When she walked barefoot into the kitchen, Mitch was pouring a cup of coffee. On the counter beside him was a glass of water and some aspirin from the bottle she kept in the cabinet with the vitamins.
“Thanks.” She popped the tablets into her mouth, feeling a twinge of guilt for being such a bitch.
He folded his arms over his chest. “Where’d you get the contusion?”
She looked at him.
“On your jaw there.”
“I was mugged last week.”
His brows tipped up. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Guess that explains the burglar alarm.”
She took down a cup and poured herself some coffee. He made it strong, just the way she liked it. She took a sip and remembered all the late nights during medical school, when he’d been cramming for exams and she would get up in the middle of the night to rub his shoulders and make him coffee. It was hard to imagine she’d ever been that in love.
He ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. The years had been good to him. A decade into his career, and he still had his looks, his health. And now he had a big fat bank account to go with it all. He was quite the catch.
“So, you heard about Jennings,” he said.
“You mean the wedding?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you know what they say. Third time’s the charm.” Maddie crossed her arms.
“You going?”
“Not as a guest,” she said. “I’m doing the photos.”
Todd Jennings had always been more Mitch’s friend than hers, but he’d really wanted her to do the photos, and she hadn’t had the heart to say no.
“I assume you’ll be there?” she asked.
“That’s why I came by, to give you the heads-up.”
“Thanks.”
“And to tell you Danielle’s pregnant again.”
Pain speared through her. Her throat closed, and she took a second to find her voice. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” He smiled sheepishly. “We had the ultrasound. Looks like another boy.”
She felt the familiar tightness in her chest. Her pulse spiked, and suddenly, she was back in that room again, with the cold gel on her belly and her husband hovering beside her. She looked at his hand wrapped around her coffee mug and remembered those same fingers laced through hers as they’d looked at the screen and seen those first blurry images of Emma.
He stepped closer. “You okay?”
“Fine.” She cleared her throat. “Fine.” She poured the coffee down the sink and immediately wished she hadn’t. He was watching her now, and the pity in his eyes made her want to slap him.
The doorbell rang.
She looked over her shoulder. She glanced at Mitch.
“Maddie—”
“Just a second.” She rushed from the room, realizing too late that she might have made another misstep. A glimpse through the peephole confirmed it.
She closed her eyes. She braced herself. She swung open the door.
“Hi,” she said brightly.
Brian looked at her. He looked over her shoulder. She heard footsteps behind her and pulled the door back.
“Come in.”
He looked at her again, and she could swear his body actually expanded as he stepped over the threshold. He thrust his hand out, all confidence. “Brian Beckman.”
“Mitch Callahan.”
Brian shot her a look.
She avoided his gaze in favor of Mitch, and it struck her how different they were—the man she’d married and the man she’d just slept with. Brian had grown up on a farm, gone overseas to fight for his country, and come home to a job that required him to work long hours and dodge bullets—all for less than six figures a year. Mitch was private school all the way, and although he’d once been passionate about saving lives, now he was mostly passionate about his golf game.
And then there was Emma. The fact that he’d gotten over her, that he’d replaced her—twice now—burned like a coal in her chest, and if she lived to be a hundred, she’d never forgive him for it.
Both men were looking at her now, and she realized the silence had become awkward.
“Well.” Mitch turned to Brian. “Good to meet you, Brian.” Then back to Maddie with a smug look that told her he’d correctly read the situation. “I was just leaving.”
She pulled the door open wider.
“Thanks for the coffee, Maddie.”
“Sure thing.”
She watched him walk down the stairs. She shut the door and turned around.
Brian closed his eyes. “Jesus, Maddie.”
“What?”
“Please fucking tell me you’re not still married.”
“I’m not still married.” She strode into the kitchen and took down two fresh mugs. “Coffee?”
He leaned against the doorway to the kitchen, and she could feel the anger emanating from him. She’d known this would happen. She’d known it the whole way home, and yet she hadn’t had the guts to turn around and make it right.
She poured a cup of coffee and offered it to him.
“No, thanks.”
She didn’t want it, either, so she set it on the counter and leaned back against the sink.
“I didn’t change my name after the divorce,” she said. “Too much paperwork.” It was an outright lie, and he probably knew it. But she didn’t owe him the real explanation. She didn’t owe him anything.
He crossed his arms. He looked down at the floor and shook his head.
“What’s the problem?”
He looked up. “What’s the problem?”
“Yeah.” She went on the offensive. “You’ve obviously got a chip on your shoulder. What is it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe something about how I got out of the shower this morning and you’d up and disappeared?”
“I have a meeting.”
“You ever think to poke your head in and mention it? So I wouldn’t think you’d been kidnapped?”
She almost laughed, it sounded so absurd. But then she thought of Jolene. He felt responsible for that. No matter what anyone said, he believed it was his fault, and that feeling of responsibility spilled over to everyone in his orbit, apparently.
Maddie’s head throbbed, and she tried to think of something to say to make this right, but she completely drew a blank.
“Listen, Brian . . . I’m sorry about last night.” She shoved the mug toward the sink and looked at it instead of him. “I had too much to drink. I know that’s no excuse, but that’s what happened.”
