The Last Victim

The Last Victim

By Karen Robards

By nightfall, which in North Carolina in August happens right around ten p.m., Charlie was in the FBI's makeshift search headquarters, otherwise known as a Greyhound bus-sized RV parked in the driveway beside a pale pink beach house just outside of Kill Devil Hills. The RV was central command, the house provided parking for the RV and lodging for the agents – and Charlie, whose suitcase had already been carried up to the second floor. Not that she had been inside the house yet: she had been ushered straight into the RV. The feds had commandeered the property, which was next door to the murder scene, as their base of operations for the duration of the investigation. Having flown to this bustling beach town in a private plane with Bartoli and Crane, she was now surrounded by FBI agents – and cops, and sheriffs, and deputies, and constables, and practically every other law enforcement type known to man. Even as twilight had turned to full dark and tourists had left the wide white sand beach just beyond the dunes in favor of the town's restaurants and nightlife, more law enforcement types had swarmed the place to report in or exchange information or otherwise help in the investigation, until the RV was as busy as a Macy's just before Christmas. Seated at a desk in front of a computer in a tiny back bedroom that had been turned into a surprisingly efficient office, Charlie pushed the hard-copy files she had been studying aside to pore over the autopsy photos that had just popped up on her screen. Shaken loose from her safe haven at Wallens Ridge by the unnerving prospect of encountering Garland<s ghost every time she turned around for approximately the next week, she had embraced the lesser of two evils and agreed to do what Bartoli and Crane wanted.

Now she couldn't believe she had ever hesitated. Bayley Evans' desperate need had smacked her in the face the minute she'd stepped inside the RV to join the search dedicated to finding her. Any distress Charlie might be feeling – and she was definitely feeling some distress – was nothing compared to the terrible reality of the missing girl's plight.

Dr. Charlotte Stone. Photo by Elena.

She's going to die if we don't find her fast.

The knowledge sat like a rock in Charlie's stomach.

“So is anything jumping out at you?” The question came from Crane, who leaned back against the wall just a few feet away, scant minutes later. Ever since the photos had appeared on-screen he'd been watching Charlie like a dog hoping for a bone. The blinds covering the narrow window beside him were closed against the nigh, and the overhead light in the room was giving Charlie a killer headache. Or at least, something was. If not the light, the the glow of the computer screen, or possibly the fact that all she'd had since lunch (which she's lost) was two cups of coffee and a candy bar. Or maybe it was because she was forcing herself to concentrate really, really hard on the details of the pictures in front of her to keep from getting emotionally flattened by the gruesomeness of the whole.