Waking the Dead Part 5

She stopped while he unlocked a side door, pushed it open, and stepped inside. Without waiting for an invitation, she followed.

Things were even less finished here. She ignored his brusque order to stay put and wandered freely around the lower level while he headed toward the back of the house. Obviously the kitchen wasn't a high priority, since he had little more than the plumbing, gas pipes, saw horses dotting the area and a decades-old fridge. But the room was large, with a wall of windows that would open it up to the outside. Make a person feel like they were a part of nature.

The great room was next, and Zach must spend some time there, as it was furnished with soft dark leather couches and chairs and the prerequisite-for a man anyway-big-screen TV. The room ran the width of the house, with gleaming wood floors and two walls of gla.s.s on opposite sides. In front of one large window that showed flashes of the river between the dense pines was a card table and chair. Obviously his dining needs were simple. Her gaze lingered on the lone chair. And solitary.

He came out from what must be a bathroom with a handful of supplies, and seeing her farther inside, scowled. "You don't follow orders very well."

"I don't follow orders at all," she corrected absently. At least not Sharper's. But she trailed after him when he went to the card table to dump the supplies he'd gathered and took the wet washrag he handed her. As awkward as it was to work one-handed, she much preferred that to leaving herself to Sharper's tender mercies. Not that he'd offered.

Right now he was surveying her with a closed impa.s.sive expression that was all too familiar. No doubt it melted most women into a pile of quaking nerves.

Cait rarely quaked. And it would take more than an ill-tempered male to make her nervous. She took her time cleaning the wound and applying anti-bacterial spray that-d.a.m.n him-stung like a b.i.t.c.h. The gash was still oozing sullenly, but once she closed it up, it should be little enough problem, as long as she kept it clean. Hopefully she wasn't going to be doing any more rock climbing in the near future.

When it came time to apply the Steri-Strips, she said, "Help me out here, will you?"

Silently he took the adhesive she was holding and ripped its package. Then, while she held the wound closed he fixed the strips into place. He worked swiftly until he had four strips applied, finally pausing to survey his handiwork. "Slap a Band-Aid over it and you'll be fine. Gonna leave a scar, though."

She picked up a large square Band-Aid from the pile of supplies and used her teeth to open it. "I've got worse." His eyes flared in what she took for interest, but if he was curious he didn't speak it. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that Sharper wasn't one to probe.

Of course, he might just not give a d.a.m.n. And given his personality, she thought that was equally likely.

After fitting the Band-Aid over the strips, she began picking up the mess. "Thanks for the first aid."

"Leave it," he said shortly. "I'll get it later." Turning, he headed toward the door. Since she had no idea where a trash container might be, Cait set the wrappers down and went to follow him. He couldn't have made it more obvious that he was anxious to get her out of his house.

Trailing behind him, she took one last look around. A person's home often revealed a lot about the individual. Sharper's disclosed only that he liked nature and valued his privacy, neither fact exactly earthshaking.

Nosiness was part of her job. So she blamed that trait for wanting to lag behind and poke around more. After all, Sharper was not only the person who'd found the skeletons.

From her recollection of the maps, there could be hot springs somewhere on this property.

The meal wasn't much. Just a cheese sandwich and soup. But he fussed with the tray the way he remembered his mother doing when he was sick. Presentation was everything.

Carefully he headed to the cellar door, shooing Iron Man, one of his Himalayans, out of the way. He set the tray on a nearby shelf while he unlocked the dead bolt, hand on the b.u.t.t of the pistol tucked into his waistband. He needed to be ready for the remote chance there was a nasty surprise waiting for him on the other side of the door.

But the entrance to the bas.e.m.e.nt was empty except for shadows.

Cheerfully, he flicked on the lights, replaced the pistol to pick up the tray, and headed down the steep steps. At one time, the cellar had been little more than an earthen dugout. But he'd reinforced the walls with cement blocks and poured a concrete floor. Then carefully laid thick insulation to provide further soundproofing. He was good with his hands and details like that rarely escaped him.

He pa.s.sed through his workroom downstairs and again set the tray down, on his desk this time, his hand on his weapon as he unlocked the door to the inner chamber. The door swung open, revealing his newest guest.

