Tuesday
THE WEATHER WAS BARELY improved from the day before. The air was heavy, and the wind bit as it pulled brown, dead leaves from the deciduous trees that lined the street. Long gone were the shaded hues of gold and red. Winter teased at autumn’s last grasp.
Lee drove in silence, trying to read Nathan’s reaction through his peripheral vision. Never did he imagine he and Nathan would work on the same force but Aurora Police had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse and sometimes geographical distance from a memory served the psyche well.
They’d just come from Chief Anson’s office. Lee had asked and been granted permission to step down as SWAT commander for a period of two weeks in order to assist Nathan. Nathan had argued against the idea, stating Lee’s close connection to the victim could hinder the investigation.
Unfortunately, the chief threw the argument back in Nathan’s face. After all, it was Nathan’s feelings for Lilly that spurned his undying commitment to solve her peculiar rape case—risking his job to prove the DNA test from the perpetrator was incorrect. He married the victim. Besides which, Nathan’s partner was on leave.
Nathan still looked out the passenger window like a scolded child. Lee could see the man’s clenched jaw and stormy blue eyes reflected in the glass. The look could crack stone.
“Are you going to be brooding over this the entire time we’re working together?” Lee asked.
Nathan clicked his tongue a few times. “At least for the rest of today.”
“Want to explain your beef? I thought you’d be happy for the help.”
“That day on the Samuals property was the worst of my life.” Nathan turned in his seat toward Lee. “I try every day not to think about it for just one second. Just as I’m starting to find my way around it, with Lilly, you drag me back into this mud pit of hell by requesting that I be the lead on Lucy Freeman’s murder. Why do you want me on this case if you think I’m incompetent enough to need a babysitter?”
Lee stopped at a light. “Maybe we just need to get all our cards on the table. I do blame you.”
Nathan was silent.
“You were this young FBI hotshot. Your record was spotless. I was new to a position I wasn’t quite ready for. Only had a few calls under my belt. Other teams were already committed, and I was called in.” Lee thumbed the steering wheel. “I should have deferred less to you and let my SWAT training have a say. I blame you for deciding to wait. I blame myself for not telling you what I thought.”
Nathan remained stock-still. Lee turned into the parking lot. He looked over at Nathan, wondering if he’d gone too far.
“I know I’m just as responsible.” Lee glanced at Nathan and waited a beat. “Anything you want to say?” he added as he brought the vehicle to a stop and slammed the gear shift into Park.
Nathan opened his door and the wind whipped through the vehicle. “I hope any mistake you make today or tomorrow won’t be as vehemently evil as Lucent when it pops back up. Let me point to the speck in your eye yet not notice the log in my own.” He exited the truck and slammed the door behind him with a force that rocked the vehicle.
Nathan’s mention of the well-known Scripture threw Lee. Why was it that the intellectual parts of ancient Scripture resonated at his core but the practical applications—like forgiveness—were so hard to apply in real life?
Lee exited and walked a few paces behind Nathan. His life’s work was built around resolving conflict—albeit with a gun, shield, and several other armed men on hand. How could he turn this situation with Nathan around? Before he could reconsider, Lee grabbed Nathan’s shoulder.
Nathan stopped and turned on his heel; his eyes flashed a warning worthy of a dust-filled Western standoff.
“Look. I wouldn’t have asked for you if I didn’t think you could get this case figured out before anyone else. Let’s just agree to not let the past ruin our chances of finding this sociopath. I’m here because I need to see this through. Protect Keelyn. Certainly you can understand.”
Nathan grunted, yanked free, and made his way through the door, down the hallway, and into the examination room.
The concrete room lined with steel tables made Lee clench his teeth to the point of pain. He hoped the autopsies from the two victims recovered from the Highlander yesterday were completed and he could get out of the room quickly. One of the reasons he loved SWAT was less time spent here viewing bodies. The medical examiner, Dr. Stratford, was standing beside the woman’s open chest cavity, the victim’s heart in her hand. She plopped it on the scale for measurement and turned as Nathan’s footsteps slapped against the floor. Lee leaned against the opposite table, which supported the male victim found in the cargo space.
“Detective Long, just in time.”
