by Misty Evans
My robe disappears, his hands tracing every inch of my skin. He lifts me onto the countertop, the marble under my butt cold and unforgiving. This shocks me into reality, a sudden image of his wife's face burning in my brain.
"Stop." It takes all my willpower, but I push him away once more. Not easy to do since he outweighs me by a good eighty pounds. "We can't do this."
"Dammit." Soft, under his breath. He puts his hands in the air and steps back, one, two, three, as if he needs as much space as possible to keep himself from touching me. He only stops when he comes into contact with the fridge. Surprisingly, he doesn't argue. "I know. I'm sorry."
His face, his tone, say he's not sorry at all. He knows I jumped him, not the other way around. I hop off the counter, cheeks burning, and snatch my robe from the floor. "You better leave."
His voice comes out low, controlled. "If I promise not to touch you, can I stay?"
Promises, promises. I've made too many to myself that I've gone back on because of him.
I hate that my voice breaks when I answer. "I'm not kicking you out to...punish you." It's a lie, but the next thing isn't. "I just can't promise I won't touch you "—attack you—"if you stay."
A damning hint of a smile tickles his lips. "I could handcuff you to the chair."
Laughter bursts from my mouth. In this horrible situation, he reaches for humor.
And it works.
Stress, I tell myself. It's just the stress needing a release.
I don't know how to respond, everything in me riding a roller coaster of emotion, so I make a big deal out of putting my robe on and cinching it tight. "If you're staying, then you better get to work. Make me a plate of food, pour the damn wine, and watch the video."
I stomp off to my bedroom, and once inside, I hang my head and let the breath I’m holding whoosh out of me. I grab my phone from my nightstand and text Meg with shaky fingers. She's the one player in this dynamic that’ll keep me out of trouble.
JJ brought dinner. You better come over quick before he eats your share.
A moment later, she texts back.
Already ate.
Dammit.
I need you to go through the video with him. Tell him what happened.
She sends me a smiley face.
No dice, sis. You're on your own. Enjoy.
Enjoy?
I'm going to hell.
It takes a long moment before she sends another smiley face with her reply. My sister is an enabler.
It'll be worth it.
11
Meg
After a restless night, I stand in front of Avery's skull, a tissue depth marker in my hand. The vinyl nub resembles a pencil eraser and I can't resist rolling it between my thumb and forefinger. It's the first of many various depths I’ll spend my day cutting then gluing to Avery's face. Or, at least what will eventually be her face. Until we have a positive ID on this woman, this supposed Tonya who Mickey claims to have murdered, she will still be Avery.
As with all humans, each skull has certain nuances—curves, angles, widths—and tissue depth markers help me determine how thick the clay needs to be in certain spots. All this information is provided by charts containing measurements for the anatomic points. By the end of the day, I intend to have all the markers labeled and placed in the areas they belong. Once they’re all glued, I can begin the next part of the technical phase. That being placing prosthetic eyes and using the markers as a guide to begin sculpting with clay.
Mozart streams from my iPod dock and I close my eyes. Sometimes, the music settles me. Allows me to block out the myriad of office distractions—dinging emails, constantly ringing phones, Charlie and Haley's voices—so I can focus on the task at hand. With all the excitement from yesterday, it’s most definitely a music day. Even if no one has arrived yet, there’s an energy here, a foreign unease that gives me pause and forces me to continually shift my gaze to the door.
Our intruder has guaranteed one thing. I will never again work with my back to one.
I hate him for that. For making me feel vulnerable in a space I was previously comfortable in.
I glance at my watch. Seven forty-five. At any time Charlie will swoop in, calling out to me as she enters her office, dumps her briefcase, flips through yesterday's mail and listens to her messages while booting her laptop. She won't tell me about her night with JJ, acting like it never happened. All of this will be done with an elegant efficiency only my sister could pull off. She's a wiz that way. Unflappable. Me? I'd have crap strewn across my desk and my hair poking out in all directions while my mind exploded from the multitasking overload.
