Years earlier.

8:07 A.M. Wednesday, December 17.

The knob rattles. I feel a subtle pull of air, note the time, and look up, curious. It’s winter break and the building is deserted. The entire campus is deserted. Who could be coming into my lab?

The door wings back and two men stride in. Uninvited. Both are tall, maybe six feet. One is thin. The other is not thin. Both are in their mid-thirties.

I’m annoyed at the interruption. I’ve been on the anthropology faculty at the University of North Carolina–Charlotte a single semester, my employment contingent upon having a PhD. The junior member of my doctoral committee has recently informed me that he won’t be signing off on my dissertation. Not only did the jackass refuse to read my opus during summer break, now that he has read it he’s demanding the inclusion of another trait in the statistical treatment.

The borrowed collection I’m examining is due to be returned in three weeks. Spring term looms and course outlines, lectures, and exercises must be prepared. I’ve yet to hang tinsel or purchase a single gift. So, yes. I’m not in a ho-ho-ho mood.

The heavy man has cop stamped on his forehead. Which, being greasy, matches his hair. Brown corduroy jacket, butt-shiny polyester pants, Kmart tie, kiss-my-ass swagger.

The thin man looks like an antonym in more ways than weight. Designer suit, silk tie, custom shirt, Italian leather shoes gleaming like soup. His hair is artfully arranged to disguise its erosion from his scalp.

I lower my mask but don’t rise. The men cross to my work table. Kiss My Ass takes the lead.

“Where’s Doc Becknell?”

“I’m Dr. Brennan.” Premature on the title, but soon enough. If I can shake this pair and get back to scoring foramina. “Can I help you?”

“We need the doc.”

“And you gentlemen would be?” Laying down my magnifier.

Kiss My Ass yanks a badge from his belt and holds it out for inspection. The leather fob is so new it still smells of cow.

“Congratulations on the promotion, Detective Slidell.”

Slidell’s chin cocks up and his lower lids crimp.

“Fresh off the press,” I respond to his unasked question, then turn to his partner.

“Detective Eddie Rinaldi. We’re sorry for the intrusion, ma’am.”

“Where’s Becknell?” Slidell demands.

“Unavailable.”

“How ’bout we get her on the horn and make her available.”

“That would be difficult.”

“We live in difficult times.”

“Dr. Becknell is on sabbatical,” I say.

“Meaning?”

“She’s away.” I suspect this Slidell is oblivious to the ways of academia.

“Away where?”

“North Azraq, Jordan.”

“Doing what?”

“Excavating. The site is Epipaleolithic, early Kebaran down to Acheulean. Also some lower Levallois-Mousterian layers.” Half making it up, knowing the guy’s clueless. Bitchy. But Slidell’s arrogance isn’t playing well with me.

“Dandy.”

“Indeed.”

Slidell’s eyes hold on mine, then drop to the table.

“What’s that?”

“Prehistoric cremains.”

The eyes roll up, still irritated over my newbie crack. Maybe the archaeo-jargon.

“Burned bone,” I explain.

“Who’s the vic?”

“A girl who died in her teens.”

“How?”

“Her heart stopped beating.”

“You’re funny.”

“I try.”

“So you do the same bone-whispering mojo as Doc Becknell?”

“What is it you want, Detective?” The clock is ticking. And I don’t like this man.

“I’ve got a crisper needs a name.”

“Excuse me?”

Hearing the disgust in my tone, Rinaldi jumps in.

“Let me explain, please. A physician named Keith Millikin vanished about a week ago. Dr. Millikin ran a street clinic off Wilkinson Boulevard, a one-man operation providing low-cost health services for indigents, the homeless, street kids—”

“Junkies and deadbeats.”

I ignore Slidell. So does Rinaldi.

“When Dr. Millikin failed to open his office for five days running, one of his patients, a gentleman named Louis Grimm, filed a missing persons report.”

I wait. Rinaldi doesn’t continue.

“Go on.” Guarded. I suspect where this is headed.

Slidell opens his mouth, but his partner hushes him gently with a raised palm. I notice that Rinaldi’s fingers are long and graceful, his nails buffed, his cuticles neatly trimmed.

“Dr. Millikin lived in an Airstream off Highway 49, down near the South Carolina line. Yesterday, getting no response from the police, Mr. Grimm persuaded his brother to drive him to Dr. Millikin’s home. To make a long story short—”

“Which you ain’t.”

