‘‘Here’s some more insects. Larva and bug parts.’’
She handed them over and began logging in the cloth
ing and rope she had collected from the autopsies. ‘‘Discover anything new?’’ David asked.
Diane sat down in a chair and stretched out her legs
in front of her. ‘‘Some. Right now the vics all look to
be in their twenties. Blue is a female and has a tattoo
of a butterfly on her ankle. Green’s a male. He’s had
his appendix out and has a heart condition. Not seri
ous. Red’s another female. She has a tattoo of a hum
mingbird on the right side of her lower back and
another one of a rose on the upper part of her left
breast.’’
‘‘Good tattoos?’’
Diane thought a moment. ‘‘Yeah, they are. Very
intricate.’’
‘‘Expensive, then.’’
‘‘Could be.’’
David ran his hands through what was left of his
hair—a thick curly fringe around his head. ‘‘That’ll
help.’’
‘‘Did you happen to find any fingertips?’’ Diane
asked him. ‘‘None of the bodies had theirs.’’ ‘‘Nope. We did find where a truck was parked.
From the cable marks on the tree branches, I’d say
he hoisted them up with a winch.’’
‘‘How’s Neva doing? Jin said you took her out for
a walk-through.’’
He wavered his hand from side to side. ‘‘She’s about
fifty-fifty. Hasn’t decided if she likes this work yet.
They just assigned her here, you know, didn’t ask her
if she wanted it. But she’s no different than any other
newbie I’ve trained.’’
‘‘How are you doing?’’ asked Diane.
‘‘You don’t have to watch me. I’m not going to
self-destruct.’’
‘‘I’m not worried about your sanity, just your
happiness.’’
David Goldstein had shown up literally on Diane’s
doorstep, asking for a job. The massacre of their
friends at the mission in South America had left him,
like her, on the edge of sanity—burnt out and with
no place to go. Diane’s loss of her daughter had so
overwhelmed her she didn’t really see the grief the
others were feeling from losing their friends. David
was adrift when he arrived in Rosewood. Diane was
glad to be able to give him a job. It surprised her that
he requested to work in her new crime lab. ‘‘Are you sure you want to do that?’’ she had asked
him. ‘‘Don’t you want to get away from everything
we’ve seen?’’
‘‘Don’t you?’’ It was a reasonable question.
