Vulnerable (Morgans of Nashville 4)

“Very.” She cleared her throat, needing to run for the cover of work details. “Where’s Rick?”

“He was at the Palmer Motel searching a room belonging to Scott Murphy. They found Elisa’s backpack in the room.”

“Really?” Adrenaline surged through her muscles. She lived for moments like this. “Any sight of this Murphy guy?”

“No. He’s gone and officers on scene are waiting for the forensic team.”

She glanced at her phone. “I’ve not received a text yet. I should be on the scene.”

“Last I checked, you’re not the only one in the department.” He shifted, standing between her and the elevator. “Scott Murphy fits Jenna’s sketch, so he’s using the image and going door to door in the motel.”

She tapped an impatient finger on her belt. “You said this Scott Murphy guy vanished.”

“He can run, but he can’t hide from me for long.” He slid the phone in his pocket. “I’m very sure your buddies in the lab will lift all kinds of good DNA.”

She checked her watch. “Four o’clock. I bet Brad got that text. He was hoping to get out of the office on time today.”

“Join the club.”

The doors opened and Dr. Heller appeared. Georgia liked the pathologist, who moved with a quiet efficiency that she found calming. If Georgia had to classify herself she’d be a tornado. Dr. Heller was smooth calm waters. Jake, well, he was an earthquake. He turned everything upside down.

“Looks like a party today,” Dr. Heller said. “I’m flattered you could join me.”

They followed her up to the exam room and each donned gowns and gloves before joining Dr. Heller in a tiled exam room. In the center of the room lay two sets of skeletal remains. Bones, darkened to a muddy brown by time and the damp cave were laid out in anatomical order side by side. One glance at the smaller set of bones with the wide pelvis and delicate brow line confirmed what she had suspected in the cave. The bones were female. The other set was markedly larger and clearly those of a male.

Her gaze settled on the empty spot that should have held the right femur bone of the female. “We bagged everything in that cave.”

Dr. Heller, her athletic frame now swallowed by a green gown, nodded as she linked gloved fingers together. “I don’t see signs of trauma on the adjoining bones. No saw or ax marks to suggest that the killer dismembered the body. But there are small gnaw marks at the end of the femur. My guess is an animal burrowed in from some small crevice in the cave and chewed on the body.”

Georgia grimaced, trying not to picture a wild animal defiling the remains of Bethany Reed. “Do you know how she died?”

“It’s as I expected. She was stabbed.” She lifted a rib bone that would have rested near the heart. “See the slash mark here? That’s a knife mark. Someone drove a knife from above her into her chest.”

“That someone would likely be taller,” Georgia said. “Like Mike.”

“Sure, but that’s assuming she was standing when she was stabbed.” Dr. Heller shrugged. “She was also struck very hard on the back right scapula and the back of her skull. The blows would not have been enough to kill her, but would have knocked her to her knees.” She raised the triangular-shaped scapula bone and pointed to weblike fractures.

“She fell to her knees first,” Georgia said as she tried to visualize the last moments of Bethany’s life.

“Maybe,” Dr. Heller replied. “It would have been an incredibly painful blow.”

“What was she hit with?” Deke asked.

“Hard to say exactly.” She pointed to the center of the fractures. “The contact area is tight and circular. Perhaps a hammer or a palm-sized rock.”

“And then the killer moved in front of her and drove a knife in her chest,” Georgia said.

“That would be my guess,” Dr. Heller said. “We’ve photographed the bones and have examined them, and I won’t need to hold onto them much longer. Mrs. Reed and Mr. Marlowe are anxious to take custody of the remains so that they can hold funeral services.”

“When will you release the bones?” Deke asked.

“In a day or two. I released Elisa Spence’s remains to her parents a couple of hours ago. They’re planning on cremation and no ceremony, but it’s my understanding that Mrs. Reed is planning a funeral and I don’t know Marlowe’s plans yet.”

Georgia understood the pain of burying a parent but thankfully not a child. “Those families have suffered enough.”

Deke shook his head. “They’ve got some closure. That counts for a lot.”

“That’s not enough. I want their killer more than ever now.”

A grin tugged the edges of his mouth. “You sound like Buddy.”

“Really?”

“More every day.”

“Thanks. I think.” As she stared at the large bones, she visualized the file photographs of the tall young man with broad shoulders and a square jaw. “What’s Mike’s story?”

“He was shot in the head just above the left temporal lobe as you suspected. No other wounds or damage to the body.”

