Without the skull, all they had to go on was the approximate age, sex and height of the skeletonlate teens, female, around five-sixand the fact that the bones had been in the ground for a decade, give or take. Feeling a sense of empathy for the girl, Cassie had run the database searches and had come up with a handful of missing-person reports in and around Bear Claw during that time period. None of them had panned out, meaning that the next step was to expand the search statewide. Thatd give her a couple of hundred names, most of whichif not allwould be dead ends.
With her current caseload, Alissas vacation and Mayas conference, Cassie hadnt found the time.
No, she corrected herself with brutal honesty. She hadnt made the time. So she squared her shoulders and said, I ruled out some local missing person reports, but havent taken it any further than that. My bad.
But Varitek didnt respond to the apology. His attention was fixed on the severed index finger. Cassie saw that a thin trail of blood had leaked onto the upholstery beneath, but the larger wound area was sealed over.
Looks like it was cauterized premortem, Varitek said, so quietly he was nearly speaking to himself. Souvenir, maybe?
Disgust and a low-level horror twisted in her gut. Every now and then during the course of her work it hit her. This was real. It wasnt a movie set or a scene playing out on TV. The body belonged to a real person. Someones son. Maybe someones lover.
Looks like it was cauterized premortem, Varitek said, so quietly he was nearly speaking to himself. Souvenir, maybe?
Disgust and a low-level horror twisted in her gut. Every now and then during the course of her work it hit her. This was real. It wasnt a movie set or a scene playing out on TV. The body belonged to a real person. Someones son. Maybe someones lover.
Cassie swallowed a quick bubble of nausea, while a fragment of a half remembered conversation surfaced in her brain. Face it, youre not tough enough to hack it in the field, Lee Adams had said. Youre a chemist, not a cop.
Lee had been five years older than she, an instructor at the masters level forensics program shed attended outside of Chicago. Hed been handsome and a little bit mysterious, and for a while, shed bought into everything he said. Years later, some of his comments still snuck up on her when she least expected it.
Like now.
She set her teeth, swallowed the weakness and forced herself to think about the corpse at its most basicas a piece of evidence in a case theyd thought was closed. If this body is connected to the skeleton in the canyon, then Alissa was right. She did hear someone else when Croft was holding her captive. There was another man.
Maybe, maybe not. Varitek stepped back so they were shoulder-to-shoulder, staring down at the body. Dont jump to conclusions.
She felt the warmth of him and wished she didnt notice such things. He was attractive, yes, but he already had three strikes against him in her book. He was in law enforcement. He was controlling. And he was impossible to get along with. The first was a fact. The other points shed discovered months earlier, when shed been forced to let him into the kidnapping case and hed taken over, brought in his own people and shoved her to the edges of the investigation, claiming shed be safer there.
Well forget him. She wasnt looking to stay safe at the expense of the job.
She scowled. Im not jumping to conclusions, Im using my version of the razor theoremthe simplest explanation is usually the correct one. Weve got a body tied to a crime scene from the kidnappings. The kidnapper is dead, so we know he didnt kill this guy. Other lines of evidence have already suggested Croft had an accomplice. Ergo, were looking at a partner.
Were not looking at anything but the evidence, Varitek said bluntly. He turned away and reached for his bigger, meaner-looking crime-scene kit, which Cassie knew from experience contained everything hers did, and then some. He said, Lets get to work. The sooner we release the body to the ME, the better. Were going to need a cause of death, time of death, IDanything we can get. The chief said that based on our findings, hell decide whether to recall the task force.
And that quickly, that easily, he took over her crime scene.
Again.
Cassie fisted her hands at her sides, so tightly that her blunt nails dug into her palms. She thought about going for her weapon. Instead, she said, Agent Varitek?
He didnt even turn around when he answered, Technically, its Special Agent.
Yeah, youre special all right, she muttered loud enough that he could damn well hear. Then she raised her voice, but fought to keep it level. Businesslike. Until the task force has been officially reopened and your assistance has been requested by the proper channels, I consider this my crime scene. Id like you out of it.
We dont always get what we want, he said, and his voice held a thread of something she couldnt quite interpret. He glanced back at her, pale green eyes unreadable. Your boss called my bossthats proper channels. You dont like me being here? Take it up with the chief. If youre not going to do that, then suit up. Weve got a scene to work.
