Her father tensed.
Kate didn't.
Not even when the man's temper crackled dangerously close to the surface.
He took another step toward her, then another, until he was right there, blocking out the forest of trees on the opposite side of their gravel drive as he loomed over her. Deliberately. Just like he always did. "What did you just say?"
"You heard me."
"Oh, I heard you. I just didn't think you were stupid enough to go behind my back and flat out disobey me."
She held her ground. Stupid or not, "It's done. I signed the papers." And there wasn't a blessed thing this man could do about it.
No matter who—and what—he'd once been.
"Fuck." Her father tugged off his Braxton PD ball cap and slapped it on the hood of his cruiser. Tense, leathery hands dug through the unruly salt-and-pepper waves on his head. "Fine. I'll drive down to Little Rock tomorrow and talk to the recruiter. I doubt he's filed the paperwork yet. I can get you out of this." That already filthy glower turned filthier. "But you are gonna owe me, young lady."
The hell she would.
And the hell he would.
"I'm eighteen now, Dad. I'm legal. And I told you; I signed the papers. I took the oath. They have photos. Several. You couldn't get me out of it if I wanted you to. Which I don't. I leave next week for Fort Leonard Wood for basic training, then MP school."
And then, Iraq.
"Damn it, I've told you. Over and over again. You do not have what it takes to be a soldier." That charming sneer this man seemed to reserve just for her set in as he shook his head. "And you sure as shit don't have what it takes to be an Army cop. Not a good one, anyway. And no amount of training at Leonard Wood—or anywhere else—will fix that. Or you."
She crossed her arms. "I will make it. The sheriff says—"
"I don't care what Lou says. That man doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. He polices a village of Girl Scouts, for Christ's sake. Hell, Brownies. Worse, he's been building you and that ludicrous fantasy of yours up for years now, and that's just plain wrong. He's wrong. The man's a—"
"How can you say that?" Any of it? "He's your friend." As near as she could tell, other than Bob Feathers, Lou Simms was her father's only friend.
Probably because her dad was a complete asshole.
Look at how he was willing to crap on the sheriff just to make his case.
Damn it, it didn't matter. She could not do this anymore. She'd busted her butt to make the two of them work ever since her mom had died. For three years now.
It was time to move on.
From her dad, and—yes—this admittedly podunk town he'd dragged her back to.
He stalked around her and leaned into the open window of the cruiser to wrench his keys out of the ignition. "I said I'd get you out of this, and I will. But don't even think it's for your sake. Because it's not. You are just not cop material, Kate, let alone detective. Certainly not for a war-footed military. Not even for this sleepy pissant town, no matter what Lou says. And I ought to know. I've been there, remember? I did it. And I was damned good at it."
Oh, yeah? "Then why'd you up and quit?"
His glower returned. Deepened. "I had to, and you know it."
Here we go again. "Right. For your precious baby girl—me."
"Yes."
"Bullshit." That excuse might make for a great parental sound bite for the town in general and her senior high teachers in particular, but it was a bald-faced lie and she refused to swallow it anymore. This man didn't give a damn about her. He never had.
She'd figured that out years ago.
So, "What's the real reason, Daddy? Because we both know you didn't leave Brussels, much less the Army, because of me." She crafted a sneer of her own and offered it up free of charge to the man who'd weaned her on them. "You may as well give me the truth for a change—because you won't get another chance. I'm headed to MP school, whether you want me to or not. And then I'm going to work my ass off for as long as it takes, because I will make CID. And no washed-up, has-been agent is going to stop me. Especially you."
It was the washed-up that did it. Egged on by the has-been.
An unholy fire sparked within the man's eyes, deepening them to emerald flint as he shoved his keys in his trouser pocket and stepped closer. He abused his bulk, as usual, to loom over her. "You want to know why I really flushed my career down the toilet? All right, then. I did it for your mother. I made that woman a promise—on her goddamned deathbed—and I mean to keep it. I swore I'd get out of the Army and bring you back to Braxton and look out for you, whether you wanted it or not. So that's what I'm doing."
Seriously? "By telling me—"
"The truth, damn it! You just refuse to accept it. You simply do not have what it takes for law enforcement—military or civilian—and you never will. You're just a pig-headed, barely B-grade kid from the sticks who doesn't have the brain power to solve a tricycle theft, let alone a terror case or a full-blown, multiple homicide. You'll make a shit cop, Kate, and deep down, you know it. Mark my words, you follow through on this, and you're gonna end up dead. Or someone else will, and it'll be your fault."
