To Trust a Friend

TWO

Josh looked around the sterile space that passed for Kyra Elliott’s office. “So, you took this job voluntarily?” he asked, trying not to sound skeptical. The whole building was new, but had no charm or personality. Everything was concrete and steel, probably easy to keep clean and contamination-free, but even starker than he remembered Kyra’s university lab being.

“I most certainly did,” she answered, chin stuck out as if asking for an argument. “They were looking for someone to expand their forensic anthropology department and I was drawn to the prospect of doing criminal work full time.”

He turned that over in his mind, trying to make sense of it. Kyra hardly looked old enough to have her doctorate in forensic science, much less be a sought-after expert in her field. Sure, he’d used her skills when he’d needed some off-beat knowledge for the FBI more than once. And he probably owed her a great deal for helping put his personal quest to an end. Still, she looked more like an undergrad in biology with her willowy frame and huge green eyes. He even remembered one case they’d worked on together in Indiana where they’d almost been denied entrance to a restaurant with a bar attached because the manager had to be convinced that Kyra was really over twenty-one.

“I guess I could ask you the same thing,” Kyra said, drawing his attention back to the present. “Did you actually volunteer for this particular assignment?” Her brow furrowed as she leaned back in her high-backed desk chair, and then she smiled slightly. “You didn’t, did you? Joshua, what did you do or say to somebody in the bureau to get you shunted over here?”

Joshua felt his cheeks flush. “You don’t want to know,” he told her, meaning every word of it. He had no desire to tell Kyra all the stupid choices he’d made in the last eight months. He was probably lucky that the worst his actions had earned him was this dead-end investigator’s assignment. If this was the answer to that prayer or whatever it had been in his car a few days ago, it was a pretty goofy answer. “So fill me in on what we’ve got so far. Nobody at the bureau seemed to have a lot of information.”

“That’s because there isn’t much yet. Some bird-watchers in a park were tracking something rare when they came upon bones stirred up by the spring floods. We’ve recovered about all we’re going to. We’re cleaning the bones carefully, and I’m trying to sort out how many individuals are involved. If I had to speculate at this point, I’d say we’re looking at three young women somewhere between twelve and eighteen.”

Josh tried to stifle the groan he felt building, but wasn’t entirely successful. “But that’s just speculation, right? And you don’t even know for sure how long these victims have been dead.”

“There were just enough remnants of clothing that I can tell you they’d probably been there no longer than twelve years, and probably not less than seven. So I can head off any questions about this being an ancient burial site, or Civil War remains. Believe me, you’re not the first person to hope for that. These were kids who were alive in the early nineties for sure.”

“How long before you can get more specific than all this?” He stopped himself before saying more, like “all this guessing” because he knew that would only stir up the scientist in Kyra.

“We’ll have a few more answers by Monday. At least by then I will know for sure how many people we’re talking about, and probably give you a better estimate of age, size and ethnic makeup.”

“So what do you want me to do until then?” Josh dreaded her answer, because it was likely to involve a lot of pointless, boring research.

Kyra huffed. “I know that look, Agent Richards. You’re already bored with this assignment and it hasn’t even started yet. I suggest you get used to the idea that you need to spend the next few days searching for statistics on teens that have gone missing in the time period we’re targeting. If you want to make it easier on yourself, just start with the Baltimore-Washington corridor in the most likely four years.”

How did she do that? Josh had forgotten how quickly Kyra tuned into his ways of thinking, and how different they were in their opinions. He sat up straighter in the office chair and tried to look more attentive. “Is there a spare office for me to use?”

Kyra shrugged. “Afraid not. We’ve got researchers doubling up already in this department. I can let you have a corner in here.” Her quick smile gave Joshua a start of surprise. “That way I can keep an eye on you and make sure you’re really checking out the missing kids’ stats.”

“Great,” he said weakly. Maybe this assignment would teach him to improve his attitude with his supervisors in the bureau. A few weeks of working closely with Kyra Elliott would either reform him or send him over the edge.

