Forty minutes later, Kate turned her Durango onto East Maddox Road. But for the mix of naked deciduous trees and clothed pines on both sides, this part of the two-lane blacktop that circled around the northern part of Little Rock Airbase was fairly empty. That was normal for this time of night, especially for early December.
The red, white and blue glow of emergency lights in the distance was not.
Lou had been off about one thing. Their latest victim hadn't actually been dumped at the airbase...but pretty damned close to it. According to the text that Arash had sent a minute ago, and that her iPhone's hands-free, voice feature had just read out loud, the entire length of their latest blackened corpse was touching Jacksonville's side of the twelve-foot, barbed-wire-topped, chain-link fence that formed the base's outer perimeter.
And since the corpse was physically touching the fence, not to mention lying on a scorched strip of military frontage, the Air Force had assumed jurisdiction.
Fine by her and Arash.
Neither one of them was greedy. Both of them had learned the hard way that more eyes meant more mental and physical effort directed toward the case.
With three burnt bodies racked up in as many days, they could use all of the above and as much as they could get.
More, if it would prevent a fourth murder.
The glow of red, white and blue grew closer and brighter until the Durango was all but on top of the makeshift light show. Kate slowed down, then came to a halt beside the cruiser parked and facing her in the middle of the oncoming lane. She retrieved her Braxton PD credentials and held them up for the uniformed patrol officer bracing himself against the plummeting temperature in the night air out beside his car.
Another five degrees and they'd hit freezing.
The man's breath billowed between them. "Evenin', Deputy Holland. Special Agent Wynne's expecting you."
She nodded and thanked the cop as he waved her through, coming to yet another halt, this time to park her SUV behind the string of police and emergency vehicles lining the north side of the road. She climbed out, zipping up her own patrol jacket against the icy night before she swapped the Durango's keys for the fresh set of forensic gloves she'd tucked into her trouser pocket while still at her house. Snapping on the latex, she scanned the mishmash of civilian police and military camouflage interspersed with half a dozen firefighter ensembles across the road.
To the far left of that larger, collective cloud of frosted air: the increasingly crushed gray suit that had departed her house as she'd been heading down the hall to her bedroom to swap out her jeans and tee for a fresh deputy uniform and jacket. Swap complete, she'd passed through her kitchen and bent down to tweak Ruger's fuzzy ears on her way to the garage to link up with Arash here.
Ruger hadn't minded her departure. Not with the giant, pungent bribe Arash had provided still locked between the Shepherd's gnawing jaws and paws.
Unfortunately, it smelled so much worse out here than it had in her kitchen. And as Kate crossed the blacktop, the nauseating odors got stronger.
She steeled herself against the memories that began to rouse themselves and knock up against her psyche. It helped that the body she'd come to see was a good twenty yards further up the road with a sole camouflaged utility uniform kneeling beside it—and decidedly downwind from her.
For the moment.
Arash caught sight of her and waved her over.
The detective tipped his head toward the set of towering camouflaged utilities to his right. "Deputy Kate Holland, Braxton PD, meet Special Agent Bill Wynne, US Air Force Office of Special Investigations." Arash turned to the man who would have been her Air Force counterpart back when she was still Army CID. "Bill, Kate's—"
"—the agent who took down that group of bastards four years ago in Afghanistan." The blond giant grinned down at her. "Pleasure to meet you."
Latex met latex as she accepted the agent's equally oversized, but thoroughly inappropriate jackhammer shake. At least here, already gloved up against crime scene contamination as they were. "Likewise, Special Agent W—"
His camouflaged cap shook too, from side to side. "Bill."
"Bill."
The agent's enthusiasm faded as someone yelled "Wynne" from across the road. "Just a sec." The giant turned to Arash. "Feel free to pass on what I just shared with you. Meanwhile, I'll be passing on what you shared with me."
"Will do." Arash waited for the agent to depart, then extended a latex-gloved hand toward the lone living figure at the fence line twenty yards up the road. The one still kneeling beside the source of the hydrogen sulfide and sizzled meat that permeated the night. "The Air Force's medical examiner is already here. A Captain Stan Raub. Ready to take a look at the body?"
Hell, no. But she nodded.
She'd have to do it eventually. Might as well get it over with now. Frankly, with the memories that were still stubbornly banging on the door to her brain, she appreciated having as small an audience as possible while she did so. Nor did it hurt to know that the detective at her side understood. Which was probably why she allowed the fingers of her right hand to slip across her body so she could twist Max's watch around the elastic bandage in an effort to anchor herself against the strengthening sounds, sight and smells of that shattered Humvee.
