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“I’d rather not talk about it,” he said softly, his body close to mine. “I’d rather you just show me what you want.”
“We can’t,” I said. “You’re my stepbrother. Our parents are important here. And everyone talks. You know that.”
“I don’t see anybody around right now.”
I shook my head quickly. “We just can’t.” I quickly opened my door and stepped into my room.
“Your loss.” I began to shut the door. “Night, sis,” he said.
I closed it and leaned against the knob for a second before locking it.
My heart was pounding in my chest. I couldn’t believe Easton was staying right next door. He hated his mother and didn’t want anything to do with staying at home, and yet there he was. He said it was to be able to concentrate on the case, but I knew that couldn’t be true.
As much as I wanted him, things were just too tangled. I was afraid of him, if I was completely honest. I was afraid of what I wanted from him, and afraid of his past.
I climbed into bed with a sigh. I just needed to forget about him.
Which was pretty hard, considering we worked together. And he was just next door, his muscular body barely feet away.
I shut my eyes and tried not to remember the way he’d made me feel out there alone together on the bridge.
10
Easton
Sheriff Sloan had the AC on blast even though the night was relatively cool. We moved through the night, out toward the heavy forest. He took a small detour down a dirt track, almost identical to the one I took earlier.
We drove in silence, which suited me. I was not much interested in talking to Sloan. He was a nice enough guy, but he had no clue what he was getting himself into. How could he? Mishawaka rarely saw crime worse than drunk driving.
Tonight, though, Sloan saw the work of a true monster.
After ten more minutes, I could see the flashing red and blue lights of a police cruiser up ahead.
“Line is just up there,” Sloan commented as if I were blind.
“Yeah,” I grunted.
“When was the last time you were on a scene?”
“Not long enough.”
We lapsed back into silence as we slowly pulled up next to a cruiser.
People were milling about everywhere. The crime scene people were wandering around in their anti-contamination suits taking pictures of just about everything while the plainclothes stood around and looked important.
Sloan parked and we climbed out. “She’s just over here,” he said.
I nodded and followed him as we ducked under the yellow police tape line.
I took a deep breath. It really hadn’t been long enough since I was last at a crime scene. Vivid memories came spilling back, memories I didn’t really want. Martin, his throat bloodied, his skin pale. Seed lying on the ground, unmoving. The other agents and the damn looks they gave me, like I was some scumbag criminal myself. But I wasn’t that guy anymore.
We picked our way through the small crowd. I caught a few glances thrown my way, but Sloan’s presence meant that they weren’t going to say a word.
Sloan stopped and turned to me. “I heard about what happened with you and the bureau,” he said.
I nodded. “Okay.”
“You ready for this?”
“Let’s get it over with.”
He gave me a long look. Sloan wasn’t such a bad guy, but I would have given anything to get the fuck away from him. He was in his mid-fifties with short-cropped hair greying at the sides and at least an extra ten pounds hanging off his tall frame. We were almost the same height, a few inches over six feet, and he looked like he had been a linebacker in his younger days.
“Come on,” he said, and we walked the last fifteen feet.
And there she was. Lying propped up against a tree was a female, approximately twenty years old. Pale skin, brown hair. Her mouth was open, but her eyes were closed. Her hands were lovingly placed in her lap, and every one of her fingers were removed.
I knelt down next to a tech that was photographing the victim’s hands. “What can you tell me?”
“Victim, female, eighteen to twenty, Caucasian. No I.D. yet, but it’s only a matter of time.”
“Struggle?”
“No. No signs of a struggle. If I had to guess, I’d say the cause of death was an overdose or a poison.”
I nodded, looking at the girl. She looked like so many other girls I had seen, every one of them so young, none of them deserving what happened.
“Sexual assault?” I asked.
“Signs of it, but we’re not sure.”
I nodded and stood up, slowly walking around the tree.
Everything about it screamed Lester Seed, and also none of it was right.
