Stolen Daughters by Carolyn Arnold (e ink ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Spencer raked a hand through his hair, looked around. “Not that I saw, but my focus was on clearing the house of victims—and keeping myself safe.” He glanced away from her to look at another fireman who was gesturing for him. Spencer turned to the marshal. “I gave you my statement already, so I’m not sure what else you could want.”

“I’d like to walk through the scene with you again.” Sullivan’s voice was firm.

“Well, I’ll be over there.” He joined his colleague, and they engaged in a spirited conversation that had Spencer’s arms gesturing wildly.

“Gave you his statement?” Amanda asked Sullivan.

“Standard procedure. Everyone who had contact with the victim needs to help me rebuild what happened. How the fire looked at the time, where the body was found, how it was positioned, etcetera. In an empty house, we’re at least not dealing with the possibility of furniture being moved around, but still the conditions change due to the fire.”

She could appreciate all of what the marshal had said. “We’ll want to read those statements.”

“Of course. I’ll get them to you. I’ll also get you sketches and photos of the interior and where the body was found.” Sullivan knocked on the back of the medic’s van, and the doors swung open.

The smell of gasoline wafted out of the vehicle and had Amanda taking a few steps back.

“I’m not too late, I hope,” a man’s voice said behind her.

Amanda turned to find Hans Rideout. He was one of her favorite medical examiners. He was in his late forties and had a passion for working with the dead—as wrong as that might sound. But he never let his macabre job darken his spirits. More the opposite. He was quick with light humor and possessed a contagious smile. Rideout flashed one now and accompanied it with a small salute.

“Oh no, not you.” The medic, a forty-something man himself, groaned, but his expression quickly gave way to a large smile.

“You son of bitch,” Rideout countered, and the medic jumped out of the vehicle and gave the ME a huge hug. “How have you been?”

“Good, good. You?” Back pats and shoulder squeezes.

“Doing good.”

Amanda glanced at Trent, then Sullivan. It would seem the medic and Rideout were longtime friends who hadn’t seen each other in a while.

“Something tells me you’re acquainted,” she said, smiling.

“Very astute, Detective.” Rideout grinned at her. “Jimmy Wood and I go back to childhood. He married my high-school sweetheart.”

“And you’re still talking to him?” Sullivan asked. “Better man than me.”

Rideout laughed. “Turns out he did me a favor.”

Jimmy nudged Rideout in the arm and hopped back into the vehicle.

Rideout went in after him, then Amanda and Trent. It was a tight squeeze, but they made it work. The ME and medic were on the victim’s right, Amanda and Trent on her left. Sullivan stayed outside and left the back doors open.

The deceased was on a stretcher, and Amanda’s chest ached at the sight of how young she looked. Was she even eighteen?

She had a round, cherubic face, and her hair was long and blond and fanned around her head like a halo. Her skin was a bluish gray from decomposition, but she’d had a fair complexion that would have stood in contrast to her black eye makeup. She didn’t appear to have even been touched by the fire.

She was clothed in a black, short-sleeved shirt with a crew neck, blue jeans, and a matching jean jacket. On its collar was a dragonfly pin. It was gold, about an inch and a half in height and two inches wide, and its wings were iridescent teals and purples. It seemed like quite a nice piece of jewelry for a person her age and contradicted the gold stud in her nostril.

Rideout leaned over the girl, angling his head left and right.

“Something you’re noticing?” Amanda asked him.

“She was doused with gasoline.” He paused his inspection and looked at Amanda with a sardonic smile. “I’m sure you can smell that.”

“Yes.”

“No evidence she was stabbed or shot that I can see. There is petechiae in her eyes.” He snapped on some gloves, pulled a camera from his bag, and took some pictures of her. Afterward, he returned the camera to the sack and grabbed a flashlight. He opened her mouth and shined the beam inside. “Some petechiae on her gums too. She was deprived of oxygen. What time was the fire believed to have been started?”

Amanda glanced over a shoulder at the marshal but answered for him. “We were told in the neighborhood of five thirty.”

Rideout studied the girl and looked at his wristwatch. “It’s eleven thirty now, and based on the amount of rigor present, and that it’s beginning in her face, I’d say somewhere between five and seven hours ago. Factoring in the estimated time that the fire began, I’d say she died anytime between four and five thirty this morning.”

“So before the fire?” Amanda couldn’t help but think that was a small mercy compared to being alive and suffering the excruciating pain of flames snacking on her flesh.

Rideout nodded. “Absolutely. I’m not seeing anything to make me assume she died due to the fire or from smoke inhalation.” He proceeded to lower the collar of her shirt and pointed to light bruising on her neck. “And I’m quite sure I just found out how she was starved of oxygen.”

“She was strangled to death,” Trent said.

“Well, at the very least, someone squeezed her neck pretty hard and cut off her air for a while.” Rideout turned off his flashlight and tucked it into a pocket.

She recalled how Sullivan had said that she and Trent were wired to think murder first, and he’d been correct. But the evidence in this case—coincidental or otherwise—was indeed stacking up in support of homicide. An abandoned house set on fire, this girl, presumably a runaway, doused with gasoline, bruising on her neck indicative of a chokehold…