“Yeah, it’s brutal.” James opened the office door. Cool air rushed out, and he eagerly followed it inside.
“Ay! Tom!” A curvaceous woman threw up her hands and came out from behind the front desk. Her tall, spikey heels clacked against the tile floor as she giddily walked to the men. Her tight blue dress hugged her body, accentuating the intoxicating sway of her hips.
She stood on her tiptoes, and Shilling gave her a bear hug. “V, I thought you were going to be out for the whole year.”
“Sí, I thought so too, but my brother was arrested again. My parents finally had enough. They took Gloria from him last night. So, I come to work again,” she enunciated through her thick accent.
“It’s good to have you back. Veronica, meet my new partner, Detective James Graham.”
“Any friend of Tom’s is a friend of mine.” She gave him a sultry half smile. “You have come here for seeing the bodies, no?”
“Yes. We’re here to see Dr. Pierce. And the bodies,” James said, concentrating on the smooth angles of her face so his eyes were too busy to drift over her spandex dress.
“I’ll sign you in. You go back. Have your meeting with the crypt keeper.” Veronica’s smile widened, and she ushered them past the first set of doors.
Pierce stood outside the exam room tapping her foot impatiently. Her petite frame was dwarfed by the width and height of the spotless hallway. “You’re late. And lucky I’m still here. I have other bodies that need attention, including my own.”
“Sorry, Catherine. We got held up at the station,” James said.
“And by Veronica,” Schilling whistled. “Good to see her back.”
“She does give you something nice to look at after dealing with dead bodies all day. Why do you think I hired her?” Pierce winked playfully and opened the door to the exam room. “Graham, I got your message about the UV ink. You think it could be what’s causing the ridges on the tattoo?”
“Sure do, but we won’t know for sure until we check.”
“Which is where I come in.” She walked over to the wall covered in oversized silver filing cabinets. “Schilling, there’s a light wand behind you. Grab it for me, and I’ll pull out your victim.”
She pulled open the small square door separating the living from the dead. A thin, white sheet covered the body leaving only the crown of her head exposed. Pierce lifted one side of the sheet to reveal the victim’s left arm as she explained. “Kirby already ran a UV light over the body when it first came in, but that examination was to test for signs of sexual assault, which the victim tested negative for. No blood or semen on the body or the clothes. So if this ink lights up, Kirby just missed it the first time around.” The dense black tattoo looked garish against her pale flesh. Pierce rotated the girl’s arm so the ridges through and around the tattoo faced up.
“I’m ready when you are,” she said.
Schilling clicked on the light and held it a few inches above the skin.
The UV bulb reflected a bluish white X tattooed over one of the tree limbs. Next to it was a sequence of numbers 23.8.14, and in the middle of the hollow trunk glowed the victim’s last name.
“Oh God. The twenty-third of August, 2014,” Pierce said without masking the horror in her voice. “Why would he tattoo her body with the date she died?”
“And next to an X on the tree? Is he trying to mark that date on the tree? It doesn’t make sense.” James’s flicker of hope for a possible lead grew dimmer as he became more confused.
“It’s ancestry,” Schilling said. “The sick bastard put the X through one of these small limbs, right?” His finger hovered over the area he spoke about and, without waiting for an answer, he continued. “It’s an offshoot of the Bailey family tree. He’s cut off the branch. He ended that part of their family. Wait, hold that thought. I’m buzzing.” Schilling handed James the UV light and put his phone on speaker.
“What do you got for us?”
“I have a note here that says you need to be alerted if any disappearances from the downtown area are called in.”
“Yeah, and?” Schilling said impatiently.
“A Lori Kostas just reported her twenty-three-year-old daughter missing. Said she was downtown last night at a party, and she hasn’t come home or been heard from since.”
James’s heartbeat quickened. “Send us the mom’s address. We’re headed there now.”
Eleven
Eva rolled to her side. Heaviness tugged at her ankle, and she thrust out her leg to shake it away. Dull pain gripped her knee, and she opened her eyes to seek out the cause. She blinked hard against the thick, dry contacts fogging her vision.
“Morning. Did you sleep well? You were out like a light.”
She used her elbow to prop herself up to a seated position. Her head spun with sleepiness. “Where am I?”