Deadly Double: A Jess Kimball Thriller AND A Laura Cardinal Thriller (Florida Mystery Double Feature Book 2) by Diane Capri & J. Carson Black

Author:Diane Capri & J. Carson Black [Capri, Diane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AugustBooks
Published: 2014-08-06T16:00:00+00:00

6

Dusk had fallen by the time one of the lab techs, Danny Urquides, motioned to Laura from the band shell stage. “The ME’s gonna take her now.”

For the last half hour, Laura had been waiting for the crime scene techs to finish their work. Now she realized how dry her lips were—a chronic problem. She fumbled in the pocket of her slacks, momentarily afraid she’d left her lip balm in the car, relieved and grateful when her hand closed around the small tin. When she worked a crime scene her field of vision narrowed so much she forgot about things like thirst, hunger, and dry lips.

It had been a very long day. There had been so much to do, and she trusted no one else to do it—even the stuff some might label scutwork—because this was her case and she had to build it painstakingly. In her mind she thought of it as a Popsicle-stick house, placing one piece of evidence atop another until she had a case so tight no defense attorney could knock it down.

One thing Frank Entwistle had drummed into her: Think about the end game. In police work, the end game was a conviction. Whatever she uncovered would have to stand up in court.

Since this morning, she had walked the crime scene twice. She had marked and collected evidence, measured and drawn the crime scene to scale, and shot seventeen rolls of film from the ground and an additional two from the DPS helicopter. Laura hated flying in general, and flying in helicopters—where the world tilted crazily—in particular. But it was part of her job and she white-knuckled it.

Laura dropped the lip balm into her slacks pocket and went up to supervise the removal of the body.

A tech from the medical examiner’s office was in the process of gently moving the girl away from the wall. Laura photographed the part of her that had been concealed until now, from head to heels. Other than residue from the dirty wall, there was nothing new. The one thing the killer had missed—a mesquite leaf Laura had found on the girl’s neck—had already been photographed, bagged, and removed.

By this time, they had made a positive identification: The girl was indeed Jessica Parris. Victor Celaya had made the notification earlier in the afternoon.

A familiar twinge started in the small of her back. At five feet nine, she was on the tall side and had a long waist. A car accident during her time at the Highway Patrol had weakened her back despite the doctors’ assurances to the contrary, and she felt it every time the job required long hours and standing around. She couldn’t even lean against a wall until they were done with the crime scene.

It had rained scantily off and on for about an hour—not much of a storm. The air smelled of wet earth and wet cement, nothing like the seductive perfume of the creosote desert where she lived. But it had cooled her down, blown some fresh air into her.

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