Field Of Graves. J.T. Ellison

saw the tarp over a lump on the riverbank. Marcus stayed a few feet behind her.

      “Okay, Fitz, what do you have?”

      He pointed unnecessarily at the body. “Well, there we have another dead girl. Boat passin’ by saw something in the weeds, came by for a closer look. She was facedown—they used a grappling hook to turn her over, called 911.”

      “Who got here first?”

      “Who else? Officer Wills. Happened to be on Second Avenue when the call came—he was here within a minute.”

      “Good, good. At least we know he didn’t screw anything up.”

      Marcus was shifting from the ball of one foot to another like a small child who needed to go to the bathroom. Taylor caught the movement.

      “Okay, Marcus?”

      “Yes, ma’am. Though two girls in two days is a little creepy for me.”

      “Yes, it is. But that’s what you get when you work Homicide. Let’s go take a look, shall we?”

      They made their way to the water’s edge. Taylor leaned in and pulled the tarp back from the body, grimacing at the smell. She hated floaters.

      A young woman’s ruined face stared back at her. “Damn,” she said softly. She pulled the tarp the rest of the way back, careful not to disturb anything lying beneath it. The girl was naked, bloated with the buildup of gases that had brought her to the surface. There were five distinct stab wounds on her torso. At least it would be a little simpler to determine what killed this one.

      She started to replace the tarp when she heard Sam a few yards away.

      “Go ahead and leave it off, Taylor. I need to take a look.” She tripped on some unidentifiable piece of trash and she fell into Marcus, cursing under her breath. He grabbed on for dear life to the first available appendage. It happened to be her left breast. She barked a laugh and gave him a smile that only deepened his blush.

      “God, Sam, I’m so sorry.”

      “That’s okay, cookie. Nice catch.” She winked and he recovered nicely, giving her a charming smile back.

      “Hey, T. You’re keeping me a little busy, ya know?”

      “Yep.” Taylor stepped back from the body to give Sam room to set up. She did so quickly, knelt next to the girl’s body, poking and prodding.

      “Stabbed a few times, huh? She hasn’t been in the water too terribly long, maybe a week.” She picked up one of the girl’s white, puffy, wrinkled hands. “Washerwoman’s hands. There’s probably enough skin left for prints. We’ll see. She’s not too old either—I’m guessing between eighteen and twenty-two.” She reached around and rolled the girl onto her left side, picking at the detritus stuck to the girl’s limp body. She scraped some of the dirt into a bag and stuck the bag into the pocket of her jacket. “Hmm.” She rolled her into her previous position carefully and stood up. “Was anything found with her?”

      Officer Wills tripped down the bank to join the party. “No, ma’am. We’ve been searching up and down the bank, and there’s nothing out of place.”

      “Okay. Let’s have one of the ’gators take a look around. Hey, Taylor?”

      “Yup?”

      “I’m going to get her back to the office, see if I can get anything to ID her with. And I’m going to post her now, instead of waiting until the morning. Come with?”

      “Guess I should. Marcus, head back to the office and tell Lincoln to start another round of database searches. Since she’s been dead awhile, there may be a missing persons report on her. If we get any prints, I’ll bring them over.”

      Marcus nodded and headed away purposefully. Taylor shot Sam a knowing look. Poor kid just didn’t like dead bodies. He’d have to get over it if he wanted to survive on her team.

      “Fitz, do me a favor, stick around in case they come up with anything.”

      “Righto. I’ll ring if anything shows up.”

      “Thank you, sir. Sam? Let’s do this.”

      Forty minutes later, Sam had the body zipped into a bag and loaded into the back of the unmarked ME van. A small crowd had formed at the top of the hill, and Officer Wills was roping the area off to keep out the curiosity seekers. Taylor followed Sam up the hill, got into her car, and moved out, lost in thought.

      Her cell phone rang. She was going to have to turn the thing off; she’d never get anything done if she spent all her time answering calls. She stifled the thought when she saw the caller ID. Sam’s personal number. She clicked on the Talk button.

      “I’m right behind you. What’s up?”

      “I didn’t want to announce it in front of everyone. I took samples of the muck on her back. Smelled it when I got into the car. There was no unique scent, but the composition looks similar to the herbs we picked off of Shelby.”

      Taylor’s heart skipped once, then started again in a rush. “You’re telling me this is the same guy?”

      “I definitely don’t want to go there yet. I need to have this analyzed and do the post. But two girls in two days, with similar presentations? Taylor, this isn’t good.”

      “No kidding. I’ll see you in a minute.” She hung up the phone and looked at the car passing her on the left. A harried mom with three kids in the back, all laughing and making faces at her as they blew past. They had no idea what waited for them when they got older.

      Taylor felt the sadness well up inside her and tears prick her eyes. She shook it off and concentrated on an image of the dead girls.

13

      Taylor patiently watched Sam gently slice and dice their floater. Once they had retrieved some messy but usable prints and sent them to Lincoln, she’d decided to stay out of the way. Sam was working fast, looking for any similarities inside the two dead girls while she went through the remaining steps of her post.

      Taylor’s phone rang again, and she decided to take a breather and answer it outside. It was Lincoln.

      “Hey, Taylor, how’s it going over there?” The scratch of a match and a quick breath out gave her away. “Smoking again?”

      “Let me worry about my own lungs. What’s up?”

      “I’ve got an ID on the floater.”

      “Whoa, you are good. I didn’t know if the prints were going to be usable at all. So who is she?”

      “Her name is Jordan Blake. But I don’t think you’re going to want to hear the rest.”

      Taylor sank down on the steps, pulling hard on the cigarette, as if a lungful of carbon monoxide would lessen the blow from whatever bad news Lincoln was about to spring. “Shoot.”

      “I played a hunch, started with our local AFIS database. It kicked back several possible matches. I eyeballed them to see if we were close. One was.”

      “Oh, God no, don’t tell me.”

      “She’s a junior at Vanderbilt, Taylor. We have a serious problem on our hands.”

      Taylor began to pace the sidewalk in front of Sam’s building, her mind churning. Two girls dead, both murdered, both from the biggest local college campus? This was going to bring everyone out of the woodwork.

      “Lincoln, get your butt into Price’s office. Let him know what you’ve got. Has anyone filed a missing persons report on her?”

      “I haven’t found one yet. When Sam gives me a solid time line, I’ll be able to get more specific, but I’ve gone through the past month’s reports and haven’t found any matches, which is totally bizarre. I mean, a Vandy