Kyra studied Josh Richards as he sat working at the laptop she’d been able to provide for him his second day on the job. He’d been in her office two days now and she was still taking in the difference in him since the last time they’d been on a case together over a year ago. Before, Josh had been sharp and distant with most people, focused on the particulars of his job and little else. But he’d had self-confidence that oozed out his pores to go along with that aloof attitude. Kyra had always wanted to try to get past the aloofness and explore the person with the attitude, but he never let that happen.

Now Joshua sat in his office chair, close to the computer. He was so quiet; no music playing, nothing personal to brighten this corner he worked in. There was almost a defeated slump to his shoulders, a posture that Kyra would never have associated with Josh before. “How’s it going?” she asked softly from where she sat a few feet away doing paperwork.

“Okay, I guess,” he said without looking up. “There are a couple of dozen missing teens listed in the corridor during those four years you pointed out. If you’re sure your victims are female, that takes out a few but leaves plenty more. Any ideas yet how many we’re looking at?”

“I think we have three individuals,” Kyra said, trying to give Josh a reminder that these were people they were talking about. “And they’re definitely female. I can tell from the brow ridges on the skulls and the size and shape of the pelvic bones.”

Joshua winced but didn’t turn away from his computer. “I guess that narrows it down a little bit. How specific are you going to be able to get, anyway?”

“You’ll probably be surprised by how much I’ll probably be able to tell you,” Kyra told him. “Haven’t you ever hung out with any of the forensic experts at the bureau?”

Joshua shook his head, and Kyra noticed that the light caught small glints of silver in the ginger of his temples. That was new and it disturbed her a little. What kind of stress did that to someone who had to be in his mid-thirties? “Not by choice. For the most part I took the information they had to give me and went back to my own investigations.”

Ouch. They were definitely going to have to work on Josh’s attitude toward people. Kyra tried to think of ways to help him start seeing the individual nature of those around him, whether they were crime victims or fellow workers. Maybe a little education was the answer. “Do you want to know more?” Kyra wasn’t sure what his response was going to be, or why she was so interested. In the past two days Joshua had come in on time, done his job quietly and left when the rest of the day shift did. If he’d gotten to know anyone yet it would be news to her.

“I’m not sure. What would that entail?” His normally pale face appeared even paler. Why hadn’t she ever noticed that he had a dusting of light freckles across his cheekbones? As his face blanched a little, they stood out in relief.

“Depends on how much you want to know. I won’t force you into anything you don’t want to be part of.” Kyra gave him a quick smile, expecting him to answer with one in return, but he stayed solemn. “I think most of it is really interesting, but not everybody does.” She thought about bringing up the young state policeman a few days back, but held back. That might just bring out Josh’s competitive nature and she didn’t want him doing anything just to prove that he could best somebody else.

“I’d like to know a little more, but I’ll warn you up front that I don’t handle detailed medical stuff very well. I know there won’t be blood involved here, but there have to be plenty of other things that will bother me in your labs.”

“That’s possible. I’ll sketch things out in broad terms for you and if you want to know more about an area, ask me, okay?”

Josh nodded, a tiny bit of color coming back into his face. His shoulders began to lower from the tense position they’d held almost up to his ears, and he looked like somebody who was really listening.

She took a deep breath and prayed silently for guidance and wisdom. “So, the first thing that we do when all we’ve got to work with is bones is try to find as many teeth as possible. Even if we can’t match dental records to a victim, the condition of their mouth tells us a lot about who they were.”

Josh’s brow wrinkled for a minute, and then his expression cleared. “Okay, that makes sense. I guess people out on the fringes of things don’t really have great dental insurance or anything, do they?”

“They don’t.” Kyra was glad that he had picked up on what she said this quickly. “When you’re down on your luck there are a lot of things more important than dental care, like eating and having a roof over your head. We can also tell a lot about age from looking at somebody’s teeth. If their third molars have erupted they’re probably past eighteen.”

