Touching Evil (13 page)

“Why did he take the leash off her?”  Sophie’s gaze was riveted on the pair.  

“Some of the handlers I’ve worked with leave the animals off leash.  George tends to keep the dogs leashed unless he’s working an area where he can see it at all times.  It’s too easy for the animal to get hurt by something unseen in tall grasses, or to fall down unused cisterns or wells.  With this small an area, the dog can be unleashed without risk.  When we’re working a big scene there will be dozens of personnel on site and an entire team of handlers and dogs.  Leashes are used then, and everyone wears high visibility clothing for identification purposes.  It can get confusing.”

Criminalist Seth Dietz headed over.  “Did you want us to check the woods before we leave the scene?  We examined the path and either side, but didn’t spread out any further than a few yards on both sides of it.”  The rest of his team was hauling equipment up the ridge and through the woods to the waiting vehicle on the road.

Cam considered.  “Take soil samples from a few areas to go with the others.”  Seth had painstakingly collected samples from above and below the bluff.  They’d managed to narrow down Vance’s location from sediment he’d left behind in Sophie’s apartment.  Maybe they’d get lucky again and connect these surroundings with Vance’s accomplice, once they caught him.  An enterprising defense attorney would argue that the kids were too far away to make a positive ID.  That they’d collaborated on the description.

It was harder to argue away trace evidence.

The criminalist didn’t seem in any hurry to leave, although none of his colleagues were in sight.  Together they watched the dog for another quarter hour.  Every passing minute that the dog didn’t alert should have had the knot in Cam’s gut unclenching a bit more.  

But he couldn’t forget that solitary bone in the cave.  Under the circumstances it was hard to think of a credible explanation for its presence there.  So he watched with the others, not with the fascination shown by Seth and Sophie, but with a sense of dread that increased with each passing moment.

The dog had its nose to the ground, occasionally lifting its snout to test the air before it was lowered again.  It had paused in a six-foot wide area, testing and retesting the scent.  When it dropped to the ground, Cam’s gut dropped with it.

Veyda barked to alert her owner, never moving from place, her sides trembling from the excitement of her discovery.  George looked up to the group and called, “I think you’re going to want to get an excavation team in here to check this area out.”

*  *  *  *

Lucy Benally pulled into her drive, temper still simmering.  She’d intended to finish up a few outstanding details and then focus on the crime victim discovered last night. After only a few more hours she’d be ready to start the autopsy first thing in the morning.  No matter that she wasn’t slated to work the next day.  No one else would be allowed to autopsy that victim.  Once she started a case, she saw it through to the end.  

Unfortunately a family of four was at the head of the line.  All had died in a house fire that had been deemed suspicious.  Her day had been consumed with those victims.  Two still required autopsies.  And Steven Benson, the Chief Medical Examiner, had sent her home early, citing her late night as his reason.  No amount of arguing had swayed him.

Her ire was such that she was unusually unobservant when she pulled into the long drive to park the car in the detached garage.  But she had taken only a few steps toward the house before she saw the figure seated on the back deck.  Watching her.

Her steps faltered.  Even at this distance the man was instantly recognizable.  There was a curl of something weak and cowardly deep in the pit in her stomach.  Infuriated by it, she shoved it aside and strolled up the deck to confront the devil head-on.  

“They have this thing these days,” she said conversationally.  “GPS.  Marvelous invention.  Helps people with directions.  For instance, west is that way.”  She jabbed a finger in the appropriate direction.  

Gavin Connerly hooked the chair next to him with one foot and dragged it closer so he could stretch his legs out on it.  “I’ve heard of it,” he agreed mildly.  “Plane I was on probably even has a similar instrument.  But Iowa is east of California, so that’s why I’m here.  The plane I boarded was headed east.”

Grinding her teeth, Lucy ducked her head to dig in her bag for her house key.  The man got under her skin like a needle-sharp splinter and took up residence there with the determination of a tick.  “Sort of a long way to travel for a booty call.”

He threw his head back and laughed, genuine amusement in the sound.  Lucy had decided long ago that his affability was one of his most annoying attributes.  That and the fact that he seemed to find humor in
her
.  In her world, life—and death—was serious business.  No one had ever been amused by her before.

