Stolen Daughters (Detective Amanda Steele)

Rideout laughed. “Turns out he did me a favor.”

Jimmy nudged Rideout in the arm and hopped back into the vehicle.

Rideout went in after him, then Amanda and Trent. It was a tight squeeze, but they made it work. The ME and medic were on the victim’s right, Amanda and Trent on her left. Sullivan stayed outside and left the back doors open.

The deceased was on a stretcher, and Amanda’s chest ached at the sight of how young she looked. Was she even eighteen?

She had a round, cherubic face, and her hair was long and blond and fanned around her head like a halo. Her skin was a bluish gray from decomposition, but she’d had a fair complexion that would have stood in contrast to her black eye makeup. She didn’t appear to have even been touched by the fire.

She was clothed in a black, short-sleeved shirt with a crew neck, blue jeans, and a matching jean jacket. On its collar was a dragonfly pin. It was gold, about an inch and a half in height and two inches wide, and its wings were iridescent teals and purples. It seemed like quite a nice piece of jewelry for a person her age and contradicted the gold stud in her nostril.

Rideout leaned over the girl, angling his head left and right.

“Something you’re noticing?” Amanda asked him.

“She was doused with gasoline.” He paused his inspection and looked at Amanda with a sardonic smile. “I’m sure you can smell that.”

“Yes.”

“No evidence she was stabbed or shot that I can see. There is petechiae in her eyes.” He snapped on some gloves, pulled a camera from his bag, and took some pictures of her. Afterward, he returned the camera to the sack and grabbed a flashlight. He opened her mouth and shined the beam inside. “Some petechiae on her gums too. She was deprived of oxygen. What time was the fire believed to have been started?”

Amanda glanced over a shoulder at the marshal but answered for him. “We were told in the neighborhood of five thirty.”

Rideout studied the girl and looked at his wristwatch. “It’s eleven thirty now, and based on the amount of rigor present, and that it’s beginning in her face, I’d say somewhere between five and seven hours ago. Factoring in the estimated time that the fire began, I’d say she died anytime between four and five thirty this morning.”

“So before the fire?” Amanda couldn’t help but think that was a small mercy compared to being alive and suffering the excruciating pain of flames snacking on her flesh.

Rideout nodded. “Absolutely. I’m not seeing anything to make me assume she died due to the fire or from smoke inhalation.” He proceeded to lower the collar of her shirt and pointed to light bruising on her neck. “And I’m quite sure I just found out how she was starved of oxygen.”

“She was strangled to death,” Trent said.

“Well, at the very least, someone squeezed her neck pretty hard and cut off her air for a while.” Rideout turned off his flashlight and tucked it into a pocket.

She recalled how Sullivan had said that she and Trent were wired to think murder first, and he’d been correct. But the evidence in this case—coincidental or otherwise—was indeed stacking up in support of homicide. An abandoned house set on fire, this girl, presumably a runaway, doused with gasoline, bruising on her neck indicative of a chokehold… “So what is your initial response here? Are we looking at murder?”

Rideout glanced once more at the girl. “I’d say it’s quite likely given the circumstances, but before I rule manner and cause of death, I want her on an autopsy table.”

Trent tapped his pen against his notepad, and everyone looked at him.

Rideout arched his brows. “Penny for your thoughts?”

“Often fire is used to destroy the body and evidence…” Trent was starting to get a good rhythm going, mapping out his own musical beat. She put her hand over his to still his movements.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be, but what else? I have a feeling you have more to say…”

“Well, if that was the point here, why pour accelerant on her and then start the

fire elsewhere? Why not ensure that her body was destroyed?”

“Setting the fire where they had would have allowed the person time to get out.” It was Sullivan who suggested this; he must have overheard Trent’s question. “Remember I said it’s looking like a trail was leading straight to the stairs, likely to the room she was in, though I have yet to confirm that latter bit. But the person who set this fire might not have expected that we would arrive so quickly. Probably figured the fire had time to reach her. They might not have known that old houses burn slower. Also gasoline doesn’t burn as fast as people believe.”

Amanda turned her attention back to the medic and Rideout. “Is there any ID on her?”

Jimmy shook his head and responded. “No, I checked all her pockets after I pronounced. Sad, too, because the poor girl can’t be much more than sixteen.”

Amanda’s gaze fell upon the adolescent Jane Doe, her heart aching. Who are you, sweetheart?