They were all still there as she and Arash walked, but they weren't able to hijack her present and jerk her all the way into the past.
That was something. A hell of a lot, in fact.
She knew Arash had noticed what she was doing with the watch. But that was okay. Somehow, it was easier to expose herself to him than it was with Liz or even Dr. Manning. Probably because Arash had been there.
And, unfortunately, she was here.
Despite the snail's pace Arash had set, they reached the body far too quickly.
Kate released the watch as the ME came to his feet. Another blue-eyed blond in Air Force camouflage, though this one was nearly a foot shorter than the OSI agent she'd just met, putting Captain Raub midway between her five-six and Arash's solid six feet.
Raub stepped forward to greet them. He might've recognized her too, because her scars didn't give him pause. Though there was an added, odd, glint to the ME's eyes. Perhaps the physician in Raub simply didn't feel the need to draw attention to her past as he settled for the usual, forensically conscious introductions nod.
Thank God.
"Good to meet you, Deputy. Wish it was under better circumstances." A hint of humor threaded through that crystal blue as it shifted to Arash. "Decided to wait and finish the briefing with your partner in tow, eh, Detective?"
"Figured it was prudent. The first victim was found in a field half an hour up the road in Braxton. Deputy Holland has the case."
The ME caught her eye and stepped to his right so that Kate could get a good look at the body.
From the singed breasts and genitals, their victim was obviously female. While the body had been laid on top of what appeared to be a foam camping mattress before it had been set on fire, the flames hadn't ignited as evenly or as thoroughly as they had with either Aisha or Tahira.
Because there hadn't been enough fuel in the foam to feed and sustain the flames? Or because the fire department had arrived in time to douse the fire?
Kate's gut pointed to the former, given that she couldn't see the vestiges of aqueous foam or another fire-fighting chemical, or a discarded fire blanket.
Also, while the victim's hair and any clothes appeared to have been completely consumed by the flames, her skin wasn't as deeply charred as the other two victims. Yes, it was severely blistered and thoroughly blackened in spots, but that was it.
Though that was more than enough, because it was also—
"Damned sick work, this." The ME frowned heavily.
Agreed.
Raub motioned for the two of them to hunker down beside him, then stretched his right index finger out over the scorched torso. "As you can see, she was stabbed at least two dozen times, beginning here—" The gloved finger circled the wounds in and around the victim's breasts then moved down to the blackened abdomen and paused. "—and here—" The ME's finger moved once more, this time to hover over the woman's thighs. "—and ending here. From the lack of blood beneath the body and other considerations, she was most likely killed elsewhere, brought here and set on fire. Of course, I'll need to confirm this with the autopsy."
Raub's gloved hand retracted, leaving a clear view of the woman's scorched and blistered thighs. Hunkered down this close to the body, and from this angle, Kate could make out the distinctive pattern created by those lower stab wounds.
The ME nodded. "Detective Moradi shared your theory about the Surah angle, and I concur. Taken together, the wounds clearly form the numbers four, thirty-four."
While she'd expected the corroboration, it wasn't entirely welcome.
Confirmation always cut in multiple, and at times conflicting, ways. Each would play havoc in the minds and hearts of nearly everyone involved in an investigation like this in the days, weeks and even years to come. There was no escaping it.
But there were others who would feel that pain so much more intensely and for so much longer. Aisha's and Tahira's loved ones, and those of this poor woman.
"Do we have an ID yet?"
Arash shook his head. "Agent Wynne's working on it. I gave him the particulars on the Kharoti and Larijani cases. In light of the marital and religious commonalities, he's arranging for base security to begin canvassing the command's Muslim couples—in person. If we're lucky, we might have her name by morning."
But would this woman's husband be missing too?
From the glance Arash shot her, he was wondering the same. He was also visibly feeling the weight of this new death.
No surprise there. Given what the detective had shared of his past at her kitchen table, it was clear he hadn't accidentally fallen into police work. He'd deliberately pursued it. Arash was here for all the right reasons, too. Most especially: the need to protect.
How many pieces of his sister had he seen in those whom he'd already helped?
From what Kate already knew of the man, far too many.
And not nearly enough.
"Detective?"
Arash turned to the ME. "Yes?"
"I found something after you left earlier. I've bagged it." The ME leaned over to retrieve a paper envelope from his crime kit. It was unsealed. "I don't yet know if she was raped, but this was at the entrance to her vaginal canal. It looks to be—"
"A rock. Milky quartz."
That clear blue gaze swung to hers. "Yes. You found one in your victim?"