“Find anything interesting?” Nathan asked, prepared to take notes.
“The woman is pretty straightforward—gunshot trauma. She was hit in the chest and abdomen with three bullets. One bullet passed through, not hitting any vital structures. The chest shot nicked her right lung.”
“Those should be survivable.”
“True, but not the third. It transected her descending aorta. Fatal exsanguination.”
“How long would it have taken her to bleed out?”
“Not more than two minutes.”
Lee stepped forward. “Would that explain the body being warm but having no pulse? We found her not long after she was shot?”
“Likely. The resuscitative efforts will hamper determining time of the shooting, but my guess is she was found shortly after she sustained these injuries. The man is more interesting. There were no signs of external trauma.” Dr. Stratford pulled off her gloves and tossed them into a metal kick-bucket and pulled on another pair. “But he did have this unusual cluster of red lesions to the right side of his neck.
Lee leaned in and almost knocked heads with Nathan. “What are they?”
“I’m not sure right now. They resemble hives, but it’s rare to have such a confined response. Hives tend to be more of a systemic reaction, but this rash is localized.”
Nathan pointed a finger. “There’re eight of them. Do they look arranged to you?”
The ME leaned in. “How so?”
“Circular. It doesn’t look random to me.”
She shrugged. “We have photos. I don’t discern a pattern.”
“What else could they be?” Lee asked.
“Some sort of simple rash. Molluscum can present as grouped smaller welts like this. It’s more common in children, though. It could be anything from rash to bug bites. Some of them appear to be target-like lesions. Could be tick bites, but ticks don’t usually group like this, either. Right now, it’s curious and unknown. We’ll have to look at tissue samples.”
“What killed him?” Nathan asked with pen poised over his pad.
Something glistened under Nathan’s nose. Lee scratched his upper lip. “Something on your face?”
Nathan ridged one eyebrow up. “Vicks VapoRub. I’d rather smell it than him.” He pointed to the corpse on the table.
The doctor laughed. “You know that just opens up the nasal passages, right? You’re likely smelling more than if you’d just left it off.”
Nathan’s jaw clenched. “It’s always worked fine for me.”
“As to what killed him, I don’t know. I’m going to send toxicology reports and tissue samples. There is nothing ominous on gross examination of the body.”
Lee stretched his neck until he heard the satisfying pop. “So we have a murder victim in the passenger seat of her own car, shot to death, with a man tucked into the cargo space with no signs of trauma and cause of death unknown. Not to mention the little girl left alive in the backseat with these two, and we have no idea how the three of them are connected.”
Nathan grabbed a tissue from a nearby dispenser. “Any ID on the male?”
“Actually, yes. I should have mentioned that before. A deputy matching our victim’s description was reported missing by Teller County Sherriff’s office after he missed two consecutive shifts. A check of his residence didn’t show any foul play, but they report it’s highly unusual for him not to call in if he’s ill. They said he’s diligent to a fault. Will report himself late if he doesn’t show up five minutes early.”
Lee smirked as Nathan swiped the tissue under his nose to clear the sticky ointment.
Nathan stuffed the crumpled wad into his pocket. “A cop? From the county where John Samuals took his family hostage?”
The ME flipped through the chart, scanning with her index finger through the information. “Yes, here. Clay Timmons.”
Lee’s first thought was of the note Keelyn had found on Raven’s table. The second thought was from that day. He could see the car pull up. The deputy step out of his car, so eager to help complete any task that he’d stumbled through the grass to hand off the food they’d asked for.
Food for the family held hostage.
Lee closed his eyes, waited for the officer’s badge to tip out of the sun so he could read his name. Yes, there it was.
Timmons.
Lee opened his eyes. “He was there.”
Nathan was busy putting away his notepad and paper. “What?”
Lee walked closer to the body, bent at the waist to look closer at the face. “Officer Timmons was at the Samuals house. He brought the food from the mini-mart.”
Nathan cursed under his breath. “Great. Just great.”
Lee could see it in Nathan’s eyes. The recognition of how tight this spiderweb Raven had found herself in might be. “The note at her house was signed Clay.”
“We need to go back and get that for evidence.”