by Mary Burton
“Dad?”
He closed the book and pulled off his glasses. “Angelina.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t let you do this alone.”
She’d only told him about the surgery yesterday. She’d not wanted to worry him and told him she’d handle it alone.
His presence stirred something in her, and the emotions she’d held on to so strongly broke free. She let the tears roll down her cheeks. “Did they do the surgery?”
“Yes. The doctor said it went very well.”
A lump in her throat nearly choked her. “I’ll never have children.”
“No.”
She wept.
He patted her hand. “Maybe it’s all for the best.”
She opened her eyes and looked at him. “How can you say that?”
His eyes telegraphed sadness and pain. “Now you’ll never be vulnerable.”
With as much care as she could muster, she pulled into the tight spot marked RESERVED: A. CARLSON. She turned off the engine, set the parking brake, and released the clutch.
For a moment, she simply sat in her seat, hands resting on the wheel. “Shit.”
The old fears returned, and for a moment made it impossible for her to move forward. Sheer will kept her from driving to the nearest grocery, buying a bottle of wine, and driving home to polish it off. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
Those that called her The Barracuda would laugh if they saw her now. God, Kier would have a field day.
It was the flash of his face that had her straightening. He would never see her afraid, not as long as she had breath in her body.
Keys in hand, she grabbed her briefcase and got out of the car. Wasting no time, she hustled across the lot and punched the elevator button. She glanced at the numbers above and cursed the fact that the elevator was at ground floor. It would have to travel three floors to reach her. Twenty seconds if no one on the other floors lingered. But this time of day someone always dawdled.
Angie stroked her thumb over the worn handle of her briefcase, which had belonged to her father. She pressed the button a few more times.
In a distant corner of the garage, a car door opened and closed. She turned to see if she saw anyone. No one emerged from the shadows, but careful footsteps paced back and forth. She leaned forward, trying to see into the darkness, but she couldn’t make out anyone.
Someone was there, but why not come out? Why just stand in the shadows and watch her? Her heart jumped. The elevator dinged. One floor down. The footsteps clicked back and forth, back and forth.
“Come on, damn it.” Perspiration trickled down her back. The elevator dinged once again and again. Two floors to go.
She searched the shadows, wondering why whoever was out there didn’t emerge. It was almost as if he or she didn’t want to be seen.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
And then the doors opened. A rush of relief washed over her so swift and hot that she nearly tripped into the car. She punched the ground floor button six times as she stared into the shadows.
As the doors were about to close, a man appeared on the lip of the darkness. She couldn’t make out his features, but she had the deep bone-chilling sense he stared at her.
The feeling that she’d been followed and watched chased her as the elevator rose to street level and down the block-long walk to Wellington and James.
Relief washed over her as she climbed the brick steps of the mid-nineteenth-century building. The large black lacquer front door was flanked by a set of windows made of double-pane glass. Window boxes brimming with red geraniums that had so far survived the chilly weather added a pop of color.
The exterior look was traditional, all very much in keeping with the colonial feel of Old Town Alexandria. However, her boss, Charlotte Wellington, was a stickler for security. That meant the front door that looked so traditional had a state-of-the-art locking system that was always secure. You either had the pass code to punch into the keypad by the front door or you were buzzed into the reception area. No one just walked into Wellington and James.
Angie punched in the code, waited to hear the click of the lock, and quickly pulled open the door to find her sister, Eva, sitting in the lobby.
Eva was twenty-eight, four years younger than Angie, but Eva could have passed for a teenager. Straight black hair framed a heart-shaped face, and her petite frame usually clad in jeans and a dark T-shirt often had people dismissing her as an airhead kid. That was always a mistake.
Eva’s intelligence scored off the charts. She’d all but breezed through the college courses she’d taken this past year. She was expected to graduate by next summer with degrees in English and social work.
Eva had endured so much darkness in her life, and it would have been easy for her to be bitter, but Eva had never succumbed to anger. Her motto was “Eyes forward.”
As Angie entered, Eva rose, shouldering her knapsack. “Hey!”
Angie crossed the room and hugged Eva. They’d been separated for so long Angie had vowed never to let simple moments like greetings be ignored.
Eva hugged her back. “Your receptionist, Iris, let me in. She just had to run down the street for coffee. Said she’d be right back.”
“Iris without her coffee is a bad thing.” She glanced at Eva’s pale skin and the hint of darkness under both eyes. “You feeling all right?”
“Just burning the candle at both ends. Too much life to make up, I suppose.”
“So what brings you here this morning?” Angie said.
“A woman at the halfway house where I volunteer. She’s in trouble. I need a favor.”
In the last year, Eva had never asked for one favor. “Come back to my office.”
Angie led them down a hallway painted in a hunter green and decorated with expensive-looking landscapes. Charlotte was very into the Old Virginia, traditional look, which she said her clients preferred. Angie would have opted for sleek modern, but until she made partner such decisions were beyond her.
