Of course, the general population knew only some of what was going on. Sara knew more than most because her office was intimately involved with the BCCPD, and because she was close friends with a tightly knit group of cops and agents, three couples plus her as a spare wheel.
The seven friends had banded together the previous year when FBI trainee Chelsea Swanthough back then shed been one of Saras medical examinershad fallen in with FBI agent Jonah Fairfax. Fax had assisted in the jailbreak in his role as a deep undercover operative, only to learn in the devastating aftermath that his superior was a traitor and hed been unknowingly working on al-Jihads behalf. Sara, Chelsea, Fax and the others had managed to foil al-Jihads next planned attack, but theyd only managed to capture one of the terrorists, Muhammad Feyd, whod proven to be a loyal soldier and had defied all efforts to get him talking.
Al-Jihad and his remaining lieutenant, Lee Mawadi, along with Faxs former boss, the eponymous Jane Doe, remained at large even now, ten months later. In that interim, there had been other, smaller incidents, along with a deadly riot at the ARX Supermax. Which Sara so wasnt thinking about right now.
She didnt want to remember the men whod died in the riot, or the one man in particular whose death had hit her far harder than it should have.
Focus, girl, she told herself. The days only getting longer the more you stall.
Concentrating on the innards at hand, Sara went through the process by rote, weighing and sampling, dictating notes as she worked. But although the actions were automaticthey ought to be, after six years on the job, two heading the Bear Claw MEs officethey werent without compassion. Saras top-flight surgeon mother might consider her daughters medical skills wasted on the dead, but Sara knew she worked for the families as much as the corpses, and took satisfaction from providing answers, shedding light onto causes of death that might otherwise be misinterpreted.
Contrary to what some popular TV shows might portray, only a small fraction of the bodies coming through the MEs office were instances of foul play. The vast majority was made up of an almost equal balance between natural causes and accidental fatalities. Her current case fell into the former, i.e., a catastrophic cardiac event brought on by a high-risk lifestyle and inconsistently treated hypertension.
As she stripped off her protective gear and headed for her office to finish up the necessary paperwork, Sara found herself wishing that more of her recent cases had been so straightforward. It wasnt that she wanted her life to be easy or boring, but shed gone into pathology because shed grown up a passenger of her parents roller-coaster ride of emotions, and she hadnt wanted the highs and lows of living medicine.
Little had she known shed wind up in the middle of a terror threat that had the entire city by the throat, and that shed be far more enmeshed in the case than she wouldve preferred. Granted, the investigation had moved away from her office in the months since the prison riot, but her close ties to members of the task force kept her involved, as did the caseload shed been forced to assume in the face of a serious manpower shortage.
The lack of staff members in the MEs office was yet another of Acting Mayor Proudfoots unsubtle efforts to get rid of all the young, energetic hires made by his forward-thinking predecessor, who had been disgraced and ousted when damning photographs had surfaced involving the mayor and several girls of questionable age.
That had been too bad as far as Sara was concerned; she didnt condone the former mayors ethical lapses, but she thought hed been taking the city in a positive direction by bringing fresh blood into the crime scene unit, the MEs office and several other tech-based divisions of city government. Since the ex-mayors departure, Proudfoot had been undoing those advances, piece by piece, making no bones about the fact that he intended to return Bear Claw Creek to the good old daysi.e., the days of minimal technology and pay-to-play politics.
Proudfoots efforts had been blunted somewhat by the terrorist threat, but his image lurked at the back of Saras mind on a daily basis. She knew he was just waiting for her to mess up badly enough that he could get rid of her and return the MEs office to the age of dinosaurs, with his cronies in charge.
Which is another thing that belongs in the category of things I dont want to think about right now, she said to herself on a long sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose to stave off the headache that always encroached when she thought about all the things she was trying not to think about these days.
The list was long. And frankly, it didnt leave her much to think about.
Hey, boss. The hail came from Stephen, the sole remaining medical examiner beside herself. He was tall, lean and graying, a good ten years older than her own thirty-five, and had worked in the Bear Claw MEs office for nearly a dozen years. Miraculously, though, he didnt seem to resent that Sarayoung, female, relatively inexperiencedhad been hired in above him as his boss. If anything, he seemed happy to let her have the headaches that came with the position.
