Читать книгу The Rebel - Adrienne Giordano, Misty Evans - Страница 8
ОглавлениеMorning sun shifted, the light angling sideways instead of straight into Amanda’s studio, and she stepped back from the sculpture. She’d been messing with the lips of a cell-phone manufacturer’s CEO, bending the clay, tweaking and retweaking for two hours, and she still couldn’t get the mouth right. And worse, she couldn’t figure out why. As much as it irritated her, drove her to near madness, it didn’t matter. She’d keep at it. No matter how long it took. After the botched nose on the fireman, resulting in a shake-up of her confidence, she’d get these lips perfect.
The changing sunlight through the loft’s oversize windows didn’t help, so she adjusted the six-foot lamp behind her, directing the light in a more favorable position. Light, light and more light helped keep her focused for the sometimes tedious hours spent in front of a sculpture. Changing shadows meant time slipping from her greedy hands. She glanced at the clock. Eleven thirty. She’d been at it six hours, two of them lost on bum lips.
“Okay, girlfriend. You need to get it together here. Forget the nose. It’s one nose. It shouldn’t be a career-ending mistake.”
Intellectually, she knew it. Emotionally, that faulty nose might do her in.
The studio phone rang, filling the quiet space with its annoying blinging sound. Typically, she’d ignore the phone until her exhausted and sore fingers gave out for the day. But now, with the rotten lips, it was probably a good time to take a break. Grab a quick lunch and refocus. She scooted to her desk in the corner and snatched up the handset.
“Good morning. This is Amanda.”
“Good morning, Amanda. My name is David Hennings. You met my mother at an event last night.”
And, hello, sexy voice of my dreams. Wow. The low-pitched resonance of that voice poured over her. With her dating history, he was probably five inches shorter than her and a total mama’s boy. “Hello, Mr. Hennings. I did meet your mother last night. She’s a lovely dinner companion.”
For whatever reason, he laughed at that, the sound just as yummy as his voice.
“That she is,” he said. “She told me she mentioned I was moving into a new place.”
Seriously, he didn’t sound short. Or like a mama’s boy. If that even made sense because how could anyone know what someone looked like by the way he spoke? She had a vision, though. A good one, an exceptional one, of a tall man, fair haired and blue-eyed like his mother. And he’d wear suits every day. Slick, Italian suits that alerted the world to his blue-blood status. Yes indeed, she had a vision.
“She mentioned you’d be working with Lexi, who is a friend, by the way. Would you like to set up an appointment and we can discuss what you might need?”
“Definitely. I just spoke with Lexi. I could swing by. If you’re available.”
“Now?”
“If that works. Otherwise, we could look at tomorrow.”
Apparently Mrs. Hennings was in a hurry. Amanda swung back to her sculpture and the stubborn lips. A break might help. Discussing new projects always seemed to cleanse the palate, help her look at existing work with fresh perspective and excitement. But she wasn’t exactly dressed to meet a new client. Knowing she had a full day of sculpting ahead, she’d yanked her hair into a ponytail and slipped on her baggiest of baggy jeans and a “Make Love, Not War” T-shirt a friend had given her as a joke. The hair she could deal with by removing her hair band. The clothes? Not so much.
“Mr. Hennings, that would be fine. But I have to warn you, I’m working on a sculpture today and when I sculpt I dress comfortably. I didn’t expect to have a meeting.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m in jeans. My mother is on a mission, Amanda, and if you know my mother at all, you know that if I tell her I didn’t meet with you because of what you were wearing, she’ll skin me.”
“So you’re saying you’re afraid of your mother.”
“I’m not afraid of my mother. I’m terrified of her.”
For the first time all day, considering the lips, Amanda laughed. A good, warm one that made her toes curl. Any argument she’d had to avoid meeting with him today vanished when he’d dropped that line about his mother. Simply put, she loved a grown man who understood his mother’s power. How that grown man handled that power was a different story. Heaven knew she’d dated some weaklings, men who not only were afraid of their mothers, but also let them dictate how their lives should go. That, on a personal level, Amanda couldn’t deal with. On a professional level, she didn’t necessarily care as long as her fee got paid.
Besides, she liked David Hennings. She liked the sound of his voice even more. Call it curiosity, a mild interest in meeting a man with a voice like velvet against skin, but she wanted to check him out.
