by Lynn Bulock
He expected Kyra to turn him down, and was surprised when she responded quickly. “Sure. I know a park full of paths that aren’t too challenging between here and my place. I’ll tell you how to find it.” With a few succinct directions she guided him to the parking lot bordered by tall trees that were sprouting pale green new leaves and buds.
As they got out of the car Josh realized that he hadn’t thought about Kyra much before he made the offer to go for a walk. “I didn’t even check to make sure you had the right kind of shoes to go walking in. Is this going to be okay?”
“Fine,” she assured him. “I don’t own too many pairs of shoes that I couldn’t use for taking a walk. They’re not all up to a strenuous hike, but there are just too many crime scenes that are in less-than-perfect places for me to invest in anything but comfortable, practical shoes.”
For a moment he stood still outside the car, wondering what Kyra would look like in clothes and shoes that wouldn’t be at home at a crime scene. He tried to remember if he’d ever seen her that dressed-up. Even when they’d worked together out of town, Kyra favored outfits that tended toward utility, not flash. Jeans and a sweater, like her outfit today, was often the uniform of the day, with a lab coat thrown over it when needed.
Today she looked ready to take a long walk in the park without seeming to be too casual. A little breeze teased her hair, tugging one errant lock across her cheek. Josh wished he could trace its path with his fingers, but he knew that Kyra wouldn’t welcome that kind of attention in the middle of the park. So he concentrated on locking up the car and following Kyra while she pointed out a path that would be slightly challenging without being much of a strain. “After all,” she told him, “I need you ready to work on solving problems tomorrow in the lab.”
“You can count on it.” Josh tried to keep his focus on the walk, enjoying the trees that rose above them and the birds on branches over their heads. After about a third of a mile he’d managed to match his pace to Kyra’s and they walked companionably together.
“So what did you think of the movie?” she asked, her arms swinging slowly as the path rose a little. “I liked the first fifteen minutes, and it was supposed to have a message that would interest the girls without being too preaching or too juvenile. One of the guys in Wednesday night Bible study recommended it.”
“It was pretty good. I have to admit that it’s been a long time since I went to a family movie like that, and I was surprised to see how much animation has changed.”
“I guess that means you don’t play video games, either, huh? Because if you played you’d know the kind of depth that can be achieved with computer animation.”
“No time, and no interest even if I had the time,” Josh admitted. He thought he saw an expression of relief on Kyra’s face. “I know a lot of guys own some kind of game system, but it never seemed like fun to me. Most of the games are like parts of work I’d rather not dwell on.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that. Most of the games I’ve seen are way too violent for my taste, although I don’t believe the argument that they’re the cause of all of society’s ills. I can think of half a dozen things that I’d be more likely to blame society’s problems on.”
“Such as?” Josh was interested to hear the answer, because his perception of “church people” would have had him expecting Kyra to blast video games and music.
“Let’s see…the reality of evil in the world, our fallen human nature, idol worship…”
Josh had to break in. “I can go with those first two, but idol worship? There aren’t exactly golden calves on the street corners.” The discussion had gotten a little more heated, but somehow he and Kyra were still holding hands. He wasn’t sure when that had started, but he liked it.
“Not literal golden calves, but plenty of things that might as well be. There’re so many things we can put before God and the important things in life, and when we do that, it’s idol worship. Think about it, Josh. Most people value money, prestige, power, and they buy into the world’s idea that we all need more stuff and more things to keep us busy.”
Kyra’s eyes sparkled and Josh was so tempted to draw much closer to her. What would it be like to have her intensity focused on him? The thought nearly made him shiver. “Okay, maybe I can agree with that. I still wouldn’t say that most people worship their money and power.”
Kyra shrugged. The gesture was a little dismissive and it bothered Josh. He wanted her to value his opinion. “I’ve seen quite a few people just around the crime lab that put their work first when they have a family, or spend all their time surfing the Net or cultivating expensive hobbies. They’re all traps that are easy to fall into.”
Josh felt a surge of irritation. Maybe it was because he recognized himself in Kyra’s condemnations and he didn’t like hearing that. “It must be nice to be able to see things in that kind of black-and-white thinking. I guess it’s easy to be so superior when you’ve had an easy life to begin with.”
Kyra spun to face him and took back her hand as if she’d been scalded. Now her eyes flashed and she pulled up to her full height. “Is that what you think? That I’m acting superior? And that my life is easy?”
Yeah, it was what he thought, but it sounded awfully harsh when Kyra said it. “Not superior, exactly, I guess. But it does look to me like your life is only as hard as you make it. You’ve got a job you enjoy, friends who recommend movies to go to, and none of those temptations that you see the rest of us succumbing to.”
Josh thought he saw the hint of tears in her eyes, and for a moment felt badly about what he’d said. Kyra didn’t give him much time to think about it. “I’m ready to go home now. Will you take me back to the church lot?”