Kate shook her head. "Not quite. It was underneath. It was partially scorched, so we weren't certain it was important...until it turned up at the second autopsy."
The ME's sigh was as dark as the surrounding night. The resignation within could have just as easily come from her or Arash. No one who did this for a living welcomed a sexual component to a crime. No one.
"Deputy Holland?"
She stood and turned to find Agent Wynne headed toward her.
Kate met the man halfway and filled him in on what she knew, and still didn't know, about the first murder. She wrapped up her case brief with a summary of her visits to the mysterious general surgeon's office in Manchin—and included what she and Regan Chase had yet to uncover about that only lead. Specifically, Lily Basque's real name.
Like Arash, the OSI agent was happy to let Kate follow up on the matter.
As for Agent Wynne's reciprocal briefing, his was even shorter than hers. "Guys, I've got nothing else to share that you haven't just seen." The shake of his head encompassed them both. "My recommendation? Head home for some shut-eye. Arash, unless you've got something else to work on, you and I can reconvene at the hospital on base first thing in the morning for the autopsy—zero eight hundred."
The agent turned to her. "Meanwhile, you keep to your Marshals' plan. Use that name you've got to beat the damned door down. Let us know if anyone's inside."
Kate nodded, as did Arash.
As much as she hated leaving a scene, Kate was forced to agree with Wynne's logic. The OSI agent's investigatory instincts were still well-rested and sharp.
Theirs were not.
She and Arash waved to Wynne and headed across the road, then turned to walk up the deserted side of the outer scene toward the string of dormant emergency vehicles.
Five paces in, she was forced to smile.
Her temporary partner's brow kicked up. "What?"
"Nothing." But it was something. Her judgment had come through again. This time about the detective who'd managed to pause in mid-step just long enough to smoothly alter his previous position on her right side and back around to her left, so that his body was now serving as a physical buffer between her and the raw edge of the road. A road that, while desolate and dark, was anchored by cop cars at both ends.
But those cop cars didn't matter. And from that quizzical brow, Arash had no clue as to what he'd done. The detective's protective instincts simply ran that strong and that deep.
In a weird way, Arash reminded her of Ruger. Not that she'd tell him. He might not view the comparison as a compliment.
Though from the way that dark brow had hiked up further, he still wanted to know what amused her. "Did I say something back there with Raub or Wynne? Do something?"
She shook her head again and outright laughed. "You're fine. It's me. I'm just having a strange day." She stopped beside the driver's door of her Durango.
Arash stopped with her.
Her smile bled off. But the instinctive reaction wasn't due to him.
"What's wrong?"
She shook her head as the chill settled in. The one that had absolutely nothing to do with the surrounding temperature. "I don't know."
And she didn't.
But something was wrong.
She was getting the same feeling she'd gotten while heading up the drive to Nash Weaver's house. The same feeling she'd gotten while standing in Nash's field of winter wheat next to Aisha's body and looking up at his deck. The same feeling she'd gotten as a military policeman on too damned many foot patrols in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Only, now, it was worse.
The tiny hairs at the back of her neck had shot to attention.
She could feel the night breeze plucking at each and every one.
She shifted slightly, subtly. Just enough so she could stare into the woods on her right. Study them. The spaces in between were lonely and black.
Was that all it was? The desolation inherent in all those bald, winter trees? Or was the day finally getting to her? That charred and blistered body behind her? Her meeting with Joe?
No. It was more than that.
The fingers of her right hand crept up on their own. But they didn't settle on her watch. They eased in around the butt of her Glock. And they did not want to let go.
"Kate?"
"He's still here...somewhere." Watching.
"You see him?"
"No." But she could feel him.
Unfortunately, there wasn't a damned thing she could do about it. There was too much forest around them. Miles of it. And every acre was currently pitch black.
Arash's left hand came up and around her chest to open the Durango's driver's door. "Get in. Go home. Text me when you get there. Keep Ruger and that Glock loaded and handy tonight—and double check the locks on your windows and doors."
"Arash—"
"I mean it, Kate. Go. Now. I'll alert Wynne. Let him know. He can have a patrol car make a pass up and down the road, but there's nothing any of us can do unless the bastard decides to reveal himself. Not out here, with all of us exposed like this."
Arash was right. The suspect they were after had managed to kill three women in nearly as many days, leaving absolutely nothing behind forensics-wise but what he'd wanted them to find. Hell, the bastard hadn't even left at least two of his victims' husbands.
Both of whom were combat vets.
Someone that smart was not about to screw up and reveal himself now.