Hey yourself. Sara didnt ask about the manhunt, didnt want to know. Youre headed out early today, right?
He nodded, a soft smile touching his lips, lighting his usual neutral expression. Celia and I are bringing Chrissy for a checkup. Chrissy was the change-of-life baby, nearly twenty years younger than their eldest, who had surprised Stephen and his wife the year before. By all indications, little Chrissy would grow up dearly beloved by their entire extended family, and most likely spoiled rotten.
The quiet joy on the older mans face squeezed at Saras heart. She nodded, forcing herself to feel happy for him rather than sorry for herself. Tell Celia I said hi.
Ill do that. I can come back after, if you want me to. He glanced at the wipe board that hung in the hallway opposite their office doors, where the pending cases were listed. Things are backing up.
They were, indeed, and a large part of Sara wanted to keep the office running around the clock until theyd cleared the board and gotten ahead of the looming mountains of paperwork. But logic said that Proudfoot wouldnt be impressed with that show of efficiency. If anything, hed take it as an indication that shed manage just fine with an even smaller staff.
She shook her head. Thanks for the offer, but no. Head on home. Ill clear what I can, and we can start over tomorrow.
He sent her a long look. Promise me you wont stay past normal human quitting time? It is Friday. You knowthe weekend?
She winced. You got me. Well start over on Monday. Which didnt mean she wouldnt be in over the next two days. She had abolished the weekend and overnight shifts due to staff constraints, but she still liked to come into the office herself, when everything was relatively quiet.
Two years earlier, it wouldve been easy to promise Stephen shed leave for the weekend, because she wouldve known there was someone waiting for her at homesomeone to cook with, eat with, laugh with, love with.
Even a year ago, having more or less recovered from the catastrophic implosion of that relationship, she wouldve had plans of some sort. She and Chelsea wouldve hooked up with Cassie Dumont-Varitek and Alyssa McDermott, their friends in the BCCPD crime scene unit, and had a girls night out. Or maybe they wouldve double dated, with Cassie and Alyssa pairing up with their husbands, while Chelsea and Sara hung together.
It wasnt the same these days with Chelsea gone into the FBI training program on the East Coast, though. Sara had tried going out with the others, and had felt like a fifth wheel. Chelsea had been the glue holding them together. Without her, it felt as if the rest of them were trying too hard. Even when Chelsea and Fax came back to the city, they were most often there on task force business, maybe with a little wedding planning snuck in on the side.
Things had changed. The others had moved on, leaving Sara behind.
Summoning a smile, she waved Stephen away. Go on, get moving. You wouldnt want to keep your women waiting.
But he didnt move. Instead, he gave her a long, intense look. Ill do the agents when they come in, if youd like. I can be here tomorrow morning, assuming they release the bodies that early.
He was talking about the manhunt, the men whod died. She closed her eyes, feeling guilty over the stab of relief brought by the offer. Have they announced the names?
Not yet.
She nodded, knowing that even though she hadnt been paying attention to the reports, the knowledge of the deaths, and the echoes it brought, had permeated her. Ill let you know. Which was as close as she was going to get to confessing that she couldnt handle how close the terrorists were hitting, and how much it bothered her that things seemed to be ramping up rather than settling down these days. It was hard not to wonder where it would all stop, and how many would die in the attack most of the task force members thought was imminent.
Her mother and father were in rare agreement that she should give notice and get the hell out of Bear Claw Creek. Sara had seriously considered the optionfor about thirty seconds before coming to the realization that she couldnt do it. This was her home; she wasnt giving up on it. And what was more, she wasnt walking away from her job or her remaining staff members.
This was her department, damn it. She might be going down, but she was going down fighting.
After another long look, Stephen headed out. Telling herself she appreciated his concern, that it didnt make her feel even lonelier than she had before, Sara completed the necessary paperwork on the cases shed autopsied so far that day, then suited back up and returned to work.