Bastard. "The hell, it—"
Something solid slugged into her torso, knocking her down to the ground—
Except...she was already there. Down that is.
On a bed?
How—
A muted whine filled Kate's ears as she pushed through the thick fog of sleep gumming up her brain. A cold, rubbery nose amid a warm, fuzzy snout followed, frantically nuzzling into her neck as the whimpering strengthened.
Ruger.
The German Shepherd was doing what he did best. What the dog had come to believe was his number one mission in life, especially this past month. Ruger had alerted to her twisting up the sheets, and he'd woken her.
Again.
At least this time she'd been immersed in one of her usual rotten dreams and not a sweat-drenched, heart attack inducing night terror—and, hey, she was still in bed too.
That was something.
Given how and where she tended to wake lately, it was a lot.
She also knew why she'd had that particular dream. Variations on the gem had begun after her father's death. The very night she'd received the American Red Cross message informing her that her dad had been struck by a reckless driver during a midnight traffic stop on one of Braxton's county roads.
She'd had the same dream the next night, and again the next. They'd continued to torment her off and on for months. And each time she'd woken in a cold sweat, knowing that whatever case she'd been working, she was bound to screw something up eventually—and badly.
Max had noticed the circles under her eyes and had badgered her until she'd finally come clean. She'd told Max about her father—and her dad's views on her skills.
Max had promptly deemed her father a jackass and a lousy judge of military cops, despite the fact that her old man had been one too. He'd labeled the man a lousy pop, as well. But since her father was dead, Max had been willing to let that character flaw slide. Max had refused, however, to let her father's acidic analysis of her professional skills continue to consume her confidence.
Max had insisted that he believed in her. As did countless others. Max had sworn up and down that she was a great cop and an even better CID agent. He'd said it so often in the months that had followed that she'd eventually come to believe it.
And then—that ambush. Max was dead.
And she'd been left with the inescapable truth that her father was right.
Ruger burrowed his face deeper into her neck and chuffed out his morning greeting as her pulse finally steadied.
The irony of her latest dream bit in as she hugged the Shepherd tighter, nuzzling her face into his sturdy warmth as well. Those fights with her father had been one of many reasons she'd left home when and how she had. The man had been dead for four years now, and she was still fighting with him.
Maybe Dr. Manning was right. He had been about the magic wrist wrap. Maybe it was time to root out the power that her father held over her and let it die too.
But how?
Kate sighed as she pulled back just far enough to lose herself in Ruger's gorgeous, deep brown adoring eyes—and realized she could.
Daylight?
What time was it?
She twisted to her right, knocking her Glock to the hardwood floor as she hooked Max's watch from the nightstand.
7:43?
"Crap!" She wiggled out from underneath Ruger's weight and jackknifed off the bed.
How the heck had she slept for so long?
It didn't matter. "Buddy, we've got company coming." In seventeen minutes. "Let's go."
Ruger was at her bare heels as she spun around and jogged down the hall. She hooked a right into the open eating area, passing the brown, granite-topped counter on her way through the kitchen proper until she'd reached the dog door on the opposite side. She unlocked the flap and left Ruger to find his own way through the portal. The second flap at the rear of the garage was set to be unlocked by the chip attached to Ruger's collar twenty-four/seven. Given her job, a necessary failsafe in case Ruger got out and became caught in the heat or the rain.
As the Shepherd set out to take care of his morning business, she whirled around and raced back up the hall and into the bath to take care of hers.
Thank God for every one of her Army tours in the sparsest of locales with even sparser amenities. They allowed her to push through her shower with record speed. She was dried and dressed in a fresh deputy's uniform by the time she heard the flap in the kitchen swinging open again. She finished rewrapping her wrist with Manning's magic bandage as Ruger bounded into the room and up onto her unmade bed.
The twisted sheets would have to wait.
She still had coffee to perk. Securing her utility belt to her waist, Kate scooped her Glock off the floorboards and holstered it, then snatched up Max's watch, glancing at the time as she slipped the loose metal band over the elastic wrap. She had three minutes before Detective Moradi was due to arrive for their breakfast meeting.
