Bone Driven

by Hailey Edwards

  Rixton’s spoon clattered from his hand. “Tell me there’s surveillance footage in the garage where the transports are kept.”

  “I could, but I’d be lying.” A wry grin curved her lips. “I can remember when the system went digital, if that tells you anything. We’re lucky we’ve got that much work already done for us. Otherwise, we’d be thumbing through the old log books to find out who was on call.”

  “We’re going to have to pay Mr. Orvis a visit,” I told Rixton.

  “No, we’re not.” Rixton shook his head. “There’s no concrete evidence connecting our cases. We can’t impede MPD’s investigation. The Orvis fire occurred within the Madison city limits. That makes Mr. Orvis their suspect, not ours. There’s too much riding on us resolving these cases for us to stomp on another department’s toes, particularly one who’s a close neighbor.”

  Mentally, I was already composing Wu a scathing text message when I zeroed in on Summers. “How did my name come up in conversation?”

  “I was dictating an email to you on my phone when he let himself into my office. He heard your name, mentioned he knew you, and led with that.” She twirled her mug between her hands. “He wondered when I saw you last, I pretended not to remember, and I asked him the same to see if he was legit. That’s when he pulled one hell of a scowl and told me you were sightseeing up in New York.”

  Rixton nudged me in the ribs with his elbow. “Are you going on vacation and forgot to tell me?”

  Wincing at how close the accusation mirrored the truth, I grimaced. “I’m not going on vacation anytime soon.”

  Rixton accepted that as fact and looked to Summers. “Wu must have embellished how well he knew Luce to get you to loosen up. Get it? Luce-en?”

  Summers cackled while I rolled my eyes. Sometimes I forgot other people, who weren’t joined at the hip with him for eight hours at a stretch, found him funny.

  “We get it.” Looking to Summers, I cleared my throat. “I owe you an apology.”

  “Who?” She glanced around. “Me? Why?”

  “I got miffed when you called Rixton instead of emailing me a response.”

  “Us girls have to stick together.” She lifted her mug, I lifted mine, and we clinked them together. “We have to prove ourselves every day and sometimes twice on Sundays. I would never overlook you based on your sex. Even if I had to ping Rixton, as the senior officer, I would still update you on the situation and not let you fly blind.”

  I ducked my head. “I appreciate that.”

  “Working under Timmons was bound to give you a complex,” Summers allowed. “I can’t say I blame you for looking for shadows where there are none.” She pulled out her phone, started scrolling, and flashed me a glimpse of the home screen on her email app as proof. “Since Wu told me you were on vacation, I figured it was faster to just call Rixton and give him an update.”

  Feeling two inches tall, I mumbled further apologetic noises.

  “Not that I don’t enjoy meetings perfumed with bacon, ’cause I do,” Rixton said, scratching his cheek, “but was there a reason why you wanted to do this in person?”

  Summers pulled a manila envelope off the seat beside her. She held it out, leaving it up to us who made the grab, and Rixton murmured, “Ladies first.”

  That was all the encouragement I required. I pinched the clasp, pried up the flap, and hauled out a stack of crime scene photos that left me staring at five charred masses, all about the same size. “How tall was Ms. Orvis?”

  “She was five-six according to her license,” Summer supplied. “She weighed about one seventy-five.”

  I passed one of the photos to Rixton. “How old were her kids?”

  “She had a set of seven-year-old twins, a six-year-old, and a five-year-old.”

  “How sure are we the fifth body belonged to Ms. Orvis?” There must have been a reason why they leapt to that assumption given the condition of the bodies. “What am I missing here?”

  “Ms. Orvis contracted a rare gum disease in her early twenties and wore false teeth as a result. Considering one of the victims wore dentures, it was a safe assumption the final body belonged to Ms. Orvis.”

  “There’s no way a hundred and seventy-five pounds cooked down to this but left dentures behind,” Rixton said, reading my mind. “Were any tissue samples taken? What about the dentures? Were those bagged as evidence or…?”

  “The pictures you’re holding? I printed those off out of habit. These days the higher ups want me to stick with digital files for reference unless I’m asked to turn in paper copies of my reports to the various parties involved, but you know how it goes with old dogs and new tricks.” Her lips compressed. “The email containing those photos was erased from my account. It’s gone. I called my guy over at MPD to ask if he would forward me another set.” She lowered her voice. “The files had been scrubbed from the system. Not deleted, wiped clean. This is the only proof those photos existed.”

  I leaned back in my seat, tugging on my bottom lip. I could think of one organization whose agents were old pros at making evidence disappear. The fact Wu had paid her a visit bolstered my certainty the NSB had gotten involved. Why erase this crime but not the others? What was different about this scene?

  The Hensarling fire gave us three corpses, the Culberson fire gave us a burn victim, and the Orvis fire gave us five bodies. The Hensarling dead had reached the coroner’s office without a hitch, Ivashov had been admitted to the hospital, and yet these five bodies got lost in transit?

