The Nymph's Curse: The Collection

by Danica Winters

  “She didn’t make it to rehab.”

  “Son of a bitch.” Zeb ran his hand along the brim of his cowboy hat. “What did she get herself into?”

  “That’s what I need to talk to you about. Do you know of any reason that someone would want her dead?” He pushed open the little pad of paper that he still held in his hand. The edges were rippled from the sweat of his palm.

  He grabbed a pen from his pocket and clicked it open.

  Zeb stared down at his pad of paper and pen with a look of annoyance, like Dane was out-of-line for telling him about her death, then hitting him up for suspects. But whether he liked it or not, it was part of Dane’s job. Zeb was either going to comply now or Dane would be forced to bring him in for questioning.

  He readied himself for the crap that would undoubtedly spill from his brother as he played his normal, manipulative power-play.

  “I don’t know. She’d been out a lot with her girlfriends. She’d been going to the bars.”

  “Any one in particular?”

  “She’d been going down to a bar called Del’s.”

  “How often was she going down there? About every night? Once a week?”

  Aura stuffed her phone back in her purse and shoved her arms over her chest as she inspected Zeb. She looked every part as a cop. If only she could keep her emotions in check, she’d make one hell of a deputy.

  Zeb looked up at the sky and let out a cloud as he exhaled. He brought his chin down. “I don’t know. Probably about every night. You know the work at the ranch, Dane. I don’t have time to babysit Angela.”

  His words rang false. When Dane had been married to Angela, a fair amount of his time had been spent following her around, trying to get her to come back home. The last time had been when he’d found her in the arms of Zeb. From that day on, the problem of Angela had fallen into his brother’s lap.

  “Well, you’re done babysitting her.” He turned to the car and then looked back over his shoulder at the wolf standing at the front of his den. “And don’t worry about identifying her … I’ll take care of it. I’d hate to make you go out of your way for your wife.”

  Chapter Seven

  The black and white sheriff’s car pulled up next to Aura in the Montana State Crime Lab parking lot. It had been a long ride from Somers to Missoula, but it had given her plenty of time to think — and to form a plan. She would glean whatever information she could from the crime lab then she’d go after Natalie — on her own if she had to. She’d wasted too much time already.

  Dane tapped on her window. She looked up as he opened the door.

  For a moment she was back lying on the ground, him on top of her in the Diamond’s pasture, and the frosty tendrils of grass rubbing against her lust-warmed face. He was looking at her with a sparkle of want in his eyes. His body was hard against her as she slowly raised her hips, seducing, needing, wanting him to be against her. Like the men she’d seduced in her past, she had seen the sexually starved way his body disobeyed his mind as he’d driven hard against her. There was emotion within him, somewhere deep, somewhere hidden, somewhere that she may never have the chance to experience again.

  Stop. I can’t think of him like this. I have to focus on Natalie. She needs me. I can’t have … love.

  “You know you didn’t have to come down here, Aura. I called in a favor to get in before the results are finalized — they may not have anything of use to find Natalie.”

  His words pulled her from her fantasy. “Hello to you too, Dane. It’s nice to see you. Yes, my trip was fine.” Her words took on the finely sharpened edge of a well-honed knife.

  He looked at her and frowned. “Yeah, sorry … Hi.”

  “Hi.” She smiled, lips tight. “There was no way you were going to keep me from coming down here. If there is something on that phone I need to know about it. I need to know who she called besides me.”

  “I get it, Aura. I get what you are trying to do — saving your sister and all. But this isn’t just about her. This isn’t just about those women. There is something more going on and we need to get to the bottom of it.”

  Aura grabbed her purse from the seat beside her. “That’s exactly what I’m trying to do.” And while I’m at it, I’m going to find my sister.

  “I don’t know what happens down in Arizona, or what your judgments are about law enforcement in Montana — but even here we don’t believe in vigilante justice. You can’t go out on your own to find your sister. You are welcome to work with me, but I can’t have you contaminating any more crime scenes or messing up my investigation.”

  “I won’t mess up your investigation.” That was the last thing she’d want — to put Natalie’s life even further into danger.

  “It’s not just about the investigation — you can’t go running around hunting down the people who did this. If you get hurt — ”

  “You’d have more paperwork to do … I know.” Aura stepped out of her pickup and slammed the door.

  “Stop, Aura. You know that’s not what I meant.” Dane’s hand moved instinctively to his waist, where his utility belt normally rested. Instead he was wearing what she assumed to be his every day wear — crisply ironed blue jeans and a collared maroon, silver, and white University of Montana polo shirt.

  If she hadn’t been so damned irritated with him, he would have looked … She glanced back at him. No, he was strikingly handsome.

  “I don’t care what you meant,” she lied. Her heels pounded on the ground as she made her way to the front door of the unassuming brown county building. “Let’s go.”

  The putrid odor of death twisted around the refrigerated crime lab, assaulting her nostrils and clinging to her like an unwelcome spirit. She wanted to run. To get out of this place and away from the defiling stink that permeated her clothing and hair.

