TWO
Monday morning, and there was already a murder.
Detective Amanda Steele was aware of every twig she crunched underfoot and the stones on the path that she rolled over, despite the forest floor being plastered with colored leaves. The air was moist and had that clean, crisp smell of fall that made one think of pumpkin-spice lattes and curling up on the couch under a blanket with a book. At least for some people. Amanda didn’t have time for that, so even though she was headed to a crime scene, she inhaled deeply, deriving what pleasure she could from her surroundings.
She and her partner, Trent Stenson, were being led through Leesylvania State Park by Officer Leo Brandt with the Prince William County Police Department. The discovery of a young woman had been made earlier that morning, and the call had come in just as Amanda had touched her ass to her chair down at Central Station. The park’s official address was in Woodbridge, putting it squarely within the PWCPD’s—and Amanda and Trent’s—jurisdiction.
They worked in Homicide and were called in whenever death was deemed suspicious. In this case, foul play was an obvious conclusion—at least based on the briefing that Amanda had received. The victim had been stabbed multiple times and found deep within the park next to the Potomac River. Had the killer specifically chosen this location for its isolation—and was it where the murder had taken place, or had the woman simply been dumped there?
The park opened at six, and though time of death still needed to be confirmed, it was likely the body had been left there before then. It might also mean the killer circumvented or bypassed the normal access points to the park. Currently the park was closed to the public while the investigation took place. The only vehicle that remained in Lot C was a white Honda CR-V that was registered to a Paul and Joni Swanson—the couple who had found the body. Police vehicles and responders had parked out at the road.
“And the Swansons were here because…?” Trent asked.
“Just hiking, far as I know.” Brandt spoke as he kept walking and continued to follow the trail toward the river.
“Do they come here regularly, or know the victim?”
Brandt glanced over a shoulder. “You’ll need to ask them, but my grasp of the situation is no to all the above.”
Trent looked over at her, and Amanda pressed her lips and hitched her shoulders.
Did the Swansons have something to do with the girl’s fate? Or was it purely happenstance that they’d been the ones to find her? “Where are the Swansons now?”
“Still here. The wife’s a mess.”
Amanda nodded, not that Brandt could see her. “How much farther now?” She was familiar with the park but not intimate with all its twists and turns, and she was anxious to get to work.
“Just around that there bend”—Brandt pointed to where the path veered right about twenty feet ahead—“and off trail for a bit. So, not long.”
Amanda had been able to see the Potomac for a while. With each step she took, voices became clearer. They took the turn off the trail, and as they came closer to the water, a cool breeze gusted around her. Amanda hugged her coat tighter to herself. They were fortunate the weather didn’t get as bitter as it did farther north during the fall and winter months, but some days the chill still managed to seep into her bones.
“Right there.” Brandt stopped walking and pointed about another twenty feet away toward the riverbank. Not that it was necessary to declare this was the crime scene—the evidence did that for itself.
Crime scene investigators were working around the body, snapping photographs, and yellow markers dotted the area.
From this distance, Amanda caught a glimpse of the victim’s head—a halo of blond hair.
Amanda’s heart squeezed at the sight. A young woman. Murdered. That part wasn’t news, but somehow, being here in this place, the loss was tangible and permeated the air. It entered her with every inhale she took. Not the smell of death so much as the all-encompassing awareness that this was the scene of a horrendous crime. Something told her this wasn’t a body dump—even if she didn’t have the proof of that yet.
As she and Trent got closer to the body, CSI Emma Blair, who had been taking pictures, stepped back. Amanda recently found out that her father had an extramarital affair with Blair twenty-some years ago, which resulted in a baby. Though she had met her half-brother, she hadn’t known who he was at the time. She hadn’t confronted the elephant in the room between herself and the CSI yet, but she supposed at some point it would be inevitable.
CSI Donnelly paused her work too and greeted Amanda and Trent. Her tone was somber, succinct. For good reason.
The sight was chilling. Amanda instinctively tugged her coat even tighter to herself, her hands bunching the fabric at the zipper as she stepped around the body—though she did so at a distance to avoid contaminating the scene.
The victim was supine, her eyes fixed blankly on the sky and her feet toward the river. Naked and on display, there was an innocent, ethereal quality that made her more child than woman. Sunlight glistened and danced on tears that had frozen to her eyelashes like tiny diamonds.
She was also pristine. No sign of blood. The killer had taken his time to stage her this way, and he had placed fallen leaves around her, as if tucking her in for the last time.
The girl could have been Sleeping Beauty with a creamy, pale complexion waiting for her prince to kiss her and resurrect her to life—if not for the numerous stab wounds in her torso.
And the black orchid that lay on her chest.