Quite the opposite.

Finding the key, her fingers closed around it, tightly enough for it to dig into her palm.  “So.  I don’t see a car.”  She made a point to look in both directions.  “Either you parachuted out over my property or had a taxi drop you off.  In either case you’re out of luck.  You aren’t staying here.”

“No, I’m not,” he surprised her by saying.  “I’ve got a place at the Marriott in Ankeny.  There was a problem with my car rental.  They’re going to deliver it.”  His voice lowered.  Became intimate.  “You didn’t answer my calls.  How are you, Luce?”

His expression was guileless.  But she didn’t spend more than a second looking at his face. Staring at Gavin Connerly could be entirely too pleasurable, and pleasure made a woman weak.  Lucy knew that from experience.  She’d spent her teenage years parenting her siblings while her mother chased booze and men with the kind of single-minded devotion she’d never shown her kids.   Stacy Benally had been prone to forget minutiae like food, bills and schoolwork.  She couldn’t even be trusted to take the medication needed to control her mood swings and depression.  Lucy had shouldered all those responsibilities.

But like the pest he was, Conner’s image imprinted on her mind as she fitted the key into the lock of the back door.  His blonde hair was pulled back as usual in the ponytail he favored, but she’d once seen it loose around his shoulders.  Ran her fingers through it and felt the fall of it over her skin when his mouth had been wickedly busy. His face was sharp and intelligent, with a narrowed jaw and cheekbones that could have been etched in ice.  An earring dangled from one lobe.  Topped with shrewd green eyes that saw entirely too much, the entire package was encased in one long lounging specimen of manhood.  He was entirely too comfortable in his own skin.

Like her Navajo forefathers, Lucy had a firm grasp on who and what she was.  She’d risen above circumstance, charted her own course and navigated around the obstacles that life had strewn in her path.  But nothing in her experience had prepared her for a man like Gavin Connerly.

“Knowing your work habits, I figured I’d have to wait here longer.”

“The Chief examiner has views that parallel yours when it comes to hours spent on work,” she said shortly.  The door open, she chanced another look at him.  “Better get that taxi out here to take you back to the hotel.”

His eyes, damn them, were alight with amusement.  “Been a long trip.  I’m sort of parched.  Got a bottle of water in there?”

She surveyed him for a moment.  Lucy knew the man well enough to know that there’d be no moving him until he’d said whatever it was he’d come here to say.  She moved resignedly into the kitchen, and snatched a bottle of water from the frig and went back to the porch.  Set it on the table before him with slightly more force than was necessary.

Moving to the next chair she dumped his feet from it so she could sit down.  “Why are you here, Connerly?”

Screwing off the cap of the bottle, he tipped it to his lips and took a long drink.  “To talk to you, obviously.”  When her eyes narrowed he smiled.  “Actually I called Gonzalez when I saw the Des Moines Register’s obituary for Sophia online.  Got sort of panicked.”

Ice filtered through her system, freezing her organs from the inside.  “Obituary?  What are you talking about?  I spoke to Sophia a couple days ago.”  He simply had to be wrong.  There was no way something had happened to her friend without her having heard about it.  Was there?

He reached a hand over to cover one of hers.  “Relax.  She’s fine.  Gonzalez wouldn’t tell me what the deal was, but did tell me there was nothing to worry about.  She also filled me in on the case I was consulting on until a few days ago.  Looks like it isn’t over.”

Relief had her insides thawing.  Lucy didn’t have any close friends and that was by design.  But Sophia Channing was closer than most, simply because she was adept at slipping through defenses.  Whether through training or personality, Lucy didn’t know, but the woman was harder to keep at a distance than most.

A trait she shared with the man sitting next to her.

“So again, I’ll ask.  Why are you here?”  She didn’t flatter herself by believing it had anything to do with her.  Lucy had used every tool in her not inconsiderable arsenal to make it clear that his help with the last six victims in Prescott’s case was unnecessary and unwelcome.  His presence had been solely at the behest of the DCI.

Of course, she mentally squirmed, that message might have been muddied a bit when she’d slept with him the night before he flew back to California.  She’d thought they’d never see each other again.  

