Be Afraid (4 page)

Swallowing an oath as his hip burned, he kept walking, his gaze nailed to the center of the pond and the splash of pink that made him forget all his pain and frustration. Several times he used the shovel to steady himself. When he arrived at the center of the pond his breath was faster. The sun had burned away the morning mists and heat beat down directly onto the site.

He glanced beyond the threads of pink to the small skull cradled inside. “Have you examined the skull?”

“No, I’m afraid to handle the bones too much. They could be very fragile. I want to pull it all out as one unit and let the medical examiner do her thing.”

“Fair enough.”

“Let’s see if we can dig her out. Start at least a foot away from the remains. If we can loosen the bag we might be able to get her out easily.”

“Stop saying
her,
Georgia. It’s only going to make this harder.” Mental distance had saved him more times than he could count. “We’re retrieving evidence, not a child.”

With the back of her hand, she pushed aside a tendril of damp hair. “I don’t have your ability to detach, which you’ve elevated to a superpower, Bro.”

He offered no sympathy. “You aren’t doing yourself a favor. Work now. Feel later.”

Blue eyes snapped. “Oh, like you’re going to feel that hip pain later. You know you’re not doing yourself a favor by mucking through the mud. And yet, here you are. What does that say about you?”

Sweat dampened his T-shirt between his shoulder blades. “We’re both dumbasses. Let’s dig.”

That coaxed a smile. “What kinds of people do this work for a living?”

“Insane people.”

The two began digging a couple of feet out from the body. With the first shovelful of dirt, the muck and mire sunk in on itself, filling the hole quickly. Cursing, Rick dug faster, determined that the mud would not win. As he shoveled dirt, Georgia’s breathing grew more labored.

“What’s wrong, Sis?” Aggravation had always coaxed her out of a mood. “Haven’t been hitting the gym lately.”

She hissed out a breath. “I work out.”

Laughter rumbled in his chest. “You’ve never worked out a day in your life.”

“I joined a gym last year.”

“How many times did you go?” He worked out regularly. Running wasn’t an easy option anymore, but he found weight training very effective. Biking also worked well and he’d learned to love swimming. Surrounded by the cool water and cut off from sound, he discovered each stroke calmed his mind.

“Twice.”

He laughed.

Again she brushed the unruly curl from her forehead with the back of her hand. “I’m not a fan of sweating.”

“Really? How do you like it now? I bet you’re doing a hell of a lot.”

“Now’s different. It’s work. Gym sweat is boring. Mindless.” Her voice faded, her body demanding she hold on to her oxygen.

“Right.”

Finally, they got ahead of the mud. It took them another twenty minutes to dig deep enough so that the plastic bag could be lifted out of the mire.

The medical examiner technician arrived with a body bag. While Georgia cradled the plastic bag, cocooning the pink blanket and bones, Rick went to shore and took the bag. When he returned, she laid the body into the bag and he zipped it up. Georgia and Rick carried the body out together. Walking in muck while balancing the bag took more effort and by the time they handed the bag to the technicians, both were hot and winded.

Rick watched the techs put the bag on a stretcher in the back of the van and then slam the doors shut. The humid morning air seemed to thicken with each passing second. He’d sweat through his T-shirt and pants and smelled of the foul mud.

Georgia unzipped her jumpsuit, revealing a sweat-stained shirt. A swipe of mud brushed across her pale forehead.

Bishop approached but stopped short as the wind shifted and he got a good whiff of them both. He stepped back. “Nice work.”

“You should’ve joined us for the fun,” Georgia quipped. “That fancy suit of yours is perfect for this kind of work.”

“I tried. Boy Scout wanted this gig.” Bishop’s leveled, calm gaze stoked her short temper.

Rick knew from experience she’d fire back but he didn’t want to watch the verbal sparring. Too sore and hot to get involved in their skirmish, he headed back to his car.

His car engine still hummed and a glance in the backseat revealed Tracker, lying with his eyes closed, ears perked. From a storage bin, Rick grabbed a bottle of water and drank. The morning heat had warmed the bottle but he savored the liquid as it washed away the stale taste in his mouth. He stripped off the waders and then pulled off the T-shirt, wiped off with a towel, and put his shirt and shoes back on. At the station, his first stop would be the showers and the lockers where he kept a spare suit.

