has damage to the insides of her lips where her teeth cut into the flesh, which suggests suffocation. Could be your UNSUB started to choke her and didn’t have the stomach for it, then switched to pressing something over her face. Luckily, he only thought he finished the job.”
    “Sick bastard,” Dixon growled, frowning darkly. “I’m glad to have you in on this with us, Vince. I’m talking with the budget director this afternoon to see about cutting you a consulting fee.”
    “Don’t worry about it, Cal. I’m doing fine. What I make consulting makes my salary from the Bureau look like minimum wage. I don’t need your money. You guys are always on my priority list, you know that.”
    Vince had grown to think of Dixon and his people as extended family. He may have initially come to Oak Knoll to work a case, but he had found a home here, a second life, and Anne. Whatever Cal Dixon needed, Vince was happy to oblige.
    “I appreciate that,” Dixon said.
    Mendez took a seat next to Vince. “The attack on Marissa Fordham was over the top. Out-of-control rage. It seems strange to me that didn’t just spill over to include the child. It’s like he killed the mother, then flipped a switch on the rage.”
    “He killed the woman with a lot of personal fury,” Vince said. “The child was unfortunate collateral damage.”
    “He had to kill her because she was a witness,” Hicks said. “It didn’t mean the same thing to him.”
    “He must have believed the kid could ID him,” Dixon said. “The question is, will she ever be able to?”
    “So far her brain activity appears to be normal,” Vince said. “But there are a lot of factors that could weigh against us. That kind of trauma, that young a child—a kid might block that out for the rest of their life just out of self-preservation.”
    “If she comes around, do you think Anne might be able to help us with her?” Mendez asked.
    Vince’s instinctive reaction was to say no. Not because he didn’t think his wife was capable of helping. Quite the opposite was true. Anne had a gift with kids. He had encouraged her to go back to school to finish her degree in child psychology. But his first instinct was to protect her. She had been through enough. He didn’t want her pulled into another murder investigation.
    “Isn’t that the job of Child Protective Services?”
    “This seems out of their league,” Mendez said.
    This was a mostly rural county with a lower-than-average crime rate. Oak Knoll, with a population of roughly twenty thousand (not counting college students), was the Big Town. Crime here routinely consisted of small-time drug deals, burglary, the odd assault, a murder now and