Last night, she'd filled the detective in on the curious slew of calls Aisha had made to the lying doc—and the fact that Lily Basque had recognized her from her sedated stint at the Craig Joint Theatre Hospital at Bagram and been clearly terrified that Kate might do the same. She'd shown Arash the photo of the doc from the Al Jazeera article. Unfortunately, Arash hadn't recognized Basque from when he'd been in country and had stopped by Craig a time or two himself to donate blood.
So they'd decided to split up.
She'd driven north to the Braxton PD to spend some time at her desk, poking further into the doc's life to see what popped and also to catch up on the forensics reports that Seth and Nester had been adding to the Kharoti electronic case file since their search of Aisha's apartment.
Meanwhile, Arash had driven further south into Little Rock. The detective might not be a practicing Muslim, but it seemed he had solid connections in the community. Connections that just might yield results or, at the very least, rumors.
Anything that might suggest a lead for them to investigate.
Arash had also planned on cashing in a few dusty camouflaged markers with several of his fellow Army Intel officers who were still actively employed by Uncle Sam.
They were to link up this morning, at her house, so they could bring each other up to speed on their individual activities before the autopsy.
In two minutes now.
Scratch that. The Mazelle detective was already here.
Why else had Ruger's ears perked up?
A moment later, the brawny Shepherd thumped onto the floor, his giant paws and nails digging into the distressed slats as he tore down the hall. Several more moments, and she could hear the kitchen flap swinging again.
So much for her plan to ease her personal and professional partners through a polite introduction.
Hopefully, Arash wouldn't take Ruger's standard, growling greeting for males to heart.
Kate unlocked the front door, an all-too-familiar apology on her lips as she stepped out onto the wooden porch. "I'm sorry, Ruger's—"
Fine.
Scratch that. He was more than fine. Not only was the Shepherd chuffing out a downright friendly greeting to the kneeling, petting detective in her drive, her traitorous mutt was wagging his tail and shamelessly head butting the man for more.
Jeez. What if Arash had been a serial killer?
The last two men she'd had over had been.
Hell, the only other person Ruger had taken to this quickly was her friend Liz. And, well, Liz was a woman.
Kate couldn't help it; the sight of Ruger burrowing into a man's legs for attention was so unexpected, she laughed.
Arash stood, seemingly unbothered by the dog hair and the dust from the pea gravel that now smudged his dark gray trousers.
"Good morning, Kate." The detective grinned as Ruger finally deigned to notice his supposedly beloved mistress.
Evidently now cognizant of his flagging guard duties as well, the Shepherd spun around and bounded back up onto the porch, executing a swift, second spin just before he plopped his traitorous rump down beside her.
"You've got quite the four-legged welcoming committee there."
"Thanks." She scowled down at Ruger as the detective bent down to dust the vestiges of that same welcome from his trousers. The source of it all gazed lovingly up at her, pink tongue flopping out of the side of his goofy mouth. "Suck-up."
She swore the mutt's grin widened.
Kate smiled back, shaking her head as she waved the detective onto the porch. "I was about to put the coffee on. I don't have anything for breakfast, though."
All she had in the fridge by way of traditional morning sustenance were eggs: chicken and duck. The thought of stinking up her kitchen with yet another source of sulfur a mere two hours before Tahira Larijani's coming autopsy was—
"Not needed." Arash popped the passenger door of his black Explorer. He slung the strap to a computer bag over the left shoulder of his subdued suit, then hefted a cardboard carrier from the seat. "I picked up an assortment of bagels on the way." Slightly scuffed leather dress shoes ate up the flagstone walk. "Hope you don't mind. I made do with a side salad last night, so I'm starving. Unfortunately, in light of our coming agenda, I'm leery of ingesting anything more than bread this morning."
Amen to that. She and Ruger had shared a small cheese pizza the previous night. Well, Ruger had polished off his half. Most of hers was still in the box, long since congealed and—yep, because she'd overslept—littering the kitchen table.
"Not a problem." She opened the door and stepped aside to let Ruger lead the way for his new friend. "Just follow my mutt. You can set the bagels down on the table. I think I've got butter and jam."
The butter was a certainty. But the jam?
Lou had brought over a giant jar of his wife's amazing homemade blackberry preserves shortly after Grant's funeral, but Kate had already opened it. Meaning there was an excellent chance that Della’s efforts were sprouting psychedelic fuzz by now.
Arash set the box of bagels down beside her snoozing laptop and took in the array of forensic reports and crime scene photos that were scattered across the table as he lowered his own computer to the seat of a chair. He scooped up the photos and flipped them over as she reached his side. "There's cream cheese in the container."
