Page 15 of Risky Passion

"Umbrella?"

"Whitney, have you met me?"

He exhaled hard. "That body needs protection from that sun."

"I’ll get her covered. Just get here ASAP." I yanked the tarp over the face again, making a silent prayer that the identity of this woman could be established quickly.

"And, Jaxson?" Whitney's tone dropped. "Call Parker. We need him."

“I agree. Will do.” I studied the hulking silhouette of the orphanage’s main building, mentally cataloging what remained on the ground floor of its gutted rooms that I’d walked through at least a dozen times.

“I’ll call Aria and let her?—”

“What? No.” I snatched the phone from the dirt. “We need to contain this. The fewer people who know about this?—”

“Are you fucking kidding me. Aria and her team have been trying to solve this bullshit longer than we have.”

“Listen . . .” I lowered my voice. “Whoever buried this body here, they didn’t plan on it being found and they’re going to be fucking pissed that we found it.”

“You got that right.”

“So we don’t need anybody sabotaging this.”

“Exactly. That’s why we need Aria’s backup. Now stop arguing withme, and cover that fucking body. I’ll be there in five.” The line went dead.

I scanned the sky. Not a cloud in sight, just relentless sun that threatened to destroy whatever evidence remained on that body and inside that tarp.

I gave the tarp-covered form one last look. "Don't go anywhere," I muttered to the body, then as I walked away, I whistled low. "Onyx, come."

She bound to my side like she was grateful for the excuse to put distance between herself and that body. I'd never seen her spooked by a corpse before. My hand brushed my holster as we approached the building, an old habit that seemed almost redundant with Onyx beside me. One word from me and she could take down a threat before they even knew what was coming.

The orphanage's rear entrance loomed ahead, a dark mouth like the creepy clowns in a penny arcade. Onyx's ears snapped forward, and her shoulders bunched as we closed in. Some partners talked too much, asked too many questions, and had too many opinions. Onyx just moved with me, read my signals, and watched my back. K9s were the best partners I'd ever had, except for my brothers.

Onyx and I crossed over the weathered threshold and our steps echoed through the vacant service corridor that stretched ahead of us. My boots and Onyx’s paws stirred the dust blanketing the black and white tiles, and the field of dead leaves crunched beneath us like ancient bones.

The corridor split at a T-junction. Branching left was the staff wing, and on the right, metal hooks lined the walls of an old cloakroom. Beyond that was the communal washroom doorway which no longer had a door. Maybe it never did. That thought sent fresh anger burning through my gut. This place had a fuck-ton of rotten secrets that festered like infected wounds.

Hopefully, that body out by the fountain would finally force some answers to the surface.

Rust-stained shower heads lined the grimy tile walls, and industrial-grade disinfectant still ghosted the air. The tap sputtered but ran clear which was a small mercy for us each time we returned. Onyx lappedthirstily while I splashed water over my face and hands. We'd found the plumbing still worked last year during the grave excavations. Angelsong had been built to shelter generations of orphans, and its stone foundations would last centuries. Instead, the monsters who ran this place had made it a major crime scene.

Back in the corridor, a buckled water fountain was barely clinging to the wall beside the doorway to the head matron’s office. The nameplate on the door was long gone. My first search of that office had yielded nothing but mouse droppings and one detail that still needled me: wedged between a rusty filing cabinet and the crumbling remains of a potted plant, I'd found a heavy ceramic mug. Decades of coffee had stained its interior tobacco-brown, but what caught my eye was the perfect pink crescent on its rim, a lipstick print frozen in time. Something about that splash of vanity in a place built on suffering felt wrong, like finding a party dress in a morgue.

I'd bagged the cup with images of a breakthrough in the case, but Whitney had crushed that hope with a single cutting laugh. "Forty-year-old lipstick? That's your exciting find?"

The lab had run the tests, which didn’t yield any DNA evidence. Another dead end in a maze of them.

I entered the massive dining hall where dozens of kids would have been forced to eat what they were told, when they were told. My footsteps echoed across warped floorboards, disturbing a flock of pigeons nesting in the rafters. They erupted from the shadows overhead, and Onyx's bark crashed against the walls like cannon fire. The birds sliced through shafts of dusty sunlight, and their frantic wings cast bat-like shadows across the floor.

I grabbed the nearest table, hoisting it legs-up onto my shoulders. “Onyx, heel.”

Carrying the table, I trotted back out to the blazing sunshine.

As I crossed the forty yards to the crumbling fountain, questions circled my mind like those damn pigeons. Why here? Of all the places to hide a body on this land, and even the miles and miles of virgin bushland around this area, why choose this spot? The person who buried the body here must have known about the other shallow graves we'd found scattered across the grounds. This burial site wasn't random, nothinghere ever was. Had this been the victim's favorite place, back when the stone angel still looked heavenly with clean wings and uncracked eyes?

The questions kept coming. The answers kept hiding.

I settled the table over the pit, creating a makeshift shelter for the remains. Onyx took up a graveside vigil, stretched out in the dirt with her massive head hovering over the edge of the pit like a guardian, although her gaze kept sweeping to me.

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