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Damien’s phone chimed with a text from Sanders. GPS coordinates. He was surprised the old man knew how to send it.

As Damien pushed down the accelerator, his mind was racing faster than the Crown Vic. He was still a cadet and he was chasing a murderer. He belonged in the records room, looking over old files, proving former classmates weren’t criminals, not in hot pursuit of a potential serial killer.

Yet, he had orders. Like it or not, Sanders was his partner and Damien would have to push the doubts from his mind. Mandy’s and Darlene’s families deserved the best he could give them, no matter how green he was in the field. He looked up the coordinates on his phone’s GPS. The location was in the middle of the groves near a small lake ten miles from the juicing and packaging facility.

The different species of citrus planted around Hayeston were harvested at varying times during the year. This location was surrounded by grapefruit trees, their fruit recently plucked and sent to the plant. None of the grove workers would be touching that area for weeks and getting there wasn’t going to be easy.

It was as deserted as a ghost town. A perfect place to kill someone. Only barren trees could hear the screams.

Damien fought the urge to call Decker. Sanders’ skepticism about the local police were well deserved, but it was difficult for Damien to take his advice over that of his train- ing. Sanders represented everything he was trying to fix within the police department.

No matter how good of an investigator the old detective was, and still could be, Damien couldn’t keep his commander in the dark much longer. He’d wait ten more minutes, then call. That would give he and Sanders some time to see if the lead was solid before the rest of the department came running.

It wasn’t long before Damien was out of the city and into the surrounding thousand acres of citrus. The two lane road cut through the rows of orange and grapefruit trees like a paved knife, slicing into the heart of the groves, bisecting it in half.

The sun was beginning to set behind him and the shadows of the trees were growing longer. As he drove, Damien moved his hand across his belt. Gun. Cuffs. No taser or baton. And no flashlight. Did he leave them at the station? Or his house? He wasn’t sure. The day was a blur.

He slammed the steering wheel in disgust. He wasn’t prepared.

He couldn’t find a killer in the dark using hope instead of a flashlight and he couldn’t trust Sanders wouldn’t shoot first and apologize later. Damien was given two options, both of which sucked, so he decided to remain in the good graces of his commander instead of his partner.

“Sir, Hill here,” Damien said on the cell. “Sanders got a ping off Darlene’s phone. I don’t know how. I’m heading there now. It’s in the groves. No, sir, I agree that’s not promising. I’ll send you the coordinates.”

He hung up just as his phone chimed, “Turn left in five hundred feet.”

Damien’s headlights gave a faint glow on the gray pavement, the setting sun diminishing their effectiveness. He squinted through the dusk, looking into the passing rows of trees for a road to appear.

Slamming on the brakes, his tires squealing as they stopped, and the smoke of burnt rubber moving passed his window, Damien looked down a dirt road. Two tracks the width of truck tires disappeared into the trees, the grass between each track rounded by the trucks’ underbellies.

Damien wasn’t driving a truck. This was going to be a bumpy ride. He checked the GPS.

He was still a mile away and he had to get there without being noticed.
The old white Crown Vic scraping the ground as it drove was going to be difficult to hide. Still, he had no other choice.

He turned the wheel and sped onto the uneven road, the grass whacking against his front bumper like tiny whips.

The headlights shone more brightly amongst the shade of the trees, bouncing ahead of him, splashing light across the ground and branches with each jolt.
The flashes of light moving through the rows of citrus trees meant he’d risk being spotted, even from a mile away, so he turned off the headlights and pushed the accelerator.

The Crown Vic had airbags. That was good enough for him.

Mark never shared much more about Cathy Richie’s murder and many of the details of his crime were lost to flame and ash. They knew she was strangled. They suspected she was raped. And, of course, she was set on fire. Anything that happened before that remained in Mark’s mind.

Damien wasn’t sure if a ritual had preceded Cathy’s death, like the one Plank had mentioned, and if it would play out this evening with Darlene.

Plank’s description of Cathy’s last moments was long and detailed. It was either told to him by Mark in a confession, as a fantasy made up in his twisted mind, because he was there as a witness, or participated as an accomplice.

If Plank was telling the truth, either through experience or a confession by Mark, then Darlene’s murder would be preceded by dancing before she was to be raped, but neither Plank nor Mark gave any indication how long that process would take.

