My Soul to Keep (2 page)

“
I’m fine, Ruben. What’s up?”

“
We’ve got a weird one. I am texting you the address.”

The phone vibrated in her hand while a thin strip at the top o
f the screen showed the text. The address wasn’t far from the gym.

“
I’ll be there in twenty.”

While the address was close, everyone would appreciate it if she took a shower first.

“And are you arriving solo or…?”

Nicole rolled her eyes. Ruben was never very subtle when it came to the subject of Kent.
“Solo. He’s not back yet.” There was no reason to clarify who the “he” was in that sentence.

An audible sigh of relief came from the other end of the line.

“See you in a few,” Nicole said as she clicked off the connection. At the same time, the treadmill beeped, indicating that she was done with her workout.

She looked over to the woman
, who had moved on to the bicep bar. Nicole nodded to her phone then shrugged, tilting her head to the locker room, indicating that she had to leave.

The woman
, unfortunately, took that as an invitation. She got up from the weight machine and trotted over.

“
Let me join you,” the blond said.

Crap, what had she gotten herself into?

* * *

Ruben walked around the mass of techs in Roxy
’s room and headed for the hallway. Nicole should be here any second. He’d been at the crime scene for over an hour, yet he would have little to tell her.

Beyond the fact that Roxy was missing and an unidentified girl was
found dead in her bed. He hated the weird ones, whereas his partner quickened to them. Would she be so eager for this one without the help of Kent? Maybe, if they could solve this case without the profiling prodigy, she would realize that good old-fashioned police work was still effective. Maybe Ruben could help break the spell she was under.

Even
Ruben knew, though, that he could never get her back. Once you fell in love with that amount of crazy, you seldom went back to a sane, stable relationship, but Ruben still cared for Nicole and wanted to see her free of the danger Kent represented to her career and even to her life.

“
Ruben!” Nicole shouted from the bottom of the stairs. She couldn’t get up, with the EMTs, CSIs and uniformed police loitering around.

“
Hey!” Ruben shouted. “Make way for the detective.”

The crowd parted and Nicole trotted up the steps. He noticed
her wet hair was pulled back into a pony tail. More than likely, she’d just come from the gym. There was a time when they would have gone together. When they did everything together. They were so simpatico until, of course, Kent had arrived on the scene. Effer.

But Ruben
let none of that show on his face as Nicole joined him at Roxy’s bedroom door.

“
So the parents have no idea who the girl is?”

“
None.”

Nicole frowned.
“Did I hear right, that this girl used their daughter’s toothbrush and even dressed in her nightgown?”

“
Like I said,
weird
.”

“
No missing persons report?” Nicole asked.

“
No, but it may be too soon. We may have to wait a full forty-eight hours for an official report.”

Nicole stepped up to the bed and looked down at the girl
’s face. “She was so pretty.”

One of the
female CSIs nodded. “We’re calling her ‘Sleeping Beauty.’”

“
Which is inappropriate,” Ruben countered. They did their best not to sensationalize crime in their department. If this was a murder, and how could it not be, they didn’t want to give the killer any press if they could avoid it.

The woman
, though, winked at him. “So you don’t want us calling you our ‘Prince Charming?’”

Ruben didn
’t quite know how to respond to that. He looked to the woman’s name badge. “No, Mary, I don’t. I would prefer Detective Torres.”

Mary said as she
shrugged. “Your loss.”

“
If you two are done flirting,” Nicole said, moving forward, out of the way for the Medical Examiner to get into the small room.

That was the last thing Ruben wanted Nicole thinking.
“Please, Dr. McGregor.”

The older coroner
’s pot belly entered the room before he did. Ruben pushed himself back against the closet door, with the handles poking him in the back. You would think a man who saw the effects of arterial blockage every day would take a little better care of himself.

But no, the man chewed on the butt of a cigar as he entered.
“Would we like me to actually examine the body, or am I expected to be a psychic…
again
?”

Now everyone either moved out of the room or threw themselves back, out of the ME
’s way. McGregor was known for the fact that his bite was actually worse than his bark. He’d gotten more people suspended than anyone else in the department’s history, combined.

“
Time of death?” Nicole asked.

“
Well, aren’t we in a hurry, detective?” McGregor barked. “The liver probe isn’t instantaneous.”

* * *

Well, it kind of was, but Nicole didn’t voice this fact. She was already on McGregor’s bad side this morning.

The ME picked up the girl
’s arm, which was pretty stiff. “She’s still in rigor.”

Which meant she had been dead more than four hours
, but less than twelve.

“
And the liver temp is 88 degrees.”

Nicole did the math in her head. Liver temp fell about a degree to a degree and a half per hour after death. This room was a stable 72 degrees
, which should not have accelerated or decelerated that fall.

“
So I would say she’s been dead five to six hours.”

Nicole nodded. That was what she had determined
, as well.

“
Help me turn her over,” McGregor said.

Nicole leaned over and
, as gently as she could, helped the coroner get the girl onto her side. He pulled up the nightgown to look at her thighs.

“
Lividity is fixed and consistent. Looks like she died here.”

So it wasn
’t a body dump. Which made sense. Otherwise, this would be the oddest body dump in history. Not that it wasn’t a weird crime already.