Mozart.
I tip my head back and breathe deeply. If Avery is to be identified, I have to shut out the noise. Focus and let intuition take over. When I'm in that zone, nothing gets between me and my subject. It's a stream of consciousness like no other. A high only attainable from the purity of working with my hands. No drug can deliver that.
Believe me, I've tried.
A few years back I got stuck on a reconstruction. It was as if my mind's eye refused to open. I became so tortured and paralyzed by my inability to work, an artist friend suggested I try a hallucinogenic he swore would enlighten my inner artist. At first, I balked. Then desperation set in and after a week of staring and making no progress, I called someone who provided me with what he referred to as a baby version of a methamphetamine known as Tik. I did as he instructed and wound up on the floor, wailing and vomiting. All while repressed thoughts of murder victims, skulls, and the corresponding emotions I've buried inside assaulted me, tore me apart with the force of a lion at feeding time and left me...gutted. Physically and mentally.
Welcome to my life.
Not my finest moment and a decision I regret to this day. No matter how many victims come through our doors, I have to protect myself. I have to learn regardless of the number of reconstructions I do, not all will be identified. I'm trying. I really am.
After that incident, I now rely on meditation—and an occasional pot brownie—to relax.
If Charlie knew about the latter, she'd lecture me for an hour. We all need something though. For her, it's JJ and his muscles. Me? CBD.
A chime sounds and my shoulders tense. The new alarm system has beeps, chimes, and gongs for just about every function. When the front door is opened, it beeps. Back door is a chime. Activating and deactivating involves loud gongs.
The whole thing is annoying and slices at my nerves like a saber, but Charlie has gone into precaution overload. I can't blame her. Not after the fear that gripped me when Haley could’ve been the next victim of a serial killer.
And we'd failed to protect her.
"Meg?"
Matt's voice. My shoulders unhunch and I curse yesterday's intruder. Fucker.
A second later, Matt pokes his head into my studio. "Whoa. What did I do?"
"What?"
"You called me a fucker."
Sighing, I toss the tissue depth marker into the small tray on my worktable and silence Mozart. "Not you. The fucker that broke in yesterday."
Technically, he didn't. He walked right through the damned door.
"Ah," Matt says.
In his studious way, he fixes his blue gaze on Avery then slowly turns back to me. "When do you think you'll be done with her?"
Down deep, he also feels the pull. He just doesn't show it the way Charlie and I do. Matt doesn't speak of it, he simply does the work of hitting the street and asking questions. Digging until something pops.
"Barring any interruptions, maybe a week. Two at the most."
Silence once again descends, and I wait for him to meet my eye. He likes activity. Part of his coping mechanism I'm sure. Long stretches of quiet are definitely not his thing.
"Just heard from my guy at the FBI."
"The wig?"
He nods. "Yeah."
Damn. If Matt had good news, his excitement, like every other time he had pertinent info and couldn't wait to share, w
ould’ve propelled him to call me on his way over.
"It's synthetic," he says.
This doesn't shock me. I've done enough reconstructions to recognize the differences between that and human hair wigs. Although the former have come a long way in recent years, the one I found on Emily had an unnatural shine to it, leading me to believe it was not only synthetic, but cheap as well.
"Let me guess," I say. "It came from a costume shop."
Matt shrugs. "Probably. No identifying labels. Without the person who purchased it—or a receipt—it's gonna be hard to run it down."
I know him too well. "But you'll try."
He smiles. "Of course. I pulled a list of all the party stores and costume shops in a sixty mile radius. Who knew there were so many of those suckers?"
"He also could have bought it online."
"Well, yeah, but I'm thinking it was an impulse thing. Even with overnight shipping, he’d have to wait. I'm going with him being too amped up for that. The idea came to him, he got har...er...pumped over it and hauled ass to the closest wig place. Either that, or he already had it. A prop or something."