The furnishings in Angie’s office were in keeping with the firm’s look, but her bookshelves weren’t crammed with leather-bound volumes. Instead they featured bits of artifacts from her father’s museum and family pictures of Eva and their mother and some of her father, Frank Carlson. Angie had her icy Nordic look from Frank whereas Eva had gotten her dark gypsy looks from her father, Blue Rayburn.
Angie shrugged off her coat, hung it on the back door hanger, and held out a hand for Eva to sit in one of the leather chairs in front of her desk.
Angie took the seat next to Eva. “So tell me about this person.”
Eva smoothed her hands over her jeans. “You know her, as a matter of fact.”
“Do I?”
“Her name is Lulu Sweet.”
Angie sat back in her chair. She knew Lulu Sweet very well. Lulu had been the prime witness for the prosecution in the Dixon case. She’d been the prostitute whom Dixon had hired and brutalized.
After nearly two hours of abuse, he’d told a half-conscious Lulu that he had to stop. He didn’t want her to die yet.
She panicked and somehow managed to grab the light on the nightstand and hit him on the side of the head. He’d been stunned long enough for her to run naked into the streets, screaming for help.
“What does Lulu want?”
“She wants you to represent her.”
“Really? I would think I would be the last person she’d want as an attorney.”
Eva’s lips curled into a half smile. “She said, and I quote, ‘I want your sister to represent me because there is no meaner bitch alive.’”
Instead of being insulted, Angie laughed. “She said that?”
“Word for word.”
As a woman, Angie had pitied Lulu. But as an attorney she’d been forced to look beyond her youth and bruises. She’d focused on Lulu’s arrest record and her meth addiction. The woman had had a string of arrests under her belt, and she’d been known to perjure herself. Angi
e had used all those facts against Lulu and torn her apart on the witness stand.
“Lulu made it very clear what she thought about me the day she testified. She called me more than a few names as she was leaving the courthouse.”
“So she told me.”
Angie shifted in her seat. “So what is Lulu up to these days?”
“She moved out of the halfway house a few weeks ago and into her own place. Before the house, she did ninety days for possession. But she swears she’s clean now.”
“They all do.”
Eva shrugged. “I’m not a wide-eyed innocent. I’ve seen enough. I know when someone is using.”
“I’ll trust you on that. So if she’s not using and she’s out of jail, where do I fit into the picture?”
“Lulu has a son.”
Angie frowned. “I had her completely investigated. There was never a mention of a child.”
“She got pregnant shortly after the trial.”
It shouldn’t have mattered that Lulu wasn’t pregnant when she’d gone after her. But it did.
“She lost custody?”
Eva shrugged, seemingly unsurprised by Angie’s guess. “When the boy was born, Lulu was living with her mother. She’d been clean during her pregnancy, but when the baby was a month old Lulu took a hit of meth. Her mother found her sitting in a stupor with the baby crying in his crib. Her mother kept the baby and threw her out. And she really went downhill from there.”
“Okay.”
“That’s how she landed in jail. But she’s clean now.”
Angie’s thoughts jumped to the baby, who would be about nine months now. Unreasonable outrage burned through Angie as she thought about the baby. “You know my history, Eva. You know I can’t have children. I can’t defend a woman who is so careless with her child.”
“Her mistakes haunt her, Angie. She is truly upset by what has happened.”
“Upset doesn’t feed and clothe a baby, Eva. The kid sounds like he’s better off where he is, which I’m assuming is with the grandmother.”
“Lulu really wants her boy back. She wants to be a good mother to him.”
Angie couldn’t jettison the anger and opted to remain silent.
Eva hurried to say, “There is a custody hearing tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I know. Her last attorney didn’t tell her about it until yesterday.”
“Okay.”
“Lulu and her mother are to meet before the judge who is deciding which one will get the boy.”
“There are plenty of other attorneys out there.”
“Yeah, I know. But she came to me and asked me about you. She wants you.” Eva pulled out a picture and handed it to Angie.
It was a photo of a boy, maybe six months old. He had bright blue eyes, a sloppy drooling grin that made Angie’s heart wince.
“The kid really loves his mother,” Eva said in a quiet voice. “Lulu has visitation, and she went to see him last week. He misses her.”
She handed the picture back to Eva. “I’m sure he does love her.”
“Lulu’s mom is great. But she’s not well.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know for sure. But she has that sick, pale look like Mom had before she was diagnosed.”
After Frank had divorced Angie’s mother, Marian, he’d sued for and won custody. The agreement dictated that Angie only saw her mother one Saturday a month. She’d not been around her mother and Eva much, and by the time her mother had gotten sick she’d already left for college. Her father had not told Angie about her mother’s illness until she was dying.
As a kid, she’d wanted her mother so much at times. Too many nights, she’d cried herself to sleep.
Angie cleared her throat. “I’m not making any promises, Eva. I can’t make any decision until I see Lulu.”
Eva’s eyes brightened. “But you will see her.”
Angie rose, moved to her briefcase, and pulled out a black leather-bound calendar. She flipped a couple of pages. “You said the hearing is tomorrow?”
Eva rose. “Yes. Thursday. Twelve noon.”
“We don’t have much time.”
“No.”
“I’ve got time today at one p.m. Have her come by the office. And tell her not to be late, Eva. Because at this point I’m looking for an excuse to say no to her.”