At the SUV’s driver’s-side door, Rick was anxious to sit down and get the weight off his leg when Bishop appeared. Without comment, he got in the car and Rick followed.

Bishop wrinkled his nose. “You stink.”

Rick put the car in drive. “No shit.”

Bishop shrugged. “See anything of note around the body?”

“No. But Georgia and her crew will check.”

“She’s driven,” he said more to himself.

Rick didn’t comment.

“The pond must’ve been drained when the body was buried. While you were in the muck, I talked to the maintenance office.” He flipped pages in his notebook. “Pond was drained seven years ago, twelve years ago, nineteen years ago, and it was built twenty-five years ago. That gives us four windows of opportunity.”

The air conditioner’s cool air seemed to sizzle as it hit his hot skin. “Will help narrow the missing persons files.”

“Yeah.”

Rick drove to the station, put Tracker at his desk with orders to stay, and found his way to the showers. He moved quickly to the locker room, stripping off the morning’s clothes and stepping under the hot spray of the shower. As the water beat down on his sore left side, he breathed a sigh of relief before turning his face to the spray. He soaped liberally and washed his hair, wondering if he’d ever get the smell of the muck from his body.

Out of the shower, he toweled, glancing only briefly at the scar that ran over his hip and down his thigh. He dressed and found Bishop at his desk on the phone. Tracker stared at Bishop, who looked at the dog and held up a hand as if to say, “What?”

Don’t let him off the hook, T
. Suppressing a smile, Rick poured a coffee.

Bishop raised a brow at the dog and then turned back toward his desk as Rick approached. “The medical examiner says it will be a day at least before she has an evaluation but she’s making it top priority.”

“Great. What about Missing Persons?”

“They’ve sent some folders and are digging out the rest.” Bishop nodded toward Rick’s desk to a stack of manila folders that had to be forty deep. “Files of missing children who fit our rough description and our most recent time parameters. Basically the last thirty years.”

Rick sat and flipped open the first file and read. Tanya Logan, age four, missing for eleven years. He glanced at the image of the child’s smiling face. “Going to be a long day.”

“Give me half. Let’s see if we can narrow it down to at least a short list.”

“There’s no telling if our victim is in these files. No telling if a report was filed.”

Bishop unfastened his cuffs and carefully rolled them up, revealing muscled forearms sprinkled with dark hair. “Agreed. But we still got to do the work.”

He handed over half the stack. “I’ll do whatever it takes to catch this bastard.”

Detective Deke Morgan, Rick’s brother, arrived as he opened the first file. The frown lines in Deke’s forehead and around his eyes were deeper than normal and the graying at his temples had thickened. He wore his customary dark suit and white shirt and simple black cowboy boots polished to a high sheen.

A perpetual frown deepened as Deke studied the stack of files. “Good, you’re on the case. Let me know when you have something.” Deke had given Rick the nod to join homicide, but if he’d shown any favoritism in that moment he’d not shown any more. He’d chew Rick’s ass as quickly as Bishop’s or any other member of the team. He was all about equal opportunity when it came to doling out crap.

“I thought you were on vacation.”

Deke’s frown softened for a split second. “I was. I’m back. What’s going on with the case?”

Rick shifted as the tension snaked up his back. “We’ll let you know if we’ve any kind of hit.”

Deke rubbed Tracker’s head. “I’ve had that reporter, Susan Martinez, calling. She got wind of the story and wants in.”

Memories of the reporter hounding him after the shooting set Rick’s teeth on edge.

“I know you don’t like Martinez.”

“I can deal if she can help. I just don’t trust her.”

Martinez and her crews had been on the scene as rescuers were loading him in the ambulance. Later, after surgery, she’d found him in his hospital room and asked for an interview. He’d been pissed at himself and worried for Tracker and he’d said a few choice words. She’d not scared easily but in the end had left him. She’d covered the shooting extensively, showing the dash-cam footage and interviewing other officers.
What was his critical mistake?
All agreed he’d made no mistake. The job came with hazards. Few of those quotes had made it on air.

“If you don’t give her some information, she’ll find some,” Deke said. He glanced toward the coffeemaker as if he needed a jolt.