FOUR HOURS LATER, with the body long gone and the empty, dismal-feeling room nearly processed, Seth straightened to his full height and stretched, groaning when his joints popped in protest. His knees still ached from time to time, a legacy of his younger days when hed gone from catchers mitt to goalies mask and back again, depending on the season. Not quite good enough to go pro as either, hed slid sideways into law and then law enforcement, gotten married and then
Irritated, he slammed the lid on that train of thought. Ancient history had no place on the job. But still, the dark memories soured his already bleak mood as he turned to make the last few notations and pack up his kit.
He was aware of Cassie watching him, aware of the tension humming between them, a mix of professional antagonism and something more complicated. Shed made it obvious that she didnt like him from the first moment theyd met. She wanted the crime scene to herself and resented his every breath. It annoyed her that he had better equipment, better contacts.
Normally, he wouldnt have wasted five minutes on a local cop who didnt want his help, but something about her drew him. Intrigued him. She was an evidence specialist who had to force herself to touch a corpse, a prickly woman with shadows of sadness in her eyes.
And those legs. He couldnt help noticing her legs. She wore tan pants cut more for field work than fashion, but they did little to disguise the long length of her calves, the sassy curve of her rear and the aggressive swagger of her hips as she moved around the room, shoulders stiff with resentment.
But even as those legs strutted through his mind, he focused on the rest of her, on the prickles, the defensiveness and the bloody-minded territoriality. All things he had no patience with, especially when they interfered with his ability to do his job.
You ready to go? Cassie asked. She stood near the door holding her evidence kit, which held their photographs, notes and measurements, as well as a rough sketch of the scene.
He nodded. Sure. Lets get out of here. He hefted his own kit, which contained fiber evidence, prints and other trace samples. Ninety-some percent of the evidencemaybe even all of itwould prove useless, either unrelated to the case or too generic to be of any help.
But it was those last few percentages, those moments of discovery, that made it all worthwhile.
He just hoped to God hed have an aha moment this time. He and Cassie hadnt talked about ithell, they hadnt talked about anythingbut the knowledge hung in the tense air between them.
This was no act of passion or rage, no accidental death or manslaughter. It was premeditated. Posed. Practiced.
If they didnt find this guy quickly, it was a sure bet hed strike again.
As they left the dismal room and sealed it behind them, Seth couldnt shake the feeling that he was missing something. He didnt even try, because it was like that at every crime scene. That was part of what kept him sharp.
Cassie jerked her head toward the stairs. Ill meet you back at the station. When I called, the chief said the task force would meet in a half hour.
Seth told himself not to watch her walk away, not to admire how her long legs ate up the hallway with an aggressive swing that was all Cassiein a hurry and full of attitude. When shed disappeared into the stairwell, he cast a final look back toward the sealed door, aware of something tickling the back of his brain. A connection maybe, or a suspicion.
He concentrated for a moment, but it didnt gel, so he turned for the stairs knowing the detail would surface eventually. When he reached the ground floor he saw the door swing shut, evidence of Cassies passing. Figuring shed left her truck in one of the visitors slots in the back lot, he shoved open the rear exit.
And heard Cassies voice shout, Halt! Police!
A weapon fired.
Then there was silence.
Chapter Two
Gun clutched in her hand, Cassie sprinted in pursuit of a dark figure nearly half a block ahead of her. Shed been stupid to shout, stupid to identify herself. Procedure be damned, she shouldve shot the guy the moment she saw him crouched near the back tire of her truck.
But shed been caught up in thoughts of Varitek, thoughts of cop-shop politics. So shed shouted and her shot had gone wide.
And now she was chasing some guy down the damn street.
Could her day get any worse?
Her lungs burned and her thighs howled, but she pushed faster. Ahead, a jean-clad figure wearing a dark ski jacket slipped on a patch of slush and went down. He scrambled up with the flexibility of a young man and skidded around a corner into a narrow street between two more crummy apartment buildings.
Cassie rounded the corner and accelerated, thinking she had the guy trapped in the alley, thinking she had
A hot, wiry body slammed into her side, driving the breath from her lungs, sending her to the wet, cracked pavement. She screeched, tucked and rolled until she hit a steel trash bin. Then she lunged to her feet and faced her attacker.
His face was obscured by a brightly colored hat and muff combo, but she could see his eyes, which were hard, hazel chips gleaming with deadly sanity. He licked his lips. Youre a blonde. My favorite.