At Close Range Page 2

  Jasper joined them by the car. “How do you know there’s a girl?”

  Scott knelt beside the body. “He didn’t come all the way out here to jerk off.” Scott looked at Dani. “You have an ID yet?”

  “Nothing confirmed.”

  He watched her for a moment with those cool blue eyes. His gaze shifted to the woods. “You need a K-9 team.”

  She bristled. “I know.”

  He strode over to his truck and opened the toolbox again. He took out a metal detector, which would help him locate shell casings or bullets, and maybe even the second victim if she was wearing jewelry or a belt.

  Then again, the killer might have taken her somewhere else. Dani glanced back at the road and got a queasy feeling in her stomach. Where was she?

  She turned her attention to the lake, visible just beyond the trees. It was a scenic spot, usually—a tranquil little oasis for couples. But not tonight.

  She glanced at Scott again, and he was watching her closely—so closely it made her wonder what he was thinking.

  “You coming?” he asked.

  She nodded at the body. “I’ll stay with him until the ME shows.”

  Scott walked off, and Dani let her gaze follow him until he disappeared into the woods.

  The medical examiner’s van rolled up, followed closely by Ric, and Dani’s stomach tightened as she thought of everything she didn’t like about this case. And it wasn’t even an hour old yet.

  Ric walked over, his expression grim as he took in the scene. “The media has it.”

  “That didn’t take long.”

  “It was all over the scanner,” he told her. “I give us ten minutes, tops, before they roll in here with their cameras. We need to barricade the road.”

  “Daniele.”

  She turned toward the sound of Scott’s deep voice calling her from the woods. He was a tall silhouette at the edge of the trees, and from his tone Dani knew it was bad.

  “What is it?” she yelled back.

  “I found her.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Dani was up before dawn, guzzling coffee. By eleven thirty she’d made it through two autopsies without incident, but her nerves were frayed as she whipped into the parking lot behind the police station.

  Ric was leaving the station and crossed the lot toward her as she got out.

  “Glad I caught you,” he said.

  “Where were you? I thought you wanted to observe.” She slammed the door and looked him over.

  Both of them had worked late, but Ric looked like he’d caught even less sleep than she had. As in, none at all.

  He raked his hand through his disheveled hair. “I was at the hospital.”

  “What happened? Is Mia okay?”

  “False alarm again.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “She’s fine. The baby’s fine. Far as they can tell, anyway.” He didn’t sound convinced.

  Dani was friends with Mia and had known about the pregnancy even before Ric. Mia had had a rough time of it, with severe nausea that continued into the third trimester. She’d had trouble gaining weight, and the doctors had been worried, but supposedly everything was okay now.

  “Sorry you were solo this morning.” Ric rested his hands on his hips. “How were the autopsies?”

  Horrible. Sickening. Dani wished she could scrub down her brain and get rid of the images. “Fine.”

  “Listen, I just talked to Reynolds and asked him to make you the lead on this. He thinks you’re ready.”

  She stared at him. “You’re joking.”

  “No.”

  “Ric.” Her stomach knotted. “I’ve worked a grand total of four homicides. You were in charge, and those were open-and-shut cases. This thing’s a nightmare.”

  He watched her with those brown-black eyes that were usually so alert and observant. But right now Ric looked tired. Not just tired—anxious—and she wasn’t used to seeing him this way.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said, “but you are ready, Dani.”

  Yeah, right. She wasn’t ready at all, but that had nothing to do with it. Ric wasn’t ready. His wife was due to give birth any day now, and there was no way he could focus on that plus a case of this magnitude.

  But making her the lead? She didn’t have the experience, not by a long shot. What if she screwed it up? And inexperience was only one of her problems. This case was complicated. And political, given the university connection. And then there was the problem of Scott.

  Ric watched her steadily, and Dani felt the heavy weight of his expectations. Shit.

  “Fine, I’ll do it,” she said.

  As if she had a choice.

