“Hell, no, you won’t. We’re going to suck up big-time, just in case you become one of those famous people on America’s Most Wanted or something like that,” Gwyn said. “We do still get paychecks, you know.”
Ashley laughed. “Sounds great.”
“We have to get back to class,” Arne warned. “Since we’re just poor slobs who would have gotten our asses fired if we’d been caught drawing in class.”
“Quit that,” Ashley protested, but they were both grinning at her. They were new friends, but good ones. They sincerely wished her well.
“I have to get back, too,” Len said. “I just saw you here and couldn’t leave without stopping to say congratulations.”
“Don’t you have to go draw something?” Gwyn asked.
Ashley laughed. “No, I have the afternoon off.”
“Well, isn’t she special?” Gwyn joked, shaking her head.
“I don’t think you’re off anymore,” Len said, staring over Ashley’s head toward the entrance of the building.
She spun around. Captain Murray was walking toward her. A pleasant, cordial man who drew respect despite his easy manner and low voice, he greeted the others, who voiced their pleasure that Ashley had ended up in a perfect place.
“She is,” Murray said. “Except that I told her she could have an afternoon off and now I want to renege.”
She arched a brow.
“Well?”
She had to smile. “I haven’t had a chance to plan an afternoon at the beach or anything. And if I had made a plan, I’d drop it like a hot coal if you asked, Captain Murray.”
“Come on, then. I’ll explain as we go.”
She waved to the others and matched her footsteps to Murray’s no-nonsense stride.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“County morgue,” he told her briefly.
The room was sterile; the occupants might be dead, but the place was cleaner than any hospital Jake had ever been in. Tile and chrome, and personnel in white uniforms.
The girl had been brought out by the time he arrived when he looked through the glass door, Gannet was the first person he saw. To his surprise, Captain Murray, head of personnel, was at the doctor’s side. When he opened the door and walked in, he saw that Nightingale was there, too. His heart sank somewhat—she was one of the best crime scene photographers he’d ever worked with, but her art skills were lacking.
Then, despite himself, his jaw nearly dropped.
Ashley Montague was standing at Nightingale’s side.
Her eyes met his. She had known he was coming.
He looked from Gannet to Murray, expecting an explanation.
“Jake, you’re here. I gather you know Ashley Montague already, that you’re neighbors,” Murray said.
“Yes.” But what the hell was she doing here now? This case was far too important for them to be dragging in would-be cops from the academy.
“Ms. Montague is joining the civilian forensics team. Her paperwork hasn’t been processed yet, but when Gannet called us, we asked her to come in with us.”
He stared at Ashley. She returned his gaze steadily.
“Because…?”
“She’s the best sketch artist I’ve come across in years,” Murray said.
He realized then that Ashley was holding a pad and pencil. Their Jane Doe, their poor Cinderella, was lying exposed before her.
“I’m going to clean the skull, and Mason in forensics will be doing the reconstruction, as planned, but since you’re so anxious that we get something out in the paper, Ms. Montague seemed like our best recourse for the moment,” Gannet told him.
Feeling as stiff as a steel pipe, Jake folded his hands behind his back and nodded. The gaze he turned on Ashley then was close to hostile, he knew.
Couldn’t help it. He didn’t like surprises.
“Since you recommend she give it a try, we’ll see what she can do,” he heard himself say. He couldn’t help but be glad that Ashley Montague looked a little bit green. He knew what she’d seen and gone through to have gotten where she was in the academy. She’d undoubtedly witnessed an autopsy.
But there were few corpses that displayed the violence that had been done to this one.
Nightingale had a pad, as well. Seemingly oblivious to the tension in the room, she walked around to Jake. “Here’s a first rendering, Detective.”
He accepted the drawing and bit down hard on his lip.
It was good. Incredibly good. He looked from the sketch in his hand to the decayed remains of the face of the woman on the table.
Somehow Ashley had found the humanity in the girl. She had built upon patches of flesh. The left eye had suffered severe deterioration; the right eye had not. The mouth had been discolored and bruised more to one side. Ashley had evened it out. She had, he was certain, been forced to rely on instinct and imagination in some areas, but when he looked from the battered remains of the poor dead girl to the page, he had to admit—he saw her alive.
He handed the sketch back to Nightingale.
“Not bad. I assume you’re doing more?” he said to Ashley.
“Yes, that’s what they’ve asked for,” she replied.
He nodded. “Fine. I’ll be back in an hour.”