Victoria House (Haunted Hearts Series Book 2)

by Denise Moncrief

  “Oh really, what gave me away?” She crossed her arms and waited for him to stick his foot deeper into his mouth.

  His eyes traveled up and down her body. “You don’t look…” He flinched as if swallowing his tongue. He had obviously been about to say something inappropriate.

  She shot him a mean glare. “No, I don’t look like Barney. I don’t talk like Barney, and I obviously don’t work like Barney. Where I come from we have protocols to follow so things don’t get misunderstood or misplaced...accidentally or otherwise...so that a case isn’t thrown out of court because proper procedure wasn’t followed. This... This smells ripe.”

  “I can assure you that whatever evidence we collect will be dealt with ethically and legally. If someone in law enforcement is involved, then justice will be served, no exceptions, but I see no sense in getting things stirred up in the community or the press before I’m sure of what I’m dealing with. I can’t work the case if I’m constantly being interfered with or bombarded with questions I don’t have the answers for. We have a job to do, and I think we should get on with it or we’re going to be here the rest of our lives.” He motioned toward the kit that she’d dropped to the floor. “You work for Hill County now. Are you prepared to do your job or not?”

  She glared at him. She was here, and she would do what he asked of her whether she liked how he handled the case or not. She didn’t have much choice. She needed the job. But she would collect the evidence in the proper manner. On that point she wouldn’t budge.

  She pulled herself up to her full height. She was always prepared to do her job. She was a professional. “Suppose I take pictures first, then dust for prints and lift trace.”

  Standard procedure. Surely he was familiar with the proper way to work a scene.

  “We can start in the bedroom and then move on to the kitchen. Okay?”

  He asked the question, but she knew very well it didn’t matter if it was all right with her or not.

  “Make sure you dust the breaker box. Someone cut off the electricity.”

  “Do you want blood samples prepared for the lab in Little Rock?”

  The local lab could perform a limited amount of tests.

  “Prepare them like we plan to send them for testing, but put them in cold storage instead of sending them off. I’m not requesting DNA profiles...not yet. I’m working an open murder right now and I need all the extra funds I can get to solve that case. Until this becomes an active murder investigation, I don’t think the sheriff is going to agree to DNA testing. We can restrict the testing to what we can do in our lab. Can you perform the tests? You’re trained for that, aren’t you?”

  She could do the analysis, but she didn’t want to. That’s not what she’d been hired to do. She’d left her days in the lab behind, training and applying for fieldwork. Besides, Josh McCord handled all the lab work for the county. Why didn’t he want McCord touching the evidence?

  “Is money really that tight?”

  He laughed. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Hill County isn’t exactly generous with its tax dollars.”

  “Why did you ask for me? McCord is on call tonight.”

  She’d gotten the idea Grayson usually avoided working with her. But then again, she’d heard he avoided McCord as well. That left him out of options. Hill County only had two crime scene specialists. If he was waiting for Barney to return from medical leave, he’d have to wait forever. From what she’d heard, Barney wasn’t coming back.

  “I don’t know who I can trust.” Grayson’s cryptic reply implied so much.

  “How do you know you can trust me?”

  “You don’t have any relatives from around here. That’s how I know I can trust you.”

  “How can you be sure I’m not related to someone in Hill County?” She used to be. Before Pearl moved away. But she wasn’t going to tell anyone about her connection to the infamous Hamilton family.

  “Because I would have known you were coming to town before you did.”

  Was that a smile tilting the corners of his mouth?

  He had a nice mouth. A sexy mouth. Especially when he smirked. And his eyes... Gorgeous. Two violet orbs of blue twinkled when he was being sarcastic.

  She stopped the stray thoughts. What was she doing? She couldn’t think of him as a man...an attractive man with a sexy mouth and twinkling eyes. Bad, Tori. Very bad.

  “Let’s get photos of the footprint on the front step.” He smiled as if he knew she had focused on his lips. “After we take the pictures, we can tape the print and lift it. Maybe we’ll have a shoe to compare it to one day.”

  She nodded and pulled a Nikon camera out of the heavy bag she had brought with her. She stood in the open doorway and snapped several shots. Then, she pulled some supplies out of her bag. She laid a thin sheet of sticky medium over the bloody print, lifting it carefully from the concrete step. Next, she transferred the print to a paper backing especially designed for the purpose.

  She leaned back and admired her handiwork.

  “Nice job.”

  She acknowledged Grayson’s unexpected compliment with a warm smile that he returned, much to her surprise.

  “How long have they been missing?”

  He rubbed his chin. It was a strong chin with just a hint of a cleft. A manly face. In fact, Grayson appeared to be manly in all the right places. Stop that. Just stop it. She’d allowed her mind to drift toward Grayson’s fine physical... She crushed the thought before it grew into a mental problem.

  Was that another smirk on his face? Once again, she got the impression he could easily read her mind.

  “Her mother said she talked to Courtney last Sunday.”

  She squirmed a little under his direct gaze. Stay on topic, Tori. “When did she report them missing?”