  Aura clutched her purse tight. This was for Natalie and to find out exactly what was on that purple phone that flaunted its god-awful cheeriness. She needed to find out for herself exactly what she was going to be dealing with.

  Dane touched the door that read Authorized Personnel Only, which led to the main lab, then stopped. He turned back and looked at her. “You can’t come in here. You’ll have to wait in the lobby.”

  It had been a long night envisioning Angela’s little black horse tattoo — and the way it matched her own. Every time she’d thought she was close to sleep, she’d close her eyes only to fall into whirling dreams of whipping snow and zigzagging snowshoe hares — all leading to the dead face of Natalie.

  She wouldn’t leave without the answers she needed — that her sister was still alive — and that those cruel visions had only been figments of an overactive and stressed imagination.

  “I’m coming into the lab with you.”

  “Dr. Redbird won’t allow it. She’s — ”

  “I’m coming with you. Tell her I’m a trainee or something. I don’t care.” She stepped next to him.

  He opened his mouth to retort, but for a second she let him stare at her. Nothing he could say would stop her.

  She pushed the cold metal door. It swung open lightly as if it was used to having regular newcomers to the halls of the morgue.

  “Fine. Stay quiet.” Dane stepped in front of her and led the way down the sterile glaring-white hallway.

  On their left was a stairwell. Next to it on the wall was a framed placard which listed the departments within the crime lab and the floors where they could be found. She read down from the top:

  Floor three: Photography Section, Evidence Storage Section, Identification Section.

  Floor two: Firearms Section, Instrument Section.

  Floor one: Chemistry Section, General Examination Section, Main Offices.

  The elevator dinged on the other side of the hall and she sped up, catching up to Dane who was three step
s ahead.

  They walked past a door that read Toxicology Lab. Inside was machine after machine, each standing as stoic reminders of the hundreds of cases that the lab had on their hands. The pit in the bottom of her stomach grew. There were so many stories out there that ended here at this office-like center of death and possible answers.

  Their footsteps echoed off the tiles as they made their way to the end of the hall and the door that read Autopsy Suite — like it was some kind of hotel for the dead. Chills ran down her spine.

  Dane peered into the small bulletproof window of the door. He gave a curt nod to someone inside, then looked back at Aura. “Are you sure you wanna do this?”

  She swallowed back the sour flavor in her mouth.

  He opened the door and she followed him inside. At the far end of the room a small inconspicuous brunette woman hunched over, poking at a pale hand that sat lifeless on the cold-looking steel. Dane cleared his throat. She looked up from her work. Her face was covered by a plastic shield and mask, perfectly matching her blue paper gown and slippers that protected her from the foul contents that came with rotting flesh.

  “Dr. Redbird, we’re sorry to interrupt your work. I just wanted to come by and see what you’ve found from the bodies. I know it’s only been a day since you got them, but is there any information you’ve gathered? Any evidence of what exactly we’ve got on our hands?”

  “Hello, Deputy Burke.” The mousy woman sat down the little set of scissors and stepped back from the hand. “Long time no see. I’m glad you made the trip — I found some really interesting peculiarities that might be useful in your investigation.” She smiled warmly to Dane, then her gaze flashed to Aura and her smile disappeared. “Who’s your friend, Dane?”

  Aura mentally cringed at the overly friendly way the woman said his name — like she was marking him as hers, and not to be touched.

  “This is a friend of mine, Aura Montgarten. She’s from a department out of Arizona. Hope you don’t mind. She’s aiding in the investigation.” The lie flew from his lips with the practiced grace of a Las Vegas magician.

  “Pleasure.” The doctor pulled at the edges of her gloves and pulled them off, inside out. “Well, we haven’t finished up with the toxicology reports or the DNA analysis, but as luck has it for you, we haven’t been too busy this week and I could get right to the post-mortem examination.”

  Yes, it was a lucky day when there were fewer dead bodies.

  “Find anything interesting?” Dane’s voice took on a softer edge.

  The medical examiner removed her plastic face shield, revealing a young twenty-something woman — far from the mousy woman Aura had first judged the woman to be. “It’s my belief that we’re most likely dealing with a homicide, as your notes seemed to assume from the crime scene. However, there were a few peculiarities.” The woman nodded, making her full ponytail bounce to life.

  A tingle of jealousy swept through Aura as she noticed the way the doctor seemed to focus on the small, almost imperceptible, cleft at the center of Dane’s chiseled jaw.

  “On both victims we found traces of the tarp as well as some interesting non-human type hair.”

  “Do you know what type of hair it was? Canine?”

  A lump formed in Aura’s throat as she remembered the little square of tissue that rested in the pocket of yesterday’s jeans. The hair wouldn’t be canine — or truly equine either.

  The woman walked to the far side of the room to a stainless steel lab table where a bag lay. Inside were a few strands of long, black hairs. She lifted up the bag to the light.

  “It appears to be the coarse hair from a horse’s tail, but under the microscope the cuticle, or the scaly exterior of the hair, seems to be rougher than that of something of an equine source. It seems almost human-ish.” She squinted at the hair as if it would magically somehow make sense if she just stared a little while longer. “If I hadn’t gotten the whole strand along with the follicle, I would have thought it possible that it was a woman’s hair.”