Silence.
She glanced up.
He shook his head and looked away. “That’s just—” He muttered something she didn’t hear.
“What?”
“Bullshit, Maddie.”
“What’s bullshit?” Anger welled up. She knew it wasn’t all about him, but he was standing in her kitchen pissing her off, so he was going to get the brunt of it. “It was stupid. I had too much to drink. I know that doesn’t excuse my behavior, but still—”
“Your behavior?” He snorted. “Listen to you. Why don’t you just admit what this is about? You finally let your guard down with me, and you’re embarrassed.”
Heat flooded her cheeks. Her thoughts flashed to that damn table, and she had to look away.
“Brian . . . let’s be realistic about this, all right?”
She glanced at him, and he had his arms folded over his chest, glaring at her.
“Last night happened,” she said. “I don’t want to make this complicated.”
“Well, I do.”
She stared at him.
“You’re older than me. So what? We live in different towns. So what? We work crappy hours. So what? I know it’s complicated, but I like you.”
She watched him, at a loss for words. “I like you, too.” Her heart squeezed as she forced the words out. “As a friend.”
He didn’t move. He didn’t even blink, but something in his eyes hardene
d.
“Anything else is just . . .” She searched for a word. “Unrealistic.”
He shook his head, and she hated the look of disgust on his face.
“I know the age difference means nothing to you, but you’re a guy. It’s different. People would talk about me. And our professional circles overlap. God, do you realize how many people we both know? The gossip would be a nightmare.”
He looked at her, and she could feel his disapproval. He probably thought she was shallow for caring what people said. But she’d been the subject of gossip during her divorce, thanks to Mitch, and she’d resolved never to put herself in that position again. She kept her private life private.
He shook his head again and looked at his feet. The muscle in his jaw twitched, and she knew he was suppressing things he wanted to say.
Across the house, her phone chimed. She rushed through the living room to dig it from her purse.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Kelsey. You need to get down here.”
She looked at Brian. “Where? The lab?”
“The Bones Unit,” Kelsey said. “I’ve got something to show you.”
“I’m on my way.”
“And give your fed a call,” she added. “He needs to see this, too.”
CHAPTER 15
Maddie arrived last, not because of traffic but because she spent ten minutes in the Delphi Center parking lot with her makeup in her lap, trying to disguise the evidence of her hangover. But of course, it didn’t work, and the moment she set foot in Kelsey’s office, she could tell that she looked every bit as horrible as she felt.
“Bracewell with you?” Kelsey asked, hanging up the phone at her desk.
“I didn’t know he was coming.” Maddie followed her into the autopsy room, where Brian and Sam stood waiting by the row of stainless-steel sinks.
“He said he wanted to observe.” Kelsey handed her a jar of orange oil, and Maddie rubbed some under her nose, but still, the odor of burned flesh and gasoline was impossible to ignore.
Maddie eyed the lump on the stainless-steel table. The blue sheet did little to obscure the stark reality of what lay underneath. A wave of nausea hit her. She had to force her feet to move. Normally, she wasn’t squeamish, but nothing about this morning had been normal. This case was personal. She felt connected to Jolene Murphy, probably because she’d unwittingly witnessed the incident that set this chain of events in motion. She stared at the sheet, and her thoughts inevitably went to the girl’s parents.
“Well, I hate to do this,” Kelsey said, “but I’m going to have to get started without him. I need to be in Williamson County by ten o’clock. You mind getting him up to speed?”
Maddie glanced at Kelsey and realized she was talking to her. “What?”
“You mind filling Bracewell in? We need to get going.”
“I’ll fill him in,” Sam said from across the room.
Maddie looked at him over the table. She knew what he was doing. His strategy was to make nice with the locals instead of turning everything into a big pissing contest. It was a refreshing change from what she usually saw when a hodgepodge of agencies was forced to work together.
Maddie eased forward. She glanced at Brian. His expression was unreadable. In fact, it was completely blank. He stood leaning against the counter, and only the tense set of his shoulders conveyed his unhappiness at being here.
“I spent yesterday evening determining the four basic identifiers.” Kelsey pulled back the fabric, and Maddie took a slight step back. “Race, sex, age, stature. You may recall that the victim was found at the crime scene in the pugilistic position, also known as the fetal position.” Kelsey glanced at Brian and Sam. “That’s the result of what intense heat does to muscles and connective tissue. When I got the remains back here, I was able to mitigate those effects and examine the bones more closely. The first thing I noticed was the femur.” She pointed at the charred leg bone, which still had bits of flesh clinging to it. “It’s about fifty-three centimeters, which is indicative of a tall male.”
Sam stepped forward. “It’s a guy?”
Maddie glanced at Brian. He looked as surprised as she was.
“Are you sure?” she asked Kelsey, even though she knew the answer. Kelsey wouldn’t make a mistake of that magnitude.
“My original conclusion was confirmed through further analysis.”
Relief washed over her. She looked at Brian, but he wasn’t smiling. He was frowning down at the burned bones.
“So who is this?” He looked at Kelsey.