She also knew Arash wasn't going to give in regarding that charming set of me, Tarzan; you, Jane orders he'd just issued. To a fellow cop, no less.
Part of her was pissed. The rest of her understood.
Those damned protective instincts of his had locked in, and they had nothing to do with a nighttime stroll down the raw edge of a busy, or not so busy, road—and everything to do with the man's own traumatic issues.
Fortunately for Arash, it wasn't worth the argument.
Because the feeling was gone. Which meant he was gone. At least for now.
The only way the bastard could've accomplished that was to have moved deeper into the trees. They'd lost their prey before she'd even realized he was here.
"Kate."
"Fine." She slid into the Durango's driver's seat. "I'll leave. I'll even follow the rest of your orders—partner." She'd absolutely secure the perimeter of her home. Heck, her PTSD-riddled paranoia wouldn't let her do anything else. "But I am not texting."
She wasn't some teenaged kid headed home after dark. And with that body lying out behind them, still kicking off heat, this sure as hell wasn't some date.
She started the Durango and shifted into gear.
Arash had no choice but to offer a stiff nod and an even stiffer "Goodnight" as he closed the door.
Her pique lasted just long enough for her to clear the outer patrol car and the gradually freezing uniformed cop blocking the road at the opposite end of the scene.
She and Arash had just had their first spat. In an odd way, it had solidified their friendship. She would've smiled at the thought, but she didn't.
It seemed she truly could trust her judgment.
But right now, she almost wished she couldn't. Because the reason behind that feeling she'd gotten out on that road with Arash followed her all the way home.
She woke slowly, gently—and in her own bed for a change.
Kate stared at the lingering shadows on the ceiling of her room, her relief fading as last night's crime scene and that pricklingly exposed sensation she'd experienced while walking along the road with Arash filtered back in.
She'd texted the man after all. Roughly an hour after she'd arrived home, and only after Arash had reached out with an inane Did you see...? about a report that'd been uploaded to the Larijani file the previous afternoon. A report Arash had known she'd seen, because he'd mentioned it while they'd been eating dinner.
At the time, she'd thought about feigning sleep. After all, his initial text had come through after eleven last night. But she just wasn't petty. And, hell, why risk a budding friendship?
What would Ruger think?
Who was she kidding? She knew why she'd responded to that text. She'd seen those scars on the outside of the man's body before they'd left for the airbase. Given her own scars, she knew the wounds on the inside were bound to be a thousand times worse—with far too many still raw and seeping.
She just could not add to them.
So she'd sent back a pithy yep, saw it and then caved into the guilt and had followed those typed words up with the ones Arash had really needed to see. I'm home. Windows & doors locked. Glock next to bed. Ruger inside it. Nite.
His response: Thank you. Sleep tight.
She'd promptly put the phone down, lest she was tempted to add more.
But, seriously? If the man tried that Tarzan routine with her again, they'd have to have a talk. And Arash would be listening.
As for her?
Right now—this morning—she was listening to something she hadn't heard in weeks. Months even. Ruger. The German Shepherd's deep, contented snores were drifting up from the foot of her bed. For the first time since that first line of bags had appeared out on Ol' Man Miller's road, she hadn't woken Ruger in the throes of terror.
Nor had Ruger been forced to wake her.
No nightmares.
Sure, with her history there was always the chance she'd trembled through one or two and dreamt she was back there in that hellhole with Max and just couldn't remember it. But she didn't think so. Not only was Ruger soundly asleep, she felt good.
Kate eased her right hand out over her Glock to snag the dive watch from the nightstand beside her bed.
06:55.
That explained the beginnings of daylight that were bleeding into the room. But she still couldn't quite believe that she'd slept for over six hours at a stretch, much less that her body and brain were so well rested, she felt as though it had been sixty.
But she'd take it. More importantly, she needed it.
Especially now.
Last night their case had changed. The actual killings aside, those first two crime scenes had several psychological elements in common—including the fact that whoever had stabbed and burned Aisha and Tahira had wanted the women's bodies to be seen. But last night? That placement of the third body out on that particular deserted road with all that natural cover and concealment on the other side said something new.
Yes, shoving the victim up against the northern perimeter of the airbase and setting it on fire had guaranteed it would be seen, and quickly. By the next car to pass, in fact. But something had changed within the killer.
He had wanted to see them.
Yes, he could've been hiding in Miller's trees, watching her, Tonga and Lou at the first scene. And he could've been hiding somewhere in or around the second scene too, possibly even holed up in a concealed space inside the old box plant—again, watching. But he hadn't been. She would've felt him. Like she had last night.
Like he'd wanted them to feel him.
