The Hunted Girls by Jenna Kernan (best book club books for discussion txt) 📕

“Where?”

“Her leg.”

“You could see she wasn’t bleeding from her wounds.”

“Yeah. I was close enough to see that.”

“How close?”

Close enough to ejaculate on the body? Nadine wondered.

“A few inches,” said Arnold.

“Did you move her? Change her position at all?”

“I d-didn’t do nothing.”

Double negative again, thought Nadine.

She turned to the agent observing with them. “Ask him if he found her dead body arousing. Ask it exactly like that.”

The agent left and, a moment later, entered the interview room relaying the question to Skogen. He nodded and asked her question.

Arnold’s face turned scarlet and he slapped both hands on the desk.

Nadine smiled. It was a wonderful show of indignation and outrage. But he’d missed a step. His first reaction should have been shock, possibly horror or disgust. But Arnold shot straight to offense.

“Did they seize his computers yet?” she asked the agent who remained.

“No.”

“Hmm.” She’d bet her new plastic ID badge that there would be violent porn on his personal computer.

“He agree to a polygraph?” asked Demko.

“We haven’t asked, but I would guess he’ll decline.”

Unfortunately, neither of those things made him a killer.

“You like him as a suspect?” the special agent asked Nadine.

“He’s showing clear signs of deception.”

“Skogen wants him under surveillance.”

“I agree. See if he’ll consent to a psych eval.”

The agent nodded.

“You guys get a DNA sample?” asked Demko.

“He refused to provide one,” said the agent.

The FBI didn’t need permission to collect anything Arnold discarded in public and could check the DNA retrieved against the sperm recovered from Karnowski’s remains. But a match would verify that he’d had contact with the body of one of the victims. Though not admissible in court, it would inform their investigation.

“He’s under surveillance, we’ll get something eventually.”

Demko dropped her at the office, where she checked in with Tina about the missing woman.

“Did you find someone to go with you?” asked Nadine.

“I found a woman who works with Head Start and drove her down there. We only got back a few minutes ago.”

“And?”

“We tracked down her brother. He told us he was supposed to pick her up after work, but his muffler fell off and he was afraid of getting pulled over, so she was planning on taking the bus. He said she called him in a panic on Tuesday around noon because an officer from Immigration stopped her and was taking her into custody.”

“Immigration took her?” asked Nadine.

“That’s what she told him.”

“And they haven’t heard from her since Tuesday? Is that normal?”

“The woman I was with said so. The family is working with an attorney. But she said sometimes they don’t hear until after deportation.”

“Hmm. See if you can find her.”

“Yes, boss lady.” Tina lingered. It was her first field assignment and she’d done well.

“Thank you, Tina. You keep this up and Clint will need to get you a badge.”

She grinned and then spun, practically skipping out of the office.

Nadine settled at her desk. Skogen was right. Santander was undocumented and the disappearance was unrelated to their case.

Nadine returned to her suspect-based profile.

She believed these were stranger-attacks. The targets selected by some specific criteria. The victimization showed both a need to inflict pain and also an absence of feeling for the victims. Neither Hugo Betters nor Roger Darnell could be accused of lacking feelings for their partners. Betters displayed both irritation and worry, and Darnell certainly seemed to be grieving his wife’s death, though she could not disregard that he stood to benefit financially because of it.

Meanwhile, the depersonalization, stripping the women, crippling and using them to lure predators, was more than horrifying, it was specific and baffling. A husband, even an enraged one, would act in passion. This seemed exactly the opposite. This more resembled indifference to the victim’s pain and suffering. The inherent lack of sympathy, and the escalation from the neck wound to the back wound, made Nadine think this killer was progressing. Learning better ways to toy with his captives and linger over their deaths.

The killer chose to deposit his victims, in close proximity, in a place they were likely to be discovered.

Left on display.

Their unsub seemed intent on shocking the public or flaunting his victims to law enforcement. Perhaps both.

He appeared to be trying to gain someone’s attention.

Meanwhile, Arnold did not know either Darnell or Karnowski. He was a good prospect. He had reason to be in the forest. He knew the trails intimately, had a history of sexual perversion, refused a polygraph, refused to provide a DNA sample and was flashing signs of deception.

She thought his psych eval would be fascinating if he was foolish enough to agree to one.

Nadine had researched similar crimes, teasing out commonalities in apprehended offenders, and had compiled a list. All were stranger crimes. A sizable percentage had priors for sexual offenses, a significant percentage had prior assaults against women. Curiously, driving records were universally spotless. These were careful hunters. Many also posed their victims naked in degrading positions, as was the case with Karnowski.

She put forth that this was a white male, living alone, intelligent, neat, employed, fascinated with porn pertaining to bondage and torture, narcissistic, possibly psychopathic, who had committed similar murders elsewhere. He would be unmarried, living alone, familiar with the forest, drove a truck with a cab. He would be average height and weight, neatly dressed, athletic, well-coordinated with archery and hunting experience.

She set aside her suspect profile. She’d come to the end of what she could accomplish on that for the moment.

With details on Darnell and Karnowski now pouring in, she thought a behavioral comparison of the victims was the next step. Untangling what specific actions, characteristics and physical details these two women shared might prove useful to the FBI in their hunt.

Rita Karnowski and Nikki Darnell both lived in the area, were familiar with the hiking trails they explored in the Ocala Forest, and both had a male partner. They each had a love for the natural world. Both were dumped in close proximity and appeared to have been tortured and killed