Victoria couldn’t believe it.
After a decade of silence, Seth Rutledge was standing in front of her with that familiar cryptic smile—the one that never exposed what he was thinking. Suddenly the years were gone, and she felt like she’d just seen him yesterday. When he’d abruptly dumped her for another woman.
Lacey was watching her with an expectant look on her face, indicating she knew something was up and was patiently waiting for an explanation. Victoria wasn’t in the mood to share. Her past belonged to her. She didn’t need sympathy or more questions from anyone. She scanned the group. Lacey wasn’t the only one with the curious look.
“You two know each other?” Dr. Campbell asked.
Trust Dr. Campbell to ask the question on everyone’s mind. Even the two detectives looked interested in their history. Few people had facts on Victoria Peres. She liked it that way.
“We were at Stanford at the same time,” said Seth. “Haven’t really seen much of each other since then.”
Not since one night at a conference in Denver.
Victoria saw the same thought in his eyes.
He still thinks about it, too.
“I didn’t know you were considering the position here,” she heard herself say. How could she have known? She avoided office politics the same way she avoided office socializing. Her dinner with Lacey and Dr. Campbell tonight had been an anomaly. A result of Lacey pressing her and a bit of guilt that her boss was retiring, and she knew she’d be skipping the formal retirement party. A small dinner had seemed logical.
“I’ve been keeping the process quiet,” said Dr. Campbell. “It was time to bring it out into the open, watching him interact with the staff and get a feel for the office. Come take a look at this one, Seth.” He gestured at the younger man and headed over to the first girl.
Seth met Victoria’s gaze once more and then followed. She watched him walk away, recognizing every distinctive motion of his body. She hadn’t thought about him in years. How could he be so immediately familiar?
Her lower back felt damp. How unfair that the one man in the world she couldn’t have was the only one who made her feel lovely.
“Wow,” murmured Lacey for Victoria’s ears. “How attractive is he? He looks like a younger Pierce Brosnan without the crooked teeth. You’ve got some explaining to do.”
“We barely know each other,” she lied. Lacey would notice his teeth.
“Bullshit.”
“I haven’t seen him in forever,” Victoria amended.
“Well, he looks ready to renew your friendship.”
“He’s married.”
“I didn’t see a ring.”
Really? “You looked for a ring?” Victoria eyed the other woman.
“Of course. I’m female.”
“You’re engaged.”
“Engaged to the most amazing man in the world. But that doesn’t mean I can’t wonder about other people’s marriage status. I’m not looking for me, but when I see a man who looks like that and is a doctor to boot, I wonder if he’s married. Maybe I want to set him up with a good friend.” She winked at Victoria.
“He’s married,” Victoria repeated. She looked past Lacey’s shoulder to where Seth squatted with Dr. Campbell next to one of the sad bodies, deep in discussion. The tilt of his head set off sparks of memories, as did the width of his shoulders. Years of separation were evaporating every second. Next she’d be asking him to go for a run, forgetting they hadn’t run together in ages. It’s only been five minutes… after nearly twenty years.
Dr. Campbell’s words about retiring ricocheted in her head. Could Seth be her next boss?
Oh Lord. Could she handle that?
Seth gestured at the dead girl’s face, asking a question of the tech at the adjacent body, and Sarah moved over to open the girl’s mouth. Dr. Campbell shone his flashlight in the girl’s mouth.
“What are they doing?” Lacey muttered, her focus on the two men. The medical examiner looked over his shoulder and gestured at Lacey to join them. If there was a question about something in the mouth, Lacey was the woman to ask. Victoria followed her to the body.
“Whatcha got?” Lacey asked as she bent next to her father.
“She’s got something covering her teeth,” Seth said.
Lacey peered into the open mouth. “Looks like clear retainers. Can I have a pair of gloves?” she asked Sarah.
Victoria glanced at Seth and was surprised to find him looking directly at her. She met his look squarely. She couldn’t get a read on his thoughts. He must have known she worked in the Oregon medical examiner’s office, but he couldn’t have known she’d be here tonight. Was he surprised? She broke eye contact in time to see Lacey pry one of the clear retainers off the top teeth with a loud snap.
“Not retainers,” Lacey commented. “Invisalign. Invisible braces.”
Victoria had seen them on TV. The appliances moved teeth into alignment with a series of progressive rigid trays. A feat of dental engineering that hadn’t been available when she went through two years of metal orthodontics. “So she’ll definitely have some dental records somewhere.”
Lacey nodded, her face thoughtful as she studied the two closest girls. “How come they aren’t wearing shoes? They don’t look poor, the makeup and hair is perfect, nails are manicured…” She stopped as Seth abruptly shifted his position to view the soles of the feet.
