“What is it?” she asked.

He tucked the phone in his breast pocket. “A couple of morning joggers on the W&OD Trail found a body in Waterfront Park. It matches the description of Hadley Foster.”

The fifty-mile trail, which followed an old railroad bed, started thirty miles to the west in Loudon County and meandered along the Potomac River to Mount Vernon. “Any sign of Skylar?”

“No.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Wednesday, August 14, 9:00 a.m.

Alexandria, Virginia

Twenty-Six Hours after the 911 Call

By the time Zoe and Vaughan arrived at the thirty-acre park ten minutes later, she had briefed him on Skylar’s conversation with Mr. Fix It. His grim expression mirrored her own worries for the girl and her mother.

Flashing lights and a dozen cop cars greeted them. They parked and moved toward the yellow tape, ducking under it, and headed for the grassy shoreline along a wide creek. The sun was already high in the sky, and the air was heating up. Another hot, humid day.

Zoe tugged on latex gloves and moved directly to the shore. She spotted the white athletic shoe and then the jogging shorts. Slowly, her gaze trailed up the trim body to the face of Hadley Foster, which stared, sightless, up to the clear blue sky.

A deep sense of sadness and disappointment washed over her as she studied the knife wounds slashing the woman’s neck and arms. Cops tried to be cynical and hardened about how these cases played out, but that did not stop them from hoping they could beat the odds. For just a moment, she allowed outrage and disgust to roil inside her before she carefully shoved both inside an already brimming box deep within her. Hadley Foster’s body had to now be considered strictly as evidence.

Her gaze lowered to the woman’s hands. One lay in the water and was already discolored and bloated. Water did terrible things to the dead. The other hand was on shore and still in fairly good shape. The nails, though dirty now, were not broken or chipped. Her hands weren’t scraped or cut.

As the water gently lapped against the side of the body, she inventoried the knife wounds and counted three in the chest and neck region. The direct frontal attack, combined with the absence of defensive wounds, suggested to Zoe that Hadley had either recognized her attacker or been caught completely by surprise. And considering that the initial attack had occurred in her bedroom, perhaps it was a combination of both.

Her thoughts pivoted back to Mark Foster. The man had been having an affair. His ex-girlfriend was now on ice at the medical examiner’s office. His own wounds had been superficial. He was in debt. His kid had exhibited unstable behavior. There was already enough probable cause to hold him for questioning.

But until she knew where Skylar Foster was, she would tread carefully. Foster already had a lawyer and, at this point, was a desperate man with little to lose.

Vaughan approached the body and crouched like a lion stalking prey. He removed a pen from his breast pocket and pushed back the collar of Hadley’s workout jacket so that they both had a clear view of the knife wound that sliced directly across the jugular vein.

“Foster said the assailant had a knife to Hadley’s throat,” she said.

Thick, dried brown blood caked her throat, making it impossible to see if there were any small nicks on Hadley’s neck. All that was visible now was a large gaping wound that appeared to have been slashed in an upward motion.

“Any word on the Quick-DNA testing on the blood in the Foster house?” Zoe asked.

Vaughan rose and called the forensic department, nodding, listening, and thanking the person on the other end. “The blood in the master bathroom and in the Lexus is Hadley Foster’s.”

“Any sign of Mark’s blood in either location?” she asked.

“So far, his was only found by the front door,” he said. “But that could change. It’s going to take weeks to test it all.”

“What about in the trail leading to the garage?” Zoe asked.

“All Hadley.”

The end corner of a terry cloth bath towel caught her attention. It matched the hand towels in the Fosters’ master bathroom. “The towel looks as if it were used to stop the bleeding. Why would the assailant try to stop the bleeding?”

“Maybe Skylar tried to save her mother. Perhaps the assailant wanted to contain the blood until he disposed of her.”

“Mark Foster never said their attacker or Skylar ran into the bathroom for a towel.”

Vaughan’s eyes glinted with skepticism. “He could have forgotten the detail in all the confusion.”

“Do you really believe that?” she asked.

“My job is to play devil’s advocate.”

“If this was done by a stranger like this Mr. Fix It, and Hadley knew her daughter was in the house, why didn’t she fight her attacker?” Zoe countered.

“Maybe she was scared. Maybe she froze. Maybe it all happened so fast she never saw it coming.”

“It’s all possible.”

“And then her killer laid her down on the back seat of the Lexus and, if we can believe Mark Foster, had Skylar drive them here.”

“We need to find Mr. Fix It.” Zoe noticed the marbling on Hadley’s chest. When the heart stopped pumping, the blood pooled at the lowest point in the body. If Hadley had been faceup—as she might have been if she had still been alive—her back would have been black and blue. In this case, it was her chest. “He tossed her in the back seat facedown because he knew she was dead by the time they got her to the car.”

Zoe lifted her gaze to the creek that wound through the park. On the other side was a thick stand of trees and a couple of picnic tables. “How long do you think she’s been near the water?”

“Twenty-four hours plus,” Vaughan replied.

“You need to have some of your officers search the waters close to the shore. The placement of Hadley’s body looks rushed. And if I were a killer and needed to get rid of a knife, I might be tempted to throw it in the creek in the hopes it would get carried away.”

“I’ll have them on it right now.”

She opened her social media apps on her phone and checked Skylar Foster’s accounts. There had still been no activity since late Monday night, eight hours before the reported stabbing.

“Is there any sign of the girl in the park?” Zoe asked.

“Not yet, but they’re bringing in a cadaver dog to search the entire area.”

“How did he get away from the park with Skylar?” Zoe asked. “He could have dragged her, but she doesn’t strike me as the kind of kid that wouldn’t fight back.”

“Maybe it was Mr. Fix It,” he said. “We know they were in communication. Maybe she got in his car willingly.”

There were many fragments that simply did not fit. “Maybe.”

The two watched as the forensic team took pictures, made sketches, and then lifted the body and placed it on a tarp. Rigor mortis had stiffened the limbs, and the belly was beginning to bloat.

The technician searched Hadley’s pockets, finding loose change in the right pocket and a single house key in the left.

“She had just gotten back from her run, but she didn’t shower,” Zoe said. “The bathroom was so clean because she’d not used it yet, and neither had Foster.”