Which just went to prove that fates always, always extracted a payment for indulging any weakness.

The man drank again.  Took his time screwing the cap back on the bottle.  “The bone, of course.”

“The bone.”

“The one Gonzalez said was found with the corpse in Prescott’s case.  Apparently there isn’t a body to go along with it.”  With his thumb he traced a line in the condensation collected on the bottle.  “I have vacation time accrued.  I offered to come back and do what I could to age it for them.”

She didn’t believe him.  The office of the medical examiner was perfectly capable of extracting whatever information could be gotten from a lone finger bone.  But the only other answer that made sense was that he’d returned to see
her
, and that was just as unbelievable.  They’d hooked up for one night.  

Lucy might keep her intimate experience with men limited, but she knew it was illogical to believe a man who looked like this one would fly across the country to see a woman he’d slept with one time.  A woman who didn’t even
like
him.  Much.

Whatever game he was playing, she was abruptly tired of participating.  “Great.  Maybe I’ll see you at work then.”  Or maybe, out of a strong sense of self-preservation she could arrange to work nights for the duration of his visit and avoid him completely.  “I’m going in.  You’re going to want to call a…”

His cell rang then, and he answered it with an ease that shattered her airy dismissal.  She should go inside and leave the man to his own devices.  Curiosity kept her rooted to her chair.  Especially when Connerly kept glancing at her as he listened.

After saying very little else, he finally said, “Not a problem.  I’ll catch a ride and be there shortly.”  Slipping the cell back in his pocket he said, “You might be stuck with me longer than you thought.”

Wariness surged, mingled with a single, and quickly extinguished traitorous flare of joy.  “And why is that?”

Gavin rose.  “That was Prescott.  They’re starting a dig at the site where the body was found last night.  I need to get a ride over there.”

Surging to her feet, Lucy went to lock the door again.  “I’ll take you.”

That damned amusement reappeared in his voice.  “Hard to figure out if you’re more anxious to get rid of me or to take part in that dig.”

“It’s a tie.”  She jogged down the steps.  “In this case, my having to deliver you gives me a reason to void Stevens’ order and to be at the site.  As Prescott likes to say, it’s a win-win.”

*  *  *  *

“So while I was sweating through the usual pleasantries of a shooting review, you were enjoying a day at the river.  Typical.”  Tommy Franks leaned down to brush off the dirt on his pants acquired by his ignominious descent down the bluff.

Cam eyed him with a glint of humor.  It had been a relief to hear the agent had been cleared.  Not only because it would lend another experienced agent to the case, but also because Franks was a damn fine investigator and a personal friend.  Cam valued the older man’s insights.  “You know there’s a path down the hill, right?”

Franks straightened.  “I do now.  What’d I miss?”  

Since they’d last talked less than an hour ago the question should have been rhetorical.  But the buzz of activity in the area meant it was anything but.  

“The HDR handler took the dog to the back entrance of the cave.  All along the shoreline.”  Cam turned to gesture toward the area.  He pitched his voice over the intermittent whine of the power shovel the team was using and tried not to consider that the UNSUB might have used one very like it to enlarge the cave.  “The dog alerted so they’re bringing in another handler who will work from a boat while George works the dog on shore.”  A dull throb had taken up residence in his temples.  He had a feeling before the day was over it’d elevate to jackhammer status.  “In the meantime, the dig is progressing slowly.”  

Excavating clandestine graves was a laborious affair.  After breaking ground, trowels were used more than shovels and the process was slow.  Right now the site was nearly hidden from view, with medical examiner personnel and evidence techs surrounding it.  One criminalist was using ground-penetrating radar to direct the parameters of the dig.  Although another ME had taken the call, twenty minutes ago Gavin Connerly had shown up with Lucy Benally in tow.  Or vice versa.  Cam neither knew nor cared how their arrival had coincided.  But from what he could see, the two were in the center of things, supervising the activity.

Franks pulled a fat sheaf of folded pages from his suit coat pocket and handed it to him.  Already the man’s face bore a faint sheen of perspiration.  Cam had shed his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves hours ago, and still craved a long cold shower followed by an icy beer.  The likelihood of either in the coming hours was slim.