Beneath Blackwater River by Leslie Wolfe (love story books to read txt) 📕

Kay checked the device’s timer and noted there were a few more minutes left before they’d know the truth about the girl whose body had just been stored in unit six.

“May I use your computer?” Kay asked, remembering she had another mystery to solve while waiting for the centrifuge to stop spinning. Someone had betrayed Nicole Scott, turning her desperate letters over to her husband, and she was planning to find out who.

“Have at it,” the doc replied, sifting through the evidence pouches on the table.

She typed something quickly, then printed the page and folded it neatly. “How about an envelope?”

“Top-left drawer,” he replied, not taking his eyes off what he was doing.

She extracted one envelope, then smiled, a hint of mischief touching her voice. “How about some fluorescent dye? I need it in powder form, not liquid, and that powder better be white,” she clarified.

This time, Doc Whitmore shot her an inquisitive glance. “Should I ask?”

“Nah… Just setting a trap to catch a piece of scum, that’s all.”

He went into the adjacent storage room and returned after a minute with a small plastic container. “Set up on that table, by the corner. It’s sterile. And use gloves with this thing or you’ll glow under blacklight like a white T-shirt in a disco.”

She chuckled quietly, following his advice and finished preparing her letter quickly, before returning the container. “Thank you.” Then she sealed the envelope and looked around, searching for a place to put it so she wouldn’t forget it.

“Put it in my out tray, there,” he said, pointing at a stack of color-coded plastic trays on his desk. “My receptionist will give it to the mail carrier.”

“Thanks,” she replied, then dropped the envelope and joined the doc by the evidence table. “You know, I was thinking, what if you weren’t wrong?” she asked, the bothersome thought churning in her mind half-formed.

“About what?” he asked, cutting the seal off the evidence pouch that held Alyssa’s locket.

“The, um, DNA mix-up,” she replied, scratching the back of her head. She hated bringing it up, but she’d promised she would help him find answers.

“How was I not wrong?” he reacted, turning toward her angrily and raising his voice. “How many times in your professional life have you had to withdraw a next-of-kin notification and start over, with another family?”

She knew better than to be offended. He was angry at himself, blaming himself for what had happened, for the stain on the sheriff’s office reputation, on his career.

“What if that is really Rose Harrelson in there?” she asked, pointing at the drawer where the girl’s body was stored.

He scoffed and propped his gloved hands on his hips. “Haven’t we established that’s Alyssa Caldwell? I could’ve sworn we have a formal identification signed, witnessed, and recorded. There are thousands of photos of Alyssa Caldwell on social media, and they’re a match to the girl in my drawer.” He filled his lungs with the cold, slightly acrid air then exhaled slowly, an effort to calm his fraught nerves. “Listen, I know what you’re trying to do, and I appreciate it. But there’s no way—” He stopped mid-phrase, his gaze riveted on the locket he had taken out of the sealed evidence pouch. “But then again, there’s this,” he added, holding the necklace in the air.

“Exactly,” Kay said, reaching the table in a few quick steps. “This locket and the original DNA indicate the body is Rose Harrelson. Everything else says it’s Alyssa Caldwell, including her father.”

“There could be other lockets just like it,” Doc Whitmore said, pulling a four-legged stool and taking a seat in front of the table. He flipped on the lights above his head and flooded the examination tray holding the locket in bright white light. “Despite what Caldwell said, they could’ve been on sale at the time, at the local dollar store,” he muttered, examining the locket carefully under the lenses of his magnifying glasses. “There could be hundreds of these out there, who knows. It’s not conclusive.”

“DNA is,” Kay replied. “Have you found any evidence of an error having been made in Rose’s case? Is there a paper trail showing how medico-legal had gained access to Alyssa Caldwell’s DNA, to have something to misfile as Rose Harrelson’s?”

Silence ensued, the whirring of the centrifuge seeming louder after she’d stopped talking. The machine spun quickly, separating the components of the sample.

“Don’t bother saying anything,” Kay said, touching his elbow briefly, “I already know the answers to these questions.”

He looked up at her, his gaze a mix of sadness and gratitude, shame and hope.

“In a few minutes, we’ll know for sure,” Doc Whitmore replied, shifting his eyes toward the centrifuge. “If Bill Caldwell’s DNA is a match to our victim’s, then that’s Alyssa Caldwell in there.” He stopped talking, and Kay let him process, knowing his guilt was still blocking his perception. “Well, to some extent,” he corrected himself, frowning as he realized what he’d missed. “It will only prove Bill Caldwell is the girl’s father, nothing else. The heck with it.”

“Let’s do some digging,” Kay offered, then circled the table and took a seat behind the desk, in front of his computer. She accessed the FBI systems gateway and entered her credentials, running a search for Alyssa’s birth records. “Alyssa Caldwell,” she mumbled, speaking to herself. “Born here, in Mount Chester, about, um, four months before Rose Harrelson. Went to school here, got her first credit card at fourteen, her driver’s license when she turned sixteen.” She logged out of the system with a groan. “Nothing stands out. She’s as legit and as real as can be, and so was Rose.”

“I managed to open it,” Doc Whitmore said, holding the locket close to his glasses. “Take a look.”

She pulled her chair closer to the table and watched. He had restored the locket to its original appearance of an extended hexagon, but then he twisted the bottom clockwise, the hexagon turning into a stylized heart. Then he pulled