Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 108849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Laurel looked back at the cracked ice. So the killer had brought the woman to the river, broken through the ice, and then drowned her in the freezing water? Abbott had been locked up—first in jail, and then in the hospital. Those situations could be suffocating to a man like him. Had he found a new way to kill? “I’d like to have Dr. Ortega at Tempest County perform the autopsy.” The coroner was as meticulous as any she’d ever seen, and she trusted his judgment.
“Gotcha,” Monty said.
More ice fell off the victim’s face. She appeared to be in her early sixties or so with pale blue skin that could’ve resulted from the cold or drowning. Or both. “Is there any ID on the body?” Laurel asked.
The nearest tech shrugged. “The water on her clothing has frozen, so we should get her to the lab before trying to find a wallet.”
Huck took a step closer to the body, his shoulders stiffening.
“Huck?” Laurel focused on him. His posture had gone rigid and his gaze intent. “Do you see something?”
Aeneas whined, ducking his head against Huck’s knee, no doubt catching the captain’s tension.
Huck swallowed. “I—I think I know her.”
Laurel looked back at the woman. “How?”
His rugged face went slack. “I think that’s my mother.”
Chapter 3
Huck parked his truck to the far right of the lot fronting the Fish and Wildlife building to allow Aeneas to jump out and run along the trees. The snow had finally started to melt, leaving the ground damp with a few crocuses poking up here and there. He turned to stare at the building. Not too long ago, he would’ve fought coming to the office with every fiber of his being, but Laurel Snow had brought him out of his self-imposed exile. Mostly.
The two-story brick building held Staggers Ice Creamery in the center of the ground floor with its huge sign, newly replaced in bright yellow, fluorescent letters. Laurel and her FBI team occupied the second floor above the creamery.
The Washington State Fish and Wildlife offices staffed the two levels to the right. To the far left, the first floor was now being rented by Laurel’s mom as a new storefront for her herbal teas. He figured Laurel wanted to get her mom out into the world a bit more, and with her tea subscription business becoming so lucrative, the next logical step was to create a storefront.
He didn’t want to look above the tea shop, where Rachel Raprenzi now held her podcast, The Killing Hour. She was an ex-girlfriend, current reporter, and a constant pain in his ass.
Aeneas bounded out of the forest.
“All right, boy, let’s deal with this.” Huck strode forward and opened the glass door to the small vestibule shared by the Fish and Wildlife and FBI offices. He walked by the door to his office to reach a new, locked metal door. Squaring his shoulders, he pressed the red button to the side.
“Hey, Huck,” Kate said through the intercom, and a buzzing sound echoed. He pulled open the door and let the dog run up the stairs before him. The new security system was very much needed.
He walked up the stairs slowly, ignoring the girlish cancan wallpaper on each side of him. Laurel’s unit had been made permanent at least for a year, but cases kept getting in the way of decorating the place. He kind of liked the wallpaper and hoped they didn’t get rid of it, but it wasn’t exactly government issue. He reached the top of the stairs, where Kate Vuittron, the unit’s administrator, sat behind a glass cabinet that had once served as a pastry display case.
“Hey, Kate,” he said.
“Hi.” She smiled, her eyes sparkling, a picture of her three teenaged daughters behind her on a small counter. Her blond hair flipped out around her shoulders, and she kept typing with one hand as she focused on him. “They’re in the conference room. You can go on back.”
“Thanks.” He moved beyond her to a door that bisected the wall and maneuvered down the hallway to turn right into the conference room. A long table consisting of an ornate, gold-bronze, circular sculpture beneath a very worn, rough-looking, haphazardly placed door centered the room. The tabletop had been glass, but he’d broken it in March by tackling a murder suspect onto it.
Sitting in a white leather chair at the head of table, Laurel looked up.
“No glass top yet, huh?” he asked, moving inside.
She shook her head. “No, it’s on back order. We might have to wait another month.”
“Sorry about that.”
She smiled. “You did save my life at the time, so no complaints.”
He studied her, enchanted as always by her unusual looks. Her hair was a thick, dark, rare reddish brown—a true auburn, which would make her intriguing on its own. However, her eyes were truly unique. One green, one blue with a starburst of green in the iris, heterochromatic within a heterochromatic eye. He’d read somewhere that heterochromia was a sign of intelligence, and, considering she had been a child prodigy who’d attended college in her early teens and now held multiple advanced degrees, he figured it must be true.