  I examined each photo again. “Do you have a copy shop in town?”

  “I can make any copies you need at my office,” Summers offered.

  “No, she’s right.” Rixton gathered the photos into a neat stack and returned them to the envelope. “You’ve got a problem. Until you clean house, it’s safer if we do this on neutral ground.” He tossed some cash on the table. “We can forward you scans if you’d like.”

  “You sound like you’re leaving without me. I can’t let those out of my sight. My superiors would skin me alive.” She plucked the folder from his hand. “Let’s go. I’ll feel better knowing there’s at least one more set floating around out there.”

  The copy shop was bright and clean, and the self-serve stations were ideal for our use as we set up an assembly line. I scanned the photos and emailed them to Santiago and Miller, figuring their accounts would be the most secure. As I finished, I passed each photo to Rixton, who printed five copies. Once he was satisfied we had all we needed, he passed off the originals to Summers, who tucked them in her folder. Before we parted ways, he passed her one of his collated stacks so she had a spare set.

  While they divvied up the goods, I got an email from Santiago. None of the drip torches were a match. Different sizes, ages, manufacturers. Odds were good each had been found on the property it had been used to destroy, theft being a solid second option, rather than our perp going on a shopping spree down at the local Mervin’s. That lead, such as it was, had dead-ended.

  Though it must have killed him, Rixton managed to hold his tongue on the topic of Adam Wu until we were on the road back to Canton.

  “What do you know about this Wu character?” His fingers drummed the wheel. “Before you answer, you should know your dad called and asked me to run a background check on him since you guys are dating.”

  “I’m going to strangle him.” I dropped my face into my hands with a groan. “We aren’t dating, and you can’t go running background checks willy-nilly.”

  “What we learned tonight justifies me whipping out a shovel to dig around him.” He tilted his head to one side and then the other, popping vertebrae. “I saw your reaction to him. He makes you nervous, and not in a good way. You all but threw Nettie at my chest then punted me to the curb to get us away from him.” He spared me a quick, searching glance. “Talk to me, Luce. Why did Wu pay you a house call? Why did you go out to dinner with him? Why is he sticking his nose in this case?”

  Suspicion from Rixton hurt, bu
t I had earned it ten times over. He was too smart, too honest, and too good at his job to let me get away with vague misdirections and mumbled non-answers for long.

  “He doesn’t work for All South.” I placed my sweaty palms on my thighs and gazed ahead while I started laying groundwork for my defection. “He’s a recruiter.”

  “A recruiter?” Rixton did a double-take before returning his attention to the road. “For who?”

  “The FBI.”

  “The FBI,” he echoed. “They’re looking at you?”

  His surprise bordered on comical, except this was no laughing matter. “Yeah.”

  “Are you looking back?”

  “I’m exploring my options.” My fingers curled into throbbing fists. “Kapoor chatted me up during the Claremont case and laid out my options.” Just not the ones Rixton must be imagining. “He mentioned you applied once.”

  “I wanted it bad there for a while,” he admitted, “but then I started dating Sherry. It was hard enough on her letting me out the door at night to patrol the streets where we grew up. She knew I was toying with the idea, and she told me upfront she couldn’t handle the big leagues. It wasn’t an ultimatum. It was a statement of fact. She was telling me her hard limits. She had reservations about marrying a cop, and I smoothed them over, but the FBI scared her.” He rubbed his thumb over the curve of his wedding band. “I had to make a choice. The girl or the career. I chose Sherry.”

  My palms smarted from the sting of my nails biting into flesh. “I figured it was something like that.”

  “Crazy how it feels like I’m right back where I started. The girl or the career. Only this time it’s your call, and I’m on the sidelines. I’m also not a girl.” He gave his head a shake. “I always figured we’d be like Eddie and Harry, two old timers who don’t know when to quit. I had sweet plans for our motorized scooters too. Full decal treatments, light bars, sirens, the whole shebang.”

  “I’m not sold on leaving.” I had no choice but to go. “I’m not sold on any of it.” But I didn’t have much say there, either. “I haven’t said anything to anyone yet. Not you, not Dad, not the Trudeaus.”

  “We’ll support whatever decision you make. That part’s a no-brainer.” A shrug rolled through his shoulders. “Wherever you roam, you’ll always be my Bou-Bou.”

  “What about Nettie?” I asked in a small voice. “I won’t be around as much as we thought if I accept their offer. I would understand if —”

  “Finish that thought, Luce, and we’re done with or without the new job.” His gaze hardened, and I pitied the road for taking the brunt to his glare. “You’re my friend. You’re Sherry’s friend. We don’t need a uniform or a paycheck tying us together to still be family. Don’t insult me or my wife by implying we only chose you because of proximity or lack of options or whatever the hell else you’re thinking over there. We chose you, you agreed, and you’re damn well stuck now. I want the best for my little angel muffin, and you, Luce Boudreau, are the best.”

  A broken exhale that wanted to be a sob choked me.

