Latent Danger (On the Line #2)
Lori Ryan
Acknowledgements
I can never say enough to thank the people who help me on my books. It still amazes me that so many people, friends and strangers alike, will take the time to answer my seemingly endless questions as I plot and write. Thank you Elizabeth Neal, Iiz Burton and Beth Roth, Ernie Green, A.J. Scudiere, and Scott Silverii, PhD. You guys are fantastic! I’d also like to thank Connecticut’s Division of Criminal Justice Cold Case Unit for answering my questions. I like to try to bring as much authenticity to a book as I can. The work the men and women of that division do is awe inspiring.
As always, any errors or creative license are my own. Please don’t blame these guys!
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Chapter One
Zach Reynolds stepped out of the vehicle and looked around at the lonely stretch of road. It was a heavily wooded area and one of the only places dark and isolated enough for what they were about to see. The early morning hour meant the light would be dim once they entered the woods. Another twenty minutes or so, and the sun would be strong enough to begin to break through the cover. But not yet.
“You think it’s her?” His partner, Ronan Cafferty, didn’t have to tell Zach who he was talking about.
Carrie Athill, daughter of State Senator Jeffrey Athill, had been missing for three days. There were volunteers out in droves canvassing near her home and her school, flyers everywhere, and her face was on every newsstand and television station both nationally and in the local area.
Zach and Ronan had been working the case from the start, and so far had nothing to go on.
“I hope not.”
“The age is right.”
Zach nodded. The case was taking its toll on him. Carrie Athill was only seventeen.
His niece, Naomi, was the same age. It was hard to block out images of her whenever they worked a case like this. Thankfully, it wasn’t often they did. New Haven, Connecticutcar maintained a fairly low crime rate, at least so far as major crimes went.
They walked toward the area six yards in from the edge of the road, where portable lights, crime scene tape and the presence of the local medical examiner, Dr. Mary Kane, told him they would find the body.
They’d been told the body of a teenage female had been found. It was about all they knew, so he didn’t say more. Zach was never talkative at six in the morning, but he was particularly quiet today. He’d really been hoping the Athill girl had run away from home and was hiding out at a friend’s house or holed up with a boyfriend somewhere. The last thing he wanted was for the case to end like this.
Dr. Kane looked up as they approached, her sharp eyes and no-nonsense attitude always welcome at a crime scene. “Gentlemen.”
Zach scanned the body, taking in as much detail as he could. The details weren’t pleasant, but he didn’t bother to think about the fact that they would be seared on his brain forever. It was the price they paid for the work they did. Not a lot of perks, shit you couldn’t erase or download if you didn’t want to remember it, but there were the payoffs when they saved someone or brought a criminal to justice. Some days, it had to be enough.
He quickly assessed the girl was not Carrie. It didn’t make him feel much better, though, because the young woman splayed out on the ground was someone else’s daughter. It didn’t matter what her name was—she was dead, and her death hadn’t been peaceful.
“What do you have for us, Doc?” Ronan asked.
“Strangulation is the likely cause of death, but I’ll confirm when I get her on the table. You know the deal.”
Zach frowned, crossing his arms as he took in the image before him. The girl looked close in age to Carrie. Unlike Carrie, this girl had brown hair and her lifeless eyes looked like they’d been hazel, not the bright blue they’d seen in photos of Carrie Athill. Even with the cloud of death, he could tell the eyes weren’t Carrie’s.
The body lay on the forest floor, arms and legs askew. He didn’t see any signs that the body had been tampered with by animals. There had been no posing, no attempt to clean up the body or set up a supposedly serene stage for her. Ugly bruising that looked like it had come from a rope, ringed her neck.
Her lips had been painted with a garish red lipstick, but the job was done poorly, giving the effect of a clown as opposed to makeup meant to enhance beauty. It was as if their killer meant to torment the girl, even in death. To humiliate and demean. He watched as Dr. Kane placed brown paper bags over the hands and she and her assistant prepared the body for transport.
“Do you think she was killed here or are we looking at a dump site?” Ronan was blunt, but Zach didn’t object. They all tended to wall off any emotional reaction at scenes like this. The more you stuck to the facts, the easier it was to keep going. To do what had to be done to catch the person responsible and put them away.
“She was likely killed elsewhere and moved.”
Zach waited. He knew Dr. Kane would explain her reasoning. She always did.
She held up her hand to halt her assistant before pointing a gloved finger to the side of the girl’s face. She indicated the purge fluid coming from the nose and mouth. It had dried and looked a lot like blood, only it was browner, uglier, somehow.
“The pattern.” Dr. Kane used her finger to make a circle in the air around the side of the face. “Something laid against her face on either side and left a pattern.” Dr. Kane was pointing to the way the purge fluid drained from the side of the nose onto the cheek, but then the clear drain marks turned into smudges with a patterned marking, as though a blanket or other material had been wrapped around the body when the fluid was still damp. It was likely used for transport.