“Perfectly clean,” he stated. “Where in the hell are their shoes? Or did they fly in here?”
Seth watched Victoria talk with the other forensic specialist. The woman hadn’t changed a bit. Still tall, immaculate, polished long black hair, and all-seeing with those intense brown eyes. Would she have pretended not to know him if he hadn’t said anything?
He didn’t like his answer.
Victoria Peres had every reason to give him the cold shoulder, yet she was being her professional self. Even in college she’d been ahead of the curve in maturity and poise. She’d stood out in her anatomy class with her intelligent questions. He’d known at once that she was a woman going places.
And she had. She’d traveled the world to study anthropology. Either digging for old bones or observing social situations. He’d read her magazine articles and tracked her professional life online. Then he’d heard about the opening at the Oregon medical examiner’s office. His daughter had left for her first year of college, so there was no point in his staying in Sacramento. He applied, hoping to cross paths with the woman he couldn’t forget.
When he’d gotten the call about tonight’s deaths from the medical examiner’s office, he hadn’t expected to see her. He’d anticipated a hike in the dark woods and a depressing crime scene. Both of those assumptions had been accurate. Now, being around Victoria was like being around a moving flame in the clearing. He couldn’t pull his gaze from her; he kept an eye on her at all times. Even when he turned his back, his senses tracked her. After nearly two decades of not seeing her, he felt like she’d never been gone. There was no learning curve to being in her presence; he instinctively knew what to expect.
The onsite professionals appeared to know her and respect her. The two police detectives had treated her with the utmost courtesy. He wasn’t surprised. Victoria was one of those determined people who worked her butt off to achieve her goals. She didn’t believe in shortcuts. She’d always succeeded at what she put her mind to.
He turned his attention back to the dead girls.
A fucking waste.
The scene reminded him a bit of the Heaven’s Gate cult. In the late nineties nearly forty people had committed suicide together, hoping to catch a ride on a spaceship trailing the Hale-Bopp comet. He remembered photos of rows of neatly arranged bodies in beds, their faces covered with purple cloths and brand-new Nikes on their feet. There’d been a master planner at work who’d brainwashed the group.
Who would do this? Someone was involved. Someone who was still alive, because the girls’ shoes didn’t walk away by themselves. He had every intention of attending the examinations of these girls.
They were close to Eden’s age.
He fought the anger crawling up the back of his throat.
Working on the endless stream of autopsies at the coroner’s office in California felt different when the victim was from a crime scene he’d attended. Every body he worked on, he gave his best. But when he’d been present to see the setting of the atrocity, it sparked something inside of him, driving him harder to find justice for the dead.
He’d seen his share of bodies from crimes. It was a factor in what made his job so engrossing. Science meets crime. Science kicks crime’s butt. It was a thrill to know he’d helped to bring justice to the assholes of the world who’d believed they’d gotten away with murder. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t fun. But it was damned interesting, and he saw and learned something fascinating every day.
These girls didn’t decide to lie down and die. There was a more powerful hand at work here; he could feel it. And that hand had cleaned up the scene.
“Dr. Rutledge?” Detective Lusco approached him. “Callahan and I are headed out. I just wanted to say good luck with the job selection process.” The detective was a big guy, clean cut. He looked like a pro football player turned cop, and Seth estimated the detective’s age to be a bit younger than his own. Even though it was the middle of the night, the detective looked as pressed and fresh as someone who’d just arrived at work. Seth looked he’d just rolled out of bed.
“Thanks. Maybe we’ll cross paths again.”
“You’ll have big shoes to fill. Dr. Campbell has an amazing reputation around here. Hate to see the guy go.”
“He’s done it longer than a lot of MEs. Wears away at your soul after a while. Probably like being a cop.”
“This is the kind of case that does it,” said Lusco, taking in the dead girls with a wave of his hand. “The young ones. Always pointless.”
“Still no reports of missing teens?”
Lusco shook his head and glanced at his watch. “Shouldn’t be much longer. Worried parents are gonna start calling.”
Victoria spoke from behind him. “Unless it was one of those organized ‘Tell your mom you’re sleeping at my house, and I’ll tell mine that I’m at your house’ type setups.” She stepped closer to join their conversation.
Seth studied her profile as she looked at Lusco. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, her chin raised and stubborn. Victoria Peres was a woman to be reckoned with. Still.
“Christ. I didn’t think of that,” said Lusco.
Victoria nodded. “That’s because you were never a teen girl. They all did that.”
Seth noted she didn’t say “We all did that.” It was hard to imagine Tori as a teen girl. Even though she’d been nineteen when they first met, she’d always been an adult. Lying to her parents about sleeping at a friend’s house wasn’t something she’d do.
