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what he can do. Rubbing it in our faces that KCPD hasn’t been able to break the case yet.”
    Shuddering at the disturbingly blunt commentary, Annie suggested an explanation of her own. “From the account of Bailey Austin, the first victim the task force worked with, she was raped at a building that was either being built or remodeled—where there were signs of construction. She remembered a clear plastic drop cloth that covered everything. He’s keeping that location clean—traceless.”
    So why be less cautious about the evidence here?
    “If it’s a construction zone, he’d have work crews coming and going who might find the body—or at least recognize that something violent happened there.” Nick snapped his nimble fingers as an idea hit him. “Plus, the walls and layout could be changing daily. My dad’s a contractor. I’ve seen empty lots become complete houses in a week. It’d be damn near impossible for a witness to give an accurate description—the whole layout might change before we could follow up on it.”
    “It has to be someplace that’s familiar to him. Or maybe the location is someplace he created specifically for these assaults.” Two drops of Luminol turned the cotton swab a telltale purple. Definitely blood.
    “You think the rape is part of some kind of ritual?” Nick’s gaze narrowed. “That there’s a special significance to where the Rose Red Rapist takes his victims?” He turned the beam of light into the depths of the alley, swinging the flashlight from one strip of yellow crime scene tape to the strip blocking the front sidewalk. “So what’s all this then, Sherlock? A bloody coincidence? Our guy hasn’t made mistakes or left this much evidence behind before.”
    Sherlock? Annie glanced up. Nick’s dark hair and the charcoal-gray heather scarf he wore were getting dusted with the snow coming in at the edge of the tarp. She prided herself on noticing the details of her surroundings, but those keen senses were supposed to be focusing on a murder scene, not the detective demanding answers from her. The frigid temps must really be addling her brain. She forced herself to look away and point out the bags labeled and stowed in her kit. “I don’t know. This is different from the other crimes scenes I’ve investigated. I’ve never had this much trace before. It’s almost as if...”
    “As if what?”
    Annie shook her head. “I don’t like to speculate.”
    “Humor me.”
    “It’s as if we’ve got two crime scenes in one location. The abduction, which could account for the handprints on the wall here, and the murder...” She turned her own light toward the darkness at the back of the alley, where a second tarp did what it could to protect the evidence there. “Which happened back there.”
    “And all the blood is the vic’s?”
    “I don’t know yet. There’s an awful lot. I’d have to—”
    “—analyze it.” Nick muttered the end of the sentence as though he was impatient to move on to a new topic. He brushed the snowflakes off the top of his hair, leaving shiny dark spikes in their wake. To her surprise, he seemed to give her idea some merit. “Dr. Kilpatrick believes there’s more than one unsub we should be looking for.”
    Annie recalled the conclusion reached by the forensic psychologist assigned to the task force when she’d been investigating the Rose Red Rapist’s last attack before tonight’s grim events. “She thinks there are two different profiles to these attacks, indicating more than one man is involved in the crimes—the rapist and someone who cleans up after him. This could be trace from the initial abduction. And if Rachel Dunbar struggled—meaning he didn’t knock her out with one blow the way he usually subdues his victims—then it could have been a messy confrontation, giving the cleaner more impetus to silence the one woman who could possibly identify the rapist.”
    “The Cleaner?” Nick’s blue eyes glowed with something