Eva nodded. “I will tell her.” She hoisted her backpack on her shoulder. “Thanks, Angie. I know you’re doing this for me.”
“I am.”
“I appreciate it.”
Satisfaction elbowed its way through the nagging mixed feelings. “You are welcome.”
“I better get going. I’ve got an early class and then the lunch shift at King’s.”
“Why do you still work at King’s? With your brains you could work anywhere.”
Eva shrugged, no hint of doubt in her gaze. “I like King and his kid, Bobby. Feels like family there. And that’s worth more to me than anything.”
Angie understood. “What about that boyfriend of yours, Garrison?”
“What about Deacon?”
No need to mention that Garrison had helped Kier track Angie down this morning. He’d been doing his job. “He’s got to feel like family.”
“Sure, when we’re together. But there is a lot to keep us apart. School. His work. My work. And we fought last night.”
What wasn’t she saying? “Trouble?”
“No.” She hesitated. “Just busy.”
Angie didn’t press. She wasn’t crazy about the fact that her sister had jumped into a serious relationship. Eva should be focused solely on herself. But as much as she wanted to share her more candid opinions, the time and distance they’d spent apart had created a chasm they’d not fully bridged. Some moments she just didn’t feel like she had the right to push.
“You’ll let me know if I can help?”
“Always.”
Chapter 6
Wednesday, October 5, 11 A.M.
Malcolm and Garrison arrived at the Commonwealth’s Northern District medical examiner’s office. Though the center was located in the neighboring county, the office served the entire Northern Virginia area, which included Alexandria.
They pushed through the metal doors on Dr. Henson’s floor. Immediately, the strong scent of bleach greeted them as they moved down the tiled hallway. Fluorescent bulbs cast a bright, if not antiseptic light on the entire floor.
Malcolm hated this place. He hated the smell, the gray tones, and the feel of death that hovered here. This place was a necessary evil that he would endure for the case.
He checked his watch. “Henson has had the bones seven hours. She said she’d get right on them.”
Autopsies often required a twenty-four to forty-eight-hour turnaround at best, but if Henson said a case rose to the top of her list, it did.
They reached the last set of doors and pushed through. They found Dr. Henson in Examining Room Three. She wore green scrubs, a mask with an eye guard, and a cap. She leaned over a stainless-steel exam table that now held the bones laid out in anatomical order. Her assistant Bruce, also dressed in scrubs, stood with a clipboard in hand.
“Dr. Henson,” Malcolm said.
She glanced up. “Detectives.”
“Thought we’d swing by and see if you’ve made progress.”
“I only just received the dental records from Ms. Day’s dentist and was preparing to compare them to the teeth in Jane Doe’s mouth. It might take me another few hours before I can get to it.”
“Anything you can tell us so far?”
“My earlier assumptions were correct. Female. Mid-twenties. She had healthy bones. Didn’t suffer from malnutrition, and she did have good dental care. She had veneers put in fairly recently.”
“Sierra’s husband said he paid for his wife’s veneers,” Malcolm said.
She cocked a brow. “Really?”
Moving to a desk, she picked up a manila file, pulled x-
rays, and stuck them on a light box. “Might as well have a look now.”
Henson leaned into the film. “Sierra did have veneers. And also she had two fillings. Both in the back right molar.”
She turned to the skull and examined the teeth. “Veneers and right back molar with two fillings.”
Malcolm leaned in. “So you’re saying this is Sierra Day?”
“I’ll run DNA on the marrow to be one hundred percent certain.”
“You and I both know that will take weeks or months.”
“She has very distinctive teeth. If I had to call it now, I’d say this was Sierra Day.”
“Sierra Day has only been missing ten days. That’s not enough time for Mother Nature to strip the bones.”
Henson nodded. “Not given the current climate. Too cold.” She picked up a bone. “No trauma to the bones at all. In fact, I see no signs of saw marks or ax marks that would suggest she’d been hacked apart.”
“She didn’t just fall apart, Doc.”
Wisps of red hair peeked out from the edges of Henson’s cap. “Well, if you strip the flesh and tendons from the bones, then there is nothing to hold them together, and they do fall apart.”
“How do you do something like that? Acid?”
“I don’t think acid was used. Acid would have left marks on the bones. If I had to guess I’d say the flesh was soaked off.”
“Soaked?”
“It’s a common process.”
Malcolm rested his hands on his hips. “For who?”
“Companies that process animal bones for museums. You ever been to an exhibit and seen a display with an animal skeleton?”
“Sure.”
“Well, I can promise you that those bones did not arrive from nature all clean, white, and odor free.”
Garrison glanced at the bones on the table, which had a yellowish hue. There was no stench or sign of flesh. “These are not pristine by any stretch of the imagination.”
“Well, there are a few more steps. Next is the beetle tank. The bones are laid in a tank full of flesh-eating beetles, which eat remaining traces of flesh from the bones. These bones are clean of flesh so likely made it through step two. Then there is the whitening and bleaching process. These bones have a dull cast, so I’d say they haven’t been bleached.”