“
Thank you, Dr. McGregor,” Nicole said, trying to curry any small favor she might get with the man. The man just grunted, chewing at the stub.

“
Any guess as to the cause of death?” Ruben asked.

“
No peticiation, no bruising, no obvious fatal wounds. So your guess is about as good as mine,” McGregor answered, with his usual helpfulness.

“
Any ETA on when you’ll have the autopsy done?” Nicole asked as non-confrontationally as she could.

“
There aren’t many bodies in the cooler,” McGregor answered. “I should be able to get to her after lunch.”

“
After lunch?” Ruben blurted.

McGregor stood up, absently rubbing his belly.
“You have a problem with that?”

“
No,” Ruben regrouped quickly. “It’s just it would be helpful to know how she died.”

“
Really?” McGregor said. “Because I think you’ve got plenty to do before I have my pulled pork sandwich my wife packed for me. By my eye, you need to identify this poor child and find another missing girl.”

Ruben nodded, because what else could he have done?
“Of course.”

There was no challenging McGregor. Not if you wanted to get an autopsy report ever again.

“Whoa, cool.” A voice sounded from the hallway.

Nicole thought she recognized it, but it couldn
’t be who she thought it was.

Then the hipster coroner
’s assistant sauntered into the room. “Joshua?” she asked.

“
You know it, my favorite lady detective.”

“
What are you doing here?” Ruben asked.

“
Um… I’m a ME’s assistant? And there’s a body? Do I need to connect the dots for you?”

“
You should be in prison,” Ruben stated, quite correctly.

Joshua shrugged.
“No big thing. A cop decided to give me a tune-up. Broken nose and hematoma to my kidney. I could’ve have taken a boatload of cash from the city, but I told them my job was priceless, so here I am.”

“
But you had a set of uteri on your mantelpiece,” Nicole said.

Again
, Joshua shrugged. “Reduced to a biohazard misdemeanor. And I get to choose my own cases. How cool is that?”

“
So cool,” Ruben answered his tone sarcastic.

“
Trust me,” McGregor said. “I’m no happier about having a creepy klepto on my staff than you are.”

For once
, they were in agreement.

“
Looks like we’re gonna need to stretcher this one out,” Joshua said. “There’s no way we can get the gurney up those narrow stairs.”

Joshua was right. It was time to move onto the case.
They couldn’t let Joshua’s appearance throw them off their game.

Nicole turned to Ruben.
“Have you interviewed the parents yet?”

Ruben shook his head.
“I was waiting for you. The mother is pretty shook up.”

Nicole could imagine. Not only was there a dead girl in her house, but her own daughter was missing. Was this som
e kind of sick kidnapping play? Leave one dead to up the ante for ransom for the other.

Trotting down the steps, Nicole found the father and mother on the couch. The father
had his arm wrapped around the mother’s shoulders, apparently holding her up. The woman’s eyes were rimmed with red, her face puffy. She had been crying heavily for a while. No mystery why that was.

The husband rocked his wife back and forth, rubbing do
wn her spine.

Ruben hung back at the doorway. As much as he tried to present himself as the more politically correct version of Kent, in some ways
, he was just as bad as the profiler. Ruben let her take all the “touchy-feely” stuff. Bereaved parents, hysterical crack heads, and shut-down children.

The problem was Nicole wasn
’t all that “touchy-feely” herself. She hated this much as Ruben did, but she wouldn’t shirk her duty. Besides, there wasn’t room in that doorway for two.

She sat across
from the parents. “Mr. Henderson, I am so sorry, but there are some questions I need to ask.”

“
Please, call me Dean,” the man said. “And ask away. We want our daughter back.”

Ruben handed Nicole a garage door opener.
“The only effect we found on the girl was this device. No key. Just this, so it must be how she got into the house.” Nicole said. “Didn’t you hear the garage door open in the middle of the night?”

Dean shook his head.
“God, I wish we had, but it’s Roxy’s room that is over the garage.”

Ruben watched as Nicole navigated the emotional minefields that were bereaved parents. The husband was trying to keep it together, but the effort was taking its toll. They really didn’t seem to have any idea of who the girl was upstairs or where their daughter was presently.

“
Like I said, Roxy usually gives me a heads up if she’s going to be out all night.”

“
And no response from any of your own calls or texts?”

Ruben stepped forward.
“The techs say that her cell is either off or out of power.”

“
More than likely, the battery is dead,” Dean said. “She’s always forgetting to plug it in. And then with all that Facebooking? We bought her a car charger, but she never uses it. Shouldn’t you be out looking for Roxy?”

“
We’ve already put out a bolo on her car and alerted all airports, train stations and ports.”

“
But where’s my daughter? Where?” the mother screamed.

Nicole stood up.
“I don’t know, but we’re going to do everything we can to find her.”

Ruben opened the front door for Nicole. They exited out into the street.
Ruben took back the controller and hit the button. The garage door opened. “These older models only have 256 combinations. This device may not even be Roxy’s.”

So much for a
ny lead there.

“
We might as well head back to the station,” he said. Standing around a crime scene feeling helpless wasn’t his style.