The woman sat slumped in the lawn chair he'd provided, her wrists shackled to the heavy rings he'd drilled into the walls. Of course she was naked. They always were. How else would they relieve themselves, with their hands bound like that?

Because he was a gentleman, he averted his eyes. It had been a long time since he'd been attracted to anyone except Sweetie. A pang of guilt stabbed him, but he nudged it away. The other didn't count. A man had needs. And he and Sweetie . . . well . . . that was complicated.

"Dinnertime." He set the tray on the floor close enough for the woman to reach, but remembered to stay well out of the way of her unbound feet. "You'll have to use the straw for the soup, too. But I'm sure you'll manage just fine. Take just a tiny sip at first. You don't want to burn your mouth." He crossed to the shelves on the far walls, turned on the CD player.

"Please." Her voice was hoa.r.s.e, and it served her right, with all the screaming she'd done over the last few days. He'd told her-he always told them-that screaming wouldn't help. None of them listened.

He hated to use duct tape to silence them. It seemed disrespectful somehow. Luckily it was rarely necessary. The inner chamber was so well insulated, he could barely hear the screaming when he was working in the very next room.

"I swear if you let me go I won't tell anyone. I promise. Just let me go. I want to go home." Her voice ended on a whimper.

"Are you in the mood for jazz or oldies?" She'd told him her favorites the very first night. They always told him whatever he asked at the beginning. He was a very good listener. Everyone said so. He slipped in a disc of Benny Goodman and turned to smile at her. "I'll empty your chamber pot while you eat. Enjoy your meal."

"Let me go!" The chains rattled as she lunged for him. And he didn't feel a bit sorry when they stopped her progress, yanking her back by the wrists with a force that would surely leave bruises. "You monster! You f.u.c.king son of a b.i.t.c.h! Let me go-o-o-o . . ."

He swung the door shut behind him, immune, almost, to her cursing. It was a shame she was upset because her screeching was going to drown out the music he'd arranged for her.

His guests could be so ungrateful. It was enough some days to make him wonder why he bothered.

Chapter 5.

"This is f.u.c.king lame."

Cait was so preoccupied that it took her a moment to shift her attention from the solution she was studying to the voice of her a.s.sistant. Without looking up she murmured, "You owe me a buck."

"Put it on my tab." Kristy's voice held a yawn. "How come you get the s.e.xy work? Detecting latent fingerprints on bone is f.u.c.king cutting edge. And what do I get to do? I get to look at mother-f.u.c.king dirt."

"Keep it up and you'll be buying me lunch." Cait carefully poured the solution she'd prepared over the pulverized bone fragment she'd extracted from female C. "I'm not going to get around to testing for latents today anyway. These tests will take hours. Although I may be able to get the visual examination done with the alternate light source, so at least that step would be completed."

With the advances made in the missing persons databases recently, she couldn't overlook the possibility that DNA would ultimately identify one of their victims. And samples for those tests had to be gathered prior to testing for fingerprints the UNSUB may have left on the bones or even before cleaning the skeletal remains.

The tests were tedious and time-consuming, but Cait wanted to run them herself. Raiker would make a caustic comment about learning to delegate. But then, her boss was nearly three thousand miles away on the other side of the country. He'd never have to know.

She placed the sample in the centrifuge and, setting the speed and time, prepared to wait a few minutes. Her gaze wandered around their makeshift lab. "Did Michaels balk at giving up another area for our use?"

Kristy never looked up from her work. "Steve was an absolute angel about it when I asked." She paused for a meaning-laden moment. "Of course I asked nicely."

Contemplating her a.s.sistant, Cait asked cautiously, "How nicely?"

"Very nicely," came the smug reply. "I could give details if you . . ."

"G.o.d, no." The last thing she needed was a p.o.r.nographic image of the two of them smeared across her mind. Some mental pictures could scar a person forever. "Spare me the specifics."

"Well, you have to admit, it was well worth the price of a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b."

Deliberately she turned her back on her a.s.sistant and wished she could turn her hearing off as easily. "Gagging here."

