Claire Belle Harper groaned as she rolled over and grabbed for her ringing cell phone. Her hands splayed out over the bedside table, hurriedly seeking in the dark for the blaring device. She knew it was past midnight, but still way before dawn. It felt like she'd just crawled into bed. In all honesty, she probably had been asleep for two hours. Being on call sucked.
"Hello?" She said groggily, turning the greeting into a question.
"Harper, we need you to come in. This time it's for real." The gruff tone on the other end sounded stern, but his words were remorseful, promising it would be worth it this time. The previous call she'd taken had turned out to be a fake. It was an occupational hazard that came with being the only forensic nurse available within a fifty mile radius covering a hospital and multiple opportunities for violence and disaster in a small rural town.
"OK, Thomas, be there in about 15 minutes," she mumbled back into the phone.
"Drive safe," he said before hanging up.
She slowly rolled out of bed and stepped straight into the puddle of her light blue scrub pants, pulling them up to her waist and tying the drawstrings tight. She fished around in the dark again before finding her scrub top. She pulled it over her head tucked it into her scrub bottoms before slipping her cell phone into her pocket. The light in the bathroom was bright in her eyes as she stood in front of the sink and quickly brushed her teeth. The French braid she'd done at the beginning of the night before laying down the very first time was still intact. She smoothed the mix of black and gray flyaways back from her face and patted her cheeks before switching off the light and walking back through the bedroom and into the kitchen. She grabbed her keys and headed out the front door.
Black Water, Virginia, was a small town much like any other. Much of the real estate, businesses, and incorporated areas were considered "county" property, the area was so small. There was a Walmart, a small hotel, a mom and pop diner, a bar, post office, mechanic shop, locksmith, and the old library. The old police station was built originally in the mid 1800s and was in bad need of renovations, but instead stood with patch jobs here and there; whatever the county could afford to spare. Typical small town stuff. It was just boring enough to encourage the usual mischievous accidents and dark crimes depicted of low socioeconomic, low educated populations. Kids overdosing on drugs, some small time explosives, break ins and robberies, child abuse, and the routine sexual assault cases.
Claire's job as a forensic nurse dragged her all over the county. She was employed by the county coroner's office and spent a lot of time on call or on the field. The coroner was called to all sites of domestic violence, child abuse and elder abuse, murders, suspicious deaths, and anything that could turn into any kind of litigation. This night she was on call for the hospital acting in the role of the sexual assault nurse examiner, a role that she had worked hard to achieve and maintain – more so than her work at the coroner's office – but also one that was stressful and depressing.
She pulled into the small parking lot of the hospital and turned her car off before walking inside. She never knew what she was walking into. The call she'd gotten earlier in the night had been reported as a sexual assault, but after she got there and started investigating and speaking with the victim, it turned out to be a young teenager who was pregnant but didn't want her parents to know she was having sex. Her way out was to fake being raped. After multiple episodes of questioning and changing her story several times, she finally came clean. Teenage pregnancies were not uncommon in the small town, and safe sex practices were never spoken of. The general population felt more compelled to simply ignore the subject altogether, leaving active teenagers ignorant of how to prevent pregnancies and sexually transmitted illnesses. The entire culture made Claire want to pull her hair out.
"How's it going, Thomas?" Claire asked as she scanned her badge and let herself into the emergency department. Thomas was a gruff, large man with a receding hairline. He was the nursing supervisor for the night shift and was frequently the one Claire spoke with whenever there was a sexual assault case. He acted like he bristled easily, but Claire knew he was really a softie with two daughters at home. He didn't play.
"This is definitely the real deal, it sounds a lot like a few other cases we've had recently, but I'll let you make your own assumptions without any preconceived notions." Whenever the patients were brought in to the emergency department, the staff always did their own assessments while they waited for her to arrive. Vital signs, quick physical, and some lab work was drawn before she even got to the hospital. There was always a rape kit waiting for her on the counter behind the nurse's station.
She grabbed the clipboard from behind the desk along with the small case and walked to the back. She rarely liked to hear any details before speaking to the patients herself. It helped her from steering her questions a certain way or from anticipating. She walked to the back and saw a man in a police uniform standing outside of an exam room.
"Caleb," she said to him in greeting.
"Claire," he responded. "Sorry to see you having to come in tonight." He tried his best to give a slight smile, but it didn't reach his green eyes. His brown hair was messy, like he'd been running his fingers through it.
"Me, too." They always had an officer standing watch in the E.D. for these types of cases. Safety was top priority, and they never knew when a suspect may arrive and decide to finish the job. She walked in and pulled a curtain to reveal a young woman sitting on the exam table.
"Hello, Miss Myers? I'm Claire Harper. I'm a forensic nurse for the hospital. I'm here to speak with you and collect some samples, if that would be alright."
The young woman seemed to shiver. Tracks were running down her face where she'd been crying. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot. She only nodded in response.
"I'm so sorry this happened to you. I know you've already told everyone what happened multiple times, but is there anyway you can tell me again, in detail? This will really help with our investigation."
"I'll try my best," she said, her voice quivering.
"Did you know who did this?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Do you think you can tell me what happened? Start from the beginning."