But why? And what, if anything, did this new need to see and be felt have to do with those numbers he'd carved? With the Qur'anic verse that appeared to be behind them?
Despite the discovery of the third body, there was still only one way to find out.
Lily Basque.
Unfortunately, the only current path to Basque ran through Charles Praeger and the US Marshal who could connect Praeger and Basque long enough to get the doc to open up about what she was hiding...in just over an hour when the Marshals' office was scheduled to open in Little Rock. Kate glanced down just as the second hand completed a sweep around the orange face of her watch. The alarm beneath began to bleat.
Make that one hour, exactly.
Ruger's head popped up as she killed the alarm. The moment he spotted her looking at him, his dragon's tail began thumping atop the bedcovers.
"Morning, buddy. Ready to go outside?"
His lazy yawn and stretch said...eventually. But the Shepherd's bladder must've chimed in with a radically shorter timetable because he hopped off the bed, glancing back expectantly as his paws clipped along the hardwood toward the door.
"All right. I'm coming."
She attended to Ruger's needs first, heading to the kitchen to unlatch the dog flap so he could pass through the door. While he was out doing his job, she refreshed his water and measured out his morning kibble. That done, she set her own liquid breakfast of caffeine to perk and stopped at the table to rouse her laptop from sleep and check the electronic case files. She skimmed a memo and forensic report that Nester had added to the Kharoti folder, but there was nothing pertinent inside. Likewise, with the Mazelle Larijani folder. She hadn't been looped in on the Air Force OSI agent's casework yet, so that would have to wait.
Her review complete, Kate headed back up the hall.
Twenty minutes later she was showered and dressed in a fresh Braxton PD uniform with her Glock already holstered. Not only had she had enough time to leisurely wrap her wrist, she'd made her bed for a change.
Life was looking up.
Heck, Ruger had even dragged that giant piece of contraband Arash had given him into his plush, memory foam dog bed in the den while she was dressing and had settled in for a serious morning chew. She could smell the residual marrow drifting across the dining area and into the kitchen as she set her phone on the counter, and it wasn't even bothering her.
Surely that boded well for her coming showdown with the Marshals?
Or not.
The moment she finished filling her travel mug with coffee, her phone rang. And the number glowing up from the screen? It did not belong to Arash or Lou or Seth, or even Agent Wynne. Hell, it didn't even belong to Regan Chase.
But it was the number that had shown up on Regan's phone at Fort Campbell's CID office the day before. The same unlisted number that Regan had forwarded to her. The same number that Kate was absolutely certain was still unlisted.
Not that it mattered. She knew who was on the other end. "Morning, Chuck. How's life with the Company?"
As for her case? That was about to slam into a solid, incommunicative wall.
Why else was Charles Praeger calling her now? Less than a minute from her stepping out the door?
Praeger knew exactly where she'd flown to yesterday and who she'd visited after the C-21A had landed. Praeger also knew she'd flown back to Little Rock too late to abuse the information she'd obtained from Joe. Just as Praeger knew precisely when the closest US Marshals office was scheduled to reopen and exactly how long it would take her to drive there from the home address that the spook had also taken the time to locate.
Together, that all meant one thing. She was on the right track regarding the doc. She'd be damned if she'd let this asshole knock her off it.
"Leave Lily Basque alone." A nice generic, Midwestern newscaster accent.
Of course, that accent was probably as fake as its owner's name.
Kate switched off the coffeepot's warming feature. "Sorry, Chuck. I can't do that. I'm working a murder investigation, as you well know. Three now, in fact. We just had another body turn up late last night. And Dr. Basque—well, whoever she really is—has information that I need."
"Find another lead, because that one's a dead end. Basque doesn't know anything about your deaths. Leave her alone."
A decisive click filled Kate's right ear.
Praeger had hung up on her.
Shit.
She hit redial, but the man didn't pick up. Not that she'd expected him to.
Now what?
Her visit to the US Marshals' office was moot. No one would be speaking with her on the record or off, if they even let her in the door.
While this would be a prime moment to head to Manchin and confront Basque, the doc wouldn't be in her office for another two and a half hours. And Kate still had zilch evidence-wise to support the warrant the doc had demanded. Without that flimsy piece of paper supporting a third visit, she wouldn't get through that door either.
Not legally.
Which was frustrating as hell, because Lily Basque was on the verge of cracking.
The proof? The SOS the doc had sent out to Praeger.
Kate could spend the next few hours reviewing the entire case file and looking for alternate leads they might have missed, but she'd done nearly that after she'd returned home from the crime scene last night, and she suspected that Arash had done the same.
