To Trust a Friend

by Lynn Bulock

  He had his thoughtful look, then sadness flashed across his features. “You just said all of these girls were probably under eighteen, right? The only other thing I can think of that bones could tell you would be if they’d given birth. That’s awfully young, isn’t it?”

  Kyra felt her emotions spiral back to a place she didn’t really want to revisit. It took her a minute or two to gather herself together to answer him. “Younger than most people, but it might help explain the lack of dental work. If this girl was already a mom before her eighteenth birthday, she had lots of other things on her mind.”

  Joshua’s expression stayed clouded. “And it also means that someplace out there is a kid whose mother never came home one day. For his sake, or hers, I kind of hope she’d given the baby up for adoption.”

  His statement showed more intensity, and more caring, than Kyra had seen from Josh so far. Maybe helping him care about others wouldn’t be as difficult as she’d thought. What he said also made Kyra wonder what his own childhood had been like. It wasn’t something she was going to ask him about, at least not yet. When she looked at him again he seemed to be studying her. “What?” she said reflexively, hoping she didn’t sound too sharp.

  “I don’t know. You had a different look on your face there for a minute. Sad and kind of faraway. It’s not what I usually see.” And with that statement Kyra felt the slow heat of anger and confusion rise in her. How could she be so easy to read?

  She gave herself a mental shake and straightened her shoulders. “Well, I guess it’s just these kids. I don’t let the job get to me too often, because then I’m no use to the very people who need my help the most. But you’re right, sixteen or seventeen is too early to have a baby for most young women. I’m not so sure I agree with you on the whole adoption thing. It depends on what kind of family a mom has, how close they are. If an aunt or a grandmother can raise the child, everything is fine.”

  “That sounds good, but I don’t think you really believe it,” Josh said, his words back to the flatter tone he’d used most of the time. “Everything isn’t going to be fine in a situation that allows the body of a young girl to be missing for seven or eight years without a lot of public outcry.” His eyes narrowed as Kyra watched him think.

  “You said before that you might know by Monday what ethnic makeup these kids were. How do you figure that out from bones?”

  “The differences can be subtle,” Kyra admitted. “Different bone densities in some structures, the shape of an eye socket…”

  “You can say orbit. I know that much. My mom was a nurse.” Something about that memory was painful for him, because now Josh was the one to have a brief look of sadness across his face. Kyra filed that away as something else to discuss later.

  “Okay. I’m never sure with people whether or not I should keep things simple in case I’m talking way over their heads, or just talk to them the way I would to a colleague. It sounds like you’re closer to the colleague level.”

  “I don’t know if I’d go that far, but coming from you that’s a compliment. So, colleague, how long are you going to stay and work on all of this tonight?”

  Kyra shrugged. “As long as it takes. There’s nobody waiting at home except Ranger, and he’s pretty self-sufficient.”

  Joshua’s forehead wrinkled. “I don’t remember you mentioning a live-in…friend before.”

  Kyra stifled a giggle. “That’s because Ranger’s a cat. About fourteen pounds of black fur and attitude who keeps my place free of field mice and crickets, and still doesn’t understand after eight years why I won’t let him go outside and stalk them out there.”

  “Oh.” Josh smiled faintly. “Well, if you’re not going to hurry home to him, would you like to grab dinner someplace? I’ve heard some of the other staff members talking about a Thai restaurant not too far from here.”

  “I am hungry. And as long as this is just colleague-to-colleague,” Kyra said, giving Josh a pointed look.

  “Definitely. I won’t even offer to buy your dinner.”

  “Good. You get back to your computer and I’ll shut things down in the next room. I should be ready to go in fifteen minutes.”

  Remember, just colleague-to-colleague, Kyra reminded herself as she put things to rights in the lab. It might take a lot of work, but she was determined that Josh Richards was never going to know that she thought of him in any other way.

