“And you will. We will. We stick together, remember that?” Miranda hugged her one-armed quickly. “It’s one of the things we’re good at.”
40
The forensics lab had a feel, an aura, all its own.
Jac had once considered going into forensics. She had, in a way. Computer forensics.
Thanks to her stepfather forcing her to learn how to handle a weapon before she’d been out of grade school, she had excellent marksmanship skills.
Not to mention her experience in computer forensic analysis. That had been another lifelong passion of hers. Cyber law had drawn her toward law school. That had led her to the bureau. Everything combined had drawn the attention of Ed Dennis one day at Quantico when he’d been head-hunting for St. Louis. They hadn’t known it at the time, but he’d been recruiting for PAVAD years ahead of its inception.
He’d snagged Miranda that day, too.
She loved fieldwork. Except when it came to dealing with victims. That was one area where Max outshone her by a mile.
Max.
She was worried about him, too.
Little girls in jeopardy would always be hot-button cases for him.
At one time, that would have been the exact type of cases on which she would take the lead. So that he didn’t have to.
She would take the lead on this one, or share it with him, for Rachel.
It was something she just knew they both needed to do.
She wanted to be in the field searching, but with Max out there, it was time they divided and conquered. He’d handle the legwork. She’d handle the organization.
That had been their strategy too many times for her to think about. It was second nature now. Even if every instinct was urging her to get out there and find Livy and Ava herself, that it was her job to do just that. “It’ll be personal for him. It’s kids. Little girls who have been in his home, been with his daughter. It won’t get more personal than that for him.”
“Being a single parent, it’s understandable. I know seeing what was done to Edith Lindsay burned me, hurt me, intrinsically. Because of my grandmother. Just like two little girls, sisters in trouble, is no doubt haunting you. It is what it is. We don’t end up in this kind of a job without a good reason. We all have triggers. But we’ve been trained to know our own triggers—and how to work through them. Max will be ok, Jac. We’ll both make sure of it.”
She, Max, and Miranda had been together since the very early days. Before PAVAD they’d been a part of the St. Louis field office. Then they’d worked briefly for Ana McLaughlin in the CHILDS division of PAVAD, then they’d transferred to the Child Exploitation Prevention Division.
They’d found they worked very, very well together.
She pulled in a deep breath. Pathology was waiting.
The pathology lab was down the hall and down a flight of stairs in the annex. Jac led the way, not saying another word.
The morgue was filled with ghosts of previous cases. It always would be.
She’d always hated going down to the medical examiner’s office. But today…she was going to oversee every aspect of Rachel’s case that she could.
For Rachel.
The dead always passed through the morgue presided over by Jules Brockman.
Jac had always liked Jules. Jules had a snarky sense of humor and a brain that went a million miles a minute. They’d worked together in PAVAD’s early years, when there were far fewer members of the Complex Crimes Unit.
It had been four years and four months ago when PAVAD had taken its first official case.
Jac had worked the periphery of that first case. Jules came around a year later or so. The older woman had always struck Jac as being no-nonsense, practical, and down-to-earth. And she knew what she was doing.
Rachel would have the very best.
“How are you feeling?” Jac asked. She’d heard through the grapevine that Jules was pregnant again. Her husband, Malachi, had been one of Jac’s early team leaders. Jules had struggled with her last pregnancy, too, from what Jac remembered. Malachi had been a nervous wreck.
There was a mother on Jules’s table now. One who had two children who would never see her again. Jac could never take that lightly. “I’m here about Rachel Sturvin.”
“We suspected that someone would be down soon. I recognize her, of course. I just spoke with her about supervising Ruthie’s field trip three days ago. She was organizing the chaperones,” Jules said in a tight voice that spoke volumes. “I had to decline, but promised to take the next one, if I can.”
“I know. She…hit me up, too. I couldn’t say no. Is there anything you can tell us?”
“There’s not much to tell, Jac. It was a simple bludgeon job. Blunt force trauma. Here, here, and here. Any of those three blows would have been fatal. We estimate there was another twenty-six strikes. But she didn’t feel them. She was already gone. She…there wasn’t a lot of time for her to feel pain, to know what was going on. Let’s do this so you can get out there.”
Jac tried not to flinch when Jules pulled back the sheet.
Jac was never fully prepared for this part. The cold stare of dead was seared into her soul. This was far worse.
This…this was the first time Jac had ever seen anyone she knew on the autopsy table.
She would never forget this moment. Rachel was right there.
Jac fought back a panic attack. This…she was going to find who had done this. For Rachel. For those little girls. No matter what. She had to. She had to—so they couldn’t do this again to someone else.
She pulled her professionalism around her shoulders like a cloak. Like body armor. She could do this. She had
