Backblast, Candace Irving [i love reading books .TXT] 📗

would hand this to you." Kate might've been offended by the senior deputy's comment—were it not for the palpable relief in Seth's stark gray stare.

Owen's mirrored it.

Kate accepted the pair of latex gloves and paper crime scene booties Owen offered and donned them. "How long before Tonga shows?"

"Dunno. Doc shoulda been here by now. Lives less'n half the distance away as you."

True. But the aging medical examiner was a stickler for the speed limit. No doubt a result of the plethora of so-called joyriders that had ended up on his slab over the years.

Seth's hulking bubba build swung toward the sound of fresh tires joining this particular party. "There's Tonga now."

Kate checked the remaining photo storage capacity on her cellphone as the ME parked his meat wagon. She had plenty of room. By the time Tonga had reached her side, she was ready to begin her initial canvass of the scene. Unfortunately, Owen had been so unsettled, he'd forgotten to brief the ME—at least, properly.

Despite the circumstances that'd brought them there, Kate smiled a greeting, then tipped her chin toward the thermometer Tonga had pulled from his bag. "You can re-stow that, Doc."

His ebony brow furrowed. "Why?"

"You'd need a body to sink it in. All we've got is bags with parts."

It wasn't until Kate stepped between the cruisers that she realized how accurate the assessment had been.

The paper sacks were as Lou had described—fifteen in all, each yard-waste sized and plain brown—but there was little else. As murder scenes went, this one was beyond odd. Definitely staged to create a particular effect. Not only were the sacks laid out in an eerily straight line up the right side of the road, each appeared equidistant to the next, with roughly ten feet between. The sacks looked new too, with a succession of crisp elementary school "lunch bag" folds across the tops.

Hell, even the staples were evenly spaced and dressed down, like a row of eager third-graders at their desks, awaiting a cherished teacher first thing Monday morn.

Kate took the stack of tented evidence markers from Seth, then headed for the first bag. The ME waited as she placed a marker beside the already opened sack and snapped a photo.

"Ready?"

Kate nodded.

Tonga reached inside and retrieved a man's left hand, shrink-wrapped and hermetically sealed in clear plastic as Lou had stated. Kate carefully folded and flattened the sack, waiting for the ME to lay the appendage on top so she could take several close-ups. The flesh was eerily clean. But for a bit of seepage at the raw end, bloodless. There was no wedding ring, nor evidence suggesting one had been recently removed. But there were a number of reddened creases and thin cuts encircling the skin at the base of the severed hand.

The marks were distinctive. Definitive.

"The guy was bound before death—" Kate traced a gloved fingertip over the shrink wrap. "—with plastic flex cuffs."

"Are you certain?"

"Absolutely." She'd seen those marks during every terrorist roundup she'd participated in while in Afghanistan and Iraq. Here, now, those marks meant one thing—and it wasn't good. If their killer had drugged his victim to subdue and/or move him, the poor soul had come to long enough to realize whatever was about to happen and had fought for his very life...only to lose.

The weight of the coming investigation crushed in as Kate left the ME at the first sack to continue up the lane. She stopped at each subsequent bag, setting out markers and snapping exteriors of the sacks and surrounding gravel as she scanned for anything that appeared out of place. Not only did she come up empty, save for the faint boot impressions Lou and Scooter Ball had left around the first two bags, she couldn't find evidence anyone had even been there. It was as if the sacks had somehow materialized at the side of the road on their own.

Kate crouched low to study the area around the final bag. The gravel rocks were light gray from even weathering, with no discernible tire tracks, boot or shoe prints to be found. She couldn't even find depressions that suggested the wandering by of the massive eighteen point buck Scooter and his son claimed to have spotted in the area. It was as if nothing alive had made an appearance since Old Man Miller left to purchase that ball-peen hammer thirteen years ago.

Kate headed back to the ME. He was at the fifth sack, laying a shrink-wrapped upper arm out on the flattened paper.

"This bastard is evil and very, very sick." Tonga's tortured stare met Kate's as she crouched beside him, the man's warm South African accent at odds with the ice-cold fury carved into his leathery features.

"Worse—he's smart, Doc. Not only did the killer possess the forethought to cover his tracks, he's intelligent and capable enough to have drained the body of blood before severing the limbs elsewhere." Meaning whoever had done this could be at it again, carving up another body as she and Tonga spoke.

But where?

"He may have medical training." The doc tapped a latex-covered finger over the plastic at both ends of the sectioned limb. "See how he cuts cleanly and with confidence? He knows what lies beneath the flesh and how to separate the joints without nicking the bone."

"Or he could be a hunter experienced at dressing his kill."

Like the ME, Kate had noted the clean, steady lines. But, while they could've come from a scalpel, they could also be the result of a thin, razor-sharp boning blade. And there was the shrink wrap. The plastic was freezer-grade and lightly textured on one side, like the type used with one of those food vacuum-packing machines thrifty homemakers and hunters used.

Finally, there was the time of death and its potential significance.

Had some reformed Bambi-killer decided to make a statement against an unrepentant sinner by displaying the body here, all but on top of a deer stand at the height of hunting season?

It was worth considering.

The ME nodded. "I agree. He could