“I searched the cave floor and found the bullet lodged in the dirt.”

Dr. Heller lifted the skull and moved to a side counter where she picked up a long narrow rod. She inserted the rod into the hole in the temple and out the one at the back of the skull. “This is the trajectory of the bullet.” She held a pointed finger as if it were the barrel of a gun to the temple. “The slight downward trajectory suggests it was fired at close range. He would have died instantly.”

“An execution,” Deke said.

“I would have bought the murder/suicide angle if not for the Spence body,” Georgia said.

“Agreed.”

“I’m running ballistics on the bullet. I’ve done my best to pull up the serial number on the gun but no luck.”

“Let Bishop break the news to Marlowe about the manner of death. I don’t know who the hell killed those kids, but right now everyone is a suspect, even Marlowe.”

“Understood.”

“Any remains of clothes found with the bodies?”

“Zippers. The rest rotted away. The zippers are from standard jeans that could be purchased in any box store.”

“And the necklace was dangling from the rocks, correct?” Dr. Heller asked.

“Yes. I’m still trying to figure that one,” Georgia said. “Damn thing’s hanging there almost like a grave marker for Bethany.” Georgia couldn’t imagine the terror the girls endured in their last moments. “Deke, have you fed the details into ViCAP yet?”

ViCAP, an FBI national database stood for the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. The system was not as perfect as many on the outside thought. Not all jurisdictions across the country entered data into the system. Many of the smaller municipalities were short on funds and manpower

Deke shook his head. “I’m holding off until I have a few more details. Fingerprints from the motel would be a big help.”

“There will be dozens, and we’ll have to sift through what’s found.” Impatience nipped at her as she thought about the shifting and digging it would take to find a fingerprint match.

“I have uniforms canvassing the area around the coffee shop with the picture Jenna drew,” Deke said. “A few people think they saw him but no one has any specific details. The guy knows how to blend.”

“We need to sift through the fingerprints in that motel room. We’ll focus on the ones on the remote, any food or drink containers, and door handles.”

“They found a guitar.”

“Perfect.”

“I can input a fingerprint into the databases and we’re more likely to get a hit from that than eyewitness testimony.”

Georgia studied the collection of dark brittle bones. “What set him off?”

“Who the hell knows,” Deke said.

* * *

The fresh voice mails sat unanswered in Amber’s phone from several reporters and a couple of guys she’d met in a bar her first night in

town. The reporters were an annoyance and of no use to her and the men, though they had been entertaining for a few hours, now irritated her.

As the television commercial featuring dog food flashed, she muted the television. She was watching for any news reports on the girl, Elisa Spence. She was found dead in Percy Warner Park and very likely the reason Jake and Georgia had left so quickly from the diner.

Finding the Spence girl also explained why she didn’t hear back from Georgia and Jake, even though they were so eager to reopen the missing persons cases on Bethany and Mike.

As her mother turned on the shower in the back bathroom, she rose and moved toward the kitchen. Her mother had arrived home fifteen minutes ago and promised to talk as soon as she washed the stench of the bar out of her hair. Once her mother finished her shower, she would say a word or two to Amber, but it would be less than a half hour before she fell into bed, exhausted.

Her mother’s ritual had not changed in the last five years, leaving Amber to believe the stench most likely came from a strange man as much as the bar. When the sun was down, her mother loved men. When it was up, she hated them.

Amber dug a Mason jar from the cabinet and filled it with tap water. As she drank and stared out the back kitchen window into the barren backyard, the irony of the moment struck hard. For all her plans of making it big and getting rich, she’d come full circle. She was back in her mother’s house and still wanting more and wondering why her mother could not get her shit together.

She finished her water and then turned to the grocery bag her mother had deposited on the counter. She had brought home a few cans of soup, crackers, and milk. Though the thought of the milk made Amber’s stomach turn, soup appealed to her. She pulled the lid off the can, found a big mug and dumped it inside. She punched in two minutes on the microwave, put the soup inside, and hit start.

Her phone buzzed and she pulled it from her back pocket to glance at the display. She swore and sent the call to voice mail.

* * *

He stood outside, his slim muscled body pressed against the bark of an old oak tree. He watched as Amber passed in front of the window, the T-shirt and jeans molding her supple body.

The last five years had not changed her. She looked just as she had in high school. Small, petite, she always had a way about her that made him want to protect her when he wasn’t fucking her.