Page 12 of Heartbreak Bay

“Sheryl? Sure. She’s got two little girls. Cutest you ever saw.” His body language alters again. Worried. “She all right?”

“She isn’t home,” I tell him. “Does she live alone?”

“Since that no-good bastard of hers left she does. Been more than a year since he took off.”

“Name?” I ask, and write downTommy Jarrettwhen he gives it up. “You know where Mr.Jarrett moved off to?”

“Somewhere up around Norton, I expect. He’s got family up in there.”

Interesting. I don’t know of any Jarretts. “And you are, sir?” I’ve let him get comfortable with it. I keep my tone polite.

He relaxes. “Hiram Trask. Me and my wife, Evie, live right there.” He points to the house he exited—smaller than the Lansdowne house, and in poorer condition. “Last I saw Sheryl, she was off driving the girls. She does that, time to time, when they get cranky. Says the car noise puts them to sleep. She get into an accident or something?”

“I’ll check into it,” I tell him, and dutifully take down the make and model of Sheryl’s car when he tells me, though I already know. I don’twant to give him any reason to complain. “Thank you for your help, Mr.Trask. Y’all have a good day, now.”

He nods and steps back, and I back out and head for Norton. He watches me all the way to the turn, to make sure I’m gone. I expect nothing else.

It’s a short drive back to Norton, but one thing I’m already certain of: I have a lead. Tommy Jarrett, if he was the babies’ daddy, might well want Sheryl dead, and the children, too, especially if child support was involved. Worth looking into, at least. Always start with the closest person to the victim and spiral out.

Before I can make it to the station to start running checks on Sheryl Lansdowne and Tommy Jarrett, I get another call. This one from the morgue.

“Hey, it’s Winston,” the coroner says. “I got your girls ready. You comin’ in?”

“Yes,” I say, before I can convince myself otherwise. “I’ll be there in a few.”

The county coroner’s office doubles as the Norton Funeral Home; I ring the old bell and wait until I hear the grate of the lock. Winston stiff-arms the door open for me and I duck in before it slams.

The place stinks of cleaning products, with a low undertone of something else. Old meat, like a butcher shop. Same as always. I take a deep breath, then another, trying to flood myself with the stench so it just becomes background. Normal.

It never really works.

Winston is not a big talker. He just heads down the wood-paneled hall and off to the left, where the county coroner’s small work area is located. It’s not terrible, and he keeps it well up to anyone’s standards. Gleaming metal, shining porcelain. Perfect, neat lines of blades andsaws and needles, everything just so. Winston’s conscientious, even though they pay him shit—two-thirds what the county coroner over in Everman makes, though he’s got the same training and experience. We don’t talk about it.

He nods over to the right, where a small set of paper bags is already filled and sealed. “Clothes over there,” he says. “I left the car seats as they were. Cut the straps close as I could to the sides, in case there was any foreign DNA left on the catches.” The two seats are still wet, but he’s set them out on sterile towels to catch anything that might drip off. I leave it for now, and turn toward the single autopsy table.

It’s still empty.

“I thought you said you were ready. Where are they?” I feel an oily sickness bubble up in my stomach. I can handle shit, but I hate anticipating it.

“Ran into a problem after I called. I need to find a different scale,” he says quietly. “I’ve got to weigh the bodies before I get started. The built-in scale on the table won’t register them. I was going to call the hospital and get a baby scale, but who knows how long that’ll take. They’re giving me the runaround, saying it’s not protocol—”

I can’t. I can’t let those babies get colder; I know Winston’s kept them in the bags, in the dark, and everything in me rebels against the inhumanity of that. Not one more hour. Not one moreminute.

I tell him, quietly, “There’s a way to do it. I’ll help.”

He gets what I’m saying immediately, and turns to stare at me with wide eyes. Says, “You sure?”

I just nod because I don’t know if I can say it again. I feel cold and heavy with dread, but there’s a terrible, warm tenderness boiling up in me too. These lost babies need to be held. To know, even this late, that someone cares for them.

Winston helps me up on the autopsy table. The surface is cold and smells of bleach, strong enough to make my eyes water. I let him recordmy weight, and then I hear him unzip the first body bag. I take a deep breath and close my eyes and hold out my arms.

The cold, limp weight settles in against my chest, and I instinctively hold her close. I don’t care about the fact that she’s dead and gone. I just care abouther. My mouth goes dry, my throat tight, and I feel tears clumping thick at the edges of my lids. “It’s okay,” I whisper to her. “You’re not alone. It’s okay.” But I’m talking to both this lost child and the barely begun one hidden deep inside me. A promise I’m going to try to keep forever.

I hear Winston quietly recording the combined weight, subtracting mine, and then he takes her away. For a split second I want to fight to hang on to that poor baby, to hold her until she’s warm again, but then I let go.

The second body lies heavy and cool against me, and this time I can’t stop the tears. I brush my now-numb fingers across the little girl’s drying hair.

God help the one who did this. God help him because I’m going to find him.

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