"Canvas the old cases you've worked together," said Lincoln now. "Beyond that, shake loose the talk on the street. Somebody somewhere has to know something."
"Currently, we're working up a victim profile, awaiting more information from our dental forensics man, Davies."
"Yeah, the teeth…good idea…good work."
"Narrowed down three recently reported cases of missing persons who fit Chang's assessment of the age range, size, and weight estimates."
Lincoln climbed back into his car, waved Lucas off, and drove up the ramp and out of the garage. Lucas's eyes followed his car until it was out of sight. He and Lincoln hadn't always been in agreement; they had had their battles. Still, the captain was genuinely concerned about the awful thing happening to him and to Meredyth.
Lucas returned to Meredyth, and he saw that Chang was through with the evidence-gathering and photo-taking at the secondary crime scene. In the back of everyone's mind was the question of the primary crime scene or scenes, where the killer had first abducted his victim, and where he had chopped her into multiple pieces.
"Come with me," Chang told Nielsen, "and we'll get a closer look at that."
"At what?" asked Lucas.
"Dr. Nielsen asks a good question. She wonders how the hand can look so fresh if the victim is the same. It has been twenty-four hours difference and still not a single spot of decay."
"What does that suggest?"
"I suspect under the electron microscope, we will find ice crystals beneath the skin."
"So he's keeping the body in a freezer now?" asked Lucas.
"That would be my guess."
"We found a cloth fiber and hair inside the box too," said Nielsen.
"The fiber and hair are likely the victim's, but we could get lucky…they may belong to our killer," Chang added.
Lucas thanked the two M.E.'s for their extra effort on the case, and then he took Meredyth aside. "I'm taking you home now, Meredyth. No arguments."
"I'd like that. Thank you, Lucas."
Lucas escorted her to his car and opened her door, but she stopped, looked into his eyes, and began relating the story of exactly what had happened to her.
"Save it for the ride. Mere. Let's get out of this place." She climbed in and he closed the door, came around the car, entered, and pulled out.
"Whoever this creep is, he came up from the garage to my office," she said. "He wanted to leave the package in my office. He was sneaking around up there when I heard a noise, and I stepped out to the outer office to investigate. From there, he beat it back down to the garage. Not seeing my car in the garage, he'd thought I wasn't in, so he'd brought the package up the elevator or stairwell with him to leave on my desk."
"But he panicked."
"I think so, yes."
Lucas darted in and out of the traffic of the bustling city, listening attentively for the details while the lights, horns, sirens, and shouting of people bounced off the rolled-up windows. It had become darker still, a faintly chilly nip in the air, and the promise of rain had gone unrealized. "Nice night for a desert drive. You want to get out of the city for a while, find the stars?" he asked.
"Damn it, Lucas, you're not hearing me. This guy has been watching my every move. He knows my habits. I wasn't supposed to be in the office this late."
"All right, I hear you. We've got some sort of wacko stalker on our hands. But you need to get some respite from it. I'm not leaving you alone again until this bastard's caught, so where to? Your place or mine? I gotta warn you, though, that-"
"What were you saying about the desert stars?"
"I know a place where we can spread a blanket."
"You got a blanket?"
"In the trunk, sure."
"Stars…maybe some moonlight? Sounds good, yeah."
"Great choice." Lucas took the Interstate west, exiting onto a small highway, finding a still-smaller two-lane on which they found a family-run restaurant where the proprietors and their children-Mexicans-all knew Lucas and welcomed him like an old friend, while Meredyth stood back observing, smiling, nodding as Lucas chatted in Spanish with them.
In a matter of minutes, the father held out a fully packed picnic basket with cold cuts, bread, cheese, and wine, and Meredyth took it while Lucas pushed money into the man's hands.
A few miles down the road, Lucas turned onto a deserted desert road, tall cactus looking on like silent sentries while Lucas's car sent up a flume of particles and sand. A dirt cloud followed them like a dervish as they raced for the lavender-hued rocks beneath the moon and stars in the distance.
The moonlit night painted the hills and corresponding gulches with a variety of colors, deep and abiding, yet changing from moment to moment, like the breeze itself. Meredyth was caught up in the sights, the peace, and the feel of this hideaway he wished to share with her. "I come here alone a lot," he said. "When I have more time, I go out farther, all the way to the Diablo Spinata-Devil's Spine. Now there's a mystical place, filled with ghosts and spirits of the past."
'Take me there sometime," she replied.
"I will."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
From the trunk of his car, Lucas produced an Indian blanket, beautifully woven, and with the basket of food and drink in hand, he escorted her to a favorite spot, spread the blanket, and welcomed her to partake. Together they lay for a time beneath the twinkling lights of the firmament.
Pointing back in the direction of Houston, she asked, "What's that strange light in the distance?"
"That'd be Houston."
"Houston, really?"
"Lights of the city."
"I thought it was a kid's ball field all lit up."
"Nope…trust me, it's the dome of light over Houston." He then pointed to the crisp, clear sky directly overhead. "No show like this in Houston," he said, falling back on his elbows and going into a deep silence.
After a long moment of listening to the desert sounds, she said, "Thanks, Lucas, for bringing me here."
"You must be hungry. Let's eat."
She reached over and grabbed hold of his shoulders, pulling him down over her, kissing him passionately. For the moment, the food was forgotten.
"Ever spend the whole of a night in the desert?" he asked.
"Well…no…not till now."
Dr.Arther Belkuin couldn't stop shaking. He was almost caught inside a police station with a box containing the severed right hand of Mira Lourdes. It had been the second package he had delivered to Dr. Meredyth Sanger, while Lauralie had delivered a second package to Detective Lucas Stonecoat. And still she had not explained why they were doing this.
He thought of his practice, his livelihood, his clients, and the multitude of animal patients he helped each day, and he thought of how it would play in the newspapers if it should ever come out that he, Dr. Arthur Belkvin, Professor of Animal Surgery at the Dean King School of Veterinary Medicine, had been arrested for misusing his surgical skills to pick apart a dead woman's corpse for sexual favors from a woman half his age, one of his students. Being a murder accomplice somehow did not bother him so much as the humiliation he'd brought down on his profession, a profession that had its own Hippocratic Oath- to do no harm.