4

Jackson finished jotting down the rest of his notes for his official report while his tech began cleaning up the autopsy room. Avery had been right. Some cases managed to become far too personal. After eight years of working in autopsy, he would have thought that his scientific interest would keep him coming to work every day. Sometimes it wasn’t enough. Some cases ended up eating at him for days, making him question why he was in this line of work.

And like their last Jane Doe case, this one might very well prove to be another one of them.

For now, his motivation would have to come from the realization that anything he discovered could help break the case and bring their Jane Doe’s murderer to justice. So far, though, he had little to report beyond time and cause of death. Now came the perpetual wait for fingerprints to be run against the system, fluids tested, and lab work results gathered. And so far nothing he’d found could help identify the body lying in his morgue.

Except the photo.

He stepped out of the windowless autopsy room and into the sunshine filtering through the narrow corridor, trying to shake the ever-present feeling of death that hung in the air. The half-dozen spider plants hanging strategically throughout the room helped remove some of the toxins the dead bodies brought with them, but even the green foliage couldn’t completely erase the vinegary odor of formalin or the other foul smells he had to work with every day.

He looked up as Avery stepped into the building at the other end of the long hallway, making him thankful he’d taken the time to exchange his stained lab jacket for a clean one. There wasn’t much he could do about the lingering smell of antibacterial cleaner until he could take a long, hot shower.

She traversed the hallway with no sign that she was bothered by the subtle odors drifting through from the autopsy room. Except for certain cases, he hardly noticed the smells anymore. But that didn’t hold true with most people. He was still surprised he’d managed to land a third date. He rarely got this far in the dating game. The combination of discovering he lived with his grandfather—who had been recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s—and knowing what he did for a living inevitably ended up scaring off most women.

Avery was proving to be different.

She stopped in front of him, two large drinks in her hands and a tired smile marking her features. “Hey, thanks for calling me.”

“Any excuse for some time in the company of a certain woman.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere, you know.”

“That’s what I was hoping.” He paused for a moment, taking in her blue eyes, strawberry blonde hair, and full lips. He hadn’t been looking for a relationship when they’d first met a couple months ago, but a string of cases kept throwing them together. Finally, he’d admitted to himself that he couldn’t get her out of his mind.

“I brought you a surprise.” She held up one of the drinks and handed it to him. “Vanilla coke with a dash of lime.”

“Just how I like it. No wonder they made you detective. You’ve got an eye for detail.”

Her nose scrunched when she smiled. “Funny.”

He took a sip of the drink, then glanced out the window. “Want to go for a walk? I’ve got a few minutes until my next autopsy, and besides this caffeine boost, I could use some fresh air.”

“I’d like that.”

Her smile tugged harder at his heart. Oh yeah. He was in serious trouble. She followed him outside into the sunlight that caught the red highlights in her hair, toward one of the iron benches outside the building. It might still be summer in Atlanta, but after four hours in an enclosed room, he didn’t mind the humid air at all.

He took another long sip of the icy drink, hoping for a round of small talk before they delved into business. “Has your day gotten any better?”

Avery’s smile faded. “After hours of canvassing the neighborhood, we ended up with a homeless man who roams the streets at night. At this point, he’s not a suspect, but I am hoping he saw something.”

“No one else saw anything?”

“Someone will turn up eventually, but time isn’t on our side in this case. I need to know who she is before our killer strikes again.”

He caught the worry in her eyes. If this was the work of a serial killer, the count was already up to two bodies—two that they knew of. Neither of them wanted another victim on their hands.

“There’s still a chance this was simply an isolated case and not a serial killer. This Jane Doe was killed with a blunt instrument to the side of her head. It’s a different MO from your last victim, who was stabbed, then dumped.”

“True, but the two cases are still close enough in my mind that I can’t overlook the connection at this point. Between the location, race, and age of the victims—and especially the tattoo—there are simply too many similarities.”

She looked up at him, her fingers wrapped tightly around her drink, expression somber. “What if I don’t catch this one and justice isn’t carried out? What if this happens again to another girl?”

“Sometimes finding out the truth takes time, but you’ll find it.”

“I’m sorry.” She leaned back against the bench and rattled the ice in her cup. “I’m really not usually like this. We’re not even twelve hours into things, and I’m treating it like a cold case with no leads in sight. But I just can’t stop playing out worst-case scenarios. I need more than justice. I need this man stopped, so another mother doesn’t have to suffer the heartache of losing a child.”

