This personal. And because of the potential for publicity—and danger—discretion was a primary concern. Could he trust Erin Casey?
Dr. Wyman seemed to think so. “The woman’s as honorable as she is brilliant. A very rare combination,” he’d mused wistfully.
The old man was probably half in love with her, Nick decided, as he gazed at Erin Casey with a new eye. He supposed she was attractive, in a scholarly, nondescript sort of way. She was tiny, probably not much over five feet, and Nick doubted she’d weigh more than a hundred pounds soaking wet.
Her hair was dark blond, and she wore the long, wavy strands pulled back and twisted into a thick braid that thumped against her back when she walked. The wire-rimmed glasses perched on her nose made her light-blue eyes appear huge and misty and gave her a dreamlike quality that seemed almost otherworldly. Her skin was smooth and pale, as if she spent most of her time bent over a worktable in her basement lab instead of out in the sunshine with the rest of the human race.
She looked freshly showered, having changed from the disposable scrubs into jeans and a yellow cotton shirt that had an ink stain on the front. Nick was willing to bet she hadn’t even noticed the stain, and if she had, she wouldn’t care anyway. Appearance was obviously not high on her priority list, and yet, she managed to convey a kind of absentminded sensuality that she would undoubtedly find surprising, and Nick found more than a little disturbing.
She sat down behind her desk and gazed up at him. “Have a seat, Detective Gallagher.”
He didn’t want to sit, but it would be rude not to, and besides, his pacing drove most people crazy. The only other chair in the room was stacked with books and papers, and she gave a careless, sweeping wave, which Nick took as permission to transfer the heap to the floor.
When he was finally seated, he could feel the impatience burning inside him again, mingling with the raw energy flowing almost like a drug through his veins. They had to get moving on this, he kept thinking over and over. There was no time to waste.
“Tell me about the remains you’ve found.” Her soft, southern accent was discordant with the topic of their conversation. Her voice came straight from the pages of Gone with the Wind. But there was nothing fragile or coy about Erin Casey.
“A hunter found the bones yesterday morning,” he told her. “In a remote, wooded area in Wisconsin.”
Her brows lifted slightly over the rim of her glasses. “Hardly CPD’s jurisdiction, is it?”
“No, but I know the county sheriff in that area. He called me when the remains were discovered.”
“Why?” Her blue eyes behind the glasses were gently probing.
Nick frowned at her persistence. “He doesn’t want any publicity until he has a handle on what he’s dealing with.”
“You mean until he learns whether the bones are forensic or archaeological?”
“Yes, but his concern is even more basic than that. It looks like a human skeleton, but who knows?” Nick shrugged. “Remember that case down south a few years ago where a man digging in a flower bed in his backyard uncovered several coffinlike boxes that contained what the local authorities thought were the skeletal remains of infants? The sheriff even went so far as to call in the FBI, thinking he had some kind of gruesome serial killer on his hands. Turned out the previous owners of the house had used that spot for their pet cemetery. The remains were a dog, two cats, and a canary. The media had a field day with that poor sheriff and his deputies.”
“Actually, I do remember that case,” Erin said. “I’m the one who examined the bones.”
“No kidding?” Nick had already known that, of course, but he thought it was a good way to make his point. “Anyway, my friend would like you to come up and take a look at the remains, see what you think.”
“Where is the skeleton now?”
“Exactly where it was found. We want you to oversee the excavation.”
“I see.” She was intrigued by the prospect, Nick could tell. Too often, remains were sent prematurely to the pathology lab or to the morgue before a proper excavation and search of the area were conducted.
“The sooner you excavate, the better,” she murmured, glancing at the calendar on her desk. “If it rains, crucial evidence could be washed away, but unfortunately, I’m completely tied up until Wednesday.”
Two days away, Nick calculated. And the weather service predicted a major rainstorm in the next twenty-four hours.
“Can’t you rearrange your schedule?” he urged. “The time factor could be critical here.”
“But you don’t even know whether the remains are human or not.”
He met her gaze. “They’re human.”
“But you just said—”
“I said the sheriff up there doesn’t want to come off looking like some kind of fool, which is true. He’s not sure the remains are human, but I am.”
“You’ve seen them?”
“I drove up yesterday as soon as he called me. We’re trying to keep this as quiet as possible, but in case word leaks out, a couple of deputies are patrolling the area. Just between you and me, though, I’m not sure how effective that precaution will be. They were all pretty spooked by the discovery, and I doubt any of them were willing to spend the night in those woods last night.”
“I understand.” She frowned at her calendar, as if mentally juggling her schedule. “But I’m afraid there’s no way I can get up there before tomorrow. I have classes the rest of the day, and…” her frown deepened momentarily “…an engagement tonight that I can’t possibly get out of…”
Her words trailed off, and Nick wondered if the engagement she couldn’t get out of tonight was a social one. Did she have a date? If so, she didn’t look all that keen on going, so what was the problem?
“I could wait around and drive you up as soon as you’re finished,” he suggested. “We could start the excavation at first light tomorrow.”
“If you’re in that much of a hurry, perhaps you should try someone else. Who did CPD use before I moved to Chicago?”
“Dr. Bernard Rosenbaum, but he’s laid up with a broken leg. Dr. Ernesto Gonzalez occasionally backs up Rosenbaum, but he lives over two hundred miles away, and besides, he’s working in Bosnia right now. There’s no one else available, Dr. Casey. And it’s going to rain tomorrow afternoon,” he stressed. “I need you up there as soon as possible.”
Something in his tone must have conveyed his urgency, because she looked up, letting her blue gaze rest on him for the longest moment before she nodded almost imperceptibly. “All right. I’ll see if I can rearrange my schedule. But you don’t have to wait around for me. Just leave me your number and I’ll call you tonight when I’m finished.”
He stood, fishing a card from his pocket and dropping it on her desk. “If it’s all the same with you, I think I’ll hang around campus for a while anyway.”
“That really isn’t necessary—”
“Look…”