“—Mr. Grimm observed smoke damage to the rear of the trailer, found the door unlocked, and entered.” Rinaldi sounds like he’s reading from an incident report. “The trailer’s interior was gutted by fire. Spotting remains among the debris, and feeling the authorities might once again ignore him—”

“Grimm bagged the bones and hauled ass to the morgue. Apparently he and his brother watch a lot of Quincy.”

Though I know little about death-scene recovery, that doesn’t sound good. I say nothing.

“The arson team will be heading there soon. From Mr. Grimm’s account, a kerosene heater may be involved.”

“Corpses ain’t sausage. Smoking don’t improve ’em.” Slidell thinks he’s quite a wordsmith. Again, I ignore him.

“I’m a bioarchaeologist. I don’t do forensic work.” Not admitting to the tiny skeleton I once examined at the request of an anthro grad student who is also a cop. Those images still haunt me.

“A charred stiff’s a charred stiff,” Slidell says.

“This ‘charred stiff’ ”—hooking air quotes around Slidell’s callous turn of phrase—“died two thousand years ago. A medical examiner won’t be issuing a death certificate. An insurance company won’t be paying beneficiaries.”

“So why bother?”

“Archaeologists work to piece together humanity’s past.” Now I’m defensive and spouting boilerplate. “To reconstruct the complexit—”

“And a few eggheads in ivory towers give a shit.”

“I believe interest in human evolution is much more widespread than that.” Cool. How could I explain my love of bioarchaeology to this dolt? My passion for understanding people who inhabited the earth long before my birth? For learning of their accomplishments, their failures, the minutiae of their lives? The connectedness I felt when touching their bones?

Slidell shoots me a brief, pitying glance. Then he tries a different tack. A good one.

“Doc Becknell ain’t so wrapped up in the past she don’t care about the living.”

That hits home. Still, I can’t spare the time. But is work pressure the sole reason for my reluctance? Or is something else operating? Fear of inadequacy?

“Dr. Becknell has training in areas that I do not,” I say.

Slidell laughs, a mirthless little snort. “Horseshit.”

Heat flames my cheeks. I bite back a retort.

Rinaldi tries to defuse my anger. “That didn’t come out the way my partner intended.”

I say nothing. I think, Horseshit.

“Skinny means he’s confident you possess the skill set required to ID this man.”

“Skinny?” Slidell is far from that.

“Erskine.”

Slidell glares. I store the nickname for future use.

“Dr. Millikin has family?” Against my will, I feel myself drawn in.

“A son. In Wisconsin.” Rinaldi pauses, cop instincts triaging what is safe from what must be withheld. “Dr. Millikin was a loner. And, by all accounts, an odd duck. But his patients say he was a kind and generous man.”

“You speak of him in the past tense.”

“Dr. Millikin’s patients insist that he would never willingly abandon them. A burned body has been found in his home.” Rinaldi’s brows float up. What remains to be said?

“Millikin was a whack-job, Millikin was a saint. It don’t matter.” Slidell, caring only about closing a file. “Until someone says otherwise, I got a John Doe in a cooler with a tag on his toe. If he still has a toe.”

“Once more, with feeling. I don’t do police work.”

“You could.”

Easy, Brennan.

“I’m very sorry. But I haven’t the time right now.”

“You got time for people haven’t breathed since John the Baptist was handing out towels.”

“Colorful image.”

“I try.” Slidell fires back my own quip. Though obnoxious, the man isn’t dumb.

Slidell crosses his arms and gives me a hard green stare. I give it back. His fingers drum an impatient staccato on one brown corduroy sleeve. Several nails wear dark crescent caps. I refuse to consider the nature of the grime.

Around us, things hum quietly. The overhead fluorescents. The HVAC. The motor in the ancient storage fridge.

“If you’ll excuse me.” I rise.

The fingers drum faster. It’s clear Skinny is used to getting his way.

Seconds pass. No one moves. No one speaks. Then Slidell fires one last volley.

“Guess the little lady ain’t ready for prime time.”

“Really, Detective.” Calm. I want to reach out and stuff the Kmart tie down his chauvinist throat. “You can do better than that.”

A bell trills, dismissing students far away on beaches and slopes.

Slidell’s arms drop to his sides. His shoulders roll back. His lips part, but Rinaldi jumps in.

“May I say one last thing?”

I nod.

“Keith Millikin was an educated man. A physician. Had he chosen, he could have led a very different life. Taken cruises, driven Porsches, played golf at the club. He did none of those things. He lived in a trailer and treated the people whom society has kicked to the curb. The poor and forgotten. Should we forget him?”

Sonofabitch.

I make a decision that changes my life.