Criminal Minds (Fox Meridian Book 4) by Niall Teasdale

justify herself.
    ‘I don’t judge, Mrs Lorie. One of my closest friends is a registered prostitute. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve nothing to be ashamed of. I didn’t know Georgina, but I’m going to do everything I can to catch the man who did this.’
    ‘I’m sure you will. I’ve seen you on the news feeds, Miss Meridian. I’m sure you’ll do your best. I can’t believe it happened so close to here. When I heard from the Sisters, I looked out. You could see the police all over an alley just south of here. Another block or two and she would have been safe with me. Just another block or two…’
    Fox was not especially good at comforting distraught people, so she thanked Mrs Lorie for her help and headed down to the street, walking south to where the body had been found.
    That something had happened there was fairly obvious because the city had gone through and removed every last trace. The sidewalk had been scoured in a three-metre radius, so had a nearby wall, and then the trail of cleansed ground moved into the alley. He had, Fox guessed, slit her throat out on the street, in plain view, but at eleven at night in this neighbourhood it was unlikely that he would be seen. Then he had dragged her ten or so metres into the alley as she bled out. Whatever ‘mutilation’ had been carried out, it had happened there: the ground had been cleaned to a near-sparkling shine to remove any evidence.
    Fox let out an exasperated grunt. ‘This is fucking awful police work. I’d imagine she’s under pressure, but I’d have had this entire area screened off instead of letting them sandblast the whole place.’
    ‘It seems that the metro authorities want the deaths kept as quiet as possible.’
    ‘Someone out murdering and mutilating women he comes across? Yeah. Okay, so he seems to be targeting prostitutes, but how does he know they are? He could get it wrong and anyone could be a target.’ Fox frowned. ‘How does he know? The first was a street girl, right?’
    ‘That’s what the media said. The second was a sprawler so the same probably applies.’
    ‘But Sister Georgina was doing out-calls. How did he know that the woman he saw walking down the street was a target?’
    1 st October.
    ‘I know why Detective Rutherford was amused,’ Kit said as Fox entered the virtual room which had been set up for the murders.
    Fox saw it almost immediately too. ‘Four dead. She has four murders by the same killer.’
    ‘Yes. Sister Naomi sent over the file in the early hours and I’ve been working to get the data presentable overnight. As you suspected, the case files are… light.’
    ‘What do we have?’
    ‘On the eighth of September, Nadine Truly was murdered in Queens. Her throat was cut and her abdomen opened. Her internal organs were removed and piled beside her body, except for the uterus which was not found at the site. She appears to have been lured into an alley. One witness reported seeing her with “a tall, dark man,” but there is no detailed description.’
    Fox examined the crime scene photographs. Truly had been left a bloody mess tucked into a corner of some alley which was probably now spotless. It had not been. ‘Okay, next.’
    ‘Jodine Cooper, murdered in the Brooklyn Sprawl on the seventeenth. Almost identical MO, but this time the heart and liver were missing. Yesterday there were two. Anne Milden and Georgina Parton. Miss Milden was a registered prostitute, but was not working at the time of her death. She was out for a drink with friends and on her way home. She died around ten and then Sister Georgina was killed just before eleven.’
    ‘Missing body parts again?’
    ‘Kidneys for Miss Milden, heart for Sister Georgina. No indications of sexual assault in any of the cases.’
    ‘Thirty years ago we’d have been checking organ banks, but no one uses other people’s organs anymore. Okay, do your magic on all of them. Associates, any known clients, the works.’
    ‘I’ve already