Kristy laughed. "I'm kidding. He arranged to have the entire room emptied and cleaned so I could set up. No doubts he has ideas about a suitable reward, but I have as yet to decide whether I'll be delving into that pool of well-defined man muscle. Although you have to admit, I could do worse."

With a noncommittal sound, Cait removed the sample from the centrifuge and transferred the solution to a new tube. "Seemed like a lech to me."

"Well, what guy isn't? But he's sweeter than you'd think, too. I just might give him a ride. You know how long it's been since my last meat injection?"

Cait nearly spilled the DNA IQ Lysis Buffer she was adding to the original solution. "Uh . . . since the plane ride here?"

Kristy laughed. "I'd call you a b.i.t.c.h if you wouldn't charge me for it."

Which was, Cait acknowledged, a devious way to do exactly that without suffering the consequences. Her tech was getting cagey.

She was also in an unfortunately chatty mood. "Steve doesn't like my swearing anyway, so I should probably work harder to stop. He says people don't take cursing women seriously and that I need to protect my professional image."

"A lech and a chauvinist. More charming by the minute."

"You've said almost the same thing, verbatim, on more than one occasion."

Because Kristy was most annoying when she was right, Cait changed the subject. "Coming up with any matches?"

"No close composite comparisons yet. They all have high sulfur content, of course, but most of the samples you brought have more than twice the amount as the sediment we tested from the garbage bags. The others are closer on the sulfur content but missing the other elements."

Which meant she needed to veer farther afield from the hot springs sources, Cait thought. She'd had Sharper take her to the more touristy ones within a ten-mile radius of the cave. There was no need to expand the grid until she'd gotten samples from the government and private properties shown on maps in the same area.

"So what do you think of Andrews? Personally I found it a little creepy the way she lit up at the thought of some psycho defleshing victims and dumping them in her jurisdiction, but, hey; maybe she's just really enthusiastic about her job."

The words closely correlated with Cait's own thoughts. She vortexed the sample for five seconds before preparing to incubate it. "Yeah, I caught her att.i.tude, too. But she seems like a solid cop. Barnes is a little more out of his element, I think." The deputy seemed sharp enough but slow to accept any conclusions not completely supported by substantiated evidence. Which told her he'd be a skeptic about the profile she'd already started on the perp.

The line the sheriff had given him to follow up on was well within his comfort zone. Cait had found herself vaguely surprised how many of the violators ticketed by the rangers had previous records, however insignificant. He was concentrating on those violators with records before moving on to the rest.

She rested her hands against the counter and leaned her weight against them. The pain in her left palm reminded her of the injury there, and she hurriedly changed position. She didn't want to reopen the wound and risk contaminating the tests. As it was, she had the area wrapped in gauze and covered with two elastic gloves.

"How're you coming?"

Cait lifted a shoulder, a gesture her a.s.sistant couldn't see with her back turned. "This is only the third victim. I've got a ways to go." And as always she was worried about the possibility of destroying one kind of evidence in search of another. But there was no help for it. She just had to pray that if a latent was present on any of the victims, it didn't exist on the section of bone she drew the DNA extraction from.

"What's that other guy like? What's his name? Sharper?"

"He defies description," Cait said dryly. And mentally d.a.m.ned her a.s.sistant for bringing the man's name up. He'd been successfully banished from her mind since they'd parted ways yesterday. She could only a.s.sume he was as grateful for their separation as she was.

"Steve seems to think he's pretty cool. Says there's no one around who knows the area better. Of course, I thought I detected the tiniest hint of hero worship in his voice. Probably because the guy's a decorated war hero and all. Guys get all testosteroney over stuff like that."

She wasn't interested. Other than his usefulness getting her around, Sharper had absolutely nothing to do with the case. But she heard herself saying, "Iraq?"

"Um-m . . ." There was a prolonged silence as Kristy examined her samples. "Okay, this one is another bust. I'll doc.u.ment it and move on. No." Seamlessly, she switched topics to answer Cait's question. "Afghanistan, I think. Some sort of specialist, according to Steve. To tell the truth, I wasn't listening that close. When I'm not in the lab I have a very short attention span. Especially since I was giving serious consideration to jumping his bones. One bone in particular."

