One more.
Lacey moved down the quiet hallway to her office, filling out the postmortem dental record as she walked, her mind comparing the two nameless bodies. How long would it take to place a name on the charts in her hands? The second girl had been burned to the same degree as the first. Lacey had easily seen where her father had peeled back the scalp to open the skull and remove the brain. And when she opened the mouth of the burned girl, the tongue was already gone, removed along with organs from the neck. Her father had noted the tongue was pierced with a metal barbell.
The teeth on the second girl had a scattering of small white composite fillings in the posterior teeth. The lower anteriors were crooked, and she demonstrated a class two bite with severe overjet. That girl had never had braces.
The human body was fascinating. Every autopsy taught her something new. But the ones on kids and teens made her angry. Life wasted. It was wrong, but she simmered with anger at the girls for taking risks and at the parents for losing control of their kids. When she had kids, they would never...
She halted and grabbed at the doorframe to her office as her gaze locked on the back of the man who sat at her desk. He was tilted back in her seat, nearly enough to topple the chair over, balancing himself with one foot hooked under the bottom drawer of her desk. She fought the urge to tip him over.
“You’re in my chair,” she snapped.
For a split second she thought he’d lose his balance as he twitched at her voice. He caught himself and spun in the chair to face her, his compelling gaze locked with hers.
Her stomach lurched at the gray eyes. She identified them instantly. Jack Harper. Over the weekend, those eyes had popped into her brain all too frequently.
She couldn’t speak.
The big man lurched out of her chair and she took an instinctive step back into the hall, papers clasped to her chest. She saw a flicker of embarrassment flash across his features as he realized he’d startled her.
He was tall. She’d forgotten how tall, and she took another step back, her gaze glued to his. Hints of turbulence bubbled under his surface. Her heart pounded in her chest, but she wasn’t scared. Just caught off guard.
“Sorry.” Jack Harper grimaced. “I’d been waiting for a while and then got distracted by your parade of photos.” Both of them looked to the computer. He’d been watching her screen saver. An assortment of snapshots of her family. He lightly snorted as the screen morphed to a picture of her and her father bending over brown bare bones on a metal table; her nose six inches from the remains. Lacey scowled. The image wasn’t funny. They’d been at the Central Identification Lab in Hawaii. Where the unknown military dead go to be identified.
She studied the picture, remembering back six years. The bones had been a mix of two different men. Believed to be a chopper pilot and his copilot downed in Vietnam. She’d been deeply disturbed by the cold jumble of fragments. It’d added fuel to her desire to become the specialist she was today.
A snapshot of her and her buddy, Amelia, on a beach in Mexico filled the screen. Lacey pressed her lips together at the sight of the two skimpy swimming suits. It was her favorite picture of the two of them. Amelia’s head was thrown back in impulsive laughter as their arms tightly circled each other’s shoulders, blue tropical drinks in hand.
“Nice pictures.”
Jack was still eyeing the beach shot, the start of a smile at his lips. Jesus Christ. She glared at his profile, annoyed that he’d managed to both startle and embarrass her inside of ten seconds.
He jerked his gaze back to her, smile fading. “I’m Jack Ha...”
“I know who you are.”
He blinked and straightened his back. “Why are you in my office?” She didn’t need any reminders of their first meeting. Her irritated gaze dropped from those steel-gray eyes to her chair. “And in my chair?”
“I wanted to talk to you...”
“Who told you where to find me?” The words came out in a rush, harsher than she’d intended. The receptionist had strict instructions to announce all visitors. Lacey had jumped on her case before. She couldn’t believe Sharon would direct a strange man to Lacey’s office. Sharon knew her bad history.
He drew a hand through his hair.
“Don’t get mad at anyone. I told the desk I was from the dental school.” Her face must have grown furious, because his eyes widened. “It’s not her fault. I’m a good liar and very persuasive.” His gaze flickered from one of her eyes to the other.
She snorted and his whole stance relaxed, a slow tentative grin spreading across his handsome face. She had no doubt he was persuasive. Poor Sharon hadn’t had a chance.
Loud voices floated down the hall to them. Lacey glanced toward reception, hearing the high shouting voices of distraught women and the lower, angry tones of a man.
“What’s that?” Jack frowned as he looked down the hall, stepping in front of her.
Lacey knew immediately. She slapped her papers on her desk, moved around Jack, and jogged toward the racket. The female voices grew louder, more frantic.
Lacey took a breath and pushed opened the door to reception, hitting Sharon in her back with the door. The woman was blocking the entrance and was one of the loud voices Lacey’d heard.