“Third molars. Does that mean wisdom teeth?” He really did catch on fast. Now, if she could just somehow steer that intellect into learning a little compassion…

“Right. And one of the reasons I could figure out that these three girls were younger than eighteen was that none of them show any signs of having wisdom teeth coming through to the surface.”

“What if you don’t have any teeth?”

“Then it’s a lot harder to come up with an individual’s identity. We can figure out whether they’re male or female, and approximate size and age, but without teeth most skeletons are hard to identify. The only other help is if someone has had some kind of bone reconstruction that led to plates or rods being left in their body, or if injuries that show up on X rays leave a mark.”

“Do you have enough teeth to identify these three girls?” Kyra still wasn’t sure if his question came out of concern or merely the hope that the work he was doing wouldn’t be in vain.

“I think so. At least two of the three have had some dental work, so if we can match up X rays of a missing person we’ll be okay.”

“And the third one?”

“That’s going to be a bit more difficult. She should have gotten some dental work, but never did. There are unfilled cavities in a couple of her teeth and she could have used braces. I’m working on one angle that may help identify her, though.”

“Okay, you just admitted that without teeth or dental records it’s hard to identify somebody. Did she have broken bones, or some kind of screws somewhere?”

“No, but hers is probably the most recent of the three sets of bones to be left where they were. And there’s one other identification help if you’re dealing with female bones.” She stopped there, giving Josh a little time to figure out what she was talking about on his own.

He had his thoughtful look, then sadness flashed across his features. “You just said all of these girls were probably under eighteen, right? The only other thing I can think of that bones could tell you would be if they’d given birth. That’s awfully young, isn’t it?”

Kyra felt her emotions spiral back to a place she didn’t really want to revisit. It took her a minute or two to gather herself together to answer him. “Younger than most people, but it might help explain the lack of dental work. If this girl was already a mom before her eighteenth birthday, she had lots of other things on her mind.”

Joshua’s expression stayed clouded. “And it also means that someplace out there is a kid whose mother never came home one day. For his sake, or hers, I kind of hope she’d given the baby up for adoption.”

His statement showed more intensity, and more caring, than Kyra had seen from Josh so far. Maybe helping him care about others wouldn’t be as difficult as she’d thought. What he said also made Kyra wonder what his own childhood had been like. It wasn’t something she was going to ask him about, at least not yet. When she looked at him again he seemed to be studying her. “What?” she said reflexively, hoping she didn’t sound too sharp.

“I don’t know. You had a different look on your face there for a minute. Sad and kind of faraway. It’s not what I usually see.” And with that statement Kyra felt the slow heat of anger and confusion rise in her. How could she be so easy to read?

She gave herself a mental shake and straightened her shoulders. “Well, I guess it’s just these kids. I don’t let the job get to me too often, because then I’m no use to the very people who need my help the most. But you’re right, sixteen or seventeen is too early to have a baby for most young women. I’m not so sure I agree with you on the whole adoption thing. It depends on what kind of family a mom has, how close they are. If an aunt or a grandmother can raise the child, everything is fine.”

“That sounds good, but I don’t think you really believe it,” Josh said, his words back to the flatter tone he’d used most of the time. “Everything isn’t going to be fine in a situation that allows the body of a young girl to be missing for seven or eight years without a lot of public outcry.” His eyes narrowed as Kyra watched him think.

“You said before that you might know by Monday what ethnic makeup these kids were. How do you figure that out from bones?”

“The differences can be subtle,” Kyra admitted. “Different bone densities in some structures, the shape of an eye socket…”

“You can say orbit. I know that much. My mom was a nurse.” Something about that memory was painful for him, because now Josh was the one to have a brief look of sadness across his face. Kyra filed that away as something else to discuss later.