  He clamped a hand on her shoulder. “Relax, okay? We wouldn’t ask you if you couldn’t handle it.”

  Sure they would.

  “Don’t worry, you’re a natural,” he added. “It’s in your blood.”

  Dani gave him a long look, trying not to get offended. It was no secret that some people thought she’d made detective through favoritism and not merit. Dani’s dad had been a cop, her oldest brother was a cop, and her other brother was a prosecutor with the DA’s office.

  But Ric knew better than anyone else that she’d worked her ass off to make detective, so his comment probably wasn’t a jab. She was just being cranky.

  “Where are we on the female victim?” he asked now. “We get an ID?”

  She took a deep breath and tried to clear her mind. Holy hell, she was the lead investigator. She had to know everything, down to the last detail. Ayers had been positively identified, but the woman was still a mystery.

  “At this point, no clue.” Dani pictured her on the autopsy table and stifled a shudder. “No ID with the car or the personal effects. No phone. No identifying scars or tattoos. According to the ME’s office, her prints aren’t in the system, and still no missing person’s report. Dr. Froehlich believes she’s late twenties, but that’s about all he’d venture to say at this point. He might have more in the formal report.” Dani paused. “You sure the wife doesn’t know who she is?”

  Ric and Jasper had gone over there in the middle of the night to notify her.

  “She said she doesn’t.” Ric rubbed the stubble on his chin. “I’ve got some other ideas, though. Let me keep working on that angle. Meantime, Reynolds wants you at the Delphi Center.”

  She glanced at the building. “Doesn’t he want an update first? That’s why I came in.”

  “I’ll update him. He needs you at the lab, lighting a fire under those people. All the evidence from the scene, we need it turned around ASAP.”

  • • •

  The Delphi Center occupied land that had once been a working ranch before it was donated as the building site for the nation’s largest private forensics laboratory. The lab was staffed by scientists called Tracers, who specialized in practically every forensic discipline under the sun.

  After showing her ID at the security gate, Dani curved her way up the drive. The Greek-style building was surrounded on all sides by junipers and cedars and giant oak trees. Oh, and corpses, too. She couldn’t forget that. In addition to a world-class crime lab, the Delphi Center was home to a decomposition research center—also known as a body farm.

  Dani spied a group of people in white coveralls clustered beside a pit. They knelt in the dirt, toiling under the relentless July sun. Despite the hot and stinky working conditions, they were lucky to be here, and they knew it. Students from the nearby university sat on waiting lists for years to learn bone excavation from one of the country’s top forensic anthropologists.

  Dr. Kelsey Quinn glanced up from her work, and Dani waved but didn’t slow down. No time to stop and chat, and she’d had more than enough gore for one day.

  At the front desk, Dani picked up a visitor’s badge and went straight to the back of the building, which housed the garage. The cavernous room could have fit a small plane, but right now it was all cars. Dani was glad to see the silver Accord in the center
of everything and Roland standing beside it.

  As she walked over, he glanced up. “I was beginning to think you forgot about us.”

  “I was at the ME’s.”

  Roland made a face and reached for a Slurpee on a nearby table. He took a big sip and offered her some.

  “I’m good, thanks.”

  With his gray coveralls, muscular build, and tattooed forearms, he looked more like a mechanic than a science geek, but Dani happened to know he had a master’s degree in criminalistics.

  “We’ve been working since seven,” he said.

  She glanced across the room at Brooke Porter, another one of Delphi’s trace-evidence experts. Brooke was hunched over a worktable with earbuds stuffed in her ears and didn’t look up.

  “Any good news?” Dani asked Roland.

  “Yes and no.” He wiped his brow with the back of his arm. “Come have a look.”

  He crossed the concrete floor, which looked clean enough for heart surgery. All of the Tracers Dani had met were neat freaks. Probably a prerequisite for the job.

  Roland led her around the Honda, and she saw that the rear door on the driver’s side had been removed. It was sitting nearby on a large plywood table. The window was missing.