"Sold. And apologies for the mess." Not only had she been more tired than wired last night, she'd actually stayed asleep for a change, right though her alarm.
Go figure.
Kate snagged the pizza box off a stack of papers, ignoring the hope that twitched through Ruger's ears as he followed her into the kitchen. The twitching ceased, his ears now drooping with disappointment as she opened the cupboard beneath the sink to set the box atop the waiting garbage can. She'd deal with the recycling later. "Sorry, buddy. You've still got kibble in your bowl, and you definitely don't want to risk a belly ache."
His soft huff disagreed, but he shuffled back to Arash and the table while she prepped the coffee pot with grounds and water, and set it to perk.
"Want some help?"
She flinched—and spun around, every single cell in her body on instant, excruciating alert. And her right palm? It was already fused to the butt of her Glock. The muzzle of which was inches from clearing her holster.
Those leather shoes she'd noted must've come with soundless soles, because Arash had made it all the way into the kitchen without her picking up on the man's surprisingly light tread.
He was three feet away now—the dusky skin of his face and neck turning duskier due to the current, underlying tide of red.
Good Lord, she'd almost drawn down on him. A detective. Her new—albeit temporary—partner. And he knew it.
The fire in her own face increased along with her humiliation. "Sorry."
"No. I screwed up. This isn't my house. I should've stuck to the table." A wry curve slipped in. "Or made a bit more noise."
She appreciated his attempt to lighten the mood. But she was too keyed up to even try and follow up on it.
Grabbing two plates instead, she added a pair of butter knives and napkins, and shoved the entire stack at him. "Here. Coffee's almost done. I'll wait for it."
Arash opened his mouth, then closed it. He nodded and turned to carry the breakfast ware to the table. Silently.
Thank God.
By the time she'd abandoned the kitchen with two steaming cups of black coffee in hand, Arash had straightened the remaining papers into neat stacks and arranged their plates at the opposite end of the table. His dark gray suit jacket, brown leather shoulder holster and Glock were hooked over the back of the chair at the head of the table. The chair that commanded a view of the kitchen, as well as the living room beyond.
And he was seated inside it.
In her father's chair. The chair that no one had sat in since her father died. Not her, not even Lou. Because she hadn't been able to deal with the thought.
Maybe it was that dream she'd had, but she was okay with it now.
She had no idea why.
Maybe she'd ask Manning, maybe not. She was just glad that the visceral reaction she'd been having to that seat since her return to the States had been stunted.
At least for now.
She set the coffee mugs down. Reaching into the box of bagels, she selected a plain one and sat cater-corner to the detective.
Ruger caught sight of her burdened plate. His hope for people food renewed, he commandeered the empty section of hardwood between them and settled in for the count.
Arash thanked her for the coffee and waved off the need for cream and sugar as he tipped his head toward the elastic bandage beneath Max's watch. "I noticed that at the scene yesterday. You wrench your wrist during an ugly arrest or something?"
Or something.
She offered up a silent shake of her head and waited patiently, stubbornly, for the detective to get off the personal and down to business with his side of the briefing.
Arash took a sip of his coffee, savored it a moment, then set the cup down, shaking his head as he dove in. "There's nothing new on my end, forensics-wise. Probably won't be 'til the autopsy. I also did as we agreed—put out feelers with a few Army Intel buddies last night, along with some folks in the surrounding Muslim communities. Both Sunni and Shi'a. Nothing's come back yet. I've also got an elder from the Little Rock mosque who brings me stuff from time to time. I stopped by his place and hit him up in person. He hasn't heard anything—no whispers about honor killings, much less a coordinated plot to discredit the military from within. He'll keep an ear out."
"You don't think he'd withhold, do you?"
"This guy? No. When he left Iran, he swore he'd never look back. And he hasn't—for good reason. I'm sorry; I wish I could say more."
"It's okay." All cops had their sources. The smart ones protected those that needed and deserved it. With their lives, if necessary.
"What about you? Did you get anything more on the doc?"
"I came dry too—so far. But like you, I'm still waiting on someone." Someone new. She tore off a piece of her bagel and tossed it to a patiently waiting Ruger.
The dog snatched it from midair, his happy half-gulp, half-groan causing an instinctive smile to slip into place.
Her smile slipped away just as quickly when she glanced toward the end of the table, at the notes she'd scratched out on her legal pad the night before.