Why else had the detective texted her as late as he had?
If anything promising had been added since she'd last checked upon waking, Arash would've sent her a text by now.
No, she still wasn't looped in on Wynne's folder. But given that jackhammer handshake at the scene last night, if the OSI agent had anything new, she suspected he'd have called up the supposed war hero himself and passed on the info to her directly.
Hell, she couldn't even run an internet search for connections between the doc and their current victim, because they still had no idea who the woman really was.
That left the one place and activity Kate would prefer to avoid given the charred state of their current victim.
The autopsy.
What the hell. She'd been on her way into Little Rock anyway.
If she abused the electronic cherry attached to the top of her Durango and applied a bit of extra pressure to the gas, she might even arrive early enough to acclimate herself to the inevitable smell before Arash, Bill Wynne and the ME arrived.
Kate attached her phone to her utility belt and donned her deputy jacket on the way to the den to tweak Ruger's ears. The Shepherd was so caught up with his new favorite toy, he offered up a few thwacks of that dragon's tail, but that was it.
He was good to go for the day.
So she left.
Traffic on the interstate was thicker than usual. Worse, a fender bender involving two SUVs chewed through her buffer. By the time she reached the airbase and cleared security at the front gate, she was racing the clock for first cut.
Kate finally arrived at the hospital clinic's information desk and followed the instructions she was given to the corridor that led to the autopsy suite. To her surprise, Arash and the OSI agent had yet to enter. The two hadn't even breached the door.
Arash took one look at the lingering frustration she could still feel pinching her features and met her halfway up the corridor. "What happened?"
She nodded to Arash, then Wynne as he too closed in. "I got shot down—by the main name himself."
Arash nudged aside the left sleeve to a fresh charcoal suit and checked the time on the smartwatch beneath. "That was quick."
"More so than you think. I didn't get to the office. Got a call from the guy while I was still in my kitchen. His message: 'Leave Lily Basque alone.' He hung up and refused to pick up when I redialed." Naturally, she'd find another way to get through to the doc, but that was going to take time. And with the cadaver search not commencing until ten, "I figured I'd show up here and lend another set of eyes." She tipped her head toward the closed door to the suite further up on her right. "Is the ME running late?"
"No, I was. Just arrived myself." The OSI agent tucked his right hand into the hip pocket to his camouflaged utilities and surfaced with a smartphone. "Your information regarding religion and marital status paid off."
"You've got an ID on your body?"
"Yep. I was about to brief your partner, then call you. Guess I can run through it all once now." Wynne tapped into the notes app on his phone. "The victim's name is Samara Frasheri. She was married to an aviation maintenance sergeant by the name of Xhafer Frasheri. Sergeant Frasheri had duty yesterday and wasn't scheduled to head home 'til zero seven hundred this morning. After our info was disseminated, he was told to go home and check. He did—and she was missing. He contacted my office."
A solid alibi then. "Have you had a chance to meet with him?"
Wynne nodded. "That's why I was late. I showed him a photo of the left ankle and foot." The agent frowned. "It was the cleanest view I could get, and it had three small moles just below the outer bone. I figured it was a long shot, but—"
"He was able to ID her from the moles?"
"He was. And right off." The OSI agent scrubbed a palm over the exhaustion and hint of blond stubble cropping in along his jaw. "It was a rough meeting. Frasheri claims that he and Samara had a happy marriage, and that they were currently trying for their first kid. And, yeah, he was profoundly broken up."
At least the sergeant was alive. She was still all but certain the other two husbands weren't.
While she suspected Sergeant Frasheri wouldn't feel the same way if anyone voiced that pending reality to him, it was something to the three of them.
And one less stress point for the cadaver team.
Wynne dragged his free palm along his jaw once more, then lowered it to tap into his text app. "Anyway, here's the spelling on the names."
Her phone pinged along with Arash's. "What about a Christian angle? Have you found one?"
Wynne shook his head. "Not yet."
Kate nodded. Heck, there might not even be one to find.
Yes, Aisha had been dumped in a pastor's field, and Tahira had been attending a Bible-based support group for rape victims without her husband's knowledge. But the discoveries could just be one of those true coincidences that investigators stumbled across more often than they liked to admit. Mostly because they could bump an investigator off the real path and, worse, slow the case down.
Or were they simply missing something else? Another, uniting, link?
"What about the sergeants?" Yes, her gut was still telling her the first two wives were connected to Basque—and, hence, quite possibly this woman as well—but Kharoti and Larijani were both Army combat vets. Sergeant Frasheri might be an Airman, but he could easily be in that club. "Do you know if the men were stationed near each other? Or if they served together in Afghanistan or Iraq?"