“Okay, Mr. Hennings. You can come by now.”
“Great. I’ll see you soon. And it’s David.”
* * *
INSIDE THE STAIRWELL of the hundred-year-old building on the city’s West Side, David climbed the last few steps leading to the landing of Amanda’s second-floor studio. He loved these old structures with the Portland stone and brick. The iconic columns on the facade urged the history major in him to research the place. Check the city records, see what information he could find on who’d built it, who’d lived here or which companies had run their wares through its doors.
Structures like this had a charm all their own that couldn’t be duplicated with modern wizardry. Old buildings, this building, had a life, a past to be researched and appreciated.
Or maybe he just wanted to believe that.
He rapped on the door. No hollow wood there. By the scarred look and feel of its heavy weight under his knuckles, it might be the original door. How amazing would that be?
The door swung open and a woman with lush curves a guy his size could wrap himself around greeted him. She wore jeans and a graphic T-shirt announcing he should make love, not war—gladly, sweetheart—and her honey-blond hair fell around her shoulders, curling at the ends. The whole look brought thoughts of lazy Sunday mornings, hot coffee and a few extracurricular activities, in a bed and out, David could think of.
To say the least, she affected him.
And she hadn’t even opened her mouth. Please don’t be an airhead.
“David?”
Yep. That was the voice from earlier. Soft and sweet and stirring up all kinds of images right along with Sunday mornings and coffee. With any luck, more than the coffee would be hot.
Hokay. Mission Pam Hennings getting derailed by wicked thoughts. Time to get serious.
“Hi. Amanda?”
“Yes.” She held her hand out. “Amanda LeBlanc.”
David grasped her hand and glanced down at her long, elegant fingers folding over his. Her silky skin absorbed his much larger hand, and he might like to stay this way awhile. Nice hands. Soft hands. He’d imagined a sculptor’s hands to be work-hardened and rough. Not that she swung an ax all day, but he’d expected...different.
“Um.” She pointed at their still joined hands. “I kinda need that hand back.”
Epic fail, Dave. He grinned and regrettably slid his hand away. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but where have you been all my life?”
As recoveries went, it wouldn’t be listed among the top hundred in brilliance, but a man had to work with what he had. Still, her lips, those extraordinary, shapely lips, twisted until she finally gave up and awarded him with a smile.
“Good one,” she said. “Come inside and we’ll talk about your project.”
Right to business. Couldn’t blame her. She didn’t know him and he’d not only barged in on her day, but also hit on her. He stepped into the loft and let out a low whistle. A few walls had obviously been knocked out because her studio took up half of the entire floor. He scanned the room, his eyes darting over the open ceiling, the gleaming white walls, the easels and canvases in one corner. A large table covered with tools and brushes separated one area from a second space, where a bust was mounted on an adjustable stand.
She closed the door behind him. “I’d ask you to excuse the mess, but since it always looks like this, I won’t bother.”
“It’s a studio. I’m not sure it’s supposed to be neat.”
“We can talk over here.” She motioned him to a round table for four by the windows.
“This is a great space. Fantastic light. Do you know anything about the building?”
Her eyebrows dipped. “As in who owns it?”
“No. Sorry. I’m a history buff. Majored in it in college. The columns out front make me think early 1900s architecture.”
“Ah. A man after my own heart. Believe it or not, I’m the only tenant right now. People just don’t see the beauty. According to city records, it was constructed in 1908. I’m not sure my landlord has a clue what a gem he has. When I toured the building he told me he wanted to paint the front of it.”
David opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
“I know,” she said. “I had to give him the number of a company that specializes in stone cleaning and repair before he stripped the historical value out of the place.”
“No kidding.”
Amanda took the chair by the window, where a legal pad and pencil waited to be put to use. David slid his jacket off, set it on the chair next to his and sat across from her. Damn, the woman was gorgeous. All big brown eyes and soft cheeks to go with the healthy curves.
“Is that jacket a Belstaff?” she asked.
And, oh, oh, oh, she knew motorcycles. Or at least biker jackets. This expedition of his mother’s might make his day.
“It is. You like motorcycles?”
“My dad does. What do you ride?”
“A Ducati. Diavel Carbon.” He smiled. “It’s a beast.”
“It should be with a name like Diavel. You know what it means, right?”
He sure did. “Diavolo. Italian for devil.”