  “Please don’t start with the waterworks.” He popped open the console, groped around its interior, then passed me a crumpled packet of tissues. “I’ll buy you an ice cream cone. Two scoops of made-fresh-daily plus a handmade waffle cone. All you have to do is not leak until I can palm you off on someone more absorbent than I am.”

  Dashing away the moisture under my eyes with a tissue, I blew my nose. “No waterworks here.”

  Twenty minutes later, he was placing a warm cone dipped in chocolate, rolled in sprinkles, and topped with two scoops of brookies ice cream in my hand. “What are brookies anyway?”

  “The lovechild of brownies and cookies,” he answered around a mouthful of his own cone as he left the drive through lane. “How do you not know these things?”

  I used the spoon provided and dug in. “I live at home, and parents force you to eat real food?”

  “A spoon? Really?” He sighed in my general direction, a thick ice cream mustache coating his lip. “This is how those rumors about you being found in the swamp started.”

  Snorting at his attempt to cheer me, I chewed on a nugget of chocolatey goodness. “Pretty sure those rumors about me being found in the swamp were started based on the fact I was, actually, found in the swamp. Articles were written. There was news coverage and everything.”

  “Semantics.”

  We reached the Canton city limits, and I ditched the spoon to finish the job with my teeth.

  “The thing about Wu I don’t get,” Rixton said between crunches on his cone, “is why he would go to Madison, visit with Summers, and drop your name. He had to know that would get back to you.”

  “I’m in an observation period,” I hedged. “He’s probably checking up on me.”

  “Why the Madison fire? There are two in our jurisdiction he could nose around in.”

  I peeled the paper wrapper down my cone. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Your performance was flawless at the other scenes,” he answered, as if I had asked him a question. “There were a lot of witnesses to your episode at the Madison fire. News must have filtered back to him. It makes sense he might have gone searching for clues, going as far as to chat up officials who had been in contact with you prior to the incident, to figure out what shook you.”

  Shook me made it sound like my allergy story had been debunked. That couldn’t be a good thing. Rixton was whip-smart, and given time and distance for the wheels in his head to spin, he would churn out his own diagnosis for my erratic behavior, and that could get dangerous. For both of us.

  “What do you plan on doing with the hot papers we’ve got in the trunk?” The segue wasn’t my smoothest, but the way Rixton had left his thought hanging, like I might want to finish it, wasn’t happening. “The Orvis case isn’t ours, but we could start a folder and file a set of copies for a rainy day.”

  “Works for me. I’ll leave another set in the car with our hardcopies. That leaves a set for me and a set for you for our personal records.” He finished his ice cream and balled up his trash to drop in the mini can I had learned to keep behind my seat since he was forever snacking and would otherwise junk up my floorboard. “Can you forward me a scanned set of files too? We ought to loop Summers in so she can get that information in the right hands.”

  “The scans were grouped as a single file too large to email. The copy shop sent me a link where I can download them.” The real issue was I had to gain access through Miller or Santiago in the first place. “I’ll forward you copies when I get home.”

  “I had no idea you were a budding tech genius,” he teased. “No wonder the FBI wants you bad.”

  “I’m just regurgitating what I was told.” And probably getting half of it wrong. “I made nice with one of the tech guys from White Horse. He taught me a few things.”

  “I bet he did.” He got serious on me in a blink. “Do you need to hear The Talk again?”

  “Um, no. Thank you, but no. Once was more than enough. Believe me. I will never forget that talk.” And, if he sprang it on Nettie when she was older, neither would she. Maybe it was a good talk after all. “Why is it so hard to believe I have other guy friends? You’re a guy and my friend.”

  “I’m what you call a unicorn,” he informed me, voice solemn. “We’re rare and never spotted in the wild.”

  “Are you trying to tell me the only reason why I can see you is because you’ve been tamed?” I fought to smother my grin. “Are the bars enclosing you, allowing me to view your mystical majesticness, your marriage? Do you see your vows as a cage?”

  The blood drained from his face, and he cleared his throat twice before he croaked. “You win. I will not pick on you about the guys you date, no matter how many of them there are, and you will never tell Sherry that you mistakenly believed I referred to our marriage as a cage.”

  “See, I don’t know. That jibe about no matter how many of them there are makes it sound like you think
I’m shacking up with half the town instead of believing me when I tell you I’ve got a lot of guy friends.” I hummed in consideration. “Maybe I should ask Sherry for her opinion on what you meant, since you seem to think I’m so confused.”

  “You win, no qualifiers.” He bowed his head. “I am at your mercy. Use your newfound powers wisely.”

  Cackling evilly, I rubbed my hands together. “Where would the fun be in that?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Despite the text I’d sent Miller, I didn’t hear back from him before my shift ended. Unsure what had gone down when he confronted Ivashov, I decided to give him space. Calling Wu and demanding an explanation for his meddling in the Orvis case ranked high on my to-do list too, but I wanted privacy for that one. The less Rixton ferreted out about Wu and whose shoes he meant to fill, the better for us all.