Mark was certainly a psychopath, but the authorities weren’t sure if he was also a sadomasochist. If he were, he would have taken his time, prolonging Cathy’s nightmare, enjoying her fear and aroused by her torture.

If the new killer were one of his hidden disciples, then the time between Darlene’s kidnapping and murder could be long enough to save her from a fiery death, but every second Damien delayed meant she was being exposed to another moment of hell and memories she wouldn’t be able to forget.

He pushed the pedal to the floor.

The strong engine effortlessly pushed the car to eighty miles per hour and Damien struggled keeping control of it as it bucked down the road like a bull at the rodeo.

Suddenly, the front tires spun in the air, then hit the dirt with a thud, the front bumper dug into the sandy soil, thrusting Damien forward, his body jolted to a stop by his seatbelt, but the airbag remained in the steering wheel.

He pushed the accelerator and kept going.

In the distance in front of him, he saw the blinking of a flashlight pointed in his direction. He slowed the car, but kept approaching.

The light flashed at Damien again. Three bursts.

Through the dark trees still illuminated by the fading orange glow of the setting sun, he spotted Sanders standing behind his car, waving Damien to pull up behind him.

Damien thrust the car into park and turned the car off as Sanders approached him.

“You all right?” Sanders asked. “You were driving like a bat out of hell.”

“I’m fine,” Damien said. “Do you think they heard me coming?”

“Everyone heard you coming.”

“Sorry,” he said, stepping out of the car.

“You kept your lights off. That’s something. They may know we’re near, but not necessarily from which direction. Sound plays tricks in the groves, bouncing off trees like a bullet off metal.”

“Where are they?”

“There’s a cabin about thirty yards to our north. I tried to approach, but, in the light, there’s too much open space between the cabin and tree line. I couldn’t see anyone through the windows and curtains, but her cellphone is in there.”

“How do you want to play this?” Damien asked. “Save the girl. Nothing else matters.”

“What if there’s more than one assailant?” “I heard you were a marksman.”
“The best in my class,” Damien said. “Then use your gifts and take them down.” “Sir, the rules of engagement-”

“Don’t matter right now,” Sanders said. “Save the girl. They’ll forgive the rest. I caught Mark after he had killed. I want to stop this bastard before he claims another victim.”

Damien nodded and they moved between the round grapefruit trees resembling eight foot bushes, their spindly branches covered with oblong green leaves, pushing outward in every direction.

He and Sanders weaved through the rows, between the rare open spots among the thick trees, stepping across the ground littered with fragments of the dead leaves and dried branches that fell when the fruit was plucked.

Sanders’ huffed as he plodded in front of him, the physical exertion probably more than he had experienced in years.

Damien’s heart was racing, but for a different reason. Through the branches he could see the cabin’s dark outline in the dim evening light, its windows as pitch as the build- ing. The air had cooled quickly as the sun dipped below the horizon and a breeze off the nearby lake chilled the sweat on Damien’s brow.

The cabin was small, less than a thousand square feet, with a single window on each wall. The short porch was missing one of its three steps and the roof appeared to be shy some of its shingles.

“The place looks like it hasn’t been used in years,” Damien whispered.

“Not by the groves,” Sanders said. “Before this got taken over by the citrus farm, my Dad and I used to come here and fish in that lake. It was deeper and well stocked back then. Now, with decades of pesticide runoff and evaporation, it’s nothing but a mosquito breeding ground. The groves keep the buildings around for temporary storage, if need be, but they tear them down when they become a hazard.”

“Or a crime scene?” “That too.”

Damien took one last look at the cabin and devised a plan.

“I’m quicker and lighter than you,” Damien said. “I’ll head toward the back of the cabin. You take a wide berth near the lake and toward the front door. Make sure he doesn’t get out that way. I’ll come around the back side and see what I can see.”

“You eye the killer, you put him down,” Sanders said. “No second thoughts.”

“I’ll see what I can see,” Damien reiterated. “Then I’ll decide what comes next.”

“Don’t be a pussy.”

“And don’t be an ass. Times are different then when you were on the force. You can’t shoot and make up a story later. The evidence will be the evidence and it will tell them what happened here.”

“A dead killer is a good shooting in my book,” Sanders said.

“We don’t use that book anymore.”

Sanders shook his head and disappeared into the trees toward the lake.

Damien removed the Glock from his holster, took a deep breath, and stepped toward the cabin.