Cut and Run (Lucy Kincaid #16) - Allison Brennan Page 0,1

Peters to help extract the bones. And I’ll need your help with this.”

“With what?”

“You may not have your PhD yet, but you have more experience than anyone in my division in forensic anthropology. We need to preserve as much evidence as possible and put together each skeleton, catalog every bone and what is still missing. Maybe we’ll be lucky and find a cause of death.”

“Ash.”

He glanced at Mel, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking into the grave. He followed her gaze. She was staring at the skull closest to them. Visual inspection told him it was from a male.

It took him a second, then he saw what she saw. The distinctive hole in the back of the skull. He wouldn’t be able to confirm cause of death yet, not without an autopsy.

But he knew what happened to these people. They were executed.

Chapter One

MONDAY

FBI Agent Lucy Kincaid signed the file on a multi-jurisdictional case she’d just finished and routed it to the US Attorney who would be handling the prosecution. Done. While Lucy loved being in the field, she relished completing an investigation and handing a solid case over to the courts. She certainly had no complaints about the mundane paperwork involved. After back-to-back complex and dangerous investigations, she was happy to be home before seven every night and had settled into a comfortable routine with her husband and stepson, Jesse. She’d even taken a three-day weekend to fly to Colorado with Sean to celebrate their one-year wedding anniversary. Their friend, and Lucy’s colleague, Nate Dunning had stayed with Jesse so Sean and Lucy could have some alone time.

Now, if only she could get her family to confirm who was coming over Thanksgiving, she’d be able to relax. Months ago, she’d asked if everyone would come to San Antonio for Thanksgiving to avoid traveling with Jesse. He’d been through so much this last year that she wanted a relaxing family meal at home. But no one wanted to commit. Carina and Nick she understood—her sister was pregnant and traveling with a toddler would be difficult and exhausting, but at least they said they would think about it. If Carina was feeling up to it, she wanted to come. But they would be deciding last minute. No one else had a good excuse.

She tried not to be down about it, but she missed her brothers and sisters. She sent one last email out to her clan and said she wanted answers by the weekend. Harsh, maybe, but necessary when Thanksgiving was only ten days away. Almost as soon as she hit send, her cell phone rang.

“Patrick!” she exclaimed. She hadn’t talked to her brother—the youngest of the clan until she came along ten years after him—in weeks and hadn’t seen him since she went through a hostage rescue training program in DC back in May.

“You sound good,” he said.

“I am. Sean and I were able to get away for our anniversary.”

“So I heard. Terrific. And Jesse’s doing well?”

“Adjusting better than I could have hoped.”

“Well, he’s Sean’s kid, I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

“You got my email and you’re coming for Thanksgiving. You and Elle, of course.” She winced that she’d almost forgotten to mention Patrick’s longtime girlfriend. They’d been living together for nearly two years, but Lucy and Elle butted heads when they were in the same room. Maybe because they didn’t always agree on criminal justice issues, and maybe because Patrick was her brother and she didn’t think that Elle was quite good enough. Sean had pointed out more than once that Patrick hadn’t liked the idea of Sean—his business partner and friend—getting involved with his sister and yet Patrick had come around.

Lucy tried to explain that this was different, but she knew that it wasn’t. Patrick loved Elle, and Lucy had to find a way to like her. They’d both tried when Lucy was in DC in May, even going out for coffee a few times. It had been awkward, but she didn’t want anything to come between her and her brother.

“Actually…,” Patrick said.

And she knew.

“Elle’s in the middle of a big case,” he continued, “and we don’t know if she’ll be done before Thanksgiving. She can’t just walk out in the middle of it. There are three kids at stake. Their dad is nowhere to be found, their drug addict mother is in jail for possession with intent, and CPS split them up because the oldest has been in trouble. We’re going to try, Luce, I promise,