  Grayson leaned on the doorframe and then pulled back as if he realized he might be smudging potential fingerprints. “Her mother called...when she found blood in their bedroom this afternoon.”

  Why the slight hesitation? What was Lt. Grayson keeping to himself?

  “That’s five days. Why didn’t she report them missing sooner?”

  He sighed. “It’s not unusual for one or the other of them to disappear for a few days when they’ve been fighting. We’ve answered so many domestic calls out here... We answer every one of them, but we don’t take them seriously any longer.”

  “So when it became obvious something was wrong—”

  “I got a call from dispatch. The sheriff wanted me to come out here and take a look.” His frown deepened. “I was hoping there was nothing to it, just like always, but I can’t ignore the signs of a struggle.”

  The large volume of blood on the bedroom floor and broken glass all over the trailer were obvious indicators of a fight. Otherwise, the Crenshaws appeared to be auditioning for Hoarders.

  He held her gaze just a little too long, just long enough the moment became deliciously uncomfortable. She turned her head, reluctantly breaking eye contact. She didn’t like the man. Not one lick. But something made him hard to ignore. She’d known men like Grayson before and had vowed to stay far, far away from his type.

  The stench emanating from the trailer hit her nostrils once again. She wrinkled her nose and nodded toward the door. “Are you ready to tackle the inside?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. Let’s get started. This could take a while.”

  It could take all night and into the next morning. She pulled a small container of menthol lip balm from her pocket and smeared some on her upper lip. Then, she offered him some.

  He reached for the balm. “What’s this for?”

  “I carry it with me when I go on scene. I’ve heard it’s really good to cut the smell of decomp.”

  He laughed. “I don’t think there’s a dead body in there.”

  “How can you tell? There might be. We haven’t excavated yet. Even so, I’ve never been to a scene that smelled quite this nasty.”

  Their eyes locked
again. Was their intense stare downs becoming a habit?

  “Me either.” He broke the stare and entered the trailer.

  She followed, drawing in a deep breath. Grayson was never going to be easy to work with. There would always be a spark of something not quite professional between them.

  ****

  Grayson stood right by Tori’s side while she snapped numerous pictures, dusted for prints, and lifted trace. Neither of them said a word while they worked, bagging and tagging into the early morning hours, yet he was always ready with whatever supplies she needed.

  She turned toward him as she initialed the seal on the last evidence bag at nearly three in the morning. Her head hurt and grit nestled into the corners of her scratchy eyes. “Are we done?”

  “Yeah, I guess. I’m still not sure we’ve bagged everything we should.” He sounded as weary as she felt.

  “My God, Grayson, we have over twenty bags here. What more could we collect?”

  He glanced around the trailer and she got his silent point. They could have easily filled another fifty grocery sack sized bags. She thought he was being a bit paranoid. She’d seen this kind of almost manic evidence collection once before and shuddered at the memory.

  Grayson didn’t seem to be sure what he was looking for and acted as if he was scared he’d miss something important, a sure indication there was someone he suspected that he really didn’t want to suspect. That suspicion gave her a very, very uneasy feeling.

  She pulled off first one latex glove and then the other, tossing them into the last evidence collection sack. His hands were already bare. She glanced around the trailer, hoping Grayson had saved his pair as well. She didn’t see them, so maybe he’d adhered to that little bit of proper protocol.

  “You…uh…got a little something on your face.” He pointed to indicate the approximate location.

  She rubbed at the spot, but he shook his head and brushed her gently on the cheek with the tip of his finger. His expression was unreadable, his action unexpected. She backed away from his touch, and his eyes widened as if he’d just realized what he’d done.

  It took four steps to cross the cluttered floor, enter the tiny bedroom, and gaze into the mirror over the shabby dresser in the Crenshaws’ bedroom. She tried to rub the spot off but the smudge was being stubborn. It would take more than a soft scrub to remove the remnants of the long day and even longer night from her face. She gave up the effort. By the time she moved away from the mirror, the expression on his face indicated Grayson’s mind had obviously gravitated toward something else and the awkward moment had passed.

  She glanced at the twenty-two large brown bags they’d filled and cringed. “I’ve got my work cut out for me,” she commented mostly to herself.

  He grunted. “I said I would help.”

  Had he? She couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said hours ago.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “Ms. Downing—”

  “Please don’t call me Ms. Downing. That sounds like you’re addressing my elderly aunt.”

  Where had that come from? She didn’t want to become familiar with the man.

  He cleared his throat. “Victoria—”

  “Tori.” She’d always hated Victoria because of the reason her mother had chosen the name.

  “Okay, Tori. Yes, I know what I’m doing. I’ve been doing this a very long time.”

  She smirked and pounced. “Sidestepping protocol?”

  “I’m not sidestepping anything.”

  “Going around our lab is most certainly going around protocol. Who are you covering for?”

  “I told you I wasn’t covering for anyone.”

  She didn’t give him time to recover. “Do you have a list in your head of the usual suspects or something? Is one of them a friend of yours?”

  Hill County was small and it seemed all the long-time residents knew each other, sometimes better than they wished they did.