"I did get a chance to run down that angle. And, no, I don't see an obvious nexus between all three sergeants' careers, or even a solid one between your two Army soldiers." The agent tapped out a second text.
A follow-on set of pings echoed through the corridor.
"That's the electronic link for the Frasheri case file and the password to get in. You can check out the notes I just uploaded on their careers when you get a chance. I'll let Captain Raub know we're all here for the postmortem and that he can get started. Join me when you can." With that the OSI agent headed for the door up on the right and entered the autopsy suite.
Kate retrieved her phone to make sure the case link had made it intact.
As Arash reached into his suit pocket for his phone, presumably to do the same, it rang. He glanced down at his caller ID, then her. "It's Hashem."
The man who'd cooked their dinner last night—and was working on that Sudanese Muslim-convert tip.
"Excuse me." Arash turned slightly and answered his phone in Farsi. He listened for a moment and appeared to answer in the affirmative, then hung up. "Hashem says he has something. But he doesn't want to talk over the phone or at his house. He has a brother visiting, so he asked if I'd meet him at his restaurant."
Kate nodded. "Go. I'll view the postmortem with Agent Wynne and let you know what the ME finds."
Fortunately, Arash didn't comment on her unilateral decision to kick him out of the hospital and across town, leaving her without the flashback buffer she'd somehow become accustomed to. There was no point. This was the job. Despite all the inescapable personal shit she brought to it, it still had to get done.
That said, her smile was admittedly a bit stiff.
But it was real.
"Good luck with Hashem." Whatever Arash's contact had discovered about the Sudanese convert, she prayed it produced a solid, viable lead.
Because they desperately needed one.
Yes, she was willing to apologize to Basque to try and soften her up. She'd even outright beg the doc for help. But deep down, Kate doubted it would work.
The woman was just too scared.
Arash nodded.
She was about to turn when he reached out and touched her sleeve, stopping her. "Something's changed with this bastard, Kate, and I don't know why. We've been looking at him. But last night? He's starting to look at us."
"I know."
"Be extra careful out and about today. Okay, partner?"
"Will do. You too, Arash."
He nodded, and they turned simultaneously. Arash headed down the corridor toward the elevator to leave. She followed the OSI agent to that dreaded door. She didn't bother removing her jacket. Autopsies were on the cold side.
Pausing in front of the suite, Kate drew in her nerves along with the last deep breath she'd be taking for a while, and pushed into the room.
She noticed two things right off. First, the ME had been at it a while.
Unless Captain Raub and the slender black female sergeant assisting him had decided to hold off 'til the end on taking samples from the array of organs that had already been removed from the body and were currently lined up in stainless-steel bowls along the counter on the right side of the suite, she had roughly thirty minutes left in purgatory, if that. Raub had not only completed the external exam and Y incision as best he could, given the charred condition and retracted musculature of the corpse, the ME had already made his way through the entire chest cavity. He was currently examining the victim's intestines as he offered up a stream of medical jargon for the microphone suspended inches above the clear shield covering his face.
Kate would've allowed her inescapable relief at the stunted session to filter in a bit longer had that second observation not taken hold as well. Agent Wynne's towering form was not posted near the body on the table, but was looming beside the door.
Wynne was clearly waiting for her...and he was royally pissed.
Because the ME had started so early and without him?
No. That wasn't the vibe she was getting from the blond brows clashing together above the agent's disposable face mask. Something else had angered Wynne, and she was fairly certain it had to do with their victim—and their case.
She accepted the mask and pair of latex gloves Wynne held out for her and donned them. "What's wrong?"
"The victim's husband lied to me."
Well, that did tend to happen in their line of work, didn't it? A lot. But to earn that scowl, this lie must have been a doozy. "What happened?"
"As you see, Raub got an early start. We had two airmen in the queue ahead of Mrs. Frasheri. But since those two airmen died as a result of a motorcycle accident, Raub wanted to take the serial homicide first, so he wouldn't miss anything due to exhaustion. He had Sergeant Lanier over there arrange for a set of X-rays before Mrs. Frasheri was brought in here."
Oh, crap. Kate knew where this was headed.
Given Aisha's issues with her husband and the X-ray results she'd already seen on Tahira Larijani, "They found multiple healed fractures, didn't they?"
The precise nature of which suggested abuse.
"Yep."
Yet another possible connection to Lily Basque and that Underground Railroad for abuse that Kate was now all but certain Basque was participating in.