  THREE

  The Thai restaurant was small, casual and smelled fantastic from the moment Josh walked in. The aroma of chilies, spices and lemongrass filled the air, and he discovered that he was hungry. How long had it been since he had felt truly hungry and interested in food? Then again, how long had it been since he’d had dinner with an attractive young woman, even if she was practically his boss?

  He tried not to take it personally when Kyra insisted that they both drive to the restaurant. It wasn’t a matter of trust, she explained. “You’re going home afterward and I may come back here to work on one last thing.”

  “I have a feeling there’s ‘one last thing’ a lot of the time,” Josh told her, watching her flush with color in an admission that didn’t need words to go with it. Kyra’s tenacity was what had made them a good team when he’d needed her help in cases for the bureau. So it didn’t surprise him that she gave that kind of focus to her work all the time.

  “There is,” she admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I expect everybody in the lab to work like I do. As long as they give things their best effort, I’m fine with a reasonable work week.”

  She double-checked to make sure he knew where the restaurant was, and headed toward her car. Josh wasn’t sure what he expected to see her get into, but the vintage Ford pickup truck gave him a surprise. When she showed up at the restaurant he intended to ask her about that.

  He settled in to wait for her, taking the corner table a young man pointed out, and ordering an iced coffee while he waited. He watched the door of the restaurant, listening to the overhead bell jingle as people came in. Just about the time his drink came, Kyra walked through the door and he was struck by her appearance.

  Why hadn’t he ever noticed that the woman was downright beautiful? She’d unfastened the clip that held her glossy auburn hair. She must have ridden over from the lab with the window rolled down in the truck. Her cheeks were pink and she looked slightly windblown, refreshed and healthy. Josh mentally contrasted what he must look like; pale skin that hardly ever saw the light of day, lines beginning to etch the corners of his eyes and his workday uniform of a white shirt, dark pants and an extremely sedate tie.

  Kyra slid into the seat across from him, looking at his iced coffee. “I should have told you to order me one if you made it here first. I know I probably don’t need any more caffeine this late in the day, but I really like those things.”

  “I’ll make a note of it for next time,” Josh said, wondering where the words came from as soon as they were out of his mouth. What made him think there was going to be a “next time” with Kyra? She’d made it clear this wasn’t a social engagement, just dinner with a workmate. Even an hour ago that wouldn’t have bothered him; why did it feel like it mattered now?

  In any case, Kyra seemed to ignore his comment. “Cool. Do you like chicken satay? We could split an order while we waited for the rest of dinner.”

  “Sure.” Josh let her order the appetizer and her iced coffee while he thought about ways to ask a few questions about her without seeming overly interested. But his new awareness of Kyra’s beauty and the constant reminder that she was basically his boss right now left him tongue-tied for a while.

  They ordered their dinners and Kyra made a little small talk while Josh tried not to ask too many questions, even though at least a dozen were running through his mind. The satay came and they probably ate half of it before Kyra looked over at him and smiled.

  “Hey, you’re mighty quiet,” she said. “Once you got me alone outside the labs I expected all kinds of questions.”

&n
bsp; Josh told himself the flush he felt must be due to the amount of fiery Thai chilies in the peanut dipping sauce. “I don’t want to irritate you. You’re dealing with enough questions right now just focusing on this case. Do you work like this all the time?”

  Kyra shrugged slightly. “When I need to. And I won’t work all weekend. I don’t work on Sundays unless it’s an emergency and I have no other choice.”

  “I guess everybody needs some rest. But wouldn’t it make more sense just to work through and try to catch a break in the case?”

  “Not for me. There are all kinds of reasons that I can get more accomplished in six days than I can in seven. My Sundays are precious to me.”

  Josh felt his heart sink. “I’ll bet you spend them in church, don’t you?”

  “Not always. But I do try to spend them in ways that bring honor to God, and there aren’t too many times that that means hanging out at the lab.”