She processed three more routine cases over the remainder of the day and did her best to tune out the news bulletins when she passed through the break room, or got near Dellas desk, where the fiftysomething admin assistant had a police band radio turned low. Still, Sara couldnt avoid knowing that the senior agents had called off the op, that the search dogs had followed two different trails ascribed to the terrorists, both of which had dead-ended in vehicle tracks heading for the main roads.
It seemed that the op had been a quick scramble into the state forest, based on intel that several of al-Jihads people were holed up in a remote cabin, strategizing. Sara didnt want to know but couldnt help hearing that the two agents had lost their lives in pursuit of a small knot of men who appeared to have been carrying bodies, while a lone man had escaped in the opposite direction, and vanished into the wind. She didnt want to know that the cabin had been stripped bare, and had burst into flames within minutes of the terrorists escape, torched by a hidden incendiary device.
As usual, al-Jihads people had been well prepared. Sara wasnt sure what the op had aimed to do, or what the terrorists had planned or accomplished in the forest, but she knew the names of the dead men now, whether she wanted to or not. Both FBI agents, they werent among her friends or acquaintances, but theyd had their own friends and families, their own loved ones whod been cruelly left behind. More bereaved to add to the list that had grown over the past ten months.
Sadness beat through Sara as she kept working, starting another case because it wasnt as though she had any pressing reason to go home, Friday night or not.
Della and Bradley clocked out around five-thirty and left arm in arm. Bradley had been mooning after Dellawho was a good decade his senior and the mother of two grown childrenfor as long as hed been working there. Sara smiled, her heart warming at seeing them so obviously together, though she found herself wondering how shed missed that change in relationship status. Then she had to remind herself not to dwell on the fact that everyone around her seemed to be pairing up these days. Everyone but her.
Biting back a sigh, she got back to work. By the time she called it a night, around 7:00 p.m., her shoulders, back and neck were burning from the strain. She wouldve killed for a massage, or at least an hour in a whirlpool, but she couldnt bring herself to hit the gym this late on a Friday.
There was a fine line between being single and being pathetic.
Consoling herself with the thought of a long, hot bath, she collected her hybrid from the parking lot, which was located between the BCCPDs main station house and the connected building that held the MEs office.
The twenty-minute drive home was an easy one, and the sight of the small stone-faced house eased something inside her, even in the darkness.
Shed fallen in love with the place on her first drive through the city. The cottagelike house had been way out of her budget, but shed taken an uncharacteristic leap and bought it on an adjustable mortgage, then switched over to a fixed loan as soon as she was able to afford the higher payments. These days she was managing the expenses, though there wasnt much left over at the end of the month for extras or savings. She didnt regret the purchase for a second, though. It was her home, plain and simple.
The house was easily big enough for two peoplehell, for a small familybut shed resisted the option of taking on a roommate because she liked to keep her space the way she liked it, with none of the rapid changes shed endured during childhood. The one person shed shared her home withalbeit for only a few monthshad fit into her world so seamlessly, despite their obvious differences, that shed thought it would last. It hadnt, of course. And the final words between them had been angry ones.
Stop it, she told herself as she parked the hybrid near the house, then gathered her bag and coat to head for the kitchen door.
She didnt know why her ex was so much in her mind lately, but enough was enough. He wasnt coming back, and they hadnt been together for the year prior to the prison riot that had taken his life. His death had been tragic, but it didnt magically erase his sins, didnt erase his betrayal. Not by a long shot.
Muttering under her breath, she fished in her bag for her keys, unlocked the door and let herself through. Two steps into the kitchen, with the door swinging shut at her back, she stopped dead as the smell of blood tickled her nostrils. It was a familiar odor, of course, but it wasnt one that belonged in her house.
She stayed frozen for a moment, adrenaline kicking her heart into overdrive.
Logic said she should get out of the house, get somewhere safe and call for help. But something she couldnt nameanger at the growing suspicion that an intruder had broken in, maybe, or a complete and utter lapse of her usual good judgmenthad her flicking on the lights and moving farther into the house.
She didnt see anything out of place in her pretty kitchen, but the back of her neck prickled, warning her that someone had been there who shouldnt have been. Holding her breath, she eased through the doorway connecting the kitchen to the living room. And froze in horror.