Or something. I appreciate his attempt to clean up his language, but I don't have time for that. I want this investigation to be fast-moving and if that requires Matt, or anyone else to be painfully blunt, so be it.
"You can say he got hard. I've heard worse and we can't get hung up on propriety. Bigger battles to fight." I hold out my hands. "So, you're chasing down wigs. Can I do anything?"
"Not right now. Let me get into this. Maybe we'll get some video or a credit card receipt from the purchase. Any word from Teeg on a facial match?"
Teeg. The Justice Team's hacker extraordinaire and all-around tech genius. Personally, I suspect the super-secret black ops unit is an arm of the FBI, but no one will fess up and I sure as hell won't ask. All I know is they're our friends when it comes to providing intel. Grey and Charlie think alike and have similar personalities.
When Charlie told me Teeg was "running" our intruder's photo I didn't ask for details. Honestly, I don't care what government database he hacks into as long as we find this guy. "I don't think so. Charlie isn't in yet though."
The second the phrase leaves my mouth, a chime sounds. Back door.
Matt angles back, peeping down the hallway. "Speaking of."
"Hi," Charlie says, her voice coming closer and I picture her storming the hallway in her high heels. "I just heard from Teeg."
"And?" I ask, but my heart is already sinking. She's got the same look, the lack of excitement as Matt did a minute ago about the wig.
Poker face. "Nothing. We're still at square one. But don't worry, I have another idea."
I’m sure she does, but I still have the feeling she's only saying that to give me hope.
12
Charlie
I have six cold cases that fit our killer's parameters spread out on the conference room table. JJ strikes again. When he puts pressure on local law enforcement, they produce a lot faster than they do for me.
I spoke with Juanita this morning. Her results are back and show definite African American genes, a mixture from Ghana, Nigeria, and Somalia. I'm due at her mother's at three o'clock to help her with her DNA test.
Meg has been holed up in her art room all morning, her door shut and her music on. Shutting out me or the rest of the world?
I try not to take it personally, knowing she's as disappointed as I am Teeg came up with zero hits. So far, all my attempts to figure this out are a bust, and our killer's identity is too.
She hates the new security system and I don't blame her. All the bells and whistles are starting to get on my nerves too, and it hasn't even been twenty-four hours. Haley is jumpy too; I'm not sure if it's from what happened yesterday or the various alarms constantly going off.
My eyes flick to the tablet on my right, showing me different exterior views of our building. I see the back door, the front, both parking lots, and like the old-time Town Crier, I hear a voice in my head that says, all is well.
Unfortunately, the system has to stay. If nothing else, I need this constant surveillance and reassurance as much as I do the cases in front of me to keep my mind focused.
Them, along with Meg, Haley, Avery, and Juanita... they'll keep me from stewing over what happened last night with JJ. We ate, drank too much wine, watched the video a dozen times, and spit-balled different theories. We talked far into the night then did other things I'm not proud of, but even with a slight hangover, my body is far more relaxed than it has been in eons.
He's a magic man. I catch myself humming the old Heart song under my breath, after waking up to it playing in my head. It may not be classic Mozart, but it makes me smile for the first time today. I'm at war with myself, part of me feeling guilty about last night and the rest cheering like a kid on Christmas morning.
Guilt infuses my system once more, even as I keep humming. I pick up a file folder with three rubber bands holding all the info inside, and dig in.
I've just begun reading the detectives notes when a buzz sounds from the tablet. On screen, I see JJ and Matt coming in the back door, both carrying boxes—Matt with pizza, JJ with a cardboard file box. More cold cases?
My body flushes at the sight of him. Certain parts tingle and I curse silently under my breath. One hand flies to my hair to make sure it's still held back in the band I put it in this morning, and I curse again. Since when do I check my looks before coming face-to-face with JJ?
Get a grip.
I pretend to be deep into the case in front of me when they enter the conference room.
"Lunch time," Matt announces, plunking the pizza boxes on the table.
