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Clare shook her head. “It was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter now.” She squared her shoulders. “Why don’t you show us what you found?”
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, but she ignored it. Whatever it was could wait until this was done, then she’d hopefully have a good excuse to leave.
SIXTEEN
Gage felt a drip of rain on the back of his neck. “Guess you needed that umbrella.” He shifted so Sarah could see in the van, preferring to look at Clare rather than a burned victim. Not that it was much of a decision.
Clare gave him a flat smile. “What does it look like in there?”
“Not good. It’s the van they escaped in, but that will have to be officially confirmed.” All of which would go in the report. “Since we saw it, no surprise they dumped it. Given this is the third or fourth place they hit, there’s a systematic nature to what they’re doing.”
Sarah headed for her case and came back with some evidence bags and a zippered pouch.
Clare nodded. “Pushing it off a cliff is one thing.” She motioned to the hill and the trees, rutted from the van’s rapid descent. A couple of trees had been knocked down, and the van landed a foot into the dirt. “A man inside is another.”
Her movements were jerky. Her expression flat.
Gage frowned. Was she okay?
“They’ve escalated from armed robbery,” he said. That meant they’d be even more on edge, determined not to let the police capture them. In fact, they may have gone so far as to commit murder. “If we can ID him that should help us figure this out.” At least, he hoped so.
“It will be difficult to get DNA from a body burned this badly.” Sarah wiggled back out of the van and stood. “Though, not impossible. I won’t rule out the chance we’ll get an ID.”
Gage relished the chance to push aside all the personal stuff between him and Clare. Maybe she needed that as well. Both of them knew how to focus on the job. He wanted to get back to their conversation, with dinner probably like she’d suggested. But who wanted to have a hard conversation while they were trying to eat?
He didn’t know what to do with all the feelings swirling in him, so he prayed. God was supposed to take those things and give him peace. The Spirit of God brought fruit like that, giving Gage yet more things to be thankful for.
“Vanguard would like to take the lead on that.”
Gage turned to Clare. “You want that responsibility?”
She lifted her chin. “We can do this. We’re professional, and we have the equipment we need. If Doctor Carlton can provide us with the physical evidence, we can run the tests. Focus on identification and anything else that might give us facts concerning this man.”
“I doubt he’s a victim, though it’s possible.” Gage just had his gut instinct. He wanted to know what Vanguard would find. “More likely he’s one of the suspects.”
“So they killed one of their own?” Clare’s eyes widened. “Whether by accident or on purpose, they’re a man down.”
“His hands were bound, so I’m not thinking this was accidental,” Sarah said. “It’s highly likely they killed him on purpose. For whatever reason.”
“Tied up. Pushed over.” Gage nodded. “They wanted rid of him. They did it out here, hoping the crash destroyed as much evidence as possible. Means he was a liability, or he crossed them somehow.”
There wasn’t a good way to determine whether he was the man who’d faced off with Clare in the bank. Maybe they would never know for certain. He wasn’t meant to have answers to some things in life before he was in heaven. At least with Clare he had a shot at finding out the truth. He’d waited this long. If it was another day or so, it wouldn’t make much difference.
Especially if whatever she had on her phone meant she was about to leave. For some reason he got that read from her body language. Then she took a step back. “I need to go meet someone if that’s all right.”
Sarah said, “I can have the physical evidence delivered to Vanguard.”
“Or I can send a team to collect it,” he said. “Either way.”
Sarah nodded. “His cheekbone looks swollen, but the burns make it nearly impossible to tell if it’s an injury or fire damage to his tissue and skin. I’ll let you both know later.”
“Thanks, Doc.” Gage decided to walk Clare back to the parking lot, but when he turned to go after her, she was already ten feet in front. That meant running to catch up and looking like a loser who had to chase a woman.
Gage didn’t have a problem pursuing a relationship, but no one needed to think that was what was happening between him and Clare. All they had was a painful history. Even if he desperately wanted an answer to his question, Gage didn’t want it in a parking lot right before she drove off.
He climbed in his car and radioed in that he was taking lunch. After that he’d head back to the office. Gage grabbed a burger from a nearby drive-through. Close to his mom’s house in Benson. Her key was on his keyring, so he headed there and ate his burger in the car on her drive.
When he was done procrastinating, he headed inside. Seeing Clare again had brought up too many memories. He was going to have to clean this place out soon. But talking about his mom with Clare made him wonder if anything in her stuff would give him a clue what he faced.
