But he was short one partner and his competitive nature wouldn’t allow him to remain stuck in the mud, not making any headway whatsoever, for long. Solving cold cases was what he was being paid for. He wasn’t about to drop the ball now.
But in order to keep from dropping it, he first needed to get a ball not to drop. And right now, he had nothing to grasp on to except for the bare bones—pun intended, he thought—of a mystery. He had all the questions without a clue as to where to even begin looking for some of the answers.
“So,” he began as if they were having just a friendly conversation, “what have you learned?”
Kristin made no reply. Instead, she just looked at him suspiciously. The detective wasn’t being cocky, he was actually asking the question. Was this just another tactic, or was this the genuine Malloy Cavanaugh beneath the jaunty bravado?
She couldn’t tell.
When in doubt, go on the offensive.
“Are you asking me to spoon-feed you answers?” she asked.
“Yes, please.”
He saw the skeptical look on her face intensify. Maybe he needed to play on her sympathies—provided she had any, he qualified. Right now, the jury was still out on that one.
“I’m down one partner, and the only possible lead I have is on vacation in some unknown location that apparently doesn’t have cell phone signals, internet or any kind of telephone service. I need something to go on,” he told her truthfully, then began with the most logical question. “Did you get a final count on how many bodies were in the ground?”
“At last count, there were ten. The CSI team uncovered ten skulls,” she told him. “But they’re not finished digging yet.”
That must be making Harrison happy, he couldn’t help thinking.
“Ten,” he repeated, digesting the idea. “That means—if we’re lucky—there are ten missing persons flyers to go with those skulls.”
She inclined her head, as if agreeing with him. But it wasn’t a wholehearted gesture. “If the reports were filed.”
Malloy laughed dryly. “Not much for positive thinking, are you?”
“Give me something positive to think about,” she countered, challenging him.
He would if he could, but he had nothing yet. “What else can you tell me?” he asked, then quickly qualified, in case they were still on the wrong foot, “About the case.”
“Of the ten people, nine of them are female,” she told him.
“And one male?”
Kristin bit back a few choicer comments and only said, “I can see why you’d be so sought after as a detective.”
He ignored the sarcasm, focusing on what didn’t jibe for him. “Don’t you find that kind of odd?”
“What, you being sought after?” she asked. “Actually, yes, very.”
The woman had a smart mouth, and he found himself wanting to shut it in the most effective way. Later, he promised himself. He’d get to that later. It would serve as a reward for a job well done. “I was talking about the fact that there was a male in the group,” he told her.
Kristin shrugged. He had a point—not that she would say so to him. “Maybe our one male was a transvestite and managed to fool the killer. Oh, and there’s one more thing,” she said, leaving the best for last.
“Go ahead,” he urged gamely.
“The bodies weren’t hacked apart.” At least, not the ones she’d had time to assemble. She’d examined those sections very closely.
“So they weren’t murdered in a fit of rage.”
Waiting a beat, Kristin gave him the second part of her findings. “They were broken apart—while the victims were alive.”
“Then they were murdered in a fit of rage,” he said, amending his previous statement. And then he looked at her with a touch of impatience. “Well, which is it?”
Her eyes met his, and just for a split second, Kristin caught herself losing her train of thought.
Rousing herself again, she went on to tell him, “I just present you with the facts as I find them. It’s up to you to do the speculation.”
With that, she lowered her visor and got back to the business at hand, putting together ten dismembered Humpty Dumpties.
Feeling almost as if he was experiencing whiplash, Malloy watched her work for a moment. This case was definitely not going to be easy—for a hell of a lot of reasons, he told himself.
Kristin could feel the detective’s eyes on her. Ordinarily, she could block out her surroundings and work under any conditions, adverse or not. But she had this distinct impression that the detective wasn’t watching her work, he was watching her, which was something else entirely.
And she didn’t much like it.
“Why are you still here?” she asked, not giving the man the satisfaction of looking up at him as she posed the question.
Malloy’s voice was mellow and easygoing as he replied, “I thought I’d broaden my education. You know, you can really learn a lot about a person by watching them work.”
Obviously the man’s supply of lines was endless, Kristin thought reprovingly. Since ignoring him was obviously not working, she decided to put Cavanaugh on the spot instead.
“Oh?” she said skeptically. “And what is it that you’ve learned by watching so intently?”
“That you’re precise and meticulous—and you don’t like being observed.”
“I don’t mind being observed. What I mind is the person doing the observing—especially when he should be working.” The look she gave him left no doubts about how she felt about his standing there.
Rather than backing away because he’d been rebuked, Malloy smiled engagingly. “Do I make you nervous, Dr. Kris?”
“You make me irritated, Detective Cavanaugh,” Kristin corrected. “Now, if you want me to come up with some answers for you to work with, you’re going to have to let me do my job,” she said, then added with finality, “alone.”
But rather than leave, the way he had initially begun to do, Malloy looked around at the other exam tables. There were six in all, brought in during the rampage of another serial killer several years ago. Now the tables were covered with bones that might or might not be part of the person whose skull rested at the top of each table.
As he glanced around at the various clusters of remains, a thought occurred to Malloy. “Do you think this might be related to a sex trafficking ring or something along those lines?”
Kristin stopped working and looked up. “Excuse me?”
“You know, sex trafficking,” he repeated, then went on to elaborate in case she missed his drift. “Unsavory types smuggling young women from around the world for the single purpose of making money by turning them into sex slaves.”
“That would be more profitable if they were alive,” she pointed out dryly as she got back to sorting. “For most men, dead women are not a turn-on.”
“Very true,” Malloy agreed amicably enough. “But maybe something went really wrong, and whoever was in charge of this group decided he or they had no other recourse except to kill all these women.”
Under normal circumstances,