The line between cop and brother was thin, but there nonetheless, and Rick had avoided being too familiar with Deke while on the job. Still, he couldn’t resist a tiny jab.

“You’re looking a little rough,” Rick teased. “Rachel and city life wearing on you?”

His brother had initially inherited the family home, called the Big House by the Morgan family, when their father had died. However, Deke had no taste for country living and had deeded the house to Rick. Deke had moved into his new girlfriend’s city place six months ago.

Deke’s frown darkened even as his gaze softened. “She never misses an opportunity to bark at me about the handling of an arrest.”

“Shouldn’t have moved in with a defense attorney.”

A slight smile tugged at Bishop’s lips. He had no qualms about a jab or two. “Not just any attorney. Rachel Wainwright. The meanest in the state.”

Deke shrugged as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “I like her mean. Keeps it interesting.”

“Like living with a python?” Bishop asked.

Deke sipped his coffee. “What’s life without a little danger?”

Danger. They all lived with it every day. It was waiting for them the minute they strapped on a badge and stepped out the front door of their home. Even when they were off duty it was impossible to shut off the defense mechanisms or worries. When Rick ate in a restaurant he always kept his back to the wall and his eyes on the door. He always carried his off-duty weapon and he always knew a room’s entrances and exits.

“Yeah, can’t get enough of it myself,” Rick said.

Rick and Bishop had been reading for three hours when Georgia reappeared. She’d showered and changed into a clean pair of khakis and a blue collared shirt worn by the forensics team. Her pale skin glowed pink as she tried to scrub the mud, as well as the memory, away.

Rick leaned back in his chair. “What brings you here?”

Bishop had loosened his tie but when Georgia spoke he straightened it. His gaze roamed over Georgia, taking in her slim figure.

She scratched Tracker between the ears. Few touched the canine but his baby sister had never hesitated to pet him. “Any luck on the missing persons cases?”

He stretched out his leg and rubbed the stiffness banding his thigh. “Some leads but nothing solid.”

If she noticed he was in pain she gave no sign of it. “What do you think the chances are that we’ll find out who this kid was?”

“I don’t know.”

“If you had to bet?” she asked.

It was Bishop who leaned back in his chair. “Slim.”

She frowned at Bishop. “Why do you say that?”

“Too many variables. We can pour through all the old files we like, but if we can’t ID the kid, we won’t get anywhere.”

Georgia rested her hand on her hip and Rick could almost hear the wheels grinding and turning. “What if you could make an identification?”

“The medical examiner pushed up her schedule and will have a preliminary report in less than an hour. She’ll have basic physical stats for us. And we might get lucky and find a match in the file.”

“And if you don’t?”

“Then we’re SOL,” Bishop said. “A needle in a haystack. We don’t even know if the victim is from Nashville.”

“I can’t believe this,” she challenged. “All the science and we can’t ID the child?”

Bishop held up his hands in surrender. “Sometimes the truth sucks.”

Her frown deepened and her eyes blazed.

Softening the news with a platitude would only stoke her frustration. “Bishop’s right. If we don’t have a file match,” Rick said, “our chances diminish.”

Georgia shook her head, just as she’d done as a child when she received an answer she didn’t like. “This isn’t acceptable.”

“You think this is what I want?” Bishop asked.

“Sounds like you’re giving up.”

“No, I’m not.” Bishop’s eyes blazed with fury. If Georgia had been a man, he just might have slugged her.

Georgia noticed his annoyance but didn’t seem to care. “I hate this.”

“No one likes this, Georgia.” Rick reached for his coffee and raised it to his lips until he discovered it had turned to black sludge.

“We’re doing all we can,” Bishop said.

She waved away his comment and to Rick asked, “What if I could get you a face?”

“A face?”

“Of the child. What if we had her face?”

Bishop shook his head. “You’re talking about forensic reconstruction. Hell of a cost that isn’t likely to get approved in the near future. We could be waiting for months. Years.”

Georgia shifted her gaze to Bishop. “What if I knew someone who would do it for free?”

“Free.” Bishop looked amused now. “We’re talking about thousands of dollars of work.”

She held up her hand. “If I got the help, would you take it?”