  “The usual suspects?” He laughed and the rumble that swelled up from his gut sounded too much like derision. “That’s a good way to describe them.”

  She continued staring hard at him, waiting for a real answer.

  “How am I supposed to explain Hill County to an outsider? Believe me... You don’t want to know.”

  His vague answer seemed like a lame attempt to end her inquisition.

  “I’m going to be in Hill County a very long time. At least, I hope I will, so I think I have a right to know what you’re dragging me into.”

  He was suddenly very serious. “You don’t want to get involved in this.”

  What? Really? She was standing right in the big middle of the crime scene.

  “I’m already involved. You involved me.” She waved at the chaos around them.

  “Like I said, I’m not covering for someone. It’s just the opposite. I’m trying not to be accused of…of... How do I put this?”

  “How about plain and simple? You’re either covering for someone or you’re not.”

  She wanted no part of a cover up. She had been there and done that and didn’t want to do it again. Those things always left everyone involved tainted no matter how innocent the involvement.

  “There’s someone who’s an obvious suspect. I didn’t want it to appear I was going after him without cause.”

  How could the man have such a strong hunch so early in the investigation? She lifted her eyebrows, inviting him to explain further.

  He sighed and mumbled something to himself before continuing. “The man most likely to have done this is someone I don’t get along with very well. I’m trying to be objective. I don’t want to jump to conclusions before I’ve got more than a hunch to go on.”

  She was sure it was more than that. If that was his reason, why couldn’t he involve the lab? Nope, something else was going on. Was it possible his obvious suspect was Josh McCord? That would explain his reluctance to allow the Hill County lab to process any evidence.

  “Well, I guess that’s only right.” She would give him that much wiggle room...if he was being straight with her.

  She got it, even if he didn’t explain it well. The people in Hill County had secrets they didn’t like sharing with outsiders. No doubt, Lt. Grayson had a few of his own. She wasn’t going to get a straight answer from this man about anything to do with this case.

  He was still talking, but she’d missed part of his monologue.

  He studied her closely as if fearful of her reaction. “I’m going to need you to be a stabilizing influence in this situation.”

  “Stabilizing? Do you have a tendency to be unstable, Grayson?” She hit him with a teasing smile.

  He grunted. “Is that what people have told you about me?”

  “What makes you think I’ve asked anybody about you?”

  “I never suggested that you had.”

  Thus ensued another stare down.

  She lifted her kit from the floor. “I have to get back to the office. I have work to do.”

  “Don’t let me get in your way.”

  She began collecting the bags to haul them out to her car. He silently gave her a hand with the chore. When the evidence was finally loaded, she got into her vehicle and left for the office without another word. Once she was down the road and out of sight, she touched her face where Grayson’s fingertip had indicated the smudge on her cheek. Why had the man’s touch felt like fire had brushed across her skin?

  A glimmer of light distracted her. Across the water, she caught just a glimpse of the roofline of Victoria House. Then she remembered the truck she’d seen leave the Crenshaws’ property in a hurry only hours ago when she had observed the mobile home from the driveway of her grandmother’s house. She should have told Grayson about the incident, but she was in the recently acquired habit of compartmentalizing her life, careful not to mix the personal and the professional any longer. So much so that she forgot all about what had happened before she arrived at the scene, concentrating only on the job.
>
  Had she witnessed something significant? Were Jared and Courtney dead? Had Tori seen their murderer drive away? The thought sent a sudden chill over her. Wait. No. They had been missing longer than that. Had someone involved with the couple’s disappearance returned to the scene of the crime? She tried to recall what she could of the truck. Silver. Late model. Four door. A Ford F-150. It had a loud engine. One that rumbled as if it had been souped up.

  When she and Grayson were both back at the office, she’d have to tell him what she’d seen.

  Chapter Five

  Gray and Tori had worked the Crenshaw crime scene into the early morning. Since the first forty-eight hours were the most critical in an investigation, Gray wouldn’t go home or get much sleep for a couple of days.

  Around six that same morning, someone had found Jared Crenshaw’s battered corpse alongside the road, but Jared’s truck and his wife were still missing. Gray had set in motion a full-scale hunt for Courtney. He was either searching for a murderer or another victim. Until he located Jared’s widow, he couldn’t be sure which role she played.

  Once Jared’s body was located, Gray and Tori had gone out to the dump site, where they collected even more evidence. She was likely to be evaluating prints and trace for days. After the case turned into a murder investigation, he had asked her to send the blood samples to Little Rock for DNA analysis. Gray hoped he’d get the report while the results were still relevant.

  He checked his watch, wondering how long it would be before he got a preliminary report from the coroner. Old man Epps was known for his unhurried approach to performing his duties. He didn’t need the doc’s expert evaluation to determine that Jared’s throat had been cut. No wonder there had been so much blood on the Crenshaws’ bedroom floor.

  Jared’s murder was likely to make splashy headlines locally since Jared was well known in Hill County. Pretty much hated by everyone. The populace would want gory details of his death and a quick resolution to the case. Not so much because the people would want a murderer stopped, but because they needed something fresh to gossip about.