She grinned. “And are you? A devil?”
“My mother would say I am. I think I’m a history nerd with a thing for motorcycles.”
“Huh,” she said.
“What?”
“Nothing. You’re just not what I expected.”
Now, this sounded good. Maybe. “You know I have to ask...”
“I expected someone who looks like your mother. Tall, blond hair, Italian suit. Instead I got dark with an Italian motorcycle.”
He bit his bottom lip, then ran his teeth over it. “If my brother had knocked on your door, you’d have nailed it.” He shrugged. “But hey, you got the tall part right.”
“That’s something, I guess.”
She picked up her pencil and tossed her hair over her shoulder and David’s pulse went berserk. Damn, this woman was beautiful. And not in the normal way. This was more corn-fed, casual beauty that she probably had no idea she possessed.
She angled her notepad in front of her. “Anyway, tell me about this project. What kind of paintings are you looking for?”
Nudes.
Of her.
His mother would castrate him. He cleared his throat and got that vision out of his head. The naked Amanda, not the castration. But the castration was no picnic, either.
But here was where this scenario got sticky because his sneaky mother, God bless her, had taken Amanda’s card under the guise of providing him with art for his condo. Well, he’d get the art anyway because he would not waste this woman’s time under false pretenses. “I’m not sure. I was thinking maybe we could work with Lexi on that. Something bold, deep colors. I don’t know. It’s not my thing. That’s why I have Lexi.”
“She’s good at it, that’s for sure. I can call her. Then I’ll pull some paintings I think will work. If you don’t like them, maybe I can create something specific for you.”
Which, lucky him, would give him another reason to show up and maybe convince the lovely Amanda LeBlanc to have dinner with him. “That’ll work. I have another project that my mother is interested in.”
Amanda’s eyebrows hitched up. No surprise there. His mother was notorious for spending big bucks on decorating. And landing her as a client would open a lot of doors when it came to an artist’s career.
“What does she have in mind?”
“A sculpture.”
“Oh, my specialty. Who will the sculpture be of?”
Here we go. “We don’t know.”
She laughed. “That’s a new one. All right. I’ll play. How do we find out who this sculpture will be of?”
Okay. So apparently his mother hadn’t said anything—at all—to Amanda about her interest in the cold case discussed at the fund-raiser the night before. She’d totally set him up, and he’d give her an earful about that. When he showed up wearing jeans and facial hair at dinner. That’d teach her. “Did my mother say anything to you about my father’s law firm and their side work?”
“No.”
Thanks, Mom. This right here might be one of the reasons he’d moved to Boston four years ago. Keeping up with the Hennings family shenanigans and the constant arguing and petty competition with Penny made his brain hurt. So he’d taken off. Got himself breathing room halfway across the country. Welcome home, kid.
“My dad is the founding partner of Hennings & Solomon.”
“David, everyone in this city knows who your dad is.”
True. “Right. Last fall my mom convinced him to have one of the firm’s investigators work on a pro bono case. A cold case.”
Amanda sat forward and waved her pencil. “I read about that. It involved a US Marshal or something.”
“That’s the one. His mother was murdered and the case, up to that point, was unsolved. The firm’s investigator looked into it, and between her and the victim’s son, they solved the case.”
“Yes! I remember reading about it. Fascinating.”
Glad you think so. That would only help when he ambushed her with doing this skull reconstruction his mother was so bent on. “Then my mother found another case she wanted to help solve.”
“Your mother is a busy woman.”
Honey, you have no idea. “She is. And her instincts are spot-on because the firm managed to help solve that one, too.”
“How wonderful for her. And the firm’s investigator must be excellent at what she does.”
“She is. But she’s had help. Cases like this take work and she comes from a family of detectives with major contacts.”
Amanda sat up straighter, pencil still at the ready, but her body language—stiff shoulders, pressed lips—went from curious to defensive. The temperature in the room might have plummeted to negative numbers.
This was it. Headfirst. Right here. “My mother overheard your conversation with the detective last night. The one with the unidentified skull.”
She dropped her pencil and pushed the pad away. She held her hands up and sucked in her cheeks, the look hard and unyielding, transforming her from the lush sex kitten he wanted his hands on to a woman set for battle.
Where the hell had she been all his life?
“No,” she said.
“I’m afraid my mother has you on her radar. And you’re locked on.”