  Aura smiled but kept her mouth shut.

  Dane pulled out his little notepad that he seemed to always have on hand. He jotted down a few notes as the woman twisted the bag in her fingers.

  Aura peeked over and noticed he had written Possibly brought in by horse?

  The doctor twisted the bag in her fingers as if she was trying to make sense of the anomaly. “Also, Angela had wounds on her back which were at the initial stages of healing at the time of her death that look similar to the burn marks on her disarticulated hand.”

  “What kind of wounds?”

  The doctor glanced over at Dane. “They look like possible rope burns, but it’s hard to say.”

  “What about the tarp?” Dane asked, not looking up from his paper.

  “Well, from what I can tell the tarp is just the standard everyday blue tarp you can buy at any big box store. I don’t know how helpful it’s going to be in nailing down a perpetrator.” She sat the bag back down. “Did you have a chance to examine the bodies before they came in?”

  Dane coughed lightly as if the question made him uncomfortable.

  Aura wasn’t sure if it was the question, or the fact that one of the women they’d found had been his ex-wife, that made him more uncomfortable. It amazed her that he could be so distant when it came to investigating the deaths. If she had been married to one of the victims she would have had a hard time dealing with their dead body, but Dane seemed to take it in stride.

  Dane looked up from his tablet and scratched the thin layer of stubble that grew over his tanned chin. “I only got a chance to get a look at the second victim, the one under the tarp. We still haven’t managed to come up with any identification. Have you had anyone come in who can ID her?”

  The woman shook her head. “Not yet. We haven’t released Angela’s name to the public either. We still need to notify her mother and father. Have you had the chance to talk to them?”

  “She doesn’t have any that I know of. She said they passed away when she was in high school.” He stopped scratching. “Did you manage to find the cause of death?”

  Dr. Redbird picked up her clipboard and flipped through some pages. “As you know, Angela was missing her hand.” She looked over the clipboard and eyed Dane. He nodded and her gaze slipped back down to the paper. “From the tests we’ve run I can say with one hundred percent certainty that the hand did belong to Angela Burke. I assume this is your Angela, correct?”

  “My brother’s Angela … but yes. I knew her.”

  “I’ll take that as a positive identification.” The doctor wrote something down. “About the hand … From what I’ve seen on both the body and the hand itself, it seems as if the wound was caused perimortem, or at or around the time of death. There were no signs of healing and the body showed staining on the radioulnar joint where the hand had been removed.”

  Dane’s pen moved furiously over the paper. “Can you tell what exactly removed the hand? It looked a little indistinct in the water.”

  “The margins were, as you said, indistinct. It clearly wasn’t removed from the body with a sharp object.” The doctor scanned further down her clipboard. “The peripheral tissue on the hand and the arm showed no level of edema — which could mean that the tissue didn’t have time to swell after the appendage was removed.” Dr. Redbird reached over and patted his arm.

  Dane seemed to go rigid under the woman’s touch.

  “If it makes you feel better, the hand could have been removed after the time of death. She might not even have felt it.” The doctor dropped her hand.

  “That’s nice.” Dane seemed to squirm away from her as he went back to his notepad.

  “Oh … yes, I also located some interesting traces on the wrist tissue of the body. There were what appeared to be yellow and green nylon fibers. I’m hypothesizing that it�
�s possible they belonged to some type of rope — though they could come from a carpet or rug — it’s hard to tell without more time.”

  Her assertion was met with the scratch of Dane’s pen. “So what exactly was the cause of death? Officer Grant didn’t seem to think there was any evidence of blunt or sharp force trauma. Did you find any evidence of a gunshot wound that he may have missed?”

  “No … No gunshots, but both women had clear defense wounds on their forearms and hands. But aside from those wounds, and a few bruises to the necks and torsos, I didn’t find any direct evidence that would indicate the cause of death.” She flipped the page on the clipboard to a little diagram of a body surrounded by notes. “Neither presented to me any evidence of a natural death. It’s strange. But once we get the toxicology reports they could tell us what the cause of death might be.”

  She pulled out a manila envelope from the back of the clipboard and handed it to Dane. “Here’s what we have so far, so you can take a look.”

  “What about the phone?” Aura said.

  Dr. Redbird stared at her with disdain, as if Aura had interrupted a private interlude that was happening between her and Dane — one that Aura had no right witnessing.

  Dane flipped the manila bag in his hands and shook his head as he subtly reminded Aura to remain silent. Something flashed in his eyes. The light wasn’t anger or frustration … no. It was something different, something primordial and animalistic — as if he was her master.

  “The purple phone. Pink flowers. Did you find any data that would be helpful in the investigation?” Aura asked as she smiled mischievously over at Dane. He should have known by now that he couldn’t make her submit to his will.

  Dr. Redbird nodded. “The phone’s in the bag. You’ll need to sign it out before you take it back to your station.” The doctor motioned to Dane’s envelope. “We weren’t able to pull any prints, but we finally got it working. There was a video that you might find of some interest.”