Blood Secrets - By Jeannie Holmes Page 0,22

natural reaction to gag. A breeze blew over the car, swaying the partially open trunk and driving another wave of putrid odor into Tasha’s face.

She searched the ground for something to open the trunk without contaminating the scene with her fingerprints. She found a length of a broken oak branch, and holding it in one hand while readying her Beretta in the other, she wedged the branch into the gap between the trunk and tailgate and levered it open.

It took her mind several seconds to piece together what she saw lying in the dark well of the trunk. Once the mosaic clicked into place, forming a complete picture, Tasha stumbled away and retched into a patch of weeds.

“You okay, ma’am?” Buddy called to her.

Tasha held up her hand to signal she was fine and for him to stay back. She used a spare tissue she found in her pocket to wipe her mouth and then pulled out her cell phone. She hit a button and the phone dialed a preset number.

“Jefferson Police Department,” a woman’s voice answered. “How may I direct your call?”

“This is Lieutenant Tasha Lockwood. I need a forensics team, a flatbed tow truck, and the coroner to come to Coone’s Pull-n-Go Salvage Yard right away. I think I just located Mindy Johnson.”

Ecstasy encased Peter’s mind. His body shivered with the remembered thrill of feeling her so close.

“Alexandra,” he whispered her name, reveling in the memory of their encounter.

It was the briefest of caresses, but for a moment her warmth had flowed through his body and his through hers. He’d pressed forward, excited that she had come to him in such an intimate way.

She’d been shy, shrinking from his advances.

And then she was gone. Ripped away by him.

Rage over his denial burned through Peter’s body. The Dark One continued to stand between them, an obstacle to be eliminated. It wouldn’t be easy. The Dark One was strong, far stronger than he.

But Peter was smarter. He knew the Dark One’s weakness and he would exploit it. He would crush the Dark One’s spirit, break him, and destroy him.

And then Alexandra would finally be his.

six

IN THE CONVERTED RECREATIONAL VEHICLE THAT WAS one of the FBPI’s three mobile forensics labs, Alex sat at a small table in the rear section that served as a tiny lounge and sleeping area. Other sections of the forty-foot RV housed an on-site command center with satellite links to the Bureau’s main lab in Louisville. Separate areas for processing firearms, narcotics, fingerprints, audio/visual, and questionable documents completed the mobile lab’s complement of workstations.

Alex brushed a lock of hair behind her ear and glanced at the stacks of boxes crammed into the tiny space. Plastic bins containing bags of items from Mindy Johnson’s car and dorm room surrounded her while she sifted through reports, transcripts of conversations, and evidence documentation. She’d been poring over the information for hours, trying to absorb as much of it as possible, but the memory of her early morning vision continued to intrude upon her thoughts.

She focused on the preliminary report of the bloodstains found on Mindy’s passenger seat, but her gaze drifted to the large brown paper bag containing the doll. Forcing herself to look away, she sighed and used her hand to both prop up her head and shield the bag from view.

The report showed the blood was definitely human. The type matched that on file for Mindy with the Central Donor Registry, but it would take much longer to run a complete profile comparison. For now, they were working on the assumption that the blood was Mindy’s.

She skimmed through the list of items taken from the girl’s dorm room: syringes, flexible latex tubing, alcohol swabs, an open pack of condoms, a date book, and a journal. Other items were listed as well, but the date book and journal piqued her curiosity. She rummaged through the plastic bins spread over the table to locate them. She found the date book but the journal wasn’t there.

Alex glanced around the lab and spotted Freddy hunched over a microscope. “Hey, Freddy.”

“Yeah, boss?” he asked, his eyes still trained on whatever he had under the scope.

“Any idea where this journal, Item Fourteen, is?”

He looked up and frowned. “It’s not in the bins?”

“No.”

“It should be there.” He joined her, pulling off his latex gloves and tossing them into a large trash can. He poked around in the same boxes she’d searched, and scratched his head. “No one’s touched these since yesterday except to add what