Stone Cold Heart (Tracers #13)(9)

“Thanks for doing this,” he said. “I understand we pulled you away from a party?”

“A wedding.”

He winced.

“It’s okay.”

“Family?” he asked.

“A colleague of mine. And it’s not like we’re best friends or anything. Really, it was a courtesy invitation. I moved here not long ago, so I’m the new girl at work.”

“Moved here from . . . Maryland?”

She blinked at him. “Rockville. How’d you know that?”

“Your accent.”

“Damn. I thought I got rid of that.”

He shrugged. “My grandmother’s from Bethesda.”

He turned into the motel parking lot and pulled up to the sidewalk. “It’s not exactly the Ritz, but the diner next door does a good breakfast.”

“The manager told me.” Sara gathered her items and looked at him across the dim truck cab. And for the first time, she noticed the creases around his eyes and the shadow along his jaw. He’d had a long day, as she had, but still he seemed energized. She wondered about the coffee he’d picked up and whether the officers patrolling the park tonight included him.

“We’ll start early tomorrow,” she said. “Before the heat sets in.”

He nodded. “Up with the sun.”

The expression caught her off guard. It was one of her dad’s favorites, and Sara suddenly missed his voice. Maybe she should call him tomorrow. Catching up with her parents would take her mind off the lonely motel room. They’d be full of news about her brother and her nieces, which was sure to take her mind off tomorrow’s grim task, too.

“What’s wrong?” Nolan asked.

“Nothing. Thanks for the ride.” She opened her door.

“Thank you for coming out tonight.”

“No problem.”

Another nod. “Good night, Sara.”

She felt his gaze on her as she walked to her door and slid in the key card. He waited until she was safely inside before pulling away.

? ? ?

Nolan thought about her as he returned to the police station.

Sara Lockhart was smart. Headstrong. And those big green eyes were going to be a distraction from what he needed to be focused on right now—leading a murder investigation. Because no matter how cagey Sara acted, Nolan knew in his gut that they were dealing with a homicide, and this case had the potential to rock his community to its core. According to Mary Jo, news of the bone discovery in White Falls Park had already spread like brushfire.

Nolan’s thoughts went to Sara again. She was beautiful, no getting around it. She was assertive, too, and she refused to be pressured, which was good and bad. Bad because he was impatient. Good because when he finally did get her conclusions, he felt confident they’d be the result of careful study. He had to respect her methods. Having seen more than one major case fall apart at trial due to sloppy lab work, he knew the importance of precision and accuracy.

Nolan spotted a familiar gray truck as he neared the police station.

“Shit,” he muttered. Instead of parking in his usual space, he pulled up alongside the truck and gave the man behind the wheel a nod before getting out.

The driver’s-side window was down, and Nolan walked over.

“Evening, Sam.”

“Nolan.”

The man’s eyes were bloodshot. He’d been crying or drinking, maybe both.

Sam leveled a look at him. “I heard about the bones.”

Nolan nodded. “Want to come in for some coffee and we can talk?”

“I don’t need coffee. I need you to shoot straight with me.”

“All right.” Nolan stepped closer. “I’ll tell you what I know. About five o’clock, two hikers discovered some remains in Rattlesnake Gorge.”

Sam’s gaze didn’t waver.

“We got an expert out there, a forensic anthropologist, and she confirms the bones are human. They’ll be excavated tomorrow, but so far, we don’t know whether this is a male or a female, and there’s nothing to indicate ID yet.”

Sam looked ahead. The man was fifty-one, only fifteen years older than Nolan, but the past year had added a decade. Losing a child took a brutal toll. Nolan had been working for a year to find the family some answers, but so far, he’d failed, and that failure ate away at him every day. There was no getting away from it. In a town this size, the reminders were everywhere.

Sam reached to the seat beside him and picked up a manila envelope. “When Kaylin was nine, she got thrown from a horse. Broke her arm in two places. These are the X-rays.”

Nolan took the envelope, feeling awkward as he looked down at it.

“Give that to your expert,” Sam said. “See if it speeds things along.”

“I’ll do that.”

Sam started up the truck. “Call when you know something, day or night. You’ve got all our numbers.”

Nolan put his hand on the door. “You okay to drive?”

Sam gave him a hard look, then put the truck in gear and backed out of the space. Nolan’s chest ached as he watched him drive away.

? ? ?

Pain surrounded her like water.

Grace was floating in it. Swimming in it. Drowning in it. Only she couldn’t move.

She couldn’t see. Couldn’t hear. The pain was thick and heavy, pressing hard against her skin, flattening the air from her lungs.