I barely glance up, trying not to look at JJ and failing miserably. He's wearing a fresh suit, his cheeks clean shaven, and everything about him is perfect as usual. No one would know he was up all night with me.
Unless they saw the smirk he sends me as he lowers his box to the floor next to my chair.
I jerk my gaze from his face and return to studying the notes in my hands, although I can't make sense of any of it with him so close. That cologne of power and safety washes over me.
"I picked up the rest of the cases to review," he says, stalling to look over my shoulder.
I come out of the chair so fast I nearly smack his chin with my head. I drop the papers then scramble to gather them up. Dammit. "Just leave them," I say. "We'll work on them and you...should go."
I feel Matt's eyes on me, and I shoot him a quick glare. He shakes his head and chuckles softly. "I'll grab napkins and a drink. I'll holler at Meg too."
Just like that, he disappears. So much for backup. I can't blame him for not wanting to get in the middle of me and JJ, but it's all I can do not to call out, "chicken," to his retreating back.
JJ picks up a fallen paper and hands it to me, then begins unloading the case files from his box onto the table. "I've sent two CSI teams back to the Beltway area to look for more bodies or anything that might help nail this guy. Meanwhile, I've got a dozen more cases to read through. Who knows, maybe we'll find Tonya, or Avery, or whatever the hell her name is."
He starts dividing them into three piles—one for me, a second for him, and a third for Matt. Which means, he's staying.
"You're too busy to sit here and go through these," I tell him. "Matt and I can handle it."
He calmly takes off his jacket and settles into a chair, eyeing me the whole time as if drawing a line in the sand. "I hope you like sausage and mushroom. The other is some weird bean sprout and curry concoction Matt insisted on. Doesn't even have meat."
Meg walks in, carrying paper plates. "It's Thai Tofu pizza. One of my favorites." She flips open the box lid. "Let me get Haley a couple pieces and I'll help with these files."
Welcome back to the land of the living, I want to say, but in reality we’re still digging into death and murder, so I let the inappropriate comment slide. I feel my world spinning slightly out-of-control. While I don't
like the idea of Meg reading about murder victims, I know she has a good eye for details, and she must be at a stopping point on the skull. She may be my ticket to get JJ to leave, saving me from sitting here and making a fool of myself.
Matt returns as Meg is leaving to deliver Haley's pizza. "Meg's going to help," I pointedly say to JJ. "She can take your pile. Be sure and grab a slice on your way out."
He ignores me. "Sausage and mushroom for me," he says to Matt, and Matt, the collaborator, obliges by putting two pieces on a plate and sliding them down the table. I narrow my eyes at him, letting him know I'm going to kill him slowly and dismember his body.
Always the risk taker, he grins at me.
Turncoat.
Meg returns, JJ hands out files, I stew. An hour later, the food is gone and we're not even halfway through the files.
JJ's phone rings not for the first time, but unlike the previous dozen calls he's sent to voicemail, he answers this one. "What'cha got, Gomez?"
He's silent but his eyes lock with mine. A chill runs through me. "Right," he says a moment later. "Don't move it until I get there."
I'm already out of my chair, my own form of ESP kicking in. It has something to do with his tone, the look in his eyes. "Another body?"
He nods, grabbing his jacket. "I assume you're going with me?"
Hell yes.
Meg stands, "Me too." She's out the door, probably to get her phone and purse.
"You want me to go?" Matt asks.
"No," I say.
"Yes," JJ answers at the same moment.
We stare at each other, another line in the sand. JJ shrugs. "Up to you, Charlie."
Apparently my death glare works on him better than Matt. Matt is giving me pleading puppy-dog eyes, though. The last thing he wants is to be stuck here going through cold files, and he's already wrapped up the three cases I gave him the other day.
"All right, you can come, but only if you promise to help me with these later."
He jumps up. "Absolutely."
We bail on Haley, and somehow I end up riding with JJ. He says nothing about last night and I don't either, but Magic Man lyrics continue to float through my brain.
