Field of Graves(23)

“All right. I’ll ask. I may go over and help him run some samples, speed things up.”

“That would be incredible, Sam. Thank you. I’m heading back downtown. We need to get a game plan together, find this girl’s family and give them the news before we release any information. You’ll get to me the second you hear from Simon?”

“I will. Hey, I heard about the grand jury. Are you okay? Do you need anything? I know revisiting all of it won’t be easy.”

Sam was possibly the only person on earth Taylor had been completely honest with about that night. Oh, she’d told the truth, she’d just left out the parts that made her look weak and stupid for falling for Martin’s rap. She’d never forgive herself for hesitating. If she’d only gone straight to Price the moment she found out, none of this would have happened.

She hugged her best friend, long and hard. “Thank you for caring. I’m fine, I promise. It’s only a recitation of the facts, and I want to see his partners go down.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Taylor. Not one ounce of it. Don’t you ever forget it.”

Taylor smiled sadly. “If you tell me that often enough, one day, I might start to believe you. I gotta run.”

“Do me a favor? Stop by the drugstore and grab some Advil Cold & Sinus. We can’t have you getting sick on us.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said, waving good-bye.





15



He stood in the shadows, watching, felt the breeze kick up, smelled the fire coming from the sky. It was time. He said the words quietly, hands raised.

“‘And after these things, I saw four Angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.’”

His voice rose, the ecstasy of the moment driving him. “But I am the fifth angel. And I call upon my brothers to unleash the winds of wrath upon us. Blow away the sins of our people, take those undeserving of my love. Ruin the nonbelievers, allow my vision to caress those worthy of my divinity.”

In answer, the wind blew harder, and he knew he was blessed.





16



The rain was coming down hard by the time Taylor rolled into headquarters. She was fervently hoping the captain had a plan.

The squad room was unnaturally quiet, so Taylor wandered out into the hall, looking for her people. Lincoln was walking toward her with a pot of coffee, gesturing to the conference room. She followed him in to find Price, Fitz, and Dan Franklin sitting around the table. Marcus had pulled out a whiteboard; a thick black line drawn down the middle separated it into two columns. She’d have to hold off telling them about the possible herbs Sam had collected from Jordan Blake’s body. She didn’t want Dan Franklin to have that information until they were ready to use it.

One of her quick-thinking detectives had scrounged up a picture of Jordan Blake. She hung on the left side, and a picture of Shelby Kincaid was taped to the right. It was the first real look she’d gotten at Jordan. There was absolutely no comparison to the ruined body they’d found in the river.

While Shelby was pretty in an unassuming way, more cute than beautiful, Jordan Blake was stunning. Take-your-breath-away, movie-star, attention-getting gorgeous. How in the world a girl like that could have disappeared unnoticed was a real mystery.

“You guys have been busy,” Taylor said.

Fitz shot her a smile and Price nodded a hello.

“Hi, Taylor. Grab a chair. We’re going through our next steps and putting together all the info we’ve got so far. We’re short on Jordan, obviously. You and Marcus are going to Vandy when we finish, and dig up everything you can find on her.” Price was smooth and in control, just the opposite of how Taylor was feeling inside. “In the meantime, Lincoln is looking for the girl’s family. There was none listed on her print card, so he’s called over to Vandy to get her personal information.”

“If they give you crap, let me know,” Taylor said. “They can get prickly about releasing student information without a court order.”

“I went the back route.” Lincoln grinned at her, and almost on cue, the phone on the table rang. Lincoln checked the caller ID, then picked it up. “Lincoln Ross.”

He hadn’t answered with the standard “Homicide.” That must be the people from Vandy. Taylor was glad to see things were being handled so delicately. He jotted down a few notes and thanked the person on the other end of the line warmly. Taylor raised a brow at him. Wondered who he had called in the favor from.

Lincoln had the decency to blush. “Old friend,” he muttered.

“So what’s the deal?” Price obviously wasn’t in the mood to play “tease the detective” at the moment.

“Jordan is from Houston. I’m going to go call the chaplain, see if he can start working his magic to get her parents notified.” Lincoln rose and headed back into the warren to make the call.

Price watched him go, then turned back to Taylor. “What did Sam have to say?”

“Her sense is we may have the same killer. On the surface, it looks like two totally different suspects. Jordan had been raped over a period of time and stabbed five times, two that caught her in the heart and killed her pretty quickly. But Sam saw the same liver necrosis as Shelby, the indicator of possible poisoning. She’s sent everything to Simon Loughley with an emergency push. One little snag. Jordan was six weeks pregnant. We could have a set of coincidental deaths here, two different men entirely.”