  “Spent all morning trying to get the embedded slug out without scratching it,” he said.

  “How’d you do that?”

  “Very carefully.” He grabbed a clear plastic tray. Using a pair of bamboo tongs, he picked up a small chunk of metal. “Through-and-through bullet. Passed straight through his sternum and lodged in the top of the door.”

  Dani frowned down at it, noting the dark smudges of blood. It looked more like a glob of chewing gum than a spent bullet. “Will they be able to do anything with that?”

  Roland shook his head. “Don’t know. Scott’s got the Midas touch and all, but this looks like shit to me, so I wouldn’t count on it.” He glanced up at her. “What about the ME? He get anything at autopsy?”

  “Two slugs, one from each victim. Both looked useless, but I’m no expert.”

  Roland smiled. “That’s what we’re for. He send them over?”

  “This morning.”

  “Well, lemme show you what else I’ve got going. Although it isn’t finished yet.” Roland turned to a counter behind him and opened a cardboard box.

  Dani leaned over to look inside. “The tire tread from Woodlake Park.”

  “A plaster cast of it, yeah. We managed to get it before the rain really started coming down. It’s pretty good. I haven’t ID’d it yet, but I can tell from the size and wheelbase it’s from a sedan.”

  “Could it be from the Accord?”

  “Not this Accord.” He nodded at the car. “Different type of tire. I’ve got to run it through the database to see precisely what it is, and then I can tell you what kind of vehicle you’re looking for.”

  “How do you run this through a database?”

  He grinned. “That’s the fun part. First, I have to put it in a box that films it from all angles and converts it to a digital image. Then I can submit it to the system, see what pops. I haven’t gotten to that yet. We’ve been busy on the inside of the car.”

  “We?”

  They turned around, and Brooke was watching from her stool. No more earbuds.

  “You taking credit for my work again?”

  “Hey, that hurts, Brooke. Didn’t I just buy you a Slurpee?”

  Dani walked over to Brooke’s table, where she was clipping a slide onto the stage of a microscope. The CSI had dark hair and mesmerizing blue-green eyes. The spark of excitement in them now told Dani she’d found something.

  “Three hairs,” Brooke said. “All from the same source, all with the root and follicular tissue.”

  “Which means DNA?”

  “Exactly. Have a look.”

  Dani peered into the microscope and saw what looked like a big rope.

  “This hair is fourteen inches long. It’s naturally light brown, and you can see that it’s bleached blond from the tip to about half an inch from the proximal end.”

  “So, it’s probably her hair, not the killer’s,” Dani said.

  “Assuming her killer is a man,” Brooke said.

  Dani glanced up. “Good point.” She looked back at the car. “What about fingerprints? Particularly on the front passenger door?”

  Brooke slid from her stool and walked over to the car. “I went over it twice with an alternative light source. The rain doesn’t help us. Fingerprints are typically composed of dust and oils, so I was only able to lift two from the door’s exterior, both on the underside of the door handle, most likely whoever opened that door last. Could be the killer’s, could be the victim’s. Depends how everything went down.”

  “The pathologist printed her at the autopsy,” Dani said. “You have the file yet for comparison?”

  “Not yet. I just checked my email, too, so maybe he’s running behind. You told him we were handling all the evidence, not just ballistics, right?”

  “That’s right. What about fibers or anything else inside the car?”

  “I vacuumed up plenty of stuff from the floor mats and upholstery, but so far nothing jumps out as unusual.”

  Dani glanced around the lab, feeling deflated. Bullets, tire impressions, fingerprints, and fibers—all amounting to nothing at this point. The car alone should have been a treasure trove of evidence, but she had no new leads. So much for lighting a fire under everyone.

  “How long on that tire tread?” she asked Roland.

  “Tomorrow afternoon, maybe?”

  She scowled.

  “What? I spent all morning on your slug and just got slammed with a shit ton of evidence from El Paso. You can’t always be front of the line, babe.”

  “Help me out, Roland.”