"What's wrong, Kate?"
"I'm not sure. It's not about Basque, though." Nor was she even sure why it was bugging her. "It's Agent Castile. He's gone. They sent him to Afghanistan."
"In the middle of the drawdown?"
"Yep." Hell, in the middle of a dozen serious, open cases from what she'd gathered on the phone when she'd called Fort Campbell on her way to Basque's office.
"They say why?"
"No. But I spoke to Castile earlier yesterday at length." She tore off another piece of bagel and tossed it to an even more appreciative Ruger. "He had no idea he was leaving."
Like her old CID instincts, Arash's Army Intel antenna was quivering too. She could practically feel it vibrating between them. Along with the implications of a CID agent's sudden, inexplicable transfer to a war zone that damned near all his fellow agents and regular soldiers were actively abandoning.
"Something just went down in Afghanistan."
And it was huge.
Arash took another sip of his coffee. "You think it's connected to the mess we got going on here?"
"I doubt it. I spoke to the oncoming duty agent. A guy named Paul Frantz." She hadn't worked with Agent Frantz when she was CID, either. "Castile left so quickly, I had to bring Frantz up to speed. He had no clue what I was about to say until I said it."
And if their two supposed stateside honor killings were connected to whatever had caused Agent Castile to be punted to Afghanistan, Frantz would have.
Arash took another sip of his coffee, sighing as he returned the cup to the table. "Shit. I confess, I'm disappointed. A connection to whatever's going on over there might've made this easier. I still have zero leads on Larijani. No one at Camp Robinson has seen the sergeant since Tahira's murder—and they are looking. Bilal was also officially declared AWOL at zero seven hundred this morning."
Kate nodded. "Same with Sergeant Kharoti—though Haidar's not legally AWOL yet. He won't hit that mark until tomorrow." When the sergeant was scheduled to report back to Campbell, also by 0700. Of course, there was always the chance that Haidar would show up on post early.
But she doubted it.
Kate shrugged as she tossed the simmering suspicion as to why out onto the table. "Kharoti might've fled to Pakistan."
And if he had, then where would they be?
Not only had the sergeant been serving as an Urdu and Arabic translator for the US Army, Haidar Kharoti had been working with Special Forces during this last tour of his—in Yemen. Agents with Pakistan's Gestapo-esque Inter-Services Intelligence would be clubbing each other for a change for the mere chance to get a crack at what was in the sergeant's brain.
"If I was Kharoti?" Arash rubbed a hand along the side of his jaw. "I'd have headed there too."
As would she. Why not? If Haidar could evade the ISI's torture-hungry agents long enough to slip into Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, he'd be home free, since his chances would be excellent that even the ISI wouldn't find him amidst that country's own zealous, Islamic fundamentalists.
And if Kharoti managed to sneak across his birth country's northwest border into an increasingly Taliban-controlled Afghanistan?
Kate rubbed at the knot of tension that had begun to throb at her temple. Kharoti's possible flight to Pakistan wasn't their only worry. They had Sergeant Larijani's connection to the Middle East to consider too. If Larijani made it back to his birth country—Iran—they'd never see him again either. Ever.
And there was the rest.
With no whispers swirling around among Arash's Little Rock Muslim and Army Intel connections, there was a reasonable chance this wasn't a plot to undermine the US military's Islamic soldiers—and their acceptance—from within. While that would be a good thing—great, in fact—they were left with a nearly equally heinous alternative.
Suicide pacts existed. Why not an "honor killing for jihad" pact?
Arash must've been thinking the same thing, because he nodded. Frowned. "If this is some sort of twisted jihadi agreement, and those two sergeants made prearrangements to bolt, we're screwed."
"Agreed." Frustration forced Kate to her feet. Arash had drained his coffee on his last swig. She scooped up her cup and held out her free hand for his. "Refill?"
"Sure. Thanks."
She accepted the second cup and headed around the counter and into the kitchen proper to recharge both with the remaining caffeine in the pot. The detective broke off a piece of his bagel as she swung around, dabbed it in the cream cheese on his plate and held it out.
"Oh, Ruger won't—"
Ruger did.
Worse, he made that same happy half-gulp, half-groan as he accepted the treat from a heretofore unknown hand that he reserved for her alone and sometimes Lou.
Who the hell was that hound at her table, and what had he done with Ruger?
