Reynolds.” Jere Bowden had appeared at the woman’s side and put an arm around her shoulder. “You remember me, we are in the same Sunday school class. Waiting is so hard. Let us wait with you. Please come sit down with some hot cocoa; then I’ll go with you to talk to the police officer again.”
Diane watched Mrs. Bowden lead the grief-stricken mother to a chair and sit down with her. Mrs. Reynolds clutched the photographs in her lap as if she were hanging on to her daughter. Diane supposed she was. Shane took her a steaming cup of something. Diane started toward Brewster with her cup of coffee, but he was walking toward her. She took a sip. It burned her tongue.
“Here, this is more relaxing.” Leslie handed her a cup of cocoa with a marshmallow floating on top, took her coffee, and put it on the table.
“Thank you, Leslie. You and your family are very kind,” said Diane.
Leslie cradled her belly. “I can’t imagine what it’s like waiting to find out if your child has been killed. It’s simply awful.”
“Yes, it is,” whispered Diane.
Brewster reached her and took her arm. “Why don’t we walk back together. This is no place for us. We’ll send out for coffee from now on. I think we need to work only a couple more hours today, anyway. We need sleep to do a good job.”
Diane agreed. She looked back at the woman, who broke down in sobs that racked her body as she was being led to a chair by Archie and Jere Bowden. The short interaction with the mother had tired Diane in a way that working over human remains for hours had not. They walked quietly back to the morgue tent. Diane sipped on her hot chocolate. Leslie was right. It was more comforting.
Diane took up her station again. Rankin and Webber were still going strong. Jin had put another collection of charred bones on her table.
“You need to take a break?” she asked Jin.
“I’m good,” he said.
Diane pulled on a pair of gloves and examined the bones before her and the photograph of them in the location where they were found. Just as she was about to pick up a femur, Detective Frank Duncan, her friend and lover, walked into the tent and headed for her. Back early, she thought as her heart skipped a beat. She smiled at the sight of him, but it froze on her face when she saw his handsome features creased into a frown—and the fear in his eyes.
“I can’t find Star,” he said when he reached her table.
Chapter 8
Diane stared blankly at Frank’s face; her mind hit a wall, rejecting what he was telling her. She slumped and barely felt Jin grasp her arm and steer her to a stool just as her legs gave way. Across the expanse of the tent, the tables—Lynn Webber’s, Allen Rankin’s, Brewster Pilgrim’s—all were laid out with bodies, any one of which might be . . . and the bones on her own table . . . Please God, not Star, not Star.
The MEs stopped what they were doing and looked from Frank to Diane, worry evident in their eyes as they viewed with new concern the remains of corpses and personal items on the tables before them. The officer organizing the incoming samples seemed about to say something, but closed his mouth, his forlorn expression deepening. Grover looked profoundly sad.
Only a couple of them, Jin and Lynn Webber, actually knew Star, but most knew Frank. A lifelong resident of Rosewood, he served the Atlanta police department as a detective in the Fraud and Computer Crimes unit. And all knew Star’s story. The little runaway teenage girl accused of the murder of her parents and brother. She had become Frank’s ward through her parents’ last will and testament, and he had made her his adopted daughter. Diane had freed her of the murder accusations by finding the real killer. Star was in her first year at Bartram University partly because Diane had promised her a shopping trip to Paris if she would give college an honest try.
“What do you mean, you don’t know where she is?” asked Diane as if his words hadn’t made sense.
“I can’t find her,” he said.
That phrase again—I can’t find my daughter. Diane didn’t think she could bear it.
“I got home from Seattle early and heard about this . . . tragedy.” He took a deep breath. “She isn’t at her dorm. Her