Barb Han - Ambushed At Christmas

T-Rex rolled his eyes. “She’s made up a list of all the things she needs to do while she’s still young .”

“She still thinking kindergarten is the end of her childhood?” Leah couldn’t help but smile. The kid was a cutup and Leah figured she got half her personality from her grandfather. If she got half of his big heart, she’d do fine in life.

He nodded before turning his attention to Deacon. “You got kids?”

“Me? No.” Deacon’s response was a little too quick.

Leah almost asked what he had against kids. She figured it was none of her business what he thought about anything, except that a little piece of her argued that she did care. And more than she wanted to acknowledge to herself.

T-Rex must’ve picked up on her tension because he redirected his focus. “What brings you to my humble abode so early in the morning?”

“I need to see Jane Doe,” she said.

“Ah.” T-Rex’s gaze bounced from her to Deacon.

“His friend is missing and she fits my Jane Doe’s description.” Leah didn’t like being dishonest. But if she inserted herself into Charles Dougherty’s investigation and asked the questions she wanted to outright ask, Charles could make her life at work even harder than he had been.

“Right this way.”

T-Rex motioned toward another hallway that led to another freezing cold room that had been dubbed The Meat Locker by beat cops.

Leah thought the term was disrespectful and had been teased her rookie year for not embracing the lingo. She also thought about her high school friend being inside a place like that and an icy chill trickled down her spine. She thought about the fact that Millie’s—short for Mildred, which was her aunt’s name—parents would have been brought down to a place like this in order to ID their daughter’s body, a fate no parent should ever have to face.

“Heard you got a new one in night before. The Mitchell case.” Leah figured there’d been enough casual conversation between the three of them this morning that she could start peppering in her questions. She also knew in her gut—from years of honing investigative skills—that T-Rex’s guard was down.

“Phone’s been ringing off the hook ever since. I unplugged it.” The case was big-time and people would be interested. He wouldn’t think anything of a few random-sounding questions.

“Mayor’s office?” she asked casually.

T-Rex nodded. He paused in front of The Meat Locker. “Sad case.”

“Heard her foot was missing,” she said.

“Cut clean off. One slice.” He turned to look them in the eyes. He always did that when he was delivering news that most people would consider disturbing. Leah had learned to keep an emotional distance from cases. That, and her nightly run were the only reasons she could sleep at all and still be able to do the kind of work she did. She gave families peace of mind. She couldn’t bring a loved one back, but knowing what had happened built a bridge to healing. Without it, becoming whole again would always be on the opposite shore, out of reach.

Deacon, who had been quiet up until now, folded his arms. Strong, silent type? He seemed to take everything in. See what most people couldn’t because they were too busy talking, trying to get a point across.

“Any idea what he used?” she asked T-Rex.

“Hatchet, maybe.” T-Rex shook his head. “She was young. Whole life ahead of her.”

She liked that he thought of the people who landed on his table in terms of being real human beings. People with parents, spouses, children. She’d heard stories of other coroners who’d mentally detached to the point they thought of people as projects.

“It’s awful.” Leah could only hope her friend Millie had been taken to someone as caring.

“She fought back, though,” he stated.

“Good for her.” Leah knew she would. There was no way she’d ever go down easy if faced with a similar situation. She’d take out an eye or anything else she could of her attacker. For one, she wouldn’t stop trying to break free until she took her last breath. Secondly, she knew that she’d leave behind valuable DNA evidence if she clawed and kicked.

Millie had willingly gone with her abductor. With what Leah knew now, she realized she and Millie had probably known the person who’d taken her. He was most likely someone they trusted.

“I heard her ankle was cut clean. That true?” Leah asked.

“Yes.” T-Rex led them inside the frigid room. The wall with drawers still made her queasy as she walked toward it but she swallowed the bile rising in her throat.

He stopped at the last one on the right, bottom drawer. He pulled out a long table. Deacon watched as the body bag was unzipped and then the face of a woman who looked frozen in time, Jane Doe, was revealed. She was found on a playground swing after a pair of nights with temperatures in the teens. At first blush, it looked like she’d frozen to death until Leah walked around behind the body and saw a bullet hole.

He shook his head. “It’s not her.”

T-Rex attended to sealing up as Leah thanked him for his time. Deacon followed her outside, still saying very little. In the parking lot, Leah paused at her sedan. Deacon had slipped on sunglasses from his jacket pocket and between those and his Stetson his eyes were hooded.

“There a place we can grab a cup of coffee?” he asked.

She needed to pick his brain about the heifers for a few minutes before he disappeared out of her life. “There’s a little place around the corner.”

“I’ll follow you.” She ignored the deep rumble rippling through his voice. Any other circumstances and she’d want to get to know Deacon Kent better on a personal level. She knew deep down she’d never allow herself to get close to a man like him. There was something different about him, something she couldn’t quite pinpoint but felt like a threat. Maybe it was the fact he was the kind of person she could fall for. Being near him brought out feelings she’d thought long since dead. Besides, she had Connor to think about, and after dating Charles Dougherty, the last thing she needed to do was complicate her life further. She’d done a bang-up job with the last one.

Leah hopped into her sedan and led the way to Marvin’s Diner. It was one of those eateries that looked like a silver bullet train on the outside, complete with red vinyl benches and ’70s throwback decor on the inside.

She parked away from the front door where there were two parking spots together in the almost full lot. Marvin’s was always bristling with activity at this time and kept hours from 5:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Breakfast and lunch were all that was on the menu. Ask any cop what he or she had in common with New York City cabdrivers and he or she would say both always knew the best places to eat.

Leah got out of her car and waited for Deacon. Again, her heart thudded against her rib cage when she saw him. He’d taken off his sunglasses and hat, leaving them inside his pickup. Rays of sunlight streaked his hair. His eyes were steel gray.

Detective Andrew McKeever, aka Keeve, came walking out the door to Marvin’s as Deacon made a move for the handle.

“Hello, Keeve.” Leah felt compelled to greet the man. He was one of Charles’s closest friends—which wasn’t saying a lot since Charles had pushed nearly everyone out of his life—and had been cold-shouldering Leah ever since the breakup. Keeve needed to get over it and she figured she’d kill him with kindness because the two of them had always had a solid professional relationship. Years ago, marrying Connor’s father, a detective, had made her think it would be okay to see someone socially from work. She quickly realized after Charles the flaws in that thinking. Because she and Wyatt Cordon had had a beautiful child together, whereas she and Charles had had a fling that ended badly, leaving a whole bunch of messiness in its wake.