Chapter 30
As the last of the day's sunlight drained from the sky, Sissy Barten's remains were carefully bagged up and removed from the cave.
Veck was one of four guys who took the handles, bore her weight, and walked her out into the clean air. He'd stayed close as the afternoon had progressed, but kept his hands to himself, limiting his participation to taking his own photographs with his phone, talking with the coroner when the guy arrived, and helping wherever, and whenever he could with nonessentials.
Reilly had done the same.
And now the only thing left to do here was to get the body up the slope.
"Let's go this way," he said to the others. "It's the best shot we've got."
The four of them headed to the north, taking the least obstructed way - which was a relative term.
And there were plenty of people waiting for their arrival.
Naturally, the news crews had arrived and parked on the rim. God only knew who had tipped them off. No one in an official capacity at the site, that was for sure, but this was a public area and the whole town knew not only about Kroner's capture and recuperation at St. Francis, but also the victim in that motel, and the other dead girls. The fact that there were a dozen uniforms traipsing around a remote area with a lot of dark places probably didn't mean someone was having a birthday party at this pile of rocks. Plus now there was a body bag involved.
And God knew every idiot had a cell phone these days.
Which was precisely why, the moment after a positive identification had been made using photographs and birthmarks, de la Cruz had literally run up out of the scene and gone gunning for his car. Although the CPD would not release the name to the press until after the family had been notified, there had been numerous e-mails, texts, and phone calls back and forth with HQ - and there was no way of knowing who might have told their wife, who told her sister, who told someone at the television station.
Sometimes the information age sucked.
And no one wanted the Bartens to find out about their daughter on the evening news ... or, heaven forbid, Facebook.
As Veck and the other three guys grunted and stretched and pulled and lifted, Reilly was right with them the whole way, clicking her flashlight on and shining the beam to give them something to go on as things got darker. And darker still.
Until it was pitch-black.
Nearly an hour later, they made it to the top and carefully placed the remains in the back of one of the search and rescue vehicles.
Veck and Reilly stood back as Sissy Barten was taken safely back to town.
As the other officers began to disperse and engines were started, Reilly said quietly, "I don't think - "
"Kroner didn't kill her," Veck agreed just as softly.
"The MO does not fit."
"Not at all."
And they weren't the only ones who'd noticed the discrepancy between Sissy and the other victims: This body had been suspended head over heels and drained of blood, and there had been some kind of design etched into the stomach. Further, even though she had been naked and picked clean of personal objects, no patches of skin had been removed and she hadn't been sexually assaulted - which had been another of Kroner's perversions.
"I just don't know how to explain the earring," he murmured.
"Or why Kroner knew where she was if he didn't kill her."
Veck glanced over at his partner. "You want to eat somewhere?"
Bracing her arms over her head, she stretched. "Yes, please. I'm starved. And stiff."
He took out his phone and texted her: Ur place? Luks like u culd use a bath. Takeout n promise 2 b gent.
There was a discreet bing, and after making some small talk, she surreptitiously got out her phone and glanced down at it.
"Perfect plan."
His impulse was to kiss her hard and quick. Except he nipped that in the bud, because they were not just not alone; they were around people they frickin' worked with, hello.
And he wanted to drive back with her, but they were going to have to tandem it, thanks to his damn bike. Shit, to think he used to like that thing.
Then again, it had gotten her to take him home last night.
"See you in twenty," he told her.
"Are you sure you don't want an extra coat?"
"I'll be fine."
As he walked off across the still spongy, muddy ground, he thought about Jim Heron and the lack of footprints. He'd spent more time looking for evidence that someone other than he and Reilly had been walking around that area, but there had been nothing. Yet he was very sure the man couldn't possibly have shown up nearly half a mile down the slope, having traversed wet, uneven terrain, without leaving any trace. And it wasn't as if Veck had imagined the guy's appearance.
Look down at your feet, Thomas DelVecchio. And then you call me when you get scared enough. I'm the only one who can help you.
Whatever, Heron.
Resisting the urge to shout at the shadows, he mounted up, started his engine, and waited as Reilly stood next to her open trunk and took off her caked, filthy boots. At least that made him smile. He was willing to bet she had either a plastic bag or a rubber mat in there so that she didn't put the dirty treads on the rug. And she'd take those nasty suckers out as soon as she parked in her garage, and wash them right away so they'd be ready for the next time.
He glanced down at his own feet. His loafers were ruined. The kind of thing that you addressed with a garbage bag, not a scrub brush and a hose.
Hard not to find some other parallels there.
Reilly took the lead, and he was on her all the way into town even though going seventy on a bike on a night like this made you feel like you were back in December. Windbreaker, his ass. He might as well have been wearing a muscle shirt and nothing else, the cold biting into him.
But it wasn't as if he dwelled on the temperature. In his mind, he went back to the shower he'd taken after that nightmare in the woods with Kroner, back to the dark presence that had wrapped around him and spoken to him and caressed him, back to his biggest fear up close and personal.
It was nothing of this world. Never had been.
And then he heard Reilly's voice: It's like he just dropped out of the sky.
Christ, he was losing his mind. Had to be. Because he wasn't actually thinking Jim Heron didn't exist.
Was he?
About ten minutes later, they got off the Northway and weeded their way over to Reilly's neighborhood, and it was a relief to see all the nice-and-normal in the form of houses with lights and TVs on inside, and cars going at slow paces, and corner stores with lottery signs in them.
All things that could be easily and concrly explained. And who'd have ever thought he'd crave that?
When they got to Reilly's place, he pulled in behind her and dismounted as she eased into the garage, the bright reds of her brake lights flaring and then disappearing as she cut the ignition.
"You should wear a helmet," she said as she got out, went around to her trunk, and snagged her muddy boots.
Sure enough, she flicked a light switch on, walked them over to the garden hose on the front corner of the garage, and washed off the dirt.
When she glanced back at him, she flushed a little. "What are you smiling for?"
"I had a feeling you were going to do that."
She laughed and refocused on the cleaning job. "Am I so predictable."
Eyeing her bent form, he thought "sexy as hell" would also cover it. Man, the woman could turn a mundane chore into something so worth watching.
"You're perfect," he murmured.
"Trust me, never that." Cutting off the water, she shook the boots, dried them with a chamois, and put them back into the trunk.
Together, they went into her cock-a-doodle-doo kitchen and more lights went on. First thing he looked at? The table.
The hard-on was instant. As was the replay of the night before last when he'd done so much more than kiss her on it.
But neither lasted.
Through the doorway into the office, he saw that she had rearranged the furniture in there: The armchair had been pulled into the far corner and angled outward, and a small table was next to it. Extrapolating, he figured that if you were sitting there, you could watch both the front and the rear doors with your back to a solid wall.
"You want to try for pizza again?" she asked from over by the phone.
Cranking his head around, he said roughly, "Why didn't you tell me."
"What?"
"That you were being watched, too."
Jim didn't wait around to follow Sissy's mortal remains out of the quarry and into town. Instead, he disengaged from Veck, leaving Adrian to stay with the guy, and proceeded to her family's house along with a shortish, intense-looking detective who muttered to himself in Spanish.