  “So where do you go if it’s not church?” Josh caught himself leaning forward to hear her answer.

  Kyra stirred the straw around in her iced coffee. “All kinds of places. I go horseback riding sometimes, grab ice cream with some friends, maybe even just sit quietly alone or go to the movies with four or five teenage girls.”

  How was any of this a way to honor God? Josh felt really confused about that. Kyra didn’t look confused at all. She appeared perfectly happy with her choices. This discussion was going to take a lot longer to finish than Josh had figured on.

  Before he could ask more questions their entrées arrived along with a bowl of rice. “This all looks great,” Kyra said with enthusiasm, and she surprised Josh by reaching over and taking the serving spoon in his pad thai.

  Maybe she was confused about what she’d ordered. “Hey, Kyra? I think the pad thai is mine,” Josh said.

  She smiled but didn’t put down the spoon. “Well, yeah, but you’re okay with sharing, right? I think sharing dinner is fun. It gives us both something new to try.”

  This was totally outside his experience. “I guess. It’s just a little different for me.”

  Kyra giggled softly. “What’s the matter? Don’t bureau people share their food? Or don’t you like green curry? I didn’t get it too hot, honest.”

  When he didn’t answer right away, Kyra looked more serious. “This really isn’t something you’re used to doing, is it? If it makes you uncomfortable, I’ll just stick to my own dish and you can have yours. Sorry.”

  She started to put down the spoon, and Josh found himself reaching over gently and taking her wrist. “No, it’s okay. You’re right, it’s not something I usually do. I just didn’t grow up in a sharing kind of environment. And you are correct about the other part, too, because bureau folks are pretty protective about their property, including food.”

  “That’s too bad,” Kyra said with a soft smile. “They’re missing out on a lot.”

  “I imagine so.” Josh looked down to realize he was still holding on to her wrist and let it go. “But I think it’s time I stopped missing out.” He took the spoon in the rice and served himself a little, spooning the fragrant green curry on top of it. Kyra’s answering grin lifted his spirits like nothing had in days.

  Later, after coconut ice cream, Kyra argued when he told her he was going to follow her back to the lab. She stood in the parking lot near her truck with her arms crossed, frowning slightly. Josh explained, “I know you’re no delicate flower who needs constant protection, but I was raised to treat women a certain way. If that bothers you, I apologize in advance, but it won’t keep me from following you back to the lab if you’re going to go back to work.”

  “I’m definitely going back,” Kyra told him. “Although, after this dinner I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to work before I’ll want to go home and doze. Ranger will like that.”

  Josh struggled to find something to say to that. With his allergy to pets he wasn’t real enthused about Kyra having a cat. At least she hadn’t brought enough cat dander into the office to make his eyes water. “Once you’re in the building, I’ll head home,” he told her. “I just want to make sure everything is all right.”

  Her answering hug was brief but warm and the surprise of her giving it to him rocked him back slightly on his heels. “You’re sweet and I won’t argue. Thanks.” In a moment she was in her truck and Josh walked quickly to his car so that he could follow her as he’d promised. Around him the jasmine notes of her cologne filled his senses and followed him the rest of the evening through his drive to the lab and all the way home.

  Everything was gone. It was Saturday morning and the Watcher stood in the mud under the trees at the park, looking in surprise at the yellow caution tape surrounding several shallow impressions in the earth. What had happened here? The last time he’d visited, the two bird-watchers were calling the police, but he hadn’t expected this much action this quickly. All they could have found were a few unconnected bones.

  Now that the tall weeds and scrawny saplings that had grown up in his private garden had been washed away by the spring rains, it looked like a different place. Having the police mess around with things on top of that made it unrecognizable. His things were gone. Or at least they’d been uncovered from their hiding places. Somebody had found them, that was certain. The yellow tape and spindly orange plastic fencing might have been made to look like this was just an area the parks service was trying to keep people out of because the ground was swampy, but he knew differently.