“Okay. I’m never sure with people whether or not I should keep things simple in case I’m talking way over their heads, or just talk to them the way I would to a colleague. It sounds like you’re closer to the colleague level.”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far, but coming from you that’s a compliment. So, colleague, how long are you going to stay and work on all of this tonight?”

Kyra shrugged. “As long as it takes. There’s nobody waiting at home except Ranger, and he’s pretty self-sufficient.”

Joshua’s forehead wrinkled. “I don’t remember you mentioning a live-in…friend before.”

Kyra stifled a giggle. “That’s because Ranger’s a cat. About fourteen pounds of black fur and attitude who keeps my place free of field mice and crickets, and still doesn’t understand after eight years why I won’t let him go outside and stalk them out there.”

“Oh.” Josh smiled faintly. “Well, if you’re not going to hurry home to him, would you like to grab dinner someplace? I’ve heard some of the other staff members talking about a Thai restaurant not too far from here.”

“I am hungry. And as long as this is just colleague-to-colleague,” Kyra said, giving Josh a pointed look.

“Definitely. I won’t even offer to buy your dinner.”

“Good. You get back to your computer and I’ll shut things down in the next room. I should be ready to go in fifteen minutes.”

Remember, just colleague-to-colleague, Kyra reminded herself as she put things to rights in the lab. It might take a lot of work, but she was determined that Josh Richards was never going to know that she thought of him in any other way.

THREE

The Thai restaurant was small, casual and smelled fantastic from the moment Josh walked in. The aroma of chilies, spices and lemongrass filled the air, and he discovered that he was hungry. How long had it been since he had felt truly hungry and interested in food? Then again, how long had it been since he’d had dinner with an attractive young woman, even if she was practically his boss?

He tried not to take it personally when Kyra insisted that they both drive to the restaurant. It wasn’t a matter of trust, she explained. “You’re going home afterward and I may come back here to work on one last thing.”

“I have a feeling there’s ‘one last thing’ a lot of the time,” Josh told her, watching her flush with color in an admission that didn’t need words to go with it. Kyra’s tenacity was what had made them a good team when he’d needed her help in cases for the bureau. So it didn’t surprise him that she gave that kind of focus to her work all the time.

“There is,” she admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I expect everybody in the lab to work like I do. As long as they give things their best effort, I’m fine with a reasonable work week.”

She double-checked to make sure he knew where the restaurant was, and headed toward her car. Josh wasn’t sure what he expected to see her get into, but the vintage Ford pickup truck gave him a surprise. When she showed up at the restaurant he intended to ask her about that.

He settled in to wait for her, taking the corner table a young man pointed out, and ordering an iced coffee while he waited. He watched the door of the restaurant, listening to the overhead bell jingle as people came in. Just about the time his drink came, Kyra walked through the door and he was struck by her appearance.

Why hadn’t he ever noticed that the woman was downright beautiful? She’d unfastened the clip that held her glossy auburn hair. She must have ridden over from the lab with the window rolled down in the truck. Her cheeks were pink and she looked slightly windblown, refreshed and healthy. Josh mentally contrasted what he must look like; pale skin that hardly ever saw the light of day, lines beginning to etch the corners of his eyes and his workday uniform of a white shirt, dark pants and an extremely sedate tie.

Kyra slid into the seat across from him, looking at his iced coffee. “I should have told you to order me one if you made it here first. I know I probably don’t need any more caffeine this late in the day, but I really like those things.”

“I’ll make a note of it for next time,” Josh said, wondering where the words came from as soon as they were out of his mouth. What made him think there was going to be a “next time” with Kyra? She’d made it clear this wasn’t a social engagement, just dinner with a workmate. Even an hour ago that wouldn’t have bothered him; why did it feel like it mattered now?

In any case, Kyra seemed to ignore his comment. “Cool. Do you like chicken satay? We could split an order while we waited for the rest of dinner.”

“Sure.” Josh let her order the appetizer and her iced coffee while he thought about ways to ask a few questions about her without seeming overly interested. But his new awareness of Kyra’s beauty and the constant reminder that she was basically his boss right now left him tongue-tied for a while.