Were they looking for the husband of someone Basque had helped? A husband bent on defiling, stabbing and burning other women because his own wife was now out of his reach—due to Basque? Or was his wife still trapped in the marital net, and was their killer simply raging against his wife's nerve at wanting to be free—and taking it out on other women seeking their own escape through Basque?
Either way, why murder the husbands?
Was there a message there, too? Or, as Kate's gut was insisting, had Sergeants Kharoti and Larijani simply gotten in the way? After all, Sergeant Frasheri had been on duty. Leaving his wife unprotected. In this instance, as well as others.
Unfortunately, while Samara Frasheri's X-ray results connected her to Lily Basque in Kate's mind, it wasn't nearly enough for a judge.
That warrant.
Something that, as much as Kate hated to admit, she would need to physically have in hand when she headed back to Manchin to confront Basque now that Praeger had called and officially shut her down. If she didn't, at this point Basque would be within her rights to call another cop...on Kate.
"You want a closer view?"
She shook her head. "I'm good." The cold made the smell almost manageable from back here, along with all those insidious memories that, unfortunately, were still knocking against her jangled nerves.
Why push it?
Nor did the OSI agent argue.
If anything, Kate felt the man's stance settle in, though it was still tense. She glanced up and swore from the fresh pinch to those brows that Wynne, too, was fighting the stench of scorched flesh. His own private hell littered with battered Humvees, exploded IEDs and the bodies of far too many dead friends.
Welcome to the real War on Terror. Drawdown or not, it was still being fought on a damned near daily, sometimes hourly, basis. And would be for decades to come.
By those who'd been there.
Unwilling to draw attention to another soldier's pain, Kate shifted her stare to where she'd rather it not be. To that charred body on the table. She focused on Mrs. Frasheri's better foot. The left one her husband had been forced to ID. Kate was dimly aware of Captain Raub removing the woman's intestines and placing them in the sterile bowl his sergeant held out, before the ME turned back to what now had to be an all but empty abdominal cavity.
"Agent Wynne? Deputy Holland?"
Oh, shit. She knew that tension too, though this one had been sheering into the ME's voice. Raub had found something else. Something that didn't mesh.
But what?
The ME glanced up as she and Wynne approached the autopsy table. "Though it is not in her military dependent's medical record, Mrs. Frasheri has been hospitalized recently. Very recently. Take a look in here and tell me what you see."
Sergeant Lanier stepped back to allow both her and Wynne to move in close enough to peer into the victim's abdominal cavity. The muscle within wasn't charred, though it was cooked. But that wasn't the incongruous part.
Kate looked at the ME. "Stitches."
Raub nodded, even as he pointed back to the cavity. "Do you see anything else? Or rather, do you not see something?"
She glanced at the stitches that ran along the top of the woman's cervix. The ovaries were present as well. But, "The uterus. It's missing." Surgically.
Wynne stiffened beside her. "Son of a bitch. Frasheri lied again."
That, the sergeant had. Because why would a couple try to get pregnant when there was no place for the fetus to grow?
But Raub wasn't paying attention to the peeved OSI agent. He was staring at her. He had more to offer. It was right there in those clear blue, suspicious eyes.
"What's wrong, Captain?"
The ME retrieved a pair of tweezers and used them to point to the cervix. "You see this knot in the suture thread on the far right? That daisy-petal flourish to it?"
"Yes?"
"I know who performed this LAVH and tied off that flourish. I should. I worked alongside her for six months at Bagram."
Craig.
Apprehension rippled down Kate's spine. For a split second, she thought about severing her stare. If only to protect herself from everything else she could now see inside the blue. Recognition. Acknowledgment.
"You were there, weren't you, Captain? At the Craig Joint Theatre Hospital. When I was there." Drugged up and strapped down in that quiet room.
When Basque was there.
Raub nodded. And then he flushed. "I didn't want to say anything last night. Figured you got put on the spot often enough. But, yes, I was there. I started out as a general surgeon—until a brush with an IED forced me to give up live patients."
"I'm sorry." And she was.
The ME shrugged. "I adjusted. I wasn't sure she ever would. Not to surgery, mind you. To the patients, to our surroundings. To life. She was always so...nervous."
"She?" Wynne.
But Kate knew. "Dr. Lily Basque. She removed this woman's uterus."
Again, Raub nodded.
Kate was about to question the ME further—and not about the woman lying on the table—when her phone pinged.
Kate retrieved her phone and glanced at the incoming text.
It was from Arash.
call me
Had Arash discovered something too? Something they could add to that flourish to gain a warrant?
At that moment, Kate wanted nothing more than to find out.