Torn - Cynthia Eden Page 0,38
nothing. Darkness. A big blank in her mind. She didn’t know how she’d gotten here. Wherever the hell here is. She didn’t know who’d brought her to this place.
Not Jim. She wouldn’t believe that. Jim wouldn’t do this to her. Jim loved her. Sure, his life had been hard. She knew about the abuse he’d suffered, but Jim hadn’t let that get to him. He’d been stronger than the pain in his past, just as she had been stronger. He wouldn’t do this.
Tears were drying on her cheeks. She tried to cry out again but only managed a weak rasp.
Screams weren’t working. She had to get loose. Get out.
Her bloody wrists scraped against the rough rope once more. More tears slid down her cheeks at the pain but she kept pulling. Kept twisting her wrists as she tried to slide out of the rope. She would get out.
She had a life waiting.
“I HEARD ABOUT your work on the Lady Killer case,” Eleanor said as Victoria made her way around the M.E.’s office. The remains had carefully been transported just an hour ago, and Victoria had traveled in with Eleanor to complete the exam. “I can’t imagine what it was like, finding all those bodies buried in the sand.”
The image of the dead flashed in Victoria’s mind. For just an instant she could smell the salt air of the ocean and she was back on Dauphin Island. The Lady Killer. One of the darkest cases that LOST had handled . . . and one that brought closure to many families. “I’m just glad we were able to stop the man who’d hurt them all.” For so long.
She had her gloves on as she headed toward the remains. There had been hair on the skeleton at the scene, and she stopped now to examine it. At this point of decomposition, the hair was no longer attached to the skull. Actually, there was very little left other than the bones and the teeth.
But the hair was still there, long, heavy locks that had been tucked behind the skull. The wind had taken those locks and seemingly blown them off the skull.
Blond locks. Only Kennedy Lane didn’t have blond hair.
Carefully, she picked up the hair and put it in an evidence bag. She was aware of the weight of Eleanor’s eyes. Victoria glanced over at her. “This is your city,” she said carefully. “You can be lead on this—”
Eleanor held up her hands. “I know who you are and what you can do with the dead. I want to watch you and learn.” She motioned toward the bones. “So, please, go right ahead.”
Victoria nodded. “Fair enough.” Then she said what she’d suspected from the moment she saw the skeleton. “That hair . . . it belongs to someone else.” Bright blond hair. Clean hair—not dirty like the rest of the skeleton. Staged.
“Someone else?”
Yes, and all of the coincidences were adding up to a sickening total in Victoria’s mind. “I think it would be a good idea to compare that hair to . . . to samples that belong to Melissa Hastings.”
Eleanor just looked confused. “Who’s Melissa Hastings?”
His new victim.
Eleanor took the evidence bag.
Victoria turned back to the remains. The body was obviously that of a female. “You’re a woman,” she said, dropping into her old habit of speaking directly to the victim. She knew it was creepy to others, but since Eleanor worked with the dead, maybe she’d understand.
Maybe not.
But when Victoria worked, she couldn’t distance herself. She couldn’t just see the dead. She saw the victim instead. “Your pelvis and your head tell me you were a woman. Probably a very pretty one.” Her gloved hands hovered over the skeleton’s face. “Rounded chin bone, less developed brow ridges, small mastoid process . . .” She pointed behind the ear area and cleared her throat as she said to Eleanor, “All signs say she’s female.” Of course, Eleanor would know that. Her gaze strayed to the victim’s mouth. “We’ll need to pull in dental records for Kennedy Lane. Because I can tell you already, this victim was Kennedy’s height.” They were dealing with a completely intact skeleton. Care had obviously been taken with her.
He buried you. Kept your remains together. Safe.
That hadn’t been the way Victoria’s father had worked. He’d known how risky it would be to keep a victim’s body close by.
No body, no crime.
So he’d made her vanish. But Victoria had known and she’d—
“Dr. Palmer?” Eleanor’s voice sharpened. “Dr. Palmer, is everything