Alone (A Bone Secrets Novel) Read Free Page A

him looking directly at her. She met his look squarely. She couldn’t get a read on his thoughts. He must have known she worked in the Oregon medical examiner’s office, but he couldn’t have known she’d be here tonight. Was he surprised? She broke eye contact in time to see Lacey pry one of the clear retainers off the top teeth with a loud snap.
    “Not retainers,” Lacey commented. “Invisalign. Invisible braces.”
    Victoria had seen them on TV. The appliances moved teeth into alignment with a series of progressive rigid trays. A feat of dental engineering that hadn’t been available when she went through two years of metal orthodontics. “So she’ll definitely have some dental records somewhere.”
    Lacey nodded, her face thoughtful as she studied the two closest girls. “How come they aren’t wearing shoes? They don’t look poor, the makeup and hair is perfect, nails are manicured…” She stopped as Seth abruptly shifted his position to view the soles of the feet.
    “Perfectly clean,” he stated. “Where in the hell are their shoes? Or did they fly in here?”
    Seth watched Victoria talk with the other forensic specialist. The woman hadn’t changed a bit. Still tall, immaculate, polished long black hair, and all-seeing with those intense brown eyes. Would she have pretended not to know him if he hadn’t said anything?
    He didn’t like his answer.
    Victoria Peres had every reason to give him the cold shoulder, yet she was being her professional self. Even in college she’d been ahead of the curve in maturity and poise. She’d stood out in her anatomy class with her intelligent questions. He’d known at once that she was a woman going places.
    And she had. She’d traveled the world to study anthropology. Either digging for old bones or observing social situations. He’d read her magazine articles and tracked her professional life online. Then he’d heard about the opening at the Oregon medical examiner’s office. His daughter had left for her first year of college, so there was no point in his staying in Sacramento. He applied, hoping to cross paths with the woman he couldn’t forget.
    When he’d gotten the call about tonight’s deaths from the medical examiner’s office, he hadn’t expected to see her. He’d anticipated a hike in the dark woods and a depressing crime scene. Both of those assumptions had been accurate. Now, being around Victoria was like being around a moving flame in the clearing. He couldn’t pull his gaze from her; he kept an eye on her at all times. Even when he turned his back, his senses tracked her. After nearly two decades of not seeing her, he felt like she’d never been gone. There was no learning curve to being in her presence; he instinctively knew what to expect.
    The onsite professionals appeared to know her and respect her. The two police detectives had treated her with the utmost courtesy. He wasn’t surprised. Victoria was one of those determinedpeople who worked her butt off to achieve her goals. She didn’t believe in shortcuts. She’d always succeeded at what she put her mind to.
    He turned his attention back to the dead girls.
    A fucking waste.
    The scene reminded him a bit of the Heaven’s Gate cult. In the late nineties nearly forty people had committed suicide together, hoping to catch a ride on a spaceship trailing the Hale-Bopp comet. He remembered photos of rows of neatly arranged bodies in beds, their faces covered with purple cloths and brand-new Nikes on their feet. There’d been a master planner at work who’d brainwashed the group.
    Who would do this? Someone was involved. Someone who was still alive, because the girls’ shoes didn’t walk away by themselves. He had every intention of attending the examinations of these girls.
    They were close to Eden’s age.
    He fought the anger crawling up the back of his throat.
    Working on the endless stream of autopsies at the coroner’s office in California felt different when the victim was