Jackson watched her expression darken and all the pieces snapped into place. Four months ago, Avery’s brother, Michael, had been killed in the line of duty, leaving Avery to watch firsthand how the loss of a child had changed her mother.

“We might not be able to save them all, Avery, but we can do everything in our power to find whoever did this and stop him from ever hurting anyone again.” He nudged her with his shoulder. “Or we could always think about starting our own fast-food chain and start flipping burgers together. No dead bodies, no elusive killers . . .”

As corny as his idea was, it worked. Avery laughed and leaned toward him, smelling like a bouquet of fresh flowers—a far cry from his autopsy room.

“I think I might like that.”

Jackson looked out across the manicured lawns and began to relax for the first time all day. Atlanta might not be Houston, but he loved how the city seemed to rise out of the forest, its neighborhoods dotted with small parks and green landscape. On days like today, he needed the diversion of God’s handiwork to settle his spirit. Adding Avery to the picture made things even better.

She was worth making time for, but finding that time to spend together the past few weeks had become far more complicated than he’d wished. Between their jobs, Tess, his grandfather, and her family, there always seemed to be something urgent pressing. And he was pretty sure she felt the same tugs on her time.

She pulled on a loose strand of her hair, a habit of hers he’d noticed. He wished he could read her mind, because his heart was pretty much already taken. All he could do at this point was hope she felt the same way.

He glanced at his watch, immediately regretting the gesture. “I’m sorry. I was hoping to prolong things, not cut it short, but I guess I should catch you up with what I found and get back to work.”

“I’d like that better too, but you’re right. And I’ve still got a mountain of work to do before heading off to Tess’s swim tryouts.” He caught the flicker of regret in her eyes. “Initial findings? You said you had something for me.”

“Hopefully the lab will come up with something more solid, because overall I don’t have much for you yet. You know the drill, it will take a few days minimum to get the results back on all of the tests we’re running.” No matter what his personal feelings were for her, there was only so much he could do to rush the results. “There were signs of sexual relations, though I don’t think she was raped. There was no bruising.”

“And the DNA.”

“We’ll get a match as soon as we can.”

Avery shook her head. “So she has consensual relations, then the guy hits her over the head and kills her?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Maybe not, but we’re missing something. If it’s not a serial killer, what are we looking at? Sex trade, prostitution, jealous lover, robbery . . .”

“I do have something else. I’m not sure how it will help at this point, but it is the most promising.”

“What is it?”

Jackson reached into the front pocket on his lab jacket and pulled out the black-and-white photo he’d slipped in an evidence bag and handed it to her. “It’s one and a half by two inches, and looks like it was cut from a photo booth strip, like the one you’d find at a mall.”

“You found this on her person? We checked all of her pockets.”

“We found a small, concealed pocket sewn into the lining of her clothes. It would have been easy for your people to miss at the crime scene. They’re running the fingerprints we found on it right now, but it might only lead us back to her.”

Avery fingered the photo. Two Asian girls smiled shyly at the camera, both wearing white traditional Vietnamese dresses. The one on the left was their Jane Doe. The second girl’s face was half hidden behind a cone-shaped hat. Smiling. Happy. “Why conceal the photo? Why not just carry it in a purse?”

“That is a question I can’t answer.”

“Was there anything else in the pocket?”

“No, but there could have been.”

“What do you mean?”

“The stitching around the edges had been ripped, as if someone had taken something out.”

“During the attack?”

“Or maybe after she was dead. I don’t know.”

Avery stood, her mind clearly sorting through the information she’d just been given.

“You’ll need to sign for the photo. I’ll make sure that your team receives the rest of the evidence once we are finished processing it.”

She started back beside him, toward the offices. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. By the way, are we still on for tonight? I know this was supposed to be your day off, but if you’d rather go out another time . . .”

He waited for her answer, hoping she was still up for it. He looked forward to seeing her again outside of work when they could talk about something besides murder investigations and autopsy reports.

“No, tonight should still be fine. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Good. Me too.” His phone buzzed. “Hang on.” He quickly read through the text message. “It’s from the lab. There were two sets of fingerprints on the photo.”

Avery turned to face him. “Whose?”

“Our Jane Doe’s and James Philips’s—a man convicted for assault eighteen months ago.”