Page 44 of The Fragile Ones
“Road trip…to hell.” He looked at his watch. “And we have plenty of time today.”
“It is where it all began and where the girls were abducted from,” she stressed.
“I’m going to change clothes,” he said.
Looking at her text messages, she said, “I have a stop first and then I’ll pick you up at your house.”
Chapter Eighteen
Wednesday 0930 hours
Katie hurried to the main forensic examination room and found it empty. John wasn’t around. Probably at a crime scene or stepped out for a break. Glancing up and down the deserted hallway, she entered the large high-tech room on the pretext she would leave him a quick note that she came by and would be gone for most of the day.
She still hadn’t figured out John completely. He was ex-Navy Seal and seemed like the type of soldier that would be in the navy for life. He had studied forensics, chemistry, and biochemistry sciences before landing the supervisor job at the Pine Valley Sheriff’s Department Forensic Unit.
Katie hadn’t really spoken to John since the autopsy. At her birthday party, she barely spoke to him because he had seemed quite taken with her friend Lizzy. The thought of John and Lizzy together brought a smile to her face.
The DNA for Tessa Mayfield was always in the back of Katie’s mind. She needed to know who she was and why the Mayfields had her. Most of all, what the numbers 372 really meant.
Katie looked around John’s desk area for a small piece of paper to let him know that she had come by looking for him. Everything was in its precise place—all the paperwork, file folders, pens, steno pads had a specific spot, usually exactly perpendicular to the tables and desks.
Interesting.
There was one piece of paper that stood out. Tossed on the table rather than neatly tucked away. It was a crumpled bar receipt, and on it was Lizzy’s name and cell number.
Katie wondered if John had called her, since she was going to be in the area for about a week. Searching around again, she saw a couple of folders with the namesTessaandMegan Mayfield. After listening for a moment, Katie opened the folders and read the preliminary report from the medical examiner’s office. There were brief notes in pencil pointing to DNA, California soil and vegetation, and some type of debris mixed on Megan’s skull fragments.
Katie then realized that she needed to forward a photo of the picture of Tessa wearing the necklace so that John could examine it and confirm whether it could have been used to strangle her. She retrieved her cell phone, found the photo, and emailed it to him.
Knowing that she would probably hear from John tomorrow or the next day, she had decided to leave the exam area when a stack of printed photos of the Mayfield crime scene caught her attention. She picked them up and quickly thumbed through them.
It brought her back to the moment she went over the edge and into the ravine, and the almost debilitating fear she felt that day. Her hands shook. Her pulse heightened. Her mouth went dry. She wanted to put the photos down, but she was mesmerized by them. Until she saw a photo of her amongst them, taken as she began to climb back out of the ravine. In fact, there were several photos of her. She didn’t know what they had to do with the crime scene…Had John taken the opportunity after they had searched and documented the scene to take photos of her? Two were close-ups of her face as she focused on her ascent, while another was a pretty picture of her turning towards him, smiling. She didn’t remember smiling much, but he managed to capture one.
Katie didn’t know what to think. Or feel. She put the stack back down on the desk exactly as she had found it and left the forensic area, without writing a note.
Chapter Nineteen
Wednesday 1030 hours
Katie picked up McGaven from his house so that they could keep an early start on their drive to Rock Creek—both dressed in jeans and layered sweaters. It would take them more than an hour to get there—it wasn’t the distance, but the windy roads that slowed them down. She thought it was prudent to take her Jeep so that they might blend into the town more easily than in the sedan.
“You okay?” asked McGaven.
Katie glanced at her partner. “Yeah, just a bit tired. As you know my mind wouldn’t shut off last night so I didn’t get much beauty sleep.”
“Just checking. This case would pull apart the strongest amongst us,” he said, as he looked out the window at the countryside.
As Katie eased onto the narrow road leading over the mountain to Rock Creek, she tried to let her surroundings calm her. Watching the sun on the horizon was one of the best parts of living in the country. Heading northeast, the brilliance of the reddish-orange colors lighting up the hills and valleys took her breath away. Even the dense trees alongside the road glowed in the heavenly light.
“You alert the chief that we were coming?” asked McGaven.
“Yep.”
“Think that was wise?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, maybe he might tell Mr. Rodriguez or one of the officers.”
