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“Cold, huh?” I duck under the tape after her and move fast to keep up. “Ice in your veins when you’re on the job, Doctor?”
She dismisses me with a flick of her hand. “I’m working, Archer. You go do your job, I’ll do mine.”
Catching sight of Aubree and Fletch, she turns their way and charges forward, not stopping until Fletcher’s eyes come up.
“Detective Fletcher. Can you tell me what we’ve got so far?”
“Hmm…” He hums in the back of his throat. “We’ve got a deliciously dimpled doctor arriving on scene at the exact same time as our beloved detective.” He flashes a devious grin. “Alliteration turns me on.”
“Inappropriate and irrelevant.” Instead, she grabs Aubree’s wrist and steers her colleague toward what I know is a little girl’s body laid half-frozen on the snow and grass.
I know she’s over there; I haven’t become desensitized to these things. But for that first moment on scene, I like to pretend I don’t see our victim’s tiny feet. Their arms splayed, or the river of blood seeping from a broken body.
“What’s up?” When Fletch and I are alone, I meet his eyes once more. “What’ve we got?”
“You left the bar with her. Now you arrive on scene with her. Convenient.”
“Economic.” I think of my unsatisfied cock. I think of Minka’s wet heat and how close I could have come to completion. Instead of an orgasm, I feel hollow and sad. “Terrible timing. I was busy when that call came in.”
“Bet you were,” he chuckles. Glancing across at the doctors, Fletch finally slips off his mask and shows me the hard-ass cop beneath. “She’s ten, Arch. Just a little girl.”
“Have you done a prelim yet?”
He shakes his head slowly in the dark. “We arrived on scene only ninety seconds before you. There was no point in me rushing over, so I waited.”
“Then how do you know she’s ten?” I glance back to watch Minka kneel by a too-small body. Aubree came prepared with a bag I always see the death doctors bring to these scenes, and because Minka didn’t bring one, they open the pack and share the contents. “If you haven’t identified her yet, and the M.E.s only just arrived on scene, how do you know?”
“Neighbor recognized her and called it in. The woman is currently losing her dinner over there,” he nods toward a cruiser fifty or so feet back from where we stand. “Mother is over that way,” he nods in the opposite direction. “Both needed to be restrained so we could protect the scene. Both are screaming her name. Louisa Thoma.”
I don’t have children; I’ve never once considered having them. The world is ugly enough as it is. But that doesn’t mean I don’t empathize with those who love this little girl. She’s already mine, my responsibility, my child to protect.
My murderer to bring to justice.
“Alright. So we have visual ID. M.E.s will do the rest. Let’s go take a look and see what we see.”
“Another face, Arch.” He starts forward and keeps pace by my side. “She’s another face that’s gonna live in my dreams.”
“Yep.” I stop six feet back and watch Minka lean over the girl. Grief and torment and a soul-clenching ache washes through all four of us. “The job fucking sucks.”
Waiting for Minka’s eyes, I ask, “What do we have?”
“She died, by my estimate, around seven o’clock.” She lowers her voice. “While we were all inside Tim’s tonight in the warmth, she died.” Looking back to the girl, she shakes her head and keeps working. “Her body temperature, taking into account the weather outside, puts time of death between sixty and ninety minutes ago.” She accepts a light sheet from Aubree, spiking my temper when the doctors gently lay it over Louisa’s bottom half and mess with my crime scene.
“What the fuck—”
“She was raped, Archer. Violently.” Minka takes a heavy camera when Aubree offers it and photographs bruising on the girl’s arm. “With something other than a penis, by my initial investigation. I’ll know more once she’s on my table at the lab. I’ll be able to tell you what was used. Findings will be in my report.”
“Cause of death?”
Her eyes close for a moment, hidden behind the camera where no one else can see.
But I do. I see her sorrow.
Opening them once more so her long lashes kiss the viewfinder, she exhales a sigh and continues to record the things she finds. “Asphyxiation.” She swallows so her throat moves beneath the delicate skin I ran my tongue across only twenty minutes ago.
How did we so quickly go from there to here?
“Her mouth and throat were packed full of snow and dirt,” Aubree adds when Minka doesn’t. “A lot of the snow has melted, of course, but it would have been packed so tight, she wouldn’t have been able to breathe. The dirt remains, and there are signs of frostbite on her lips, cheeks, and inside her mouth.”
