Vulnerable (Morgans of Nashville 4)

“That fits the description of the victim,” Georgia said. “She does appear to be missing a shoe. Blue loafer. Bottom of her foot is torn up pretty good.” She pulled in a deep breath, as if needing the scent of fresh clean air to chase away the death. “Let me stock up and get back inside. I’ll need to bag her hands and find a way to wrap the body so that we don’t lose evidence dragging her out of the cave.”

Jake shouldn’t care about Georgia going back into the cave. This was her job. She’d been knee deep in all kinds of nastiness. But it did bother him. He hated the idea of her returning to that dark stone grave.

Expressing his concern would belittle her. She was a professional and regardless of how she felt about the horrendous task, she would do it.

She moved to the truck and, stripping off her gloves, grabbed a water, and drank. Rolling her head from side to side, she gathered the supplies she’d need in the cave. She didn’t complain. Didn’t bitch. Didn’t decide to pawn off the work on Brad. But he saw the deep set lines in her forehead and the strain behind her eyes.

Jake decided the kindest thing he could do was send her in just a little angry and dreaming of landing a punch on his square jaw.

Grinning Satan’s smile, Jake said, “When you get back in the cave, try not to scare the bats, Georgia.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Tuesday, October 3, 6:00 P.M.

Georgia lost track of the time. The artificial lights that had chased the darkness also dulled the lines between night and day. Only one technician could fit in at a time, so she and Brad alternated one-hour shifts. She began by searching the area around the body, shifting through the cool damp soil for anything a killer might have left behind. Other than the wax there was nothing. It seemed she barely searched a few square feet when Brad would shout in to her.

When Brad yelled, “Time,” she glanced out the cave’s entrance and could see the glow of floodlights hauled into the remote location by uniformed officers. “I’ll be out in a minute. I’ve a few more details before I’m at a stopping point.”

“That’s what you said twenty minutes ago.”

“It takes time,” she snapped, rolling her head from side to side. “I’m not rushing this.”

A layman would have expected the body to be stiff but this hardening of the body, rigor mortis, happened in the first two to four hours post death. After about six hours, the chemical reaction that triggered the rigor mortis ebbed, the muscles slackened and became flaccid again. Now at least forty-eight hours post death the limbs were malleable. The medical examiner would have to measure the body’s liver temperature to determine a more accurate time of death.

Georgia sat cross-legged as she lifted the victim’s cold and badly swollen hand. Though the cuticles had receded, she could see that in life the victim kept them neatly filed and painted with a faint sheen of purple nail polish that still caught the light. Carefully, Georgia inspected the fingernails, crusted with dirt, searching for any sign that the victim might have scratched her attacker. Knowing the medical examiner would do scrapings under the fingernails, she covered both hands with paper bags. Porous, the paper allowed air to circulate so that moisture didn’t form and destroy any DNA that might be present.

“Let’s hope you scratched the hell out of him. Maybe together, we can put this asshole away.”

When both hands and feet were bagged, she gently rolled the body on its side. Pushing up the shirt, she noted a purplish discoloration darkening the backside of the girl’s legs and arms. Called stippling, the color change was caused by blood settling or pooling in the body’s lowest point when the heart stopped pumping. Forensic technicians used stippling patterns to determine if the body had been moved or repositioned. If there’d been stippling on the front of the body, she’d have known the girl lay face down for a time before being placed on her back. In this case, the stippling ran the back length of the girl’s body. This suggested the girl was positioned here at the time of death

“How’s it going in there?” Brad asked. He dropped his voice a notch. “Got some mighty testy detectives out here pacing around.”

“Why should I care? Do they have another party to go to?”

He shook his head slowly with conviction. “If I ask them that now, I’ll be taking my life into my own hands.”

Neither detective scared or intimidated her and she found their annoyance almost amusing, considering she was knee deep in death. She rolled her head from side to side, feeling a small pop in the stiff vertebrae. “She’s almost ready to move. Go ahead and send in the body bag.”