  He sighed. “Lunch tomorrow. That’s best I can do. You want something sooner, go hit up Scott.”

  Dani found her way through a labyrinth of hallways and followed the sound of gunfire to the ballistics wing, Scott’s domain. He’d been working there as Delphi’s chief firearms examiner ever since a knee injury had forced him out of the SEAL teams. Scott was good at his job and had a knack for explaining ballistics to laypeople, so prosecutors liked to put him on the witness stand. He’d built quite a reputation for himself in his new field, but he was an adrenaline junkie and Dani knew he missed jumping out of airplanes and fighting terrorists.

  Dani got a flutter in her stomach as she neared the firearms lab. Seeing Scott last night had been weird. Fifteen years she’d known him, and he’d always treated her like Drew Harper’s kid sister. And then for the past six months he hadn’t treated her like anything at all. He hadn’t said so much as a word to her since New Year’s Eve, when they’d shared a drunken kiss in the parking lot of a sports bar. Afterward had been one of those surreal Did that just happen? moments. They’d both been wasted, and Dani wouldn’t even have thought Scott remembered it except that he’d pointedly ignored her ever since.

  Until last night.

  Not that he’d said anything. But they’d been in close proximity for hours, and the memory had hovered between them like an electric charge.

  Dani reached the firearms lab and peered through the window to see a man in tactical pants and a black golf shirt loading a magazine. She rapped loudly on the window, but he didn’t hear her because of his ear protectors. She waved her arms and he glanced up.

  Young. Stocky. High and tight haircut. She didn’t recognize the guy, and he looked fresh out of the military. He walked over and opened the door.

  “Is Scott around?”

  “No, ma’am.” His gaze darted to the badge clipped beside her gun. “He went home for the day.”

  “Home? It’s barely one.”

  “He was here all night. Him and Travis. Some big murder case came in.”

  “Is Travis here?”

  “No, ma’am. He left, too.”

  She gritted her teeth.

  “You might try S
moky J’s. The barbecue place? They were talking about grabbing something to eat. They left ’bout twenty minutes ago, so if you hurry, you might catch them.”

  • • •

  Scott knew the instant she walked in. He’d had his eye on the door, half expecting her to track him down.

  “Hey,” she said, dropping into the chair beside him.

  “Hey.”

  “We were just talking about you, Dani,” Travis said around a mouthful of food. “How’s the case coming?”

  “It’s coming.” She looked at Scott. She wore her usual jeans, along with a lightweight blazer that covered her Glock 23. Her shiny dark hair was loose around her shoulders, and she’d obviously had a chance to clean up since last night. Unlike him.

  “Want some lunch?” Travis nodded at his plate. “I’ve got more than I can eat here.”

  She glanced at the barbecued ribs and winced, confirming Scott’s suspicion that she’d attended the autopsies earlier. “No, thanks. I’m checking in on that evidence.” She pinned her gaze on Scott. “You finished with those shell casings yet?”

  “Yep.”

  “And?”

  “No hits.” He chomped into his brisket sandwich.

  “How many casings?”

  “Five,” Travis answered for him. “Perp didn’t pick up after himself.”

  “What about prints? Or DNA? He could have left something when he loaded the magazine.”

  “We ran all of it through trace,” Scott told her. “They didn’t get anything.”

  Her green eyes dimmed and she looked away. “Well, crap.”

  Scott reached for his drink and watched her.

  “What about the two bullets the ME sent?” she asked. “One from each victim.”

  “Nothing,” Travis said.

  “Nothing at all?”

  “The slugs are useless,” Scott told her. “They’re smashed to hell, no rifling marks.”

  “Roland sent you guys a bullet, too. It was embedded in the car.”

  “Yeah, I heard,” Travis said. “And I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m guessing it’s in worse shape than the others.”

  “So, that’s it?” Dani asked, a little worry line between her brows. “Five shell casings and three bullets and you can’t tell me anything about the murder weapon?”