Amanda Stevens - Forbidden Lover

And, of course, the state-of-the-art laboratory of which Erin was in charge had played no small part in her decision. Funded almost entirely by a wealthy, anonymous donor, the Forensic Anthropology and Human Identification Laboratory, usually referred to as FAHIL, rivaled the one at the University of Tennessee, where Erin had received her doctorate in physical anthropology and where the famous “body farm” was located.

All in all, she considered her move to Chicago from the sometimes sweltering climate of Knoxville to be a wise one. The campus was small with the usual petty jealousies and academic backstabbing, but in the two months that Erin had been on staff, her reception had been fairly warm. She suspected the ease with which she had been accepted had more to do with the reputation she’d earned at the Anthropological Research Facility in Knoxville than with her personally.

As one of only a handful of board-certified forensic anthropologists nationwide, her presence at Hillsboro was something of a coup. Her name had quickly been added to the Chicago Police Department’s consultation list, as well as law enforcement agencies all over Illinois and the Midwest. Hillsboro’s board of trustees were very aware that a high-profile case could bring donors out of the woodwork.

Case 00-03, the unidentified mother on Erin’s worktable, was her third consultation with CPD, and though it didn’t promise to be high-profile, there was something about the woman’s remains that had captured Erin’s imagination.

The skeleton had been discovered less than a week ago, beneath an old house that was being torn down in Chinatown. Erin hadn’t been invited to examine the skeleton in situ, but instead, the remains had been dug up and transported in a black plastic bag to the pathology lab at the Chicago Technology Park. The pathologist on duty had quickly concluded there wasn’t enough tissue remaining on the bones for an autopsy to be of much use, so Erin had been called in.

Carefully, she took facial measurements, narrating her findings for the video camera that recorded every nuance of her examination. The notes would later be transcribed and included in the report she would give to the police.

The broad face, squared winglike cheekbones, and small low-bridged nasal bone were characteristics of the Mongoloid race. Since the skeleton had been found in Chinatown, Erin knew there was a very good chance the remains were Asian.

An Asian mother of at least two children.

The story continued to unfold.

Next, Erin began to determine the woman’s age by studying the degree of fusion in the femur, the closure of the cranial sutures, and the—

“Dr. Casey?”

Absorbed in her work, Erin jumped at the unexpected sound of a human voice. The bones talked to her, but they never spoke out loud.

She glanced up. Gloria Maynard, her secretary, stood tentatively inside the lab door, her expression wary. She didn’t like coming down here. The shelved bones and skulls patiently awaiting identification made her nervous, but then death made a lot of people nervous. But not Erin. If anything, she took comfort in the knowledge that stripped of skin, tissue, and muscle, human beings were all pretty much the same underneath.

Including the tall, good-looking man who hovered outside in the hallway, just beyond the open door.

Erin frowned. She didn’t like strangers invading her private domain, for security reasons among others. “What’s going on?” she asked Gloria.

The secretary glanced over her shoulder. In spite of her discomfort, her eyes danced excitedly. “There’s a detective outside to see you. I told him to wait in your office, but he insisted on coming down here. He said he needed to talk to you about an urgent case—”

The man pushed past Gloria into the lab, as if too impatient to wait any longer. Erin didn’t much care for his attitude, but whoever he was, he certainly had excellent bone structure, she’d give him that. She automatically cataloged his features. Wide shoulders, narrow waist, lean hips. Moving to his face, she noted the high cheekbones, the well-defined brow, and the piercing blue eyes, so striking against his dark coloring.

His impatience emanated from every nerve ending in his body. He looked incapable of standing still. He wore a sport coat with charcoal trousers, and his hand swept restlessly down his striped tie as his gaze roamed every nook and cranny of the lab, undisturbed, he would have her think, by the rows of human skulls grinning silently from the shelves.

Satisfied with what he’d seen, his blue gaze came back to rest on Erin. Her stomach fluttered, not from attraction or sexual awareness she was quite sure, but from apprehension. Somehow she knew the man’s presence here in her lab did not bode well for her future peace of mind.

“So you’re the bone lady,” he said, in a voice deepened not so much by age—Erin judged him to be in his early thirties, possibly two or three years older than she—but by confidence and authority, a man who liked telling others what to do.

She bristled instantly. “No,” she told him coolly. “I’m not the bone lady, although I thank you for the compliment. That moniker belongs to another forensic anthropologist, one I admire very much.”

“Fair enough,” he said easily, although his gaze seemed to intensify on her. “But you are Dr. Casey, aren’t you? Dr. Erin Casey?”

“Yes.” She shoved her goggles to the top of her head, then peeled off her gloves and disposed of them in the waste receptacle before she ventured across the room toward him. “And you are…?”

“Detective Gallagher,” Gloria piped in, as if she had only now remembered his name. Her voice was higher than normal, and she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the man. “He’s with the Chicago PD.”

Detective Gallagher shot her a bemused glance. “Thanks, but I can take it from here.”

A blush sneaked up Gloria’s neck, fascinating Erin. Outspoken, flirtatious, occasionally obnoxious, Gloria Maynard was not the type to embarrass easily, but Detective Gallagher had definitely flustered her. She seemed torn between wanting to escape from the lab, and hanging around long enough to somehow get his phone number.

“What can I do for you, Detective Gallagher?” Erin asked him.

He took a few steps into the lab. “Could we speak in private?”

The blush on Gloria’s face deepened. “I’ll be at my desk if you need me,” she muttered, spinning on her heel and closing the door with a soft thud behind her. Erin was fairly certain that Gloria wasn’t used to being dismissed so curtly—at least not by a man. Her shiny black hair, short skirts, and tight sweaters usually drew lingering and longing stares from the male members of the faculty and student body alike. But Detective Gallagher didn’t even seem to take notice of her leaving. Erin warmed to him a little.

“We’re alone now,” she said, then felt her own face color at the suggestive way she’d phrased her observation. She pulled down her goggles and plunked them on her nose as she turned back to her worktable. “Mind if I work while we talk?”

“Not at all, as long as I have your attention.” Detective Gallagher walked around the table, so that they were facing each other. Erin drew on a fresh pair of latex gloves and handed him a pair. “Just in case you get curious.”

Reluctantly, he took the gloves. Erin had never understood the mindset of police officers who could work bloody crime and accident scenes so coolly and calmly, but then grew uneasy—some downright green—at the sight of skeletal remains. Detective Gallagher didn’t particularly strike her as the squeamish type, but he did seem to have a healthy respect for his surroundings.

At any rate, the bones spread over Erin’s worktable were nearly pristine. All that remained were the clues that would unravel the woman’s identity and cause of death.