“Jake Bishop also wants to see the cave and the scene before you move her.”

“Tell him to suit up. I’ll give him the grand tour.”

Georgia did her best to consider dead bodies as evidence to be studied. But when the victim was young, as this girl had been, it wasn’t difficult to not look beyond the ravages of death and see a sweet young girl brutally robbed of her life.

A heaviness settled in her chest and, for a moment, she didn’t move as she sat quietly by the girl, her gloved hand resting on the lifeless arm. As she sat, she glanced over at the three waxy puddles that had illuminated the cave. Why the candles? Had the killer used it to light up his little cave of horrors? Tears burned in the back of her throat. “I swear, I’ll find out who did this.”

“Talking to yourself?” Jake asked.

“I talk to dead people,” she said. “Didn’t you know that?”

“Can I come in?”

“Make yourself at home.” She sat back on her haunches and moved back to make room for him.

He’d put on a Tyvek suit, gloves, and booties. Moving with practiced care, he crawled into the cave and squatted in the few feet on the other side of the body. He studied the body, his scowl deepening with disgust. “Jesus, the smell in here. You okay?”

“Never better.” She shoved back a stray lock of hair from her eyes with the back of her hand.

He inspected the details of the body and then took in the candles and the necklace and pendant dangling from the rock. “How the hell did he find this place?”

“I didn’t know caves like this existed in the area. Whoever was here knew the area well.”

“Three kids on a science expedition, maybe?”

She shook her head. “The kids parked and entered on the opposite side of the park. They were never supposed to be close to this section.”

He looked at the thin line of bruises ringing the victim’s neck as well as the collection of other marks. “He didn’t strangle her the first time he laid hands on her.”

“A choking game?”

“Maybe.”

He raised the vi

ctim’s bagged hand. “Are there signs she tried to get away?”

“That’s what it looks like. The other shoe is out there somewhere.”

“I’ll call in the scent dogs and see if they can find it.”

For a moment, both sat in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

“Her face is turned to the side,” Jake said. “The killer or killers didn’t want her looking at him.”

“Is that some kind of dominance thing?”

“That and anger.”

“We’ve got a real gem of a killer this time.”

“You need anything from me?” Jake asked.

What could he do for her now? Nothing. But it was nice he asked. “Have Brad send in the body bag.”

“Consider it done.” He winked at her and then slowly retraced his path out of the cave.

“I’ve got the bag,” Brad shouted.

She blinked and turned, breaking her long stare. “Great, hand it in.”

* * *

Jake stripped off his Tyvek suit, gloves, and booties the instant he left the cave. The smell would cling to him and be in his airways for days.

“She hates tight spaces,” Rick said.

Hell, Jake was in that damn tomb less than ten minutes and wouldn’t forget it for a long time. He knew this was a hard scene and the tight proximity to the body was clearly taking its toll. “Why?”

Rick slid his hands into his pockets. “I’ll deny it, if you ever tell her I told you.”

That tweaked a small smile. “Your baby sister scare you?”

Rick chuckled. “Damn right. And if you had any sense you would fear her, too.”

Jake had witnessed her temper in full force when a young uniformed cop had trampled her crime scene and another time when she was singing and a guy from the audience at Rudy’s got too familiar with another female singer. Georgia Morgan, defender of the defenseless, whether they be dead or alive.

“I’ll never tell,” Jake said.

Rick shook his head. “You heard the story about Dad finding Georgia at a homicide scene?”

“Yeah. Hell, it was all over the Internet when Annie’s case was reopened.” He pictured the infant lying in her crib, crying with panic and fear. Just feet away, the cops found the walls splattered with blood, but there was no sign of Georgia’s birth mother, Annie Rivers Dawson. Every cop in the city had been put on alert, until a body later identified as Annie’s was found in a remote section of woods off I-40.