  How dare they mess everything up! This was his place, with his secrets. Now what was he supposed to do? As he stood there wondering, there was a rustle behind him, and a voice called tentatively. “Sir? I’m going to have to ask you not to go any closer to the fenced area. If you’re bird-watching, we’re directing people over to the South Trail.”

  For a moment the Watcher felt as if he was going to jump out of his skin. “What? Oh, sure.” Relief washed over him as he realized that to the young park ranger, or whatever he was, the binoculars around his neck and his nondescript jeans and shirt made him look like any other guy out to enjoy a Saturday in the park. “Sorry, Officer. I wasn’t trying to do anything illegal.”

  The kid smiled. “Don’t worry, you haven’t done anything wrong yet. I’m just supposed to keep people from getting into areas like that one where it’s too swampy for us to be sure of your safety. And I’m not an officer or anything, just working here for the summer.” The kid pointed toward his yellow name badge and the Watcher could see that it gave the kid’s name below the bright green line that proclaimed him a volunteer. So he hadn’t done anything yet, huh? Wouldn’t this kid be surprised if he knew? But with any luck, he wasn’t going to know, and neither was anybody else. The Watcher tried to walk nonchalantly away from this ruined place. Somebody was going to pay for this; he just needed to find out who was responsible.

  It was time to go home and look through the newspapers to see what the police said about their finds. That would tell him who had dug up his treasures. Didn’t they realize that it would be their fault when he started hunting again? Without his secrets here, how could anybody expect him to access his memories? Now it would be time to find a new place, and new things to fill that place, even sooner than he’d planned.

  By ten o’clock on Saturday morning, Kyra’s back ached. Her shoulders tightened with the focus of her efforts with the magnifier and the smaller pieces of bone. Sometimes when she was busy like this she remembered Gran sifting through a jigsaw puzzle. The difference was that Gran did her puzzles for fun, humming softly while she matched the pieces. Kyra did her work in a much more serious way, but the painstaking business of matching the pieces was the same. And when she finished putting together one of her “puzzles” it could mean closure for a family somewhere who finally knew where their loved one was.

  More bone pieces, and larger ones, were coming out of the cleaning room now. In the work area she’d set aside just for this purpose, Kyra kept turning bones in different directions, angling
them slightly while examining their color and texture. They’d separated out the pieces that were most likely human at the dump site. Bringing them back to the lab allowed Kyra and her researchers to separate out anything that wasn’t human bone.

  Now, after the cleaning, it became clearer which pieces went together. The set of bones that went back the farthest had softer details around the edges and an entirely different color to their surface from the ones that had been in the ground a shorter time.

  Each set of skeletal pieces that Kyra wanted to keep separate had its own gurney, arranged in a horseshoe so that she could have easy access between the three steel gurneys. If anyone asked, the skeletons were just A, B and C, but already to Kyra they were Abigail, Bethany and Chloe. She prayed that some day soon she could give these girls back their real names, but until then she wanted to do all that she could to make them living human beings in her own mind.

  As she identified what seemed to be two of Chloe’s metacarpals, the door to the room swung slightly on silent hinges, making Kyra jump a little. “Who’s there?” Her voice sounded a little high and sharp in her own ears. She wasn’t used to having much company on Saturdays.

  Josh came through the doorway with a grimace. “Sorry. I didn’t even think about startling you. I knew you’d be here, and frankly, I ran out of things to do at home so I decided to come in and try to get something done.”

  Kyra looked at Josh, realizing that this was the first time that she’d seen him out of his weekday uniform of dark pants and a white shirt. Today he wore khakis and a sportier shirt, and no tie, either. “That’s okay. I was so focused on this set of bones and what they’re telling me that I didn’t expect anybody to come in.”

  His brow wrinkled a little. “I have to admit that it’s really strange to me to hear you talking about bones telling you anything. Frankly, I don’t even know how you can tell which ones belong to which…set.”