Death Falls by Todd Ritter

smirk.
    And every single one of them gone.
    “You were right, Eric. They’re all related.”
    Kat was certain of it, just as certain as Maggie Olmstead had been when she put together this morbid collage. The scratched-out red circles made it abundantly clear that Maggie had spent a lot of time winnowing down the board’s contents to these six cases. There might have been other missing boys on that board at one point, but these were the only ones that mattered to her. The question they now faced was why.
    “Nick,” she said, “this used to be your thing. What do you make of all this?”
    When he worked for the state police, Nick was an expert on the criminal mind. He wasn’t a profiler, but he knew enough to understand why people sometimes did unthinkable things. When such a person had targeted the residents of Perry Hollow, Nick had been there to guide her. Kat hoped he could do the same now.
    “Clearly, it’s a serial killer,” Nick said.
    Eric cleared his throat. “Killer?”
    “There are three types of abductions,” Nick replied. “The most common ones are among family members. Custody disputes. Desperate parents. It’s usually very obvious early on who the perpetrator is.”
    “I know,” Eric said. “I wrote about one in a Mitch Gracey book.”
    “The second is acquaintance kidnapping. The victims are mostly teenagers and mostly girls. The perps are normally other teenagers, perverted neighbors, guys who get off on abusing girls.”
    Nick approached the board, studying it with those green eyes of his that always seemed to be noticing something Kat had missed. His gaze darted from photo to photo and from town to town, examining the big picture.
    “The third type,” he said, “are the ones that can’t easily be explained away.”
    Kat knew all about those cases through AMBER Alerts and statewide APBs. These were the kids snatched from the grocery store. The ones who got into the van with the guy offering candy. The ones who, like Charlie Olmstead, rode off on their bikes and were never seen again.
    “So,” Eric said, a noticeable catch in his throat, “you think whoever did this took and killed all of them?”
    Nick nodded solemnly. “If any of these boys were still alive, we’d have heard about it by now.”
    From across the room, Kat watched as Eric Olmstead took a deep breath and nodded. He lifted the beer to his lips and gulped. Then he excused himself, hurrying out of the dining room, through the kitchen, and onto the back porch. She envied his ability to escape. She wanted to flee the room, as well, and not have to look at the sad gallery in front of her. So many boys. So many victims. Yet she had to look. This was no longer just a matter to be handled by Nick and his foundation. This was now a police matter.
    “What do you think the link is?” she asked. “I know there has to be one. You taught me that.”
    “The first thing I noticed was the ages,” Nick said. “Who was the youngest?”
    Kat pointed to the photo of Noah Pierce. “He was nine.”
    “The oldest was twelve,” Nick said, gesturing to Dwight Halsey’s picture. “That makes sense. Usually killers who prey on children like to stick to the same age range.”
    “He also stuck to similar locations,” Kat added. “All six boys vanished in small towns or rural areas. Charlie disappeared around Sunset Falls. Both Dennis Kepner and Noah Pierce were in parks. Dwight Halsey vanished in the forest. And Frankie Pulaski and Bucky Mason went missing in Centralia.”
    “So we have who he preyed on,” Nick said. “And where.”
    Kat scanned the red circles on the map, pausing at the two places where more than one crime occurred. The second and third incidents were in or around Fairmount. The fifth and sixth took place in Centralia. Unless the killer liked the locations so much he went back twice, there was a reason they took place where they did.
    “He lived there,” she said. “In Fairmount and in Centralia.”
    Despite the