Stolen Daughters (Detective Amanda Steele)

The man leveled a cool gaze at her, but he removed a glove and held out a hand. “Spencer Blair.”

He had a strong grip, not surprising, but the way he was staring through her made the seventy-degree weather feel like a cold front was moving in. “Blair?” she asked to ensure she heard him right. She knew someone else with that last name.

“Uh-huh.” He then shook hands with Trent, though he barely gave him a glance.

Amanda studied the firefighter. He was in his mid-to-late twenties. “Is your mother Emma Blair, a crime scene investigator, by chance?”

“The one and only.” Spencer kept his gaze locked on her, and it would seem he had some sort of issue with her, just like his mother did. Her interactions with Amanda were always curt and cool.

“Small world.” Sullivan gripped Spencer’s shoulder. “Spencer here is one of the firefighters who pulled the young lady out of the house.”

“You thought she was alive?” Amanda said.

“Not my call. We see a body, we clear it from the structure, hand it over to the medic.”

Sullivan clarified, “The only reason we wouldn’t is if it was obvious the victim was dead or had been murdered. Think a knife sticking out of a chest or a body riddled with bullets.”

“Or burned very badly,” she said.

Sullivan shook his head. “We’d still remove them. That is unless it was very evident survival was impossible. In the case of an obvious murder, we’d do our best to defend the area… That just means we’d preserve it or protect it from the fire.”

Amanda nodded and turned to Spencer. “Sullivan told us she was found on a mattress. Did she have any personal belongings with her?”

Spencer raked a hand through his hair, looked around. “Not that I saw, but my focus was on clearing the house of victims—and keeping myself safe.” He glanced away from her to look at another fireman who was gesturing for him. Spencer turned to the marshal. “I gave you my statement already, so I’m not sure what else you could want.”

“I’d like to walk through the scene with you again.” Sullivan’s voice was firm.

“Well, I’ll be over there.” He joined his colleague, and they engaged in a spirited conversation that had Spencer’s arms gesturing wildly.

“Gave you his statement?” Amanda asked Sullivan.

“Standard procedure. Everyone who had contact with the victim needs to help me rebuild what happened. How the fire looked at the time, where the body was found, how it was positioned, etcetera. In an empty house, we’re at least not dealing with the possibility of furniture being moved around, but still the conditions change due to the fire.”

She could appreciate all of what the marshal had said. “We’ll want to read those statements.”

“Of course. I’ll get them to you. I’ll also get you sketches and photos of the interior and where the body was found.” Sullivan knocked on the back of the medic’s van, and the doors swung open.

The smell of gasoline wafted out of the vehicle and had Amanda taking a few steps back.

“I’m not too late, I hope,” a man’s voice said behind her.

Amanda turned to find Hans Rideout. He was one of her favorite medical examiners. He was in his late forties and had a passion for working with the dead—as wrong as that might sound. But he never let his macabre job darken his spirits. More the opposite. He was quick with light humor and possessed a contagious smile. Rideout flashed one now and accompanied it with a small salute.

“Oh no, not you.” The medic, a forty-something man himself, groaned, but his expression quickly gave way to a large smile.

“You son of bitch,” Rideout countered, and the medic jumped out of the vehicle and gave the ME a huge hug. “How have you been?”

“Good, good. You?” Back pats and shoulder squeezes.

“Doing good.”

Amanda glanced at Trent, then Sullivan. It would seem the medic and Rideout were longtime friends who hadn’t seen each other in a while.

“Something tells me you’re acquainted,” she said, smiling.

“Very astute, Detective.” Rideout grinned at her. “Jimmy Wood and I go back to childhood. He married my high-school sweetheart.”

“And you’re still talking to him?” Sullivan asked. “Better man than me.”