Arash must've mistaken her shock for peevishness, because pink tinged the skin at the base of his neck again, highlighting the starched white collar of his dress shirt, not to mention the knot of the ice-blue tie beneath. "Did I overstep?"
She switched her attention to Ruger—who was patiently waiting for another piece...and not from her. She shook her head, bemused. "Not at all. I'm just experiencing a surreal, canine twist on an Invasion of the Body Snatchers moment."
She held out the recharged cup. "Here you go."
"Thanks."
She took her coffee with her, leaving Ruger behind with his new treat-doling bestie as she advanced on the cluttered end of the table.
The cuckoo on the far wall of the kitchen squawked out nine.
Yeah, they supposedly had an hour to go, but Arash had informed her last night that he liked to get to his ME's autopsies early. It seemed the Mazelle doc tended to start when he was ready, whether or not a particular victim matched a previously scheduled time.
Then again, maybe Dr. Arquette had decided to pull a Tonga and had worked through the night. There might even be a stack of photos and an official finding already waiting for them.
She should be so lucky.
Kate reached for her sleeping laptop—and froze. She couldn't move, much less pick up the computer. All she could do was stare at the stack of papers beside it.
Manning had sworn to her weeks ago that if she came to their sessions, was open and honest when they spoke, did everything he asked of her, filled out every worksheet to the best of her ability, that things would get better.
That she would get better.
Last night, she'd redoubled her efforts. After all, that snug bandage on her wrist appeared to be holding fast to its weird magic. That in mind, and despite the pain and the renewed flashbacks, she'd dragged out the stack of fresh ABC worksheets the shrink had handed her on Saturday and had worked on several of them, all the while praying that Manning was right.
Because like it or not, she had a homicide to work—two of them now.
Or she had.
Because that uppermost sheet that she'd forgotten to tuck back into its folder before she'd let Ruger out one last time and crawled off to bed? It was lying there—right next to the stack of crime scene photos that Arash had scooped together and overturned upon his arrival. And in that centermost block of the ABC worksheet?
Pretty much the worst tidbit that a cop could share with her brand-new partner—and have that budding professional relationship survive the entire day.
My judgment can't be trusted.
Not only had Arash seen that damning statement as he'd straightened up the table while she'd been in the kitchen making their coffee, he hadn't bothered to slip that still unworked sheet beneath a finished one to hide it.
Nor did the detective bother pretending ignorance now as he realized what she was staring at and came to his feet as well.
He stood there, looking down the table at her, as silent as she was.
What the hell was he going to do with the single piece of intelligence that he had managed to glean since they'd left the crime scene yesterday?
Inform his boss?
Hers?
Either option would spell the death knell for her position as co-lead on their recently combined cases. A position that, until this very moment, she hadn't realized that she desperately wanted to keep...now that it was on the verge of being torn from her.
Or was it?
Silence continued to greet her newfound terror...and that was it.
Arash simply stood there, those dark brown, nearly black eyes and impassive features of his giving nothing away. He didn't respond as Ruger's snout came up to bump at the back his hand for attention, either. The detective just kept standing.
Staring.
She never wanted to sit on the wrong side of an interrogation table with Arash Moradi. The man was damned near impossible to read. She could see the barest of tics pulsing in at the left edge of his jaw now...but what did it mean?
Now that he knew she knew, what the hell was he going to do?
Evidently, the last thing she expected.
The detective finally lifted the hand that Ruger had been attempting to schmooze and glanced at the watch on his wrist. And then he frowned. "We'd better get going, Deputy. Like I said last night, our ME's been known to start early."
Twenty-two minutes later, her luck ran out.
Granted, the stench of sulfur and grilled flesh that wafted up from the charred body lying on the autopsy table in front of her wasn't nearly as intense as it had been in Nash's field, but it was still splintering though her.
Kate drew on an old technique that Max had shared with her nearly a decade earlier. She closed her nasal passages from within and took a shallow breath through her mouth as she concentrated on the individual parts, instead of the whole.
Those that she could make out, that is.
A blistered left cheek. The barest hint of an outer ear.
A bit of singed hair, hung up just past that.
A mostly blackened neck. A deeply charred shoulder.
Kate drew another breath, but this breath didn't help any more than the previous one had—or the one before. Worse, she lost her focus for a split second and accidentally inhaled though her nose on the next.