“Fine, if that’s what you want.” Josh knew he probably should apologize, but Kyra’s reaction seemed so over the top compared to what he’d said. They walked back to the car without speaking, and Kyra got into the passenger seat looking stiff and uncomfortable. She resisted the weak attempts at conversation Josh made on the way to the church.
Once they got there he pulled up next to her car and she was out on the pavement before he even turned the ignition off. “Thank you for driving this afternoon. I’ll make sure to reimburse you for gas when I see you at work tomorrow.” She closed his car door firmly before he could argue. Less than a minute later she was starting her own car without ever looking over in his direction again. Josh had a sinking feeling that when tomorrow morning came it was going to be tense sharing an office with Kyra. He couldn’t blame anybody but himself, but he still couldn’t quite figure out how things went sour that quickly.
FIVE
By noon Monday, Josh thought about finding a sweater to cut the chill in the office. Kyra hadn’t said one word past “hello” all morning. She studiously ignored him, going about her work without a word. When she wasn’t at her computer with headphones on, she was in the lab. Normally when she went back and forth from one place to another they talked about the progress she was making, or something he’d found in his research. Only now that the office was silent did Josh realize what he was missing.
He went back through their conversation the day before in his mind half a dozen times and still didn’t understand why Kyra had reacted quite the way she did. Sure, he had challenged her, but no more than he had several times during the past few weeks. What was it about his words in the park that made her shut down?
Lunchtime came and went and Kyra still wasn’t speaking to him. Josh ate a solitary sandwich in the complex cafeteria and went back to the office. How could he turn this around? He stared at the computer screen, absently tapping a pen on the desk. He had been going through all the right channels for days, but so far nothing had turned up that gave him a strong lead on who any of these girls had been. At that moment Kyra came into the office, putting her lab coat on the coatrack in the corner and grabbing her purse.
“Going to lunch?” Josh asked, trying again for conversation.
“Yes, I
am.” Kyra looked at him for a moment, and then turned toward the door.
He had an inspiration. It was time to stop being detached from this case. “Can I go into the lab and look at things?”
Kyra stopped. “I guess. Just don’t touch anything.”
“I won’t,” he said. “See you in a bit.”
Kyra nodded curtly and walked out. Josh went next door to the lab and pulled on gloves, just in case he inadvertently leaned against a gurney or made contact with something. He didn’t intend to touch anything, but as unhappy as Kyra was with him already, he didn’t want to make things worse.
He stood over each gurney in turn, looking at the bones. The third gurney, labeled with the letter B had a few more identifiable remains than the other two. Josh examined them visually from the facial bones down to the end of the gurney and back again, searching for anything that might give him another clue to the identity of these girls. After standing at the head of the gurney deep in thought for a while, he walked slowly around the area, trying to look at the bones from all sides. On his second rotation he stopped, forcing himself not to touch the place that caught his attention.
This was the set of remains where Kyra said she’d found healed fractures. Even he could see irregularities in several places on the left side of the face, and he remembered discussing with Kyra the possibility that this girl had been abused.
Josh knew that child abuse didn’t always get reported; families caught in the patterns of abuse kept their dark secrets any way that they could. But broken facial bones were something severe enough to draw attention to this kid, and that meant it was likely that she’d spent time in foster care.
Maybe he could narrow the search by comparing lists of missing kids who had spent time in the system. From his work so far, he knew that there was a lot of overlap on a list like that. If he wanted to get serious, he should probably check to see how many girls and young women went missing while in care seven or eight years ago.
He went back to his computer and started pulling up all the lists he’d bookmarked before. An hour later he was nearly jubilant. He’d found five names of female juveniles who’d gone missing while in foster care in that period in the two counties closest to the dump site. In another hour he’d made eight phone calls that moved him closer to knowing a name to fit this incomplete, stark set of bones in the next room.
Tracking down people willing to talk about juveniles, even those who were missing, was always difficult, but Josh knew a few tricks from his FBI work. By four in the afternoon, he’d managed to strike two of the names off the list, one because the young woman had eventually turned up alive and the other because she’d been positively identified after dying in a meth-lab explosion years after her disappearance.
That left three names, and it was time to talk to Kyra whether he wanted to or not. She looked up when he walked into the lab, but she didn’t look as shocked as she often did by his sudden appearance.
He walked in slowly, making no attempts to be silent. “Hey. You told me before that you’d have at least an ethnic group on these kids by now. Any luck?”
She nodded briefly. “On two out of three. I’m not positive on A, but B appears to be African-American, and I’d be willing to say that C was probably part black and part Asian.”
Josh marveled at her precision, and wanted to find out how she could be that definite. That would have to wait, because right now he really wanted to be able to take Kyra’s information and bring it back to her with a successful match. “Thanks. I’ll check back in another hour.” Kyra seemed surprised when he left the room as quickly as he had come. But now he had a mission, one he hoped would win him a smile from Kyra again.
Seeing Kyra smile wasn’t the only reason he wanted to come up with a name. Nobody deserved to die the way these young women had, left alone and denied the right kind of final resting place. Even if they were in the foster care system, somebody somewhere cared about them and wondered why they had never come home.
