Britt hadn’t been able to even look at her skates since the embarrassment of her last competition, and now as they dangled from her shoulders, she faced the frozen lake like it was a pervy ass-pincher about to get slapped. Knowing someone had drugged her didn’t soothe the humiliation of that night and didn’t make returning to the ice any easier.
“I can do this,” she chanted while her shins cut through the crouching morning fog and her boots crunched a path onto the snow. As she unburdened her shoulder at the lake’s bank, the blades clinked against each other like engaged sabers, shocking the silence to attention. She changed her footwear and stepped onto the frozen water, prepared for battle.
Britt plowed through the thin layer of snow atop the ice and warmed up with minor moves of little friction that evolved into grander displays of gifted athleticism. From a Y-spiral she leapt into a butterfly jump and followed it with a double Axel. When she landed, she spotted something protruding from the ice in her path. Branch! She shuffled her feet and averted a tumble, but the back of her blades scraped each other, which caused a slight spark.
Composure regained, Britt twisted into a purposeful spin. As she drew in her arms to increase her speed, her visible breath encircled her head like the arms of the Milky Way. She couldn’t focus on the white and grey world that whirled around her, but she noticed that the sun had risen and was now warming her face.
The sun, however, was still in its place, hiding behind the snow-covered pines.
Fire surrounded her petite frame and spread across the lake. Britt tried to scream, but the smoke she gasped in gagged her throat.
She continued spinning, unable to stop, as the blaze engulfed her body. In a fiery vortex, Britt plunged through the melting ice.
With the confidence of a man who loved his job, Emory Rome entered the Knoxville Consolidated Facility of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. Dressed in a battleship-grey suit, the twenty-three-year-old special agent glided past rows of desks in the auditorium-sized office, nodding and half-smiling at the occasional co-worker who made eye contact with him. Without stopping at his own desk, he continued to the back of the room until he stood in front of a desk that was askew from the others, just outside the door to the only private office.
The fiftyish woman tapping on her computer keyboard smiled with genuine sweetness when she saw the handsome man and greeted him with her usual, “Mornin’ Emory.”
Emory matched her smile. “Good morning, Fran.”
“I have something for you.” She handed him a large thermos. “Sassafras tea. It’ll help you sleep.”
“You shouldn’t have gone to the trouble—”
Fran looked like she was swatting at an invisible fly as she brushed off his concern. “Lord, it’s no trouble.”
“Well, thank you. I appreciate it.” Emory locked his brown eyes on the closed door. “I got a message she wanted to see me first thing.”
“Wayne’s already in there.”
He held up the thermos. “Can I leave this here until I come back out?”
“Of course.”
Emory placed it on Fran’s desk and took a deep breath. He rapped on the door a couple of times before entering the office and closing it behind him. Seated at her desk, Eve Bachman glanced at him without breaking from her conversation with Wayne. Like a tic that spasms once a day, her eyes darted to the red digital clock on her desk. Emory was never late, but she checked the time whenever she saw him. He didn’t know why.
Bachman was the special agent in charge of this TBI division, and she left no doubt to those in her purview that she was, in fact, in charge. Humorless and direct, she had two tones to her voice – informative and invective. When she paused for breath, Emory greeted them both, removed the wool satchel strapped to his shoulder and took a seat next to his partner. “…You must be at the courthouse at 1 p.m.
“I’ll do it, but it’s a total waste of a work day,” Wayne Buckwald grumbled. He had been partnered with Emory when the younger agent started more than a year ago, and while their working relationship clicked for the most part, they were not friends and did not socialize together. Any personal conversations they had on the job revolved around Wayne’s life only, as Emory was a master of deflection.
Wayne’s response evoked clenched lips from Bachman before she redirected the conversation. “Both of you take a look at these.”
Wayne reached his stubby fingers across the desk for the photos she produced from a file, and he handed each to his partner after he viewed them. Emory tried to conceal a wince when he saw the first one – burned human remains on a bed of snow at the edge of a lake. The blackened parts of the skin glistened with a sickening sheen formed when the body was pulled from the lake and the clinging water froze before it could evaporate. Another picture looked to be a yearbook photo, and it revealed just how beautiful the victim had been.
Bachman explained, “These photos were taken in a little mountain town sixty miles southeast of here called Barter Ridge.”
Emory perked up at the town’s name. Did she say Barter Ridge? Aloud he asked, “ID?”
“Her name’s Britt Algarotti. She was a figure skater shooting for the Olympics. According to her father, she left the house at five-thirty in the morning to practice her routine at the lake before school. The local sheriff fished her out yesterday evening. Their prevailing theory is that someone attacked her when she arrived yesterday, burned her and dumped her in the lake. No known motive.”
With his dark brown hair now dipping over his eyes, Emory looked up from the photos. “Could be sexual assault.”
Wayne proposed with a smirk, “Maybe someone Nancy Kerriganed her.”
“What’s that?” Emory asked.
“Not what. Who. Nancy Kerrigan. That skater who was clubbed in the knee by her rival so she wouldn’t be able to perform.” He looked at them both, but neither responded. His attempt at humor was lost on his youthful partner and stoic boss.
Examining the photos, Emory pointed to one of the lake. “It’s not frozen over.”
Wayne scoffed at his observation. “Of course not. The killer wouldn’t have been able to dump her body in the lake if it was covered with ice.”
“Why would she go to the lake if it weren’t frozen over? She’s not a water skier.”
“She could’ve been killed somewhere else and taken there.”
Emory turned his attention to Bachman. “Any tracks in the snow?”
“Plenty. The sheriff had half a dozen people all over the area before anyone thought to preserve the crime scene.”
Wayne snorted. “As much as I’d love to help clean up their mess, couldn’t someone else handle this one? We just closed the Danner case yesterday and haven’t even finished our report, and now I have to prepare for a court date.”
“I’m with Wayne on this.” I can’t believe I just said that.
Bachman interrupted their protests to say in her most invective tone, “Well, Emory, the sheriff asked for you by name.”
Wayne joined Bachman in glaring at Emory, whose face turned bright red.