Tess Gerritsen - Ice Cold

“You haven’t even looked at her yet.”

“But I can see the X-rays.” He pointed to the films of the skull, spine, and pelvis that Yoshima had clipped onto the light box. “I can tell you they’re completely consistent with a woman of Maura’s height and age. And those fractures are exactly what you’d find from injuries sustained by an unrestrained passenger.”

“Maura always wore her seat belt,” said Jane. “She was compulsive about it. You know how she was.” Was. I can’t stop using the past tense. I can’t quite believe this exam will change anything.

“True,” Bristol said. “Not wearing a seat belt isn’t like her at all.” He pulled on gloves and reluctantly peeled back the sheet.

Even before she saw the body, Jane flinched away, her hand lifted over her nose against the smell of burned flesh. Gagging, she turned and saw Gabriel’s face. He at least seemed to be holding his own, but there was no mistaking the appalled look in his eyes. She forced herself to turn back to the table. To see the body they had believed was Maura’s.

It was not the first time Jane had seen charred remains. Once she had watched postmortems on three arson victims, two young children and their mother. She remembered those three cadavers lying on the tables, their limbs bent, their arms thrust forward like boxers spoiling for a fight. The woman she saw now was frozen in the same pugilistic pose, her tendons contracted by intense heat.

Jane took another step closer and stared down at what should have been a face. She tried to see something-anything-familiar, but all she saw was an unrecognizable mask of charred flesh.

Someone gave a startled gasp behind her, and she turned to see Maura’s secretary, Louise, standing in the doorway. Louise seldom ventured into the autopsy room, and Jane was surprised to see her here, and so late in the day. The woman was wearing her winter coat, and her windblown gray hair sparkled with melting snowflakes.

“You probably don’t want to come any closer, Louise,” said Bristol.

But it was too late. Louise had already glimpsed the corpse and she stood frozen, too horrified to take another step into the room. “Dr.-Dr. Bristol-”

“What is it?”

“You asked about her dentist. The one Dr. Isles went to. I suddenly remembered that she’d asked me to make an appointment for her, so I went back over the calendar. It was about six months ago.”

“You found her dentist’s name?”

“Even better.” Louise held out a brown envelope. “I have her X-rays. When I explained to him why we needed them, he told me I should drive right over and pick them up.”

Bristol crossed the room in a few swift steps and snatched the envelope from Louise’s hand. Yoshima was already pulling down the skull X-rays from the light box, the unwieldy films twanging as he hastily yanked them from the clips to make room.

Bristol pulled the dental films from the envelope. These were not morgue panograms, but small bitewing X-rays that looked dwarfed by Bristol ’s meaty hands. As he clipped them onto the box, Jane spotted the patient’s name on the label.

ISLES, MAURA.

“These films were all taken within the last three years,” Bristol noted. “And we’ve got plenty here for ID purposes. Gold crowns on the lower left and right molars. An old root canal here…”

“I did panograms on this body,” said Yoshima. He shuffled through the X-rays he’d taken of the burned cadaver. “Here.” He slid the films onto the box, right beside Maura’s bitewing X-rays.

Everyone crowded closer. For a moment no one said a word as gazes flicked back and forth between the sets of films.

Then Bristol said: “I think it’s pretty clear.” He turned to Jane. “The body on that table isn’t Maura’s.”

The breath whooshed out of Jane’s lungs. Yoshima sagged against a countertop, as though suddenly too weak to support himself.

“If this body is Elaine Salinger’s,” said Gabriel, “then we’re still left with the same question we had before. Where’s Maura?”

Jane took out her cell phone and dialed.

After three rings, a voice answered: “Detective Queenan.”

“Maura Isles is still missing,” she said. “We’re coming back to Wyoming.”

MAURA AWAKENED TO THE CRACKLE OF BURNING WOOD. FIRELIGHT danced across her closed eyelids, and she smelled the sweetness of molasses and bacon, the scent of pork and beans bubbling over the campfire. Although she lay perfectly still, her captor sensed that she was no longer asleep. His boots scraped closer, and his shadow blocked out the firelight as he bent over her.

“Better eat,” he grunted, and shoved a spoonful of beans in her direction.

She turned away, nauseated by the smell. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered.

“Trying to keep you alive.”

“There’s a man, in the village. He needs to be in the hospital. You have to let me help him.”

“You can’t.”

“Untie me. Please.”

“You’ll just run away.” He gave up trying to force the food on her and slipped the spoon in his own mouth instead. She looked at the face staring down at her. Backlit by the fire, his features were invisible. All she saw was the outline of his head, frighteningly enormous in the fur-lined hood. Somewhere in the shadows a dog whined and claws scratched. The animal moved closer and she smelled his hot breath, felt the lick of a tongue across her face. He was a huge dog, his silhouette shaggy and wolf-like, and although he seemed friendly, she recoiled from his attentions.

“Bear likes you. Doesn’t like most people.”

“Maybe he’s telling you I’m okay,” she said. “And you should let me go.”

“Too soon.” He turned and moved closer to the fire. Scooping up beans from the pot, he shoveled spoonfuls into his mouth with feral hunger. Veiled in smoke, he looked like some primitive creature squatting in the light of an ancient campfire.

“What do you mean, it’s too soon?” she asked.

He just kept eating, noisily slurping from the spoon, his concentration completely focused on filling his belly. He was an animal, stinking of sweat and smoke, no more civilized than the dog. Her wrists were raw from the rope bindings, and her hair was matted and infested with fleas. For days she had been wheezing and coughing in the smoke that hung thick in their shelter. She was suffocating in here, while that filthy creature sat calmly stuffing food into his mouth, not caring if she lived or died.

“Goddamn you,” she said. “Let. Me. Go.”

The dog gave a low growl and moved beside his master.

The figure squatting by the fire slowly turned to her, and in the featureless shadow that was his face, she imagined evils that were all the more frightening because she could not see them. In silence, he reached into his backpack. When she saw what he brought out, she froze. The firelight’s reflection gleamed in the blade and cast ripples of shadow along the serrations. A hunter’s knife. She had seen, at the autopsy table, what such a knife could do to human flesh. She had probed incised skin, used a ruler to measure the wounds that split apart muscle and tendon and sometimes even bone. She stared at the blade poised above her, and cringed as he brought the knife down.

With a sharp flick, he cut the rope binding her wrists, then freed her ankles. Blood rushed into her hands. She scrabbled away, retreating into a shadowy corner. There she huddled, breathing hard, her heart pounding from the unaccustomed exertion. For days she had been restrained, allowed up only when she needed to use the bucket. Now she felt light-headed and weak, and the shelter seemed to rock like a ship on the high seas.

He moved closer, until he was right in front of her and she could smell the stink of damp wool. Up till now his face had been obscured by shadow. Now she could make out thin cheeks smeared with soot, a beardless jaw. Hungry, deep-set eyes. Maura stared at that gaunt face and came to a stunning realization: He was just a boy, sixteen at the oldest. But a boy with the size and strength to cut her down with one stroke of his knife.