She should probably apologize. Kyra turned a bone over in her hand, trying to figure out whether it was Bethany’s or Abigail’s metacarpal. Despite what she’d said to Josh before, it was difficult to distinguish which girl each tiny bone might belong to. She was sure that this was a human hand bone and that it belonged to one of the two. Right now she was ready to just put it on one gurney or the other in frustration and move on.
She’d been distracted all day, still so hurt by Josh’s comments yesterday that she didn’t want to be anywhere near him. Avoiding him proved impossible with them sharing an office, so she’d basically shut down today. Kyra knew that wasn’t right, but it was the best she could do. Normally when she felt hurt, going to God in prayer made things better fairly quickly. But Josh’s words kept coming back to her and the hurt stayed.
Kyra knew that holding on to hurt like this wasn’t healthy. Apology and forgiveness healed the one apologizing even more than the one who’d said the hurtful things in the first place. Even though Josh had hurt her with his words, she hadn’t reacted well at all. Now he looked miserable and she still couldn’t bring herself to really talk to him. How long was this going to go on before one of them broke the ice? Kyra wasn’t sure how long she could tolerate the distance between them; she’d gotten used to sharing her office and in several ways her life with Josh.
Last night she’d gone home feeling tense and upset. Ranger tried to lift her spirits, sitting in her lap and patting the tears off her face with a sable paw. She’d buried her face in his soft fur and let the pain wash over her. There was so much that Josh didn’t know about her, and what had happened in her life, but she wasn’t ready to tell him. No one around her knew what her early life had been like, and the last thing she wanted from Josh was pity.
In her musing Kyra realized that she’d placed several small bones without even thinking about it. She checked each gurney carefully, but nothing looked out of place. Even in her distraction she was doing her job the way it was supposed to be done. She breathed a quick prayer of thanks that God’s care surrounded her even when she wasn’t too aware of it. The thought brought a brief smile to her face that spread even broader when Josh burst through the door with papers in his hand.
“Serita Waldron,” he said smugly, putting the papers down on the end of gurney B. It took a moment for Kyra to figure out what he meant. Then she looked down at the slightly fuzzy faxes in front of her with a picture of a serious girl with large eyes and a slightly defiant expression.
“Serita Waldron,” she echoed, tracing the picture with a finger, touching the line of the girl’s left cheekbone where a slight imperfection made an indentation. The same fault was obvious in the facial bones on this gurney. Thanks to Josh this girl had a name, perhaps even a family somewhere.
“Okay, tell me all about it,” she said to him, watching his smile spread.
“I remembered what you said about the likelihood of this girl being in the foster care system. I’d already found at least ten missing girls and women that fit that category. Just on a chance I decided to narrow things down a little and look at the ones who were still in the system at the time they went missing.”
“That was taking a chance, wasn’t it?”
Josh shrugged. “If I was wrong, I figured I could always expand my search again. Narrowing it to girls and women who went missing in care, I got five names. Two of those I ruled out because they’d been identified one way or another.”
Kyra tried not to wince, knowing that the way Josh phrased that meant that at least one of them was dead. “Okay, go on.”
“Once you told me that the bones probably belonged to an African-American, one of my possibilities faded because she was Latina. When I pulled as many records as I could on the two remaining possibilities, I knew it had to be Serita. Even to my untrained eye, the contour of the face matched.”
They both looked down at the fax on the gurney, near the reconstructed left cheekbone. “This is good. With one of them identified, maybe we�
��ll have an easier time with the other two.”
“But all you have is still two gurneys of bones, and not that many bones. Do you think that’s possible?”
“You probably know about as much about serial killers as I do. They have patterns and routines. Something will connect these three. We can almost count on it.”
“At least we’ve got a start.” Josh didn’t move, but he had a more serious expression now. “Does this mean we’ll keep talking? Even if it’s just to work on the case. I can’t stand being this close and not talking.”
Kyra felt surprised at how deeply she reacted to his admission. “Me, neither. We’ll keep talking. For now it will be about the case, but maybe we can branch out again in a few days.”
His answering smile was brief. “I’d like that. Until I put my foot in my mouth yesterday it was a very good day. I’d like to find a way to get back to the place we were before about five yesterday afternoon.”
Kyra found herself stiffening. “I don’t think that’s possible. Maybe we can move forward to a place where we can be friends again, though. Will that work?”
“I’ll make it work.” Josh’s pale blue eyes made a silent promise that he meant every word he said. With that kind of determination, Kyra thought, if Josh wanted to be more than friends he might find a way.
For the next three days, Josh found himself working as hard as Kyra. As she tried to match every last bone they had recovered to one of the three gurneys, he investigated every possible connection that the other two young women might have to Serita Waldron. Whoever the young woman was whose remains were on gurney A, she was proving the most elusive. Unlike the other two, she didn’t have any distinguishing features to her bones. At least with the remains on gurney C they knew they were looking for someone who’d given birth at a young age.