Liv stared, temporarily thrown for a loop. “What?”
Ryan exhaled. “I don’t think we can go back to how things were right away. But –” She paused. “Liv, I like you. Like you like you.”
Liv stared some more. The ice was starting to thaw around her mind, and almost around her heart. Her skin felt like she had been zapped by electricity, and her mind was going a mile a minute. “But…”
“The past happened, we can’t deny that.” Ryan met her eyes. “But the future is still open.”
Liv threw a sofa pillow at her. “You’re so cheesy.”
“And you like it.” Ryan winked.
Then she waited.
Liv hesitated, but when she realized she was smiling without meaning to she nodded. “Okay.”
“Don’t be so enthusiastic,” Ryan teased. Still, she had known Liv was a bit quiet, a bit withdrawn. So when she pulled Liv into a kiss, Liv didn’t feel any hesitation or any upset in that kiss. Just affection, longing.
Everything Liv had missed.
Thursday 20th October; 6am
The shrill ringing of Ryan’s phone woke her up, and she rolled neatly off the couch with a thud. “What the…” Hair mussed and eyes bleary, she grabbed the phone and answered it. “Ryan here.”
“We found a body.” The patrol officer’s voice was grim. “It’s one of the missing girls you were investigating. Ashley Palmer?”
Ryan’s eyes widened, and she was suddenly very awake. “Where?” She was already changing out of the pajamas that Liv had lent her, grabbing her purse and heading upstairs to see if Liv was awake. Liv had the afternoon shift at her coffee shop, so she had planned to sleep in.
Liv had slept upstairs, and Ryan had taken the couch. She hadn’t wanted to disturb Liv when she sat up late at night reading her case notes over and over.
Liv was still curled in bed when Ryan got up there. She looked down at her, feeling her heart race and bleed with the affection she felt for her. “I’ve got to go to work,” Ryan said softly, leaning down and kissing her cheek. “I’ll come by later.” Liv made a quiet noise, although whether it was acknowledgment or she was still mostly asleep, Ryan didn’t know.
She headed back downstairs, her mind whirling.
“I’ll let her know you left, dear.” Liv’s Gram caught Ryan off guard, making her jump. The elderly woman was sitting at the kitchen table, Mocha by her feet.
“Thank you, uh…” Ryan wasn’t sure what her name was.
“You can call me Gram.” She smiled.
“Thanks, Gram.” Ryan let herself smile back, then she headed straight out the door and to her car.
The drive was longer than she had expected, especially when she saw the address. Ashley’s body had been dumped in a field outside of town, easily five miles from where she had been abducted. Was that purposeful? Not that they were even 100% sure of the location where she had been taken. It could have been at school or it could have been the house. Even her parents weren’t sure.
Ryan let out a deep breath. Could she let go of Cairo’s case? She wasn’t sure she could, and she was even less certain she wanted to try. But the Chief had made it more than clear that she was off the case. She gripped the steering wheel a bit tighter as she turned into the grassy lot where the other cars were parked. Now it was time to focus on her missing person cases.
Crime scene tape blocked off a large portion of the grassy field, and she could see patrol cars dotting the sides of the barriers. A patrol officer was standing at the central point, a logbook in his hand.
“Detective Olsen.” She held up her badge, but it was just a formality as he let her through. She signed the logbook, took a pair of latex gloves from her pocket, and slipped them on as to not contaminate anything.
“What do we have here?” She looked at the patrol officer standing near the little forensic markers they put up to protect evidence.
“Nude body of an approximately nineteen-year-old female was found by a farmer who owns the nearby fields,” he started. Wiggins, his name tag read.
“How was the body identified?” Ryan asked. They had called her and known it was relating to the missing persons case, so they had put the pieces together somehow.
Wiggins cleared his throat. “Ashley’s cousin is a patrol officer.”
Ryan winced internally. That was a horrible way to find out. “Is she still here?” Or he, she added mentally.
“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded towards a small brown-haired lady who was still dressed in her police uniform. Ryan would go talk to her once she had taken a look at the scene.
“Was an ambulance called?” Ryan was surveying the crime scene as a whole. Grassy field, isolated. There was an untouched by police patch of grass that had been flattened, most likely by the suspect’s vehicle.
“She was cold when we arrived,” Wiggins said reluctantly. Ryan nodded. She headed further towards the body, which she guessed was where the majority of the patrol officers stood.
Dane strode in, pulling on a larger pair of gloves. Ryan looked at him, but she wasn’t hostile. He was just doing what was best for him and his family. “Hey,” she said with a nod.
He nodded back, a half-smile on his face.
She turned back to the crime scene. The victim, Ashley, was nude, sprawled out like a spider and very clearly posed. Ryan frowned. There was something weird about the posturing, and not just in a sexual way. It looked derogatory, not just sexual.
The slim body had dried blood running down it, seeming to come from a variety of stab wounds. Some were large, the length of Ryan’s palm, and some were small, as if the tip of the knife had gone in and the killer had hesitated.
There was also a syringe in her arm. The needle had slid in, the plunger depressed, but it just laid there, as if