Specialist? Or special ops? Cait mulled over the new information even as she gave close attention to preparing the wash buffer. She was willing to bet Special Forces. Sharper had that tough primitive look that came from living through things no one should have to imagine, much less experience.

A look she still occasionally glimpsed in her own reflection, if less frequently with each pa.s.sing year. And it occurred to her that there might be far more beneath the man's caustic exterior than she'd originally thought.

Maybe he was as adept at donning masks as she was herself.

Recalling the snapped vertebrae on each of the skeletal remains, a shiver worked down her spine. She made a mental note to call Raiker. She'd yet to be in need of intelligence that he couldn't get his hands on. And it might be interesting to see just what sort of information could be found in the guide's military files.

Cait sat straight up in bed, instantly awake but disoriented. There was faint light at the edges of the shades at the windows of the motel room. But it was early. Too early.

Her cell phone rang again on the bedside table, alerting her to what had awakened her. She picked it up, checked the number on the screen, and flipped it open to answer.

"If you're my morning wake-up call, you're a couple hours early."

Adam Raiker's brusque voice sounded. "Thought your email said you were in a hurry for this information."

Cait jammed another pillow behind her and leaned against the headboard, stifling a yawn. It'd been late when she'd gone to bed. Because the east coast was three hours earlier than the west, she'd thoughtfully used email rather than a phone call to place her request with Raiker.

Although, truth be told, he'd probably still been awake when she'd sent it. She'd often suspected the man didn't sleep.

"So you've got the information for me already?"

"I've got something. Up to you whether you need more." There was the faint rustle of papers on the end of the line before the man started reading. "Zachary Dalton Sharper, age thirty-six, honorably discharged from the Army sixty-two months ago. Served a total of twelve years, ten of them in the Rangers. Several campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. Impressive atta-boy file. Couple silver stars, Distinguished Service Cross, purple heart . . . looks like your local war hero is the real thing."

"Any chance you pulled some strings and found out about his training?"

"Figured you want to know that." It was always difficult to tell if Raiker's abrupt tone was due to his disposition or the wounds he'd sustained in the last case he'd worked for the Bureau. Given the hideous scar bisecting his throat, he had to have sustained some internal damage there. But given what she knew of him, Cait figured it could be either one. "Did several years with direct-action operations before becoming a member of an RRD team. Regimental Reconnaissance Detachment. He was a team leader before he left the service."

The t.i.tle meant nothing to her. "And that is?"

There was a short bark of sound that pa.s.sed for laughter with her boss. "Twelve of these guys in the whole Ranger operation. They specialize in silent insertion behind enemy lines and intelligence gathering. His actual missions are cla.s.sified."

"Meaning you couldn't get them?"

"Meaning I need to extend a very big marker to get them," he corrected. "I prefer not to unless you really need it."

"I don't." The missions didn't matter. She knew enough about elite military forces to know that silent and deadly unarmed combat techniques were part of their training.

Like the ability to snap a combatant's neck.

"How's the case going?"

Cait gave him an abbreviated version of her findings so far, all of which Raiker listened to silently. "And the lab equipment arrived okay?"

"Everything was in one piece. It was just a matter of finding a place to set up." She gave a short laugh. "Luckily there was room at the morgue."

"Jesus. I need to get going on those plans for regional mobile labs."

"So you keep saying." She rolled her shoulders, loosening the muscles. She tended to sleep in a tight ball. "Thanks again for the information."

"Let me know if you need anything else. And keep me posted on your progress." A moment later the line was dead.

Wryly, she flipped her phone shut and considered it for a moment. Raiker was even more curt on the phone than he was in person. She stretched and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. The alarm clock on the bedside read five forty-five. It'd been after ten before she'd left the lab. Well past midnight before she'd finished emailing Raiker and submitting information about individual descriptors for each set of remains into the various missing persons databases, then printing off the results.

She gave a moment's thought to how her boss had acquired Sharper's information so quickly and then put it out of her mind. Better not to inquire too closely about his tactics. His list of contacts were legion. It helped, of course, that the man was a legend in law enforcement circles.