“You might not get any leads until tomorrow, when the parents start calling each other,” she added.
“Tomorrow is really gonna suck,” stated Lusco.
Seth silently agreed.
Mason Callahan watched Lacey move away from the bright lights, still bodies, and low conversations into the shadows of the forest. Someone needed a break after the scent of death, he figured. Dr. Campbell often wore her heart on her sleeve. Not like Victoria Peres. You never could tell what she was thinking.
He nearly fell over when Dr. Rutledge called her Tori.
Mason had heard the forensic anthropologist called a lot of things, usually along the lines of Ice Princess and Bone Woman. Hard, unforgiving names. Dr. Peres had a knack for reading bones. Watching her handle the dry bones, scanning them with her fingertips as she felt every bump and valley. The woman knew what she was doing.
Cold was what his fellow officers called the Bone Lady. Antisocial and rigid. Officers who’d stepped a wrong foot in a one of her scenes called her Bitch.
Private, was Mason’s assessment.
“Tori” sounded tender coming from Dr. Rutledge.
Holy crap. The Ice Princess had a past.
He shook his head. Victoria Peres was a tall and attractive woman, but there was something very off-putting about the way she interacted with people. Had she been different when she was younger? Dr. Rutledge seemed to know. Mason’d seen the way the doctor’s gaze followed Victoria. Yes, there was certainly a history there. Mason cringed. Thinking about getting close to the Ice Princess made him uncomfortable; they had a good working relationship.
He also had a good rapport with Lacey Campbell, but it was different. They were connected beyond a social level. He’d met her briefly a decade ago after she’d nearly become a victim of the Co-Ed Slayer in her college years. Their paths crossed again last winter when she’d identified the remains of the Slayer’s last victim and then was targeted by a copycat killer.
Mason followed the path Lacey had made into the forest. Away from the bright lights of the crime scene, it was peaceful. He spotted her leaning against a fir, brushing at her eyes as she tucked a cell phone in her purse.
“You okay?” he asked.
She started, gripping at her purse, then visibly relaxed as she made out his face. “Yes. I’m just getting a breath of fresh air.”
Mason nodded. “Not your usual type of scene.”
Lacey forced a smile. “True. I probably shouldn’t have come. I do better in the sterile environment of the medical examiner’s office.”
“How is Jack?”
“Good. He’s in Japan for work. I was just trying to reach him.” Her smile faltered.
“No luck?” His heart ached a bit for the young dentist. She was petite and fragile in appearance, but he knew she had a spine of steel. He’d seen her cry as she held the hand of a parent of a dead child, and he’d seen her focused and training at the gun range, struggling to calm the demons a serial killer had left in her soul.
She’d twice lived through a nightmare. The type that would put most people in a mental ward the first time.
“No,” she said.
“What are your thoughts on girls this age? What would drive a teen to do this?”
Lacey blinked at his question, her eyes wide in the dim light.
“You’re the youngest female here,” Mason expanded. “And you’ve worked with kids this age, right? In gymnastics lessons? I’m picking your brain for some insight. I’ve got a son about this age, but girls think differently.”
“It’s been a few years since I’ve read Seventeen magazine. But I think kids today have the same pressures. Their looks, their friends, being with the right crowd, saying and doing the cool things, wearing the right clothes.”
Mason nodded. “But there’s more in their lives now. Instant communication. Instant worldwide knowledge. Pictures from around the world show up on their phones to share with their friends. The need to know about everything first.”
Lacey drew in a sharp breath. “Do you think someone took pictures? Someone had to have walked away from here. Christ! Do you think there’re already pictures circulating of this scene? Do you have someone monitoring social media? Looking for anything macabre?”
Mason knew that once a picture was on the Internet, it would never completely disappear. The source could be taken down, but shares could spread uncontrollably.
“We thought of that. We’ve got people on it.”
She exhaled. “What a mess.”
“It could get really ugly. We used to just worry about photographers selling pictures to the media. Now, everyone can be their own media site. Although we definitely would trace where it started.”
“I hope no one did that here. Those poor girls. Their families… How horrible to know images of your dead daughter were floating around the Internet.”
“I’d kill someone if they posted pictures with my kid,” Mason stated. And he would. He didn’t see much of his son, Jake, because he lived with his mom and stepdad. But Mason did everything he could to keep in close contact with the teen. Some days the hardest thing he did was get that kid to have a conversation with him on the phone. It’d be easy to let him drift away. Mason fought to keep that communication open.
Mason looked back at the white circle in the ferns. Lacey followed his gaze.
“Some parents are about to have the worst day of their lives.”