She bit her tongue hard, her gaze lasering his, her temper spiking red hot.
“That forensic psychologist sure was on the ball with getting that one to press so fast.” His gaze lowered and lingered pointedly on the scar across her lips. “And the fact that it wasyouwho found this skeleton in the moss? Already a notorious celeb? Talk about a lucky break—my editor at CBC is all over this. TheSunandColonistwant pics and a feature story, too. Been several missing persons in these parts over the decades. Those remains could be any one of—”
“You can’t use my photo,” she said, voice tight and very quiet. “Or my name.”
He angled his head, his eyes continuing to hold hers, unblinking. Blue eyes, Angie noted. Pale blue. He had dirt beneath his nails. The hair on the backs of his hands was red. A bracelet of tiny colored beads nestled beside his Garmin watch strap, like an African tourist trinket. Angie pinned him as a pseudo liberal, an asshole who pegged himself as a global traveler, but she’d bet her ass he’d never venture alone off established tourism tracks. A wannabe who’d missed the international journalism boat and would try to make up for it by going full bore with a story on her because she was a sitting duck.
“I’d really like to interview both you and Detective Mad—”
“Go fuck yourself,” she whispered.
Something shifted in his pale, flaccid features. “I don’t need your permission, Ms.Pallorino,” he said. “Just like Dr.Grablowski didn’t need your permission to write his true crime book. Your finding that body is public record now.Youare public record.”
CHAPTER 7
Jilly Monaghan reached for the television remote and hefted her arthritic feet onto the ottoman. She clicked on the CBC channel to wait for the nightly 10:00 p.m. news broadcast, a routine that marked the end of each day. Days that felt too long and too damn dull. Retirement was not what it was bloody cracked up to be.
Just before the newscast was about to begin, her in-home caregiver, Gudrun Reimer, brought Jilly’s nightly tot of brandy on a tray.
Jilly lifted the brandy snifter without taking her eyes off the television. “Thanks, Gudrun.”
“Anything else?”
“Nope.”
Like Swiss-German clockwork, Gudrun exited the living room at precisely 10:00 p.m. Jilly supposed that if she had to have help, Gudrun was probably the best kind for the job. Not young—midsixties. But solid in body and mind. Her five kids all grown and flown the coop, Gudrun had nothing better to do than look after some old woman who could afford the privilege. In that way Jilly and Gudrun were a team—two female seniors heading down the twilight road of their lives, Gudrun assisting Jilly with a steady hand at the elbow and a nonjudgmental reminder when Jilly forgot things. And Jilly was easing Gudrun’s golden years with a hefty paycheck each month. Functional partnership. Plus the German Frau wasn’t a half-bad chef, and Jilly liked to eat well.
She bumped up the volume. The recap of the day’s current affairs proved boring. Possibly that was a good thing. Dull news meant things were going well. She sipped her brandy as the footage cut back to the anchor for a local segment.
“And on Vancouver Island, a decades-old mystery has just been unearthed with the discovery of human remains buried in a shallow grave. The remains were dug up by a mushroom picker’s dog late yesterday afternoon about two hundred meters from the banks of the Nahamish River, north of the small town of Port Ferris.”
Jilly shot bolt upright, spilling her drink. She grabbed the remote and blasted up the sound.
“Port Ferris coroner Robin Pett has taken jurisdiction of the skeletonized remains. Once the remains have been excavated, a postmortem will be performed, and the process of identification will start. Local reporter Dave Falcon was on-site. What can you tell us, Dave?” The footage cut to a big dough-faced reporter with red hair.
“I’m here near the grave site with Budge Hargreaves, whose dog, Tucker, discovered the bones yesterday.” Dave Falcon held his mike toward a whiskered, red-faced old man with nervous eyes. “Can you tell us what happened, Mr.Hargreaves?”
“My dog, Tuck, dug it up. The skeleton, or rather, some of the bones. Right over there.” The camera panned to yellow crime scene tape fluttering between old-growth trees. “There’s no cell reception here, so I ran down to the river where I’d seen some boats from Predator Lodge. I yelled for help. In one of the boats was a detective from Victoria. He came on land and took charge of the scene until the local guys could get in.”
The image cut back to Dave Falcon. “The detective in the boat was Sergeant James Maddocks of the MVPD,” he told viewers. “Sergeant Maddocks was on a fishing trip with his partner, Angie Pallorino. Pallorino is an ex-cop who recently made headlines as being both the angel’s cradle baby and the MVPD officer who shot and killed serial killer Spencer Addams, also known as the Baptist.”
A woman’s face filled Jilly’s screen. Long red hair, pale complexion, a vicious scar across the left side of her mouth. Jilly knew how Angie Pallorino had acquired that scar. She’d watched and read everything on Pallorino. And the Nahamish? A skeleton? If a body had become skeletonized, it meant it had been in the ground for quite some time. Excitement pounded through Jilly.
“Gudrun!” she yelled. “Gudrun! Come here,quick!”
Gudrun burst through the door, panic on her face. “Is everything all right?”
“Pass me that framed photo on the shelf there. Yes, that one.”
Gudrun hurried over with a framed image of a young woman. Jilly snatched it from Gudrun and stared at the photo. The young woman gazed back at her with almond-shaped eyes so dark they were almost black. A thick fall of hair the color of ebony hung below her slender shoulders. Her smile was broad and white and alluring, as was the coquettish tilt of her head as she looked directly at the photographer. She was wearing chest-high waders, and she held a fly-fishing rod in her hand. Around the wrist of her hand that held the rod was a silver cuff bracelet. Jilly had bought it for her in Egypt.
Is it you? Can it be? After all these years?
“What is it?” Gudrun said, reaching for the remote and turning down the blaring volume.
Jilly looked up, her eyes misting with emotion. “It’s her,” she whispered. “Iknowit’s her, Gudrun, it has to be. They’ve finally found her.”
CHAPTER 8