Just like that, individual parts instantly coalesced into the whole. Only that was no longer Tahira Larijani lying on the table; it had become Corporal Babin. And not only could Kate see the corporal's flesh as it charred and blistered up again right in front of her, she could hear it. Just as she could hear Babin screaming. Then sobbing as the corporal had begged God, and everyone else, to end the pain—to end her.
And the smell.
Kate stiffened, desperately trying to hold on. But the panic was growing. Swelling. Sweat popped out along her pores. Her entire body had begun to shake with the force of holding it all in. She was going vomit up the coffee she'd had.
Now.
And then—she wasn't.
Arash's left hand had come up to cup her right shoulder from behind. The shredded one. His touch was light, warm and soothing. Steady. Still, the pads of his fingers and palm had to be feeling the knotted scars and hollowed-out pockmarks beneath; they were too thick to ignore full on. But they didn't seem to bother him. Because the detective kept standing quietly beside her, his concentration seemingly focused on the charred body in front of them as the Mazelle ME systematically examined and commented upon each decimated limb in turn for the voice recorder in the suite.
That light, steady hand worked. The sweltering interior of the Humvee faded. Corporal Babin and Sergeant Gault slipped out the room, and her thoughts.
Tahira Larijani slipped back in.
The panic had faded.
Kate was about to turn to let Arash know that she was okay, that she could handle this, when the ME glanced up.
"Detectives, I think we have something here."
Arash's hand eased off her shoulder as they both moved closer to the vee Dr. Arquette had managed to create between the victim's legs. The skin along both sides of the woman's inner thighs was red and blistered, even blackened in spots, but it wasn't charred. At least, not as extensively as Aisha's had been.
And there was something else.
Something startlingly familiar. "Stab wounds." Piercing the woman's flesh in nearly the exact same manner as Aisha's—if not the exact manner.
The ME nodded. "I reviewed Dr. Tonga's results before I began." Dr. Arquette glanced up, meeting both their stares. "Yes, the wounds are nearly identical to the ones on Aisha Kharoti. But there's more." The ME drew an invisible line along this woman's left thigh with his gloved index finger. "These wounds are not random. You see the pattern, yes? It's difficult due to the blistering of the epidermis, but the wounds appear to form numbers: thirty-nine here on the left thigh, and possibly a nine carved into the right. I can't be sure of the nine, though, or if it's supposed to be part of another thirty-nine, due to the portion of charring that extends inward."
The ME straightened and skimmed a gloved hand over the array of instruments and medical testing supplies laid out on the stainless-steel tray beside him. The doc selected a sterile swab and returned to the woman's genitals. "Hmm."
"Is something wrong?" Arash.
A slight frown marred the ME's brow. "Possibly." He exchanged the swab for a pair of tweezers, his frown deepening as he moved back to the inner thighs to work the tips where the end of the swab had failed to go. Arquette angled his blond head for a better view—causing her and Arash to step back in unison, because they'd lost theirs.
Kate sucked in her breath as the doc finally straightened.
Cradled in the palm of his gloved left hand was a stone. Or, as her boss would say, a common milky quartz.
She heard Arash draw in his astonishment as well. "Is that—"
"Similar to the one recovered from beneath Aisha's thighs? Yes."
Small and nearly round, with its glittering surface perfectly smoothed out and polished, the rock appeared identical to the one found with Aisha, in fact. But there was one difference, however, and it was crucial. This stone was completely unscorched—because it had been found inside the victim. That discovery alone made the humble bit of quartz more valuable than a pink diamond in any earring they might find.
At least to their case.
The implications of which were still reverberating in.
Déjà vu followed as Arash stared down at her as he had the day before, out behind that defunct cereal box plant. "Deputy, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Yep."
He'd asked that same question then, too. And she'd given the same response. But they'd already moved past the older working theory that had generated both.
This morning's alternate theory too.
While it was still possible that Sergeants Kharoti and Larijani had murdered their wives in a bizarrely coordinated terror attack from within, it was no longer likely. Nor was it likely that the men had entered some sort of bizarre honor-murder pact. Because that second stone and those numbers carved into Tahira Larijani's inner thighs suggested a new theory, especially if the cuts on Aisha Kharoti's thighs weren't random either. And not only did this new theory incorporate what appeared to be distinct psychological elements to the crimes—if those elements were correct, they weren't looking at the handiwork of a determined Islamist, but a coldly determined serial killer.
And with their current timeline?
They had a day, perhaps two, before the next body turned up.