Alone (Bone Secrets, #4)(2)

She didn’t usually attend a fresh death scene. But she helped wherever her skills were needed. She’d definitely put in her share of hours over the flesh of the freshly deceased and the not-so-freshly deceased. Digging in the burial pits of the mass executions in Kosovo had desensitized her to most situations.

But when James had received the call, her instincts had kicked in. Death was her field. And she possessed a particular set of skills that could get answers for the questions the dead teens presented. She noticed the cops glanced their way, scoping out who’d arrived at the scene. None made eye contact with her. She’d busted enough balls at crime scenes to know they weren’t her biggest fans. She didn’t care. What mattered was that scenes were handled correctly. Mistakes weren’t acceptable.

She looked away from the sorrow on Lacey’s face. The odontologist had a big soft spot that she wasn’t afraid to reveal. Victoria kept her own sensitivity hidden deep. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel the sadness of the situation; she simply didn’t feel it was professional to show it. And she worked better when she tucked away the feelings.

“Who are they?” James muttered to the cop as he handed the log to Lacey to sign.

“We don’t know yet, Dr. Campbell,” he answered. “There’s no ID with any of the girls. No cell phones, no purses.”

“Parents will be looking for their daughters soon,” said Lacey. “They can’t be over eighteen.”

Victoria eyed the stature and build of the bodies, silently agreeing with Lacey’s assessment. Parents would expect these kids to be in bed by midnight. She followed Dr. Campbell as he carefully stepped to the closest body and squatted next to a female tech, pulling gloves out of his small kit. Up close, Victoria could see the first girl had applied makeup to cover acne on her chin and wore black liquid eyeliner to give the popular cat-eye look.

Someone’s daughter.

Dr. Campbell bent the girl’s arm. “Rigor has started. Not fully set yet. Can you roll her onto her side for me, Sarah?” he asked the middle-aged woman, who nodded and gently shifted the dead girl onto her side. He pressed at the purpling skin on her shoulder blades where gravity had guided the blood to settle once her heart had stopped pumping. It didn’t blanch. “Livor is set. Have you noticed anything unusual?” Dr. Campbell asked the tech.

The tech grimaced. “Outside of this being a group of dead children? Not yet. It’s a very clean site so far. The girls were cold when I got here, and they all look clean front and back. Frankly, it’s like a sick fairy tale.” Sarah frowned. “They’re laid out so perfectly. I mean, even their hair is smoothed down. Someone must have arranged them.”

“It’s just wrong,” Dr. Campbell said as he drew a syringe out of his equipment. Victoria didn’t need to see the medical examiner extract the vitreous humor from the girl’s eye to determine an accurate time of death. Very few things about the human body bothered her, but a needle in the eye was close to the top of the list. Victoria stood and walked back to where Lacey’d waited at the edge of the scene. Two men had joined Lacey. Victoria recognized them as Oregon State Police detectives from the Major Crimes division. The local police department must have called in the State Police for their help.

“Dr. Peres.” The older detective, Mason Callahan, greeted Victoria. His partner, Ray Lusco, nodded at her. Both men had tired eyes and subtle slumps to their shoulders. She hadn’t noticed that they’d been working the scene when she arrived. She’d been focused on the death wheel of beautiful girls. But obviously Mason and Ray had already spent several hours in the woods. She’d worked with the detectives several times, their opposite personalities making them perfect partners. Mason was the blunt-spoken salt-and-pepper-haired senior detective, rarely seen without his cowboy boots and hat. Ray was the younger family man, who looked like he should be coaching college football.

It wouldn’t take long to get depressed or angry or frustrated at this scene. The absolute futileness of the death of these young women was like a gut punch. It was one of the quieter scenes Victoria had visited, not chatty like some. The tension was thick, and the anger from the cops and workers was palpable.

“No one has reported missing teens tonight?” Lacey was asking, surprise on her face.

Ray shook his head. “Not locally yet. Some males, but no females. It’s only eleven. Calls will start coming in. This gives me the creeps. It’s like the girls all lay down and fell asleep. No evidence of thrashing about or fighting back.”

“What happened?” Lacey asked. “Do you think they drank something?”

Mason tugged on his ever-present cowboy hat. “Possible.” He was tight-lipped. Victoria knew he wouldn’t speculate out loud.

“No cups,” stated Victoria. “Unless you already removed them?”

“Nothing’s been removed,” answered Ray. “Not by us.”

“Ghosts took them,” stated the cop with the log. Victoria shifted to read his name. Dixon.

The group simply stared at Dixon.

“What?” Dixon met their stares. “Don’t you know where we are?”

Victoria saw a flicker of recognition on Lacey’s face. The forensic odontologist had grown up in the area. Victoria was originally from a tiny coastal town; she didn’t know about Mason and Ray, but judging by their faces, they were clueless about the cop’s reference.