Page 48 of In Her Bed
“The killer’s repeating his pattern,” she said, keeping her voice professional, stripped of emotion.
Morgan’s eyes narrowed, the gray in them hardening to slate.“What I can’t figure out is how you knew that something had happened to her in this warehouse.She had barely been reported missing and her body was just found fifteen miles northeast of here.”
The question they’d all been avoiding now lay exposed between them, raw and demanding.
“It’s called good police work, Chief,” Jake said, stepping slightly forward, as if to physically shield Jenna from Morgan’s scrutiny.“Sometimes you follow the evidence, sometimes you follow your gut.”
Morgan’s skeptical gaze flicked between them.“That’s one hell of a gut, Deputy.”He turned to stare at the warehouse entrance, where shafts of morning light cut through the gloom.
He turned back, his expression now all business.“Ridgeline Tower is on an access road off Highway 23.I’m heading there now.Spelling wants all hands on this.”
He raised his voice, addressing the officers still documenting the warehouse scene.“Peterson, you’re in charge here.I want everything photographed, bagged, and tagged.Full inventory.Nothing leaves this building without my say-so.”
A young officer nodded sharply.“Yes, sir.”
Morgan’s gaze returned to Jenna, lingered for a beat too long.“I’ll see you both at the tower.”
He strode out, his departure stirring the dust into lazy spirals.
Jenna exhaled slowly, tension ebbing from her shoulders.She and Jake also walked outside, squinting in the brightness of late morning.The sun was well up now, the sky a clear, indifferent blue.She glanced back at the warehouse, a squat, unremarkable building that now held the record of a nightmare.
They made their way between buildings, back to the parking lot in front of the music studio.Jake unlocked their cruiser, the beep of the remote unnaturally cheerful.
“I’ll drive,” he said, a statement rather than an offer.
Jenna slid into the passenger seat without protest.Her mind was already racing ahead to the tower, to the body she knew would be there, posed like Marcus Derrick’s had been.
“Morgan’s not going to let this go,” Jake said as he pulled away from the parking lot.
“No, he’s not.”
“What are you going to tell him?”
She almost laughed at the impossibility of it.“That I dream about dead people?That Sandra Reeves came to me last night and told me how to find the place where she was attacked?”
Jake glanced at her, then back at the road.“When you put it that way...”
“Exactly.”She sighed, rubbing her temples where a headache threatened.“I think we stick with intuition and good detective work for now.”
“And if he pushes?”
“Then I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”
They fell silent as the town gave way to scattered houses, then woodland.Jake turned onto Highway 23.After a mile, a small green sign indicated the turnoff for Ridgeline Tower.The access road wound upward through dense pine forest, the asphalt cracked and patched from years of freeze-thaw cycles.
As they climbed higher, the trees thinned, revealing glimpses of the valley below.The tower came into view gradually—first the blinking red lights at its apex, then the latticed red-and-white structure itself, stark against the blue sky.Something cold settled in Jenna’s stomach as she looked at it.
“You okay?”Jake asked, noticing her sudden stillness.
“Fine,” she replied automatically, then amended: “No.Not really.”
The road widened as they neared the summit, revealing a small plateau cleared of trees.It was already crowded with vehicles—State Police cruisers, the medical examiner’s van, forensic units, and several unmarked cars that likely belonged to senior officers.
A large white evidence tent had been erected at the base of the tower.Officers in various uniforms moved purposefully around the site, their expressions grim.
Jake parked behind Morgan’s SUV and cut the engine.“Here we go,” he said quietly.
The air was cooler here in the forest at this elevation, with a breeze that carried the scent of pine and, underneath it, something clinical—the smell of crime scene chemicals already at work.
