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Lionel stood behind his desk. Todd sat beside her. All neat and proper like. Protocol was protocol.
Her gray pants weren’t her favorite. She should have worn her favorite.
Lionel picked up a file.
The whole morning had turned into a slow-motion film.
“What’s up?” Her voice sounded surprisingly normal.
Lionel hesitated. She had a doctor’s appointment in an hour, to get her stiches out. If Lionel didn’t hurry up, they might have to postpone this little meeting until after lunch.
Lucy was just thinking that she liked the sound of that when Lionel interrupted her with, “We identified the body you found.”
“And?” She was fine, sitting there. All professional and fine.
“It’s Allie, Luce. I’m so sorry.”
She nodded. It was okay. Really. Not sure if she spoke out loud, she nodded again. She’d been prepared for this moment for a long time. The chances of Allie being found at all, after being gone so long, were minuscule. That she’d be found alive even less so.
She opened her mouth to speak and nothing came out. Coughing, she tried again and managed, “Cause of death?”
“Hard to tell for sure, but…are you sure you want to know this?” Lionel asked. And then, sitting down, he said, “Of course you do. The skull was broken, severely crushed.”
“He bashed in her head.”
“Someone did.”
“He did it,” Lucy said, clearly, succinctly. “He is going to pay for this, Lionel.”
“I’m already on it, Luce.” Todd spoke for the first time. “We’re bringing back all the dirt that surrounded the body. We’re going to go through every single grain until we find some of that bastard’s DNA. If he scraped a finger and left even a small piece of skin or a drop of sweat on any of the bones… You sweat when you dig. Chances are some of it dripped. We’re cleaning the bones now. We’ll find something.”
“We’re thinking maybe the rape took place in the same area. If we could question your mother we might…”
Lucy shook her head. “Not now at any rate.” She’d just lost Allie. She wasn’t going to lose Sandy, too.
“How sure are you that the bones are Allie’s?” They didn’t have her sister’s DNA. And Allie hadn’t broken any bones prior to having been abducted. There were no identifying marks or any dental records.
“We matched the DNA from the bone samples to your mother’s DNA. Which they had for the rape case. The match isn’t conclusive, but there are enough similarities to make a legal positive ID.”
She nodded again. Unless Sandy had had another baby who’d been buried in those woods, the body she found was Allie’s.
“You did amazing work on this one, Lucy. You’re a good cop.” Lionel was clearly at a loss for words. But if she heard those words again, she was going to puke.
She was tired of hearing what a great cop she was.
She wanted to be more than a good cop.
What she’d wanted was a happy ending to a lifelong quest. She’d wanted her mother to be healthy. She wanted to find the joy that everyone else seemed to take for granted.
And they’d just nipped that one in the bud.
“M iller? There’s someone outside asking for you.” Bill’s voice came from behind Ramsey late Wednesday morning. His associate was coming back into the office from a homeinvasion call.
“Who is it?” Ramsey asked, not looking up from the list of phone numbers he was perusing. Jack Colton’s personal cell-phone calls. He was in possession of a warrant to go through the man’s truck and apartment, too. He just had to find him, first.
And didn’t like the fact that he couldn’t. Colton wasn’t answering his cell. Ramsey didn’t believe for one second that that was a coincidence.
“Cal Whittier. He says you know him.” Bill didn’t know him. Because Cal was one of the cold cases Ramsey was pursuing on his own time. He kept up his share of the team work. And his team left him alone to do the rest without complaint.
