Marie Ferrarella - Cavanaugh Cold Case

He wasn’t going to hold his breath, Malloy thought, leaving the two-story building where the lawyer’s office was housed. But then, maybe he’d succeeded in getting a little movement going in that area, making James’s secretary see how important the situation was.

Without anything tangible to go on, Malloy decided to pay the ME’s office a visit to see if the sexy medical examiner had gotten any further with her examination of the mound of body parts.

Hopefully she could offer him something more to go on than she had in their last encounter.

It felt like he was spinning his wheels. While he had always been a fan of road trips, they involved real wheels and an actual physical destination. Spinning his wheels figuratively while trying to get somewhere on a case had the exact opposite effect of a real road trip. It only succeeded in making him feel exceedingly frustrated.

Malloy took a chance that the good doctor had returned to the morgue and had gotten started on making heads or tails out of the collection of bones she and the CSI team had gathered together. This was his first stop when he drove back from the lawyer’s office.

Getting off the elevator in the basement, he followed the signs leading to the morgue. Malloy was faintly aware that there was music being piped into the building’s corridor. It wasn’t classical music, the way he might have expected—something soothing to quiet any unsteady nerves or a queasy stomach—after all, this was where the morgue was located—but something twangy.

Since he listened to music only occasionally and then to just whatever was currently on the pop stations, it took Malloy a moment to place just what genre he was listening to.

Country.

And whose idea was that? he wondered. Was that supposed to be some subtle commentary on the great circle of life? Down-to-earth folks returning to the earth, or some such circular reasoning?

Well, it didn’t really matter one way or another. He didn’t care for the music, but he wasn’t here to indulge his aesthetic sensibilities. He was here for some sort of answer, or at the very least, a hint of a direction to go in. Right now, he had nothing, and he found that incredibly frustrating.

The door to the morgue was closed. For a moment, he debated leaving it that way and coming back later. He didn’t want to disrupt anything that might be going on behind those closed doors.

But then, maybe it was business as usual and the medical examiner was just working with a giant, life-size jigsaw puzzle. In that event, he could even be of some help.

Anatomy wasn’t his thing, but jigsaw puzzles were.

With that in mind, he knocked once, then turned the doorknob. When he found it to be unlocked, Malloy entered the room.

There was only one living occupant in the room. A bright overhead light illuminated the main exam table. There were other tables, with other overhead lights, but they were turned off. In general, other than the one bright light, the oversize, somewhat chilly room was somberly in the dark.

* * *

Engrossed in trying to recreate just one body out of all the various parts that had been dug up and were now available to her, Kristin hadn’t heard the knock on the door.

She wasn’t even aware that anyone had entered the room until Malloy was less than a foot away from her. At that point, he cleared his throat to get her attention and very nearly caused her to knock over what had taken her over an hour to assemble—a less than half completed body out of all the bits and pieces that had been carefully laid out on all the other unlit tables.

Stifling a shriek, Kristin spun around and glared accusingly at the man who had very nearly caused her heart to pop out of her chest.

The cocky detective.

She might have known.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded angrily.

She didn’t like losing her poise that way, especially not in front of an audience—and most especially if that audience was comprised of a man she found to be unimaginably irritating for oh-so-many reasons.

“I’m interested,” Malloy told her simply, looking at the progress she’d made with the body parts. He was definitely impressed. This woman had serious jigsaw puzzle skills.

“I’m not,” she retorted coldly, her eyes narrowing as she continued to glare at him, hoping he would get the blatant hint and just go away. “I thought I made that clear this morning.”

When he raised his eyes to hers, Kristin instantly realized she’d made a gross mistake in her assumption. He wasn’t here seeking her out for her company. He was here looking for her expertise.

The first words out of his mouth confirmed it.

“I was referring to your professional opinion.”

Embarrassed—and hating it—Kristin could feel heat traveling up both sides of her neck as well as along her cheeks. She struggled, snatching up various unrelated thoughts to get herself focused on something other than what an idiot she’d just been.

“I knew that,” she murmured.

At any other time, he would have probably taken the opportunity to tease her a little. He liked the way her blue eyes flashed when she got angry.

But he was short one partner and his competitive nature wouldn’t allow him to remain stuck in the mud, not making any headway whatsoever, for long. Solving cold cases was what he was being paid for. He wasn’t about to drop the ball now.

But in order to keep from dropping it, he first needed to get a ball not to drop. And right now, he had nothing to grasp on to except for the bare bones—pun intended, he thought—of a mystery. He had all the questions without a clue as to where to even begin looking for some of the answers.

“So,” he began as if they were having just a friendly conversation, “what have you learned?”

Kristin made no reply. Instead, she just looked at him suspiciously. The detective wasn’t being cocky, he was actually asking the question. Was this just another tactic, or was this the genuine Malloy Cavanaugh beneath the jaunty bravado?

She couldn’t tell.

When in doubt, go on the offensive.

“Are you asking me to spoon-feed you answers?” she asked.

“Yes, please.”

He saw the skeptical look on her face intensify. Maybe he needed to play on her sympathies—provided she had any, he qualified. Right now, the jury was still out on that one.

“I’m down one partner, and the only possible lead I have is on vacation in some unknown location that apparently doesn’t have cell phone signals, internet or any kind of telephone service. I need something to go on,” he told her truthfully, then began with the most logical question. “Did you get a final count on how many bodies were in the ground?”

“At last count, there were ten. The CSI team uncovered ten skulls,” she told him. “But they’re not finished digging yet.”

That must be making Harrison happy, he couldn’t help thinking.

“Ten,” he repeated, digesting the idea. “That means—if we’re lucky—there are ten missing persons flyers to go with those skulls.”

She inclined her head, as if agreeing with him. But it wasn’t a wholehearted gesture. “If the reports were filed.”

Malloy laughed dryly. “Not much for positive thinking, are you?”

“Give me something positive to think about,” she countered, challenging him.

He would if he could, but he had nothing yet. “What else can you tell me?” he asked, then quickly qualified, in case they were still on the wrong foot, “About the case.”

“Of the ten people, nine of them are female,” she told him.

“And one male?”

Kristin bit back a few choicer comments and only said, “I can see why you’d be so sought after as a detective.”

He ignored the sarcasm, focusing on what didn’t jibe for him. “Don’t you find that kind of odd?”