Sharon jumped to the side. Her eyes wide, sweat on her lip. The fifty-something receptionist was thoroughly rattled. “Ohh. Dr. Campbell! They want...I just was...” She wrung her hands.
“Dr. Campbell?” A tall, gray-haired man rested his hands on a crying woman’s shoulders. Her body shook with loud sobs. His eyes were dry, but red. And his face was pale, stress aggravating the lines around his mouth. He was working hard to keep some dignity. “You’re Dr. Campbell?”
Oh, Lord. Not right now.
“One of them. Dr. James Campbell is the medical examiner. Is there something I can help you with?” She kept her voice low. “You’re looking for someone.” It wasn’t a question. She crossed to the couple and took the woman by the hand, guiding her to sit down on the couch. Still holding the woman’s hand, she snatched the tissue box from the end table and thrust it at her, her eyes sympathetic.
Lacey understood.
The crying woman pressed a tissue against her nose. “They told us you have two unidentified female teenagers back there. Our daughter, Madison, has been missing for two months.”
A chill shot up her spine as Lacey’s gaze returned to the husband and she recognized him. The software executive. “You’re the Spencers.” Both nodded, eyes hopeful.
“Is one of them Madison? We sent in her dental chart a month ago when that female body found in the river was brought in.” Mr. Spencer shuddered. “It wasn’t her.”
Lacey slowly nodded, remembering the ghastly floater. “I’m doing the dental comparisons on the two girls. I’ve looked at them but haven’t compared my findings to the charts.” She paused. “I’ve got eleven different charts from missing teenage girls to evaluate.”
“Eleven?” Mrs. Spencer broke into fresh tears. “So many missing girls.”
“Madison had braces when she was younger. And she’s got porcelain veneers on all her front teeth.” Mr. Spencer’s hands were digging into his wife’s shoulders as his voice rose. “Did either of...the bodies show that?”
Lacey froze. The first body now had a name. Rules stopped her tongue; she’d nearly blurted it out. The chance of another missing Oregon female teenager with that type of expensive dental work was infinitesimal. But she had to double-check. She wouldn’t make a mistake.
“I’m not finished...”
“You said you’d already looked at the two girls. Did one have teeth like that or not?” Mr. Spencer’s gaze raked her face. Mrs. Spencer looked up at his ruthless tone, glancing from her husband to Lacey. The woman looked fragile, like the lightest touch would shatter her skin. What hell had this couple lived in for two months? Purgatory. Limbo. The pain of the unknown, the wondering.
“Did they suffer?” Mrs. Spencer whispered. “I can’t imagine being caught in a fire and...” Her hand clutched at Lacey’s as her face crumpled.
Lacey shuddered; she didn’t want to imagine. Five minutes ago she’d been angry with these unknown parents for not keeping better tabs on their child. How dare she judge them? Now they had faces...and no daughter.
Lacey swallowed hard. “I haven’t finished my work. You’ll be the first to know my findings.” She gave Mrs. Spencer’s hand a tight squeeze and headed blindly for the exit, trying not to run. She slapped her hands on the door, pushed it open, and plowed into a forgotten Jack Harper.
He grabbed her upper arms and she kept her gaze on the floor. It blurred. The door closed behind her with a firm whoosh, and Mrs. Spencer gave a high-pitched wail.
The mother knew.
“Are you all right?”
She shook her head, pushed past him, and blindly dashed down the long, empty hall to the ladies’ room.
He was in her chair again.
Lacey had spent a good ten minutes with a cold, wet towel on her eyes in the bathroom, trying to get the sound of Mrs. Spencer’s pain out of her head. Now the red and swollen tissues around her eyes were gone. Along with most of her makeup.
She stopped in her doorway. This time Jack sat facing her with his forearms on his thighs, his hands rubbing together, and his concerned eyes studying her. She felt him take in her freshly washed face and coolly met his gaze. He looked tightly strung, and her gut tightened in reaction. Why was he here?
“Do you want to get something to eat?”
She blinked. Food? Now?
He rubbed at his cheek and she heard his short stubble scratch against a rough palm. “Stupid. I know. But...I think we should talk about what happened last Saturday morning. And ten years before. We’re both a part of what happened...”
Jack wanted to talk about Dave DeCosta? And that day?
His lips rubbed together and he dropped his gaze to the floor. “Back then I was questioned in the disappearance of Hillary Roske. We’d dated. Now, somehow I’m being pulled in again this time. My property and my old partn—” He raised his gaze to hers. “Obviously my timing’s lousy today, but I don’t think it’s going to get any better. Is the deli across the street any good?”