She seemed to take a long breath before beginning. "I was asleep and then I heard a sound. I realized it was the sound of my doorknob turning – it always makes this clicking noise. At first I thought it must have just been the sound of settling, but then I heard a floorboard creak. I guess I didn't understand what was happening since I was just coming out of sleep, but before I could do anything, a hand grabbed my ankle and pulled me over onto my stomach. I tried fighting but he was on my back. I couldn't do anything. I felt something cold and metal on my neck, I don't know if it was a knife or a gun. It was too dark for me to tell. It didn't take long for him to…finish… but I felt something sharp on my shoulder, like a lot of pressure. The nurse said it looked like a bite mark. After that, he got up and ran out."
"Did he say anything while you were there?"
"No, he didn't. And as soon as he left I looked for my phone to call the police, but it wasn't on my bedside table where I left it. It was across the room on my dresser, like he knew where it was and moved it further away."
"Have you met anyone new recently? Anything that happened recently that is out of the ordinary for you?"
"No, I work as a waitress at Pierce's, so we always have people coming and going, but nothing weird or different."
"Any boyfriends or male friends that you may have turned down advances on?"
"No, no. This is a small town. Everyone already knows everyone. There's nothing new happening. I've kind of met and gone through most of the men here." She sniffled and looked a bit sheepish. "Maybe that's why this has happened."
Claire put a hand on her shoulder. "You didn't do anything to deserve this. May I take a look at your shoulder?" The woman nodded at her. Claire pulled a corner of the gown down to take a look. Sure enough, it was a pretty serious bite mark. It was gnarly and bloody, more than just a bite, but almost like a tearing. "I'm going to take a picture of this." She pulled a polaroid camera out of her bag and a small paper ruler. She held the ruler up to the marks and took several pictures from different angles, being sure to get multiple pictures with the ruler showing the size of the marks. "Now I'll need to take some samples. This is going to be uncomfortable, but these will help us identify who did this to you." She helped the young woman lay back while she set up her kit. Various different sized cotton swabs and containers with fluids in them stared back at her. DNA collection was vital for positive suspect identification. She took multiple different tissue swabs, while assessing the area for trauma. She would have to document and file a report after she was finished.
A few minutes later she was packing up the kit and leaving the young woman to redress. She carried the kit out, never taking her eyes off it as she went to the back to sit down and write up her report. She was clicking away on the keyboard when Caleb came by.
"This is the fourth one like this for this month."
"What was happening at the house? Any sign of forced entry?" Claire asked him, looking up from the computer.
"Nothing. She swears she locked her door, but you know how people are around here. They're not used to having to lock doors. Her house backs up to a wooded area, so they were probably able to get out pretty fast that way. We couldn't see much in the dark, but we're planning to canvas the area at first light and make sure we didn't miss anything. We weren't able to find any prints, footprints. It's the same as the other two."
"What about the bite marks?"
"What about them?"
"This one looks worse to me than the others, and there's more trauma. It's like he's getting more aggressive. At this rate we're going on one per week. I'm worried we have a serial rapist."
Caleb shook his head at her. "Let's not go there yet."
"I feel like it's escalating. There will probably be another one by the end of next week."
"Have we gotten any results back on the DNA samples?"
"Not yet." She was getting frustrated. In their small county they had to send the samples to a larger facility. The county wouldn't give them permission to expedite. The turn around on the DNA samples was four weeks.
"We'll just have to wait and see if we have the same DNA. Maybe we'll find something tomorrow that will help us find this guy."
"I hope so."
"I've got to get back out there. I'll see you later, Claire."
"Have a good night, Caleb."
"Lock your doors when you get home, OK?"
Several days had passed and Claire was at the county coroner's office. Well, it was the coroner's office, the county health department, and the county department of human services. Her standard office was in this small, run down building. As the only forensic nurse for the county, her duties covered multiple areas, including sexual assault, abuse cases, and investigating unusual deaths for the coroner's office. She was compiling documentation on a neglect case for a home she'd just visited that afternoon. The place really should have been condemned, but the best they could do at the moment was to remove the children from the home. She was sorting the paperwork, filing pictures, and documenting everything she'd seen.
She was still agitated about the recent police response to the sexual assaults, but it wasn't unusual. Nothing seemed to happen fast enough for her in the small town. Most people were content to go about their business. For the male police force, they often looked for a reason to blame the victim. Everyone knew everyone in the area and were quick to shift blame. Despite attempts to keep the victims' identities closed, word travelled. It wasn't long before people started to point out how many people each woman had "gotten with" or the looseness of their character.
Donna, the receptionist, seemed to be staring at the television. She tutted at the screen.
"There's some crazy people in this world."
Claire's ears perked up.
"The body was found just across state lines, but is being investigated for the strange bite marks found on the victim's shoulders."
Claire stood up from her desk so quickly the legs shifted across the floor.
"Police say they haven't been able to identify the woman yet, but are asking locals to report anyone they believe to be missing, and they hope that someone from the public will come forward with information."
She felt her neck getting hot. It hadn't been five days since she'd told Caleb that she was concerned that the assaults were escalating. At the time she felt like he'd brushed her off, not wanting to believe it was that serious. The men in the town never really understood – it wasn't them being violated, after all. She opened and closed her fists in anger, wondering if the woman who was found tossed in the woods could have been saved if she'd been taken seriously.
It was like a lightbulb went off in her head. The body was found in West Virginia. She was sure this was connected to the serial rapings in her own town in Virginia. She sat down at her desk and did a quick google search before picking up her phone and dialing a number.
"Yes, this is Claire Harper of the Copiah county coroner's office in Black Water, Virginia. We have some open cases here that we believe to be linked to a recent murder in Virginia and are seeking the assistance and resources of the FBI."