KATHY REICHS - 206 BONES

There. I’d gone the extra mile. Saved Joe ten minutes.

I was sliding the skeletal X-rays from their sleeve when my cell phone rang. Chicago area code. I clicked on.

“Tempe, it’s Chris Corcoran.”

“Hey.” By now the sandwich was really kicking in. I tried to stifle a belch. It came out sounding like a guinea pig grunt.

“You OK?”

“Mm.”

“You sound odd.”

“I’m fine.” Feeling a twinge, I pressed a hand to my belly.

“Good news. The cops think they’ve caught a break in the Tot case.”

“Oh?” I felt bad about not having asked. I’d meant to for a week.

“An inmate at Stateville is looking to cut a deal for transfer to Pontiac.” Corcoran referred to two of Illinois’s maximum-security correctional facilities.

“What’s so great about Pontiac?” Snappish.

“Ouch. You sure you’re OK?”

“Sorry, I’m a little tired.” I swallowed. “Go on.”

“The guy says his cellmate’s been bragging that he and a buddy rolled a kid and dumped his body in a quarry.”

“When?”

Through the window I saw Briel power-stride up the corridor and into her office. Duclos shot from her seat and bolted out the door.

“The guy doesn’t want to arouse suspicion by asking questions. So far he’s just listening. But he’s agreed to wear a wire.”

“What’s the cellmate in for?”

“Armed robbery.”

My desk phone rang.

“Gotta go, Chris. Keep me in the loop.”

I disconnected one line and picked up the other.

“Brennan.”

“You nailed it. The kid who mowed the lawn and shoveled the walks for the Villejoin sisters says they always paid cash. Says the vics kept money in the pantry.”

“A lot?” Feeling a sudden rush of heat, I pressed a hand to one cheek.

“He didn’t know.”

“How old is this kid?” I shifted the hand. My forehead felt clammy.

“Fifteen.”

“That would make him what, twelve when the Villejoins were killed? Probably too young.”

“And the kid’s about the size of a meerkat. A small one. He wouldn’t have had the strength.”

“Or the wheels to get him to an ATM on the east side of Montreal or out to Oka,” I agreed. “Any moving or painting crews in the neighborhood that week?”

“Dead end on that, but I’m checking with the day labor centers. The kid’s father said they do get the occasional person hustling work door-to-door. I’m taking O’Keefe’s picture to Pointe-Calumet now. Want to tag along?”

My stomach made a sound impossible to describe.

“You feeling OK?” I asked Ryan.

“Tip-top.”

“What kind of sandwich did you buy from the machine?”

“Cheese.”

“I’ll pass. Let me know if you have any luck with the photo.”

Palming another antacid into my mouth, I popped the first few X-rays onto the light box, unsure what I was hoping for. The Gouvrard antemorts suggested no condition or injury that would affect bone. At least not the bone that I had.

I was halfway through the films when my gut signaled again. Forget twinge. This was a card-carrying cramp.

My gaze drifted to the trays I’d organized for Joe.

I looked at the clock. Four thirty-five. Had he actually left without taking the films?

“Joe,” I called around the corner.

What the hell?

“Joe!” I barked.

The top of my head flew off and my innards lurched.

I looked at the teeth. The bones. The useless X-rays.

These people had been dead for decades. They could wait another day.

Flicking off the light box, I locked up and headed out.

By the time I reached home the evil ham salad was goose-stepping across my gut, bellowing threats of a holocaust to come.

Entering the kitchen only to fill Birdie’s dish, I stripped, yanked on a nightshirt, and fell into bed. Minutes later I was up and lunging for the bathroom.

The vomiting continued well past the emptying point. When it ended, my mouth tasted of bile and my intercostals and abdominals ached from the strain.

But I felt better.

Not for long.

The microbes ran me in twenty-minute loops. Hurl. Recover. Renauseate. Hurl.

By ten I was shaking and drained. Literally. My thermoregulators had long since thrown up their hands, leaving my body on its own to decide whether to shiver or sweat. At times it did both.

I was crawling under the covers after a session with the porcelain prince when my eyes wandered to my bedside clock. Eleven twenty-five. My pounding brain managed a cogent recollection.

Briel.

Clawing the remote into my palm, I clicked on the TV and found the right station.

The interview was a feature spot, one of those long pieces in which an unusual job or profession is highlighted. The interviewer was a tweed-jacketed guy who looked like he’d just finished high school. Maybe.

Tweed Jacket introduced Briel as though she were Our Lady of Forensics. He might even have said that. I was so ill by that time, looking back, I’m never sure.

Briel wore a white cotton blouse and black pants that showed far too much ankle. Her hair was pulled back and tied with a bow. The perpetual frown was firmly in place.

If the sandwich hadn’t already laid me low, my colleague’s grandstanding certainly would have. With Tweed Jacket lobbing softball questions, Briel spoke of her brief but illustrious career.

An exhumation in France. A case involving a mysterious poison. The elusive cause of death for Marilyn Keiser. Though Briel’s face remained neutral, her tone was one of smug satisfaction.

To my horror, toward the wrap-up, discussion turned to Christelle Villejoin’s missing phalanges.

“Do you know Dr. Temperance Brennan?” Tweed Jacket asked.

“She is my colleague.”

“Her training is in anthropology, correct?”

“Yes. As is mine.”

I shot to a sit.

“A short course! You took a bloody short course!”

“Isn’t Dr. Brennan usually responsible for coroner-ordered exhumations?”

“Yes.” Just the slightest hesitation. The winging down of brows. For effect? “Dr. Brennan led the initial recovery at Oka. The phalanges were missed.”

Though I was chilled and shaking, my face burned.

Had I? Had I really missed them? I must have. But how?

My queasy brain scraped together an image of the tent. The pit. The earth-stained bones.

“-specialty training in forensic archaeology. What is needed in such situations is a team approach, the utilization of experts in excavation methodology, taphonomy and decomposition, and human soft and hard tissue anatomy and pathology.”

“Do such teams exist in Quebec?”

“One. A private company called Body Find. Corps découvert. I am-”

My poisoned gut arced full cycle.

I stumbled to the bathroom on shaky legs.

When the retching stopped, I staggered back to bed.

Shivering uncontrollably, I killed the TV and light and pulled the covers to my chin.

THOUGH COLD-NUMBED AND ALMOST USELESS, MY HANDS EXPLORED the skull. From habit, my brain catalogued detail .

Large mastoids and brow ridges. Male. Edentulous .

“ Who the bloody hell cares?” I screamed in frustration .

My cry sounded flat, deadened by brick and trapped silence .

I looked at my watch. The glowing hands now formed an acute angle pointing left. Two twenty? Four ten? Afternoon? Night?

I thought of my daughter. Wondered what Katy was doing at that moment. Harry. Ryan. Tried to imagine what was happening at the lab .

Surely I’d been missed by now. Surely a team was coming. Right, coming where?

“ Help! Please! ”

My throat felt raw. I coughed .