A Broken Bone (Widow's Island #6) - Melinda Leigh Page 0,4
whole lot if possible. This corpse is already decomposing. It’s been here long enough that I doubt much trace evidence has survived the weather. But it’s better to start off with the scene too large than have to expand it later.” She removed her camera from its case. “I’ll start taking pictures.”
Logan walked the perimeter, stringing the yellow tape between trees. He progressed to the rear of the property, where the weedy yard abutted the woods. He looped yellow tape around a tree. Sunlight filtered through the canopy and glinted on something at ankle height. He squatted to examine a thin metal wire tied between the trees. The wire led to a few aluminum cans tied together and dangling from a low branch. A trip alarm.
Flashbacks of booby traps in Afghanistan instantly filled his head. When he’d first left the military and returned to Widow’s, he’d been plagued with nightmares. His posttraumatic stress had peaked back in December, but he’d been working with a psychiatrist on the mainland for the past five months. Burying his memories wouldn’t stop them from coming. On the bright side, he was learning to cope.
Logan breathed and focused on the forest around him. He grounded himself in the present. He inhaled the smell of the trees and grass and tuned in to the sounds of leaves rustling in the wind. The breeze was cool on his skin. His senses confirmed what his brain knew but sometimes forgot. He was not in the Middle East. That was in his past. He was home. Gradually, the flashbacks faded, and the forest returned to the forefront of his awareness.
Better.
He took photos of the trip alarm, then marked it off with crime scene tape. As he secured the rest of the rear yard, he found two additional trip wires.
When Logan had finished, he’d blocked off a chunk of land slightly bigger than the actual lot. He found Tessa taking pictures. He told her about the wires and showed her the photos on his phone. “I saw something very similar this past week. Someone had set up trip alarms on the trails leading into their camp.”
“Interesting,” she said, looking at his phone screen. “These don’t look dangerous, unless someone actually trips over one.”
Logan shrugged. “These wires look like they’re meant to warn, not cause harm.”
“The alarms are only across the back of the property?”
Logan nodded. “Between the woods and the house.”
“What—or who—was our squatter afraid of?” Tessa asked.
“There aren’t any dangerous animals on the island. Humans are the most dangerous species here.”
Cougars, wolves, and bears had once roamed the island, but settlers had wiped them out. Now, the island was overrun with tiny black-tailed deer. The largest remaining land predators were foxes.
“If our squatter is the body in the basement, then maybe he had good reason to be afraid.” Tessa lifted her camera. “Could you pick up the portable lights? We need light to search the basement.”
“Sure. Be right back.” He drove to the station and picked up portable lights. Back at the scene, he filled the generator with gasoline and started it up. It chugged to life and began to hum. Logan lugged the lights into the basement and set them up, illuminating the space like a football stadium.
Tessa couldn’t disturb the body until the coroner gave permission. For the next hour, she recorded the scene with photos.
In the living room, she set yellow evidence markers next to the sleeping bag, a camp stove, and a backpack. She crouched and donned gloves to open the backpack.
“What’s inside?” Logan asked.
Tessa shifted the contents. “Three MREs, some clothes, a multitool, waterproof matches, coiled wire, a crank-handle radio . . .” She paused. “A wallet.”
She opened it. “According to his Washington State driver’s license, the backpack belongs to Carl Hammer, age forty-eight. Carl lives in Seattle. He’s five feet eight and weighs one hundred forty pounds.”
Logan studied the small indoor camp. “Everything is covered in a layer of dust. It looks like no one has disturbed it in weeks.”
“Maybe Carl died in the basement,” Tessa said, marking an empty water bottle as evidence and photographing it.
“Or he killed someone else and ran.”
“But why would he leave his things here?” Tessa gestured toward the pack. “This is his survival pack. Why didn’t he take it with him?”
“I don’t know, but the body isn’t fully decomposed. So it hasn’t been in the basement long enough for all that debris to have collected on top of it organically. Someone covered it.”
“True. He didn’t try to