Kathy Reichs - Bones of the Lost - A Temperance Brennan Novel

I handed her my card. “Please phone if you think of anything. Anything at all.”

My hand was on the door when her question stopped me.

“What was she doing out here so late?”

“I don’t know, Shannon. But I will find out.”

Thirty minutes later I was home in bed.

THAT NIGHT MY DREAMS WERE ragged snatches, all forgotten upon waking. Save one.

Ryan was walking down a shadowy road overhung with dark, intertwined branches. His back was to me.

I called to him, but he didn’t stop. A car approached from beyond, illuminating his long, lanky form in the brilliance of its headlights.

Ryan turned. Slowly, his features morphed into Pete’s.

The Pete/Ryan figure came toward me, twirling a folded umbrella. When close, he poked my side with the tip, again and again.

I opened my eyes. Felt pressure under my rib cage.

Reaching beneath me, I felt something hard on the mattress. Retrieved it.

My Latvian amber ring had slipped from my finger. Or I’d worried it off in the night.

Either way, one thing was clear. I’d lost weight. Not long ago the fit had been tight. Stress poundage?

I lay a while, replaying the dream in my head. What would ol’ Sigmund think?

I pondered the Peruvian dogs. Considered the best approach.

Then I remembered something far more important. Wednesday morning. Katy and I were scheduled to Skype at oh-nine-hundred, as she’d put it. East coast time.

My eyes shot to the clock. Seven fifty-five.

I quickly showered, shampooed, and dried my hair.

As I exited the bathroom, my iPhone was singing. I reached it too late.

The phone icon indicated two voice messages. A third landed as I stood with the device in my hand. Seriously? In twenty minutes?

I ran through the list.

The vet’s office had called with a reminder about Birdie’s annual checkup.

Pete. No message. With congratulations on a successful divorce?

Shannon King. It took a moment for the name to click. The clerk at the Yum-Tum. King left a number and asked that I call her.

Time check. 8:20 A.M.

I pulled on sweats, barefooted down to my office, and launched Skype on my Mac. Katy wasn’t online. Made sense. I was forty minutes early. It was only 4:50 P.M. in Afghanistan.

Birdie jumped up and nudged my hand from the keyboard.

“Sorry, Bird. Breakfast it is.”

The cat followed me into the kitchen and watched as I concocted another feline gastronomic delight. Tuna with instant oatmeal. I vowed to hit the PetSmart that day for a case of canned food and a huge bag of crunchers.

Cat fed, I spooned French roast into the basket, added water, and clicked on the coffeemaker.

While Mr. Krups did his thing, I phoned Shannon King. She answered, sounding distracted. Or sleepy.

“Listen. I’m, like, combing my mind. Like we said.”

How long could that take?

“Good,” I said.

“But I’m coming up empty. I promise, tonight I’ll be all over this.”

“That’s great.” I checked my watch.

“And I was thinking. Like, maybe I could come to the morgue.”

The morgue.

“Thank you for offering, but nonprofessional visits aren’t allowed. It’s a question of security and bio-protocol. But please let me know if you remember anything.”

Returning to the study, I checked Katy’s online status with Skype.

Nope.

Fair enough. 8:28 A.M. here. 4:58 P.M. there.

To kill time I did a quick scan of my e-mail.

Three donation requests.

An ad for a natural way to burn fat.

A picture of Harry with an Irish wolfhound and her current squeeze. One was named Bruce, the other Albert. I’d no idea who was who.

An Exercise After Forty newsletter.

Nothing from Katy. Good. No cancellation.

Unable to sit still, I raced up the stairs two at a time. Exercise after forty.

Returning to the bathroom mirror, I dabbed on mascara and blush.

As though Katy would notice.

More after-forty exercise down to the kitchen. A refill on coffee, then I rechecked Skype.

No change. 8:42 here. 5:12 there.

I rolled my chair sideways and plucked an issue of JFS from the shelf above the desk. Scanned the table of contents.

Crossover immunoelectrophoresis for discovery of blood proteins in soil. Confocal microscopy for examination of fired cartridges. STR melting curve analysis for genetic screening. Detection of meglumine and diatrizoate from bacillus spore samples.

Though scintillating topics, nothing held my attention.

Time check. Nine twenty. Still no Katy.

Easy, Brennan. Bagram Air Force Base is the safest location in Afghanistan .

So Katy had assured me. Ditto Pete.

I sipped my tepid coffee and stared at the unchanging screen. Willing my daughter to appear.

9:40.

10:05.

Stomach knotted, I thought about the Jane Doe in the MCME cooler.

Maybe the girl’s mother was drinking coffee as I was, trusting that her daughter was somewhere safe.

Easy .

Back to the journal.

No go.

For the millionth time I wondered about Slidell. I knew he’d go all Dirty Harry about a kid being killed on his patch. That he’d pursue every lead. But he had his priorities.

The disappearance of a hard-working single mother who was locally known forced the death of an unknown probable illegal and possible hooker onto the back burner.

On screen, the digits in the upper corner changed to 10:22.

She’s calling from a USO center, I told myself. Dozens lined up for the Internet. Troops talking to their wives, their husbands, their kids, their mothers. Lingering over good-byes.

Keep busy. Do your job .

I reduced Skype to the dock and entered a series of keystrokes.

In 2005, recognizing a need to address the dual problems of missing persons and unidentified remains, the National Institute of Justice held a giant meeting in Philadelphia called the Identifying the Missing Summit. Later, a deputy attorney general created the National Missing Persons Task Force and charged the U.S. Department of Justice with identifying and developing tools to solve missing-person and unidentified-decedent cases. The task force recommended the creation of a centralized data bank.

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, NamUs, resulted from that recommendation. NamUs is free, online, and available to everyone.

The NamUs home page appeared on my screen, with links to three databases: Missing Persons, Unidentified Persons, Unclaimed Persons. Hoping someone had reported my Jane Doe missing, I chose the first.

Search parameters appeared. I entered sex as female, race as white, age as adolescent. Leaving the category “ethnicity” blank, I filled in Date Last Known Alive, Age Last Known Alive, and State Last Known Alive. Then I hit search.

And got zero matches.

I changed the age descriptor to late teen/young adult.

Still no matches.

I entered Hispanic/Latino for ethnicity.

Nada.

Changed the age descriptor back to adolescent.

Nothing.

Disappointed but not surprised, I did the only thing I could. Taking information from my copy of the girl’s ME file, I entered her into the Unidentified Persons database. Physical, medical, and personal descriptors. Clothing. Accessories. A brief summary of the circumstances surrounding her discovery.

There was so little to enter. No scars. No tattoos or piercings. No dental work. No implants. No deformities.

Just a normal, healthy teenager. Dead.

10:40. Still no ring from Skype.

Head to the office and get on with the mummy bundles?