you came, I bet him I could get you to say pretty please with sugar on top.”
“How did you know I was coming?” But she already knew the answer, O’Malley.
He laughs. “I knew you would have only done it if you thought I was messing with your Dad, so when we saw you driving up, I told him to toss me out the window. He was more than happy to oblige.”
She looks back at the bar, seeing her Dad standing in the window. He waves at her with a big smile on his face.
“You’re both children!” she yells as she climbs back in and speeds off with his side door still open. It shuts quickly as she spins around onto the blacktop, racing away with lights on.
“So what can you tell me about the scene?”
“I got a call from Duke, one of the first on the scene, that O’Malley had bodies and called for all hands on deck. By the time I got there, he had ten bodies. CSU had not arrived, and he, Stein, and half the department were still securing the scene. He called you?”
“Yeah, I knew it would eat you up.”
“I’ll get him.”
“Another time, love,” Donovan says, putting his boots on.
“Don’t call me that!”
“Okay, okay. Let it go for now.”
Her phone rings, and she presses a button on the steering wheel.
“Did you find him?” O’Malley asks.
“You two are both children. What am I going to do with you both?”
“What you got?” Donovan says, speaking over her.
“Fourteen so far. I am going to need your help, T.”
“On my way. What can you tell me?”
“Fourteen young women, sixteen to twenty-five, all in fancy white or black ball gowns and teardrop pearl necklaces, and get this—their left hands are cut off and missing, except the first one that a dog found. All strangled, according to Alice,” O’Malley reports.
Something in the back of Donovan’s mind recognized the outfits and necklaces, but he could not place them, “Did you get the dog’s statement?”
MacBride turns to him with hers eyes wide open. She swerves, catching herself, nearly hitting a tanker truck, and moves back onto her side of the road as the tanker sounds its horn.
“Yeah, bark, bark, bark-bark.”
She presses the button, turning the phone off. “Will you grow up and take this seriously?”
“If the dog took it, we need to swab its mouth for trace.”
She looked right him. He may be drunk and an ass at times, but sometimes, he thinks of the oddest things that can actually help a case.
“As a Consultant or Detective?” Donovan asks, looking right at her.
She opens the case between the seats and hands him his shield and gun, a Navy SIG P226, still in its holster, “I could never turn them in, and I fought hard to get you back on the force. But the Chief wouldn’t have it, but we need you, so I am making a lateral decision. Can you follow orders this time?”
“Can you leave politics out of it?”
There is a long pause, and she bites her upper lip. “I will try.”
“Me, too, Captain MacBride.”
For the first time, she feels that he truly means it, and she actually heard the respect in his voice. “Where do you want to start?”
“I need to see the scene.”
“Thought you would say that,” MacBride says, driving up near the Reporters as a Deputy moves one of the two barricades aside.
She drives through and parks near O’Malley’s SUV and a few other white patrol cars with a blue strip running down each side and jackson hole county printed on the rear fenders.
Donovan looks around and steps out of the sedan, but she hands him a stick of gum first. He comes around and steps up to the tape at the same time Duke returns with three Deputies.
“Good to have you back, Nephew,” Duke says, raising the tape up for them to pass, and gives MacBride a look—it’s about time.
“Where’s the first girl, Unc?” Donovan asks, greeting his Uncle with a hug. He walks them back to the first girl, where the CSU is about to pick up the body and put her on a gurney. Donovan puts his left hand out for them to wait and stoops for a better look, moving some leaves and twigs with a pen he took from MacBride’s inside coat pocket. “All are the same?”
“Except for their ages and stages of decomposition, the color of their dresses, and this one with her hand, yes,” Roberts explains.
“What colors?”
“White like hers or black,” Roberts replies.
“I have seen this outfit and pearls before,” Donovan comments under his breath, but before anyone can respond, O’Malley and Stein return.
“About damn time, T,” O’Malley says, looking at the group and then at MacBride.
Donovan looks up. “Still only fourteen, O’Malley?”
“Yeah, I have them looking an additional five miles in all directions.”
Roberts and another Tech pick the body up and transfer it to a body bag and then onto a gurney.
“Wait,” O’Malley says, watching as a small white card falls. He quickly picks it up, turns it over, and shows it to Stein.
She looks at MacBride, and O’Malley hands it to Donovan.
Donovan puts his hand out toward Roberts. “Gloves?”
Roberts hands him one from her pocket. He slips it on and flips the card over, “It’s one of my Dad’s old business cards. Bag it, run it, and make sure you are careful with the others. They may also have something hidden,” Donovan states, looking at Roberts.
Roberts nods, places it in an evidence bag, and fills it out, then closes the body bag around the young girl.
Donovan looks over the ground. “Okay, and the oldest one?”
“Over this way, by the creek,” O’Malley says, heading off.
Donovan and MacBride follow Stein and O’Malley back deep into the woods to a point near a creek bed. MacBride vomits seeing the body’s decomposition. Most of the woman’s face has been gnawed at, her eyes and nose are missing, and there is a lot of dry blood. A few maggots are working their way around and under what skin remains on her face and through the eye sockets. MacBride vomits again, and Donovan shoves her a bit to her right, holding on to her so she does not