She stared at him. He had a point. He’d been involved in the case back then and now.
Just like her.
Saturday’s memories crashed through her brain. She shook her head. She couldn’t do this right now. “No. I don’t want...”
“Please.” His eyes pleaded with her as his hands clenched in fists. “I’ve got to figure out why this is happening right now. You were there when it started long ago. And you were there on Saturday. Why is that?” He looked like he wanted to stand but stayed sitting, probably in deference to her height. “Have you heard about the murdered cop?”
He knew? Lacey studied his face as she nodded. When she’d spoken to Michael on the phone that morning, he had briefly mentioned the death of the retired cop. The state police had asked him not to print anything yet. How did Jack—?
“Cal Trenton was my partner before he retired. Lakefield Police.”
Jesus Christ. Jack Harper was in as deep as she was.
“You know people with the Lakefield Police?” she asked.
He nodded.
Maybe he could get more information on what’d happened at Suzanne’s crime scene and the connection to the murdered cop. Her one phone call to the department had been cut short. The police weren’t talking to anyone. But maybe they’d talk to Jack Harper. Get her some answers. She owed it to Suzanne.
Lacey glanced down the hallway, seeking a distraction. The last thing she wanted to do was rehash a nightmare with this stranger, but she desperately needed to get out of the building, away from those mourning parents. Urgent work was on her desk, but right now she couldn’t focus. She wanted her head on straight before going through those charts; she had to do right by the victims. She made a decision. “I can give you thirty minutes, and then I have work to do.”
Lacey inhaled the delicious scents, wiping the smell of burned flesh from her nose. She was used to most of the odors of the ME’s office. Disinfectant and death. She rarely noticed them anymore, but the burned smell had been harder to shake.
The tiny deli was a regular haunt of hers. She’d enjoyed their panini and clam chowder since she was a teen and used to meet her dad there for lunch on the weekends. Lacey blew on her hot chocolate, put the two burned teenagers and one set of grieving parents out of her mind, and covertly studied the man across the table.
They’d effortlessly made meaningless small talk as her mind spun.
She’d checked him out on the Internet over the weekend. Her curiosity had been piqued by the man she’d met under odd circumstances Saturday morning.
Jack Harper had made a fortune with his family company in a relatively short period of time. To her amusement, she’d found an article from Portland Monthly naming him one of the city’s top ten eligible bachelors. It featured a picture of him wearing a hard hat and flashing a cocky smile in front of the bare-bones structure of a growing office building. Those damned eyes grinning at every available female in town. He probably had women tearing down bridges to get at him. Scanning his features, Lacey admitted he was very good looking. He had a rugged maleness that the female in her instinctively responded to. His eyes were the cool, sharp gray she remembered from Saturday morning. How would he look in a bad mood? She’d hate to be on the receiving end of anger from those eyes. The strong jaw and two vertical lines between his brows told her she’d accurately pegged him as strong-willed.
Fascinated, she watched him eat. He’d put away half his sandwich in three bites and rhythmically emptied his bag of potato chips without looking like a pig. He was in constant motion as he ate and talked, moving his hands and arms without seeming nervous. It was probably how he burned off all those calories.
She hadn’t eaten like that since she left college and ended her daily six-hour gymnastics workouts.
Lacey looked at the hot sandwich in her hand. She’d had two bites, and Jack was nearly done. Setting it down, she realized she wasn’t hungry. Thinking about DeCosta and Suzanne did nasty things to her appetite. Eating after autopsies didn’t bother her. Never had. But this was different.
Jack eyed her sandwich with a scowl, highlighting those vertical lines between his brows. She didn’t know if he wanted to finish it or was annoyed that she’d eaten so little.
“How often do you deal with situations like that?” Jack asked.
“Like what?” Serial killers?
“Back at your office. The parents.”
“Oh.” Lacey was silent for a moment, remembering Mr. Spencer’s tight face. “Only a time or two. It’s not my job. My father usually handles it.”
“One of those burned girls was their daughter, wasn’t she? The fire was on the news last night.”
Against all rules and regulations, Lacey nodded and took a tasteless drink. “She was one of them.” A memory of the odor of burned flesh touched her nose, and her stomach churned. She wondered what Jack saw as he studied her. An emotionless doctor?
“You were really great with the parents.”
Until I ran out the door. She shook her head, eyes down. “I didn’t do anything.”
Silence grew thick and dense between them.