Blood Secrets - By Jeannie Holmes Page 0,13
Alex, I don’t want to fight with you. I need your help with this investigation. Not something that happened forty goddamn years ago! If you can’t do that, then you can go back on suspension.”
“You want my help? You’ve got it.” Alex ripped away one of her protective gloves.
“Wait—”
She seized the doll. Her body went rigid, and her head snapped back, eyes wide and staring.
“Alex?” Varik reached for her and stopped, uncertain.
She began to shake.
“Baby, can you hear me?”
She screamed.
“Fuck,” Varik hissed and batted the doll out of her hands.
The doll landed on the car’s seat. Alex collapsed into his arms, clawing at her eyes. She continued to cry out in pain as Damian and other Enforcers converged on the scene.
“Alex!” Varik seized her wrists in an effort to keep her from damaging her eyes.
“Get off!” She fought against him and whatever vision she’d seen.
“Stop!” Varik tightened his grip and pulled her closer to him. “You’re safe, baby. Nothing can hurt you.”
She screamed again, arched her back, and convulsed.
“Alexandra!”
Finally, she fell limp in his arms, motionless, eyes closed, but breathing rapidly.
“Alex?” He shook her gently. “Talk to me.”
She remained unresponsive.
He dropped the mental shields that kept his mind separate from hers and opened the bond. The familiar warmth of her mind washed over him, but it seemed to come from a great distance. She was alive but lost in whatever vision she’d tapped into by touching the doll.
Damian knelt across from him, careful not to touch either him or Alex. “Damn.”
Varik held her close and glanced at Damian over her shoulder. “So you believe me now?”
He nodded slowly.
It was little consolation to Varik. He brushed the hair from her face, reaching out to her over the bond. Come back to me, baby.
Minutes passed before she groaned. Her lids parted into thin slits. “Varik?”
Relief washed over him. “It’s okay. I’m right here.”
She reached for him and he caught her hand. Fear, pain, and anger surged through the blood-bond. Tears slipped over her temples to mingle with the murky puddle beneath her. Her arms slipped around his neck and she clung to him as she sobbed.
“You’re safe, baby,” Varik murmured in her ear. “What did you see? Tell me.”
“Death,” Alex whispered between sobs. “I saw death.”
The FBPI’s mobile lab was a forty-foot-long converted recreational vehicle. Tasha kept her eyes on the smoked windows as she approached it.
Alex had called her earlier to tell her to inform Mindy Johnson’s parents that the Enforcers had recovered their daughter’s car and to ask the Johnsons some follow-up questions. Tasha asked if a forensics team was present—a natural enough question—and was told both Freddy and Reyes were processing the car on-scene.
While she suspected someone might be on hand to guard the lab, it was an opportunity to retrieve the journal she couldn’t let pass. The Johnsons lived only a few blocks from the Nassau County Municipal Center, where the mobile lab was parked. She could easily stop at the lab, grab the journal, and be on her way with no one being the wiser.
In theory. She just hoped her suspicions about guards and security systems were wrong.
As she drew closer, the RV remained a silent fixture in a little-used corner of the Center’s parking lot.
She reached the door and glanced around, expecting someone to appear and question her presence. When no one confronted her, she pulled on the flipper-style door handle.
The lock clicked and the door quietly swung open.
“This is too fucking easy,” Tasha muttered and mounted the steps.
The lab’s interior was cool and eerily still. Again, no one confronted her or challenged her right to be there. Her heart raced inside its bony cage as she moved around the various equipment and stations to the back.
Dozens of bins filled with evidence bags of different sizes and shapes had been crammed into the small lounge area at the rear of the RV. Looking over the ordered chaos, she discovered a small binder cataloging the contents of each bin. She flipped through the pages, scanning for the one item she sought.
Once she located the correct bin, Tasha rifled through the various containers until she found a small brown paper bag sealed with red tape with blocky letters reading EVIDENCE printed diagonally across the tape’s surface. She checked the chain of possession grid printed on the front of the bag.
CASE NO. 200911-23-NC ITEM NO. 14
DATE COLLECTED: 11-14-2009 TIME COLLECTED: 13:24
COLLECTED BY: F. HAVER BADGE NO. 9851
DESCRIPTION OF ITEM: small journal, embossed pink leather
LOCATION WHERE FOUND: right bedside table,