Then Meg saw the blood. She glanced behind her and saw the trail of numbered yellow cards, and they stopped here. At the rear of the parking spot.

"My guess is van," Simone said. "But they couldn't have taken him anywhere, because the garage is closed at eight, chained, and opened at five. No in or out."

"So they parked here before eight at night and left the vehicle," Meg said. "Wouldn't security have towed it?"

Kamanski shook his head. "A lot of people will leave their cars overnight. Drinking at a bar, working late, whatever."

"We have the list-security does note the tag numbers, but not the location. There were twenty-one vehicles in the garage at eight-thirty last night when the parking supervisor made the rounds."

"How did they come back in unnoticed?"

"You can just walk in pretty easily from the street, just like we did. There's just that half-wall on the ground floor, plus walkways for pedestrians They brought him in, did whatever, and left him dead in the alley nearly a block away."

"Why didn't they just execute him in the garage?" Meg asked. "Why dump him in the alley? They had to cross 12th Street to do it."

"Downtown is dead most nights, especially on Sundays," Simone said. "I could run around here naked and no one would notice."

Kamanski raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything.

"I'd like a copy of the tapes," Meg said. "And your forensics report. With security cameras on the pedestrian entrance we should get a face, possibly a good shot and ID."

"That's what I'm thinking. No problem."

Meg frowned. "Is there any evidence that they took him out the same way?"

"Nooo," Simone said cautiously. "But after a little time, the injury would have clotted and there might not be blood evidence. We're still combing the crime scene-"

"What if," Meg interrupted, "they drove him out?" She walked briskly over to the where the garage exited into the alley. "They could have taken him in the van, drove cross 12th Street, put him out and shot him. A lot easier than carrying an incapacitated man half a block."

"Possible," Simone said. "Very possible."

As Meg walked back to the body with Detective Kamanski, she couldn't grasp the motive. Why go through such elaborate measures to kill a homeless veteran? Why the torture? Why kill him nearly a block from where he was kidnapped?

It seemed both foolish . . . and planned. Deliberate. Personal.

What did George Price have in common with Austin small business owner Duane Johnson and Las Vegas mechanic Dennis Perry?

Why were they tortured?

Why were they executed?

And if the MO held, Meg would probably not learn anything else about the killers until they were caught. They'd moved around the country with ease, and if they killed Price at dawn, they could be three hundred miles away by now.

Fortunately, they had a lot more information than at the two previous crime scenes. Security tapes, a larger crime scene, greater chance of witnesses. They just needed a little time and a lot of hard work, and Meg was confident they'd ID the killers. She was good at that-working each piece of the puzzle until an ident.i.ty was confirmed, a suspect arrested, and a killer prosecuted.

Meg didn't know that in six hours, they'd have nothing. No tapes. No evidence. No body. And no jurisdiction.

Playing Dead is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fict.i.tiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

end.