The door swung open, and everyone turned as Sheriff Bracewell stepped into the room.
“Sorry, but we had to start without you,” Kelsey said. “Help yourself to some orange oil over there by the sink.”
The sheriff took off his hat and set it brim-up on the counter. He ran a hand through his hair and nodded at everyone.
“ ‘Morning.” Ignoring the orange oil, Bracewell stepped right up to the table. He was known to have an iron stomach. Nothing fazed him, not even the most grisly traffic fatality.
“I was getting started with my initial findings,” Kelsey said. “To begin with, the victim is a male, about six feet, two inches tall.”
The sheriff whistled. “How’d we mistake him for a girl?”
“The pugilistic position of the body was a contributing factor, and also the shrinking of tissue. Plus, the victim was naked when he was killed, so we didn’t have clothing or jewelry to guide our initial assumptions.”
“Killed?” Brian looked up. “You’re certain this was a murder?”
“Absolutely. Aside from the evidence of arson at the crime scene, we also have this.” With a gloved hand, she rotated the skull and pointed to a dent. “I haven’t had a chance to clean the bones yet, so it’s hard to see, but an X-ray reveals a circular depressed fracture made with a heavy instrument. Our tool marks examiner can confirm, but my preliminary conclusion is that this fatal blow to the skull was administered by a hammer.”
Brian and Sam traded looks. Maybe they were thinking about the hammer that had been used to break Heidi Beckles’s fingers.
“It would have to be someone pretty tall, wouldn’t it?” Brian asked. “If this guy’s six-two?”
“That depends,” Kelsey said. “Maybe the victim was on his knees with his hands bound when he took the hit. In a situation like that, someone Maddie’s height could have delivered the lethal blow.”
“What about hand damage?” Maddie asked, stepping to the side of the table for a closer look. “Any sign this person was hit anywhere else with that hammer?”
“I did a thorough examination,” Kelsey said. “There’s evidence of a fractured left tibia and fibula, but those injuries occurred in the past—within the last few years, I’d say.”
“So, if this isn’t Jolene Murphy, what were last night’s fires about?” Maddie looked at Sam. “Is this some other random murder committed by Mladovic?”
“How do we know this is Mladovic?” Bracewell asked. “Maybe it’s our firebug at it again.”
“Firebug?” Sam looked at the sheriff.
“We got an arsonist operating in Clarke County. He’s torched three properties, including a house the other night. Maddie even got a picture of him.”
“You took his picture?” Brian asked.
“He was in a crowd,” she said. “I always take pictures of crowds at fire scenes. Arsonists like to watch. Anyway, he’s only a suspect at this point. We don’t even have an ID on the man, last I heard.”
“Neighbors don’t know him,” Bracewell said, “which tells you something. What was he doing there at two in the morning? I think he’s our serial torcher.”
“Fine, but I don’t think he’s responsible for this, do you? Except for the fire element, these crimes seem unrelated.” Maddie looked at Sam. “I mean, the VIN on this vehicle traces back to one of Mladovic’s guys, right?”
“Anatoli Petrovik,” Brian said. “He’s one of his strongmen.
But maybe this is him.”
“Whoever he is, looks like he got himself fired,” Sam quipped. “This is what happens when you piss off Mladovic or botch a job.”
Brian looked at Kelsey. “We need a positive ID.”
“Well, for that, I’ll have to have a DNA sample or some dental records. The ones you had for Jolene Murphy obviously won’t help us here.”
“We don’t have DNA. We don’t even have IDs on everyone in the crew. Not yet, at least.” Brian looked at Maddie. “You make any more progress on those photographs?”
“Still working on it.”
“What photographs?” the sheriff asked.
“I have pictures of some of Mladovic’s men casing the bank two days before the kidnapping,” she said. “So far, the faces are obscured. We were able to get a license plate, at least, which led us to one of them.”
“Maybe this is Vlad, not Anatoli.” Sam nodded at the table. “And we do have DNA on him, right, Beck? We got the cigarette butt from that SUV we recovered. Plus, we got his prints.”
“Prints won’t help in this case,” Kelsey told him. “The epidermis is far too damaged. To get a definite ID, like I said, you’re going to need to get me DNA or dental records. Until then, there’s not much more I can do for you.”
She pulled the sheet up over the remains, and Maddie breathed a sigh of relief.
“One thing’s definite. This isn’t Jolene,” Sam said. “Which means there’s a chance she could be alive.”
“Slight,” Brian added.
“Yeah, but it’s a chance.” Maddie looked from Brian to Sam and back to Brian again. “Someone made that call, right? It could have been her, trying to escape. She could still be alive.”
“Maybe.” Brian looked at Sam. “Whether she is or not, we’re going to find her.”
The Murphys lived in a pink brick colonial in a golf-course neighborhood on the west side of town. Maddie had never been there, but it reminded her of the subdivision she and Mitch had moved into after he took his first job at the hospital.
The lots were big, the driveways long. Residents were out this evening, jogging and walking dogs. Maddie spotted the Murphys’ house with a handful of cars parked out front. She rolled to a stop across the street, where she had a line of sight to the driveway.
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