They ordered their dinners and Kyra made a little small talk while Josh tried not to ask too many questions, even though at least a dozen were running through his mind. The satay came and they probably ate half of it before Kyra looked over at him and smiled.

“Hey, you’re mighty quiet,” she said. “Once you got me alone outside the labs I expected all kinds of questions.”

Josh told himself the flush he felt must be due to the amount of fiery Thai chilies in the peanut dipping sauce. “I don’t want to irritate you. You’re dealing with enough questions right now just focusing on this case. Do you work like this all the time?”

Kyra shrugged slightly. “When I need to. And I won’t work all weekend. I don’t work on Sundays unless it’s an emergency and I have no other choice.”

“I guess everybody needs some rest. But wouldn’t it make more sense just to work through and try to catch a break in the case?”

“Not for me. There are all kinds of reasons that I can get more accomplished in six days than I can in seven. My Sundays are precious to me.”

Josh felt his heart sink. “I’ll bet you spend them in church, don’t you?”

“Not always. But I do try to spend them in ways that bring honor to God, and there aren’t too many times that that means hanging out at the lab.”

“So where do you go if it’s not church?” Josh caught himself leaning forward to hear her answer.

Kyra stirred the straw around in her iced coffee. “All kinds of places. I go horseback riding sometimes, grab ice cream with some friends, maybe even just sit quietly alone or go to the movies with four or five teenage girls.”

How was any of this a way to honor God? Josh felt really confused about that. Kyra didn’t look confused at all. She appeared perfectly happy with her choices. This discussion was going to take a lot longer to finish than Josh had figured on.

Before he could ask more questions their entrées arrived along with a bowl of rice. “This all looks great,” Kyra said with enthusiasm, and she surprised Josh by reaching over and taking the serving spoon in his pad thai.

Maybe she was confused about what she’d ordered. “Hey, Kyra? I think the pad thai is mine,” Josh said.

She smiled but didn’t put down the spoon. “Well, yeah, but you’re okay with sharing, right? I think sharing dinner is fun. It gives us both something new to try.”

This was totally outside his experience. “I guess. It’s just a little different for me.”

Kyra giggled softly. “What’s the matter? Don’t bureau people share their food? Or don’t you like green curry? I didn’t get it too hot, honest.”

When he didn’t answer right away, Kyra looked more serious. “This really isn’t something you’re used to doing, is it? If it makes you uncomfortable, I’ll just stick to my own dish and you can have yours. Sorry.”

She started to put down the spoon, and Josh found himself reaching over gently and taking her wrist. “No, it’s okay. You’re right, it’s not something I usually do. I just didn’t grow up in a sharing kind of environment. And you are correct about the other part, too, because bureau folks are pretty protective about their property, including food.”

“That’s too bad,” Kyra said with a soft smile. “They’re missing out on a lot.”

“I imagine so.” Josh looked down to realize he was still holding on to her wrist and let it go. “But I think it’s time I stopped missing out.” He took the spoon in the rice and served himself a little, spooning the fragrant green curry on top of it. Kyra’s answering grin lifted his spirits like nothing had in days.

Later, after coconut ice cream, Kyra argued when he told her he was going to follow her back to the lab. She stood in the parking lot near her truck with her arms crossed, frowning slightly. Josh explained, “I know you’re no delicate flower who needs constant protection, but I was raised to treat women a certain way. If that bothers you, I apologize in advance, but it won’t keep me from following you back to the lab if you’re going to go back to work.”

“I’m definitely going back,” Kyra told him. “Although, after this dinner I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to work before I’ll want to go home and doze. Ranger will like that.”

Josh struggled to find something to say to that. With his allergy to pets he wasn’t real enthused about Kyra having a cat. At least she hadn’t brought enough cat dander into the office to make his eyes water. “Once you’re in the building, I’ll head home,” he told her. “I just want to make sure everything is all right.”