“She’ll have to unlock me, then. I explained to the detective last night that I couldn’t do the sculpture. I have limited, insanely limited, experience with forensic sculptures. I’ve taken a couple of workshops, but I’ve never attempted a forensic reconstruction. I’m simply not qualified.”
“If you’ve never tried, how do you know you can’t do it?”
She set her palms flat on the table, the tips of her fingers burrowing into the wood and turning pink. “David, I’m sorry. Tell your mother I appreciate her following up on this, but my answer is no. It would be a waste of everyone’s time. The painting for your new home, I’d be happy to do.”
“Great. But indulge me on the reconstruction for a second.”
Amanda huffed out a breath, half laughing but not really. In a way, he felt bad for her. He knew exactly how pushy the Hennings bunch could be. “Trust me,” he said. “I feel your pain.”
“Are you a lawyer like the rest of your family?”
“I am.”
“Knew it. You have that lawyer tenacity.”
He grinned. “I’m civil law. Everyone else is on the criminal side. But since I have that lawyer tenacity, I’d like to make you a deal.”
“No.”
Time to try a different approach because he wanted a dinner date with this woman and he liked sparring with her. Even if she didn’t know either of those things.
Yet.
He sat forward, angled his head toward the sculpture across the room and pointed. “Looking at that, I’d say you’re a talented woman.”
“Thank you. And nice try.”
She folded her arms, visually ripping holes into his body, and the twisted side of him, the strategizer, loved it. “You’re welcome. What we have here is a detective trying to identify a body. A body deserving of a proper burial. Someone whose family is probably wondering what happened to their loved one.”
“David—”
“Even if you don’t think you have the experience, what would it hurt to try? I mean, this is fairly specialized work. I can’t imagine there are a ton of forensic sculptors in this city.”
“It would be a waste of everyone’s time.”
“I’ll pay you.”
Her head dipped. “You’ll pay me to attempt a sculpture that may or may not serve a purpose?”
Apparently so. And that was news to him, too, but he’d gotten on a roll, so why not? Cost of doing business when it came to keeping his mother off his back. “Yes. The worst-case scenario is that no one will identify the person. Best case is your sculpture helps the police figure out what happened, brings someone home and puts their family out of misery. And you’ll get paid. I don’t see the downside.”
* * *
IF HE WANTED a downside, she could give him one. One so huge that if this project failed, and it could fail in any number of ways, she might find herself emotionally debilitated for years. Having an acute sense of her own emotional awareness, Amanda chose to avoid situations involving someone else’s future. She’d learned that lesson from her now-deceased mother.
She drew in a breath and thought about the bright spring morning ten years ago when her mother had swallowed a bottle of pills. Amanda reminded herself—as if it ever went away—what it had felt like to touch Mom’s lifeless body. Before that day, she’d never known just how cold a body could get.
Right now that memory kept her focused on convincing the extremely handsome and determined man across from her just how stubborn she could be. From the moment she’d opened the studio door, David Hennings had surprised her. Not only did he not look a thing like his mother, but he also didn’t dress like any blue blood she’d ever met. If the chiseled face, sexy dark beard and enormous shoulders weren’t enough, the man rode a big, bad motorcycle known to be one of the fastest production bikes out there. That beauty did zero to sixty in less than three seconds, and something told her David Hennings loved to make it scream.
Mentally, she fanned herself. Cooled her own firing engines because...well...wow. Stay strong, girlfriend. She’d always had a thing for a man on a motorcycle. She sat back, casually crossed her legs and wished she weren’t wearing ratty jeans. “David, trust me—there’s a downside to this kind of work. People are sent to prison based on an artist’s sketch. I don’t want that responsibility.” She waved her hand around the studio. “I want to paint and sculpt for my clients’ enjoyment.”
He nodded, but he obviously wasn’t done yet. She saw it in the way he stared at her, his dark blue eyes so serious but somehow playful, as well. Whatever this was, he was enjoying it.
And between his height and his shoulders, he filled her sight line. Amazing that a man this imposing could come from a woman as petite as Mrs. Hennings. Then again, he’d clearly inherited his media-darling father’s big-chested build. A few wisps of his collar-length hair, such a deep brown it bordered on black, fell across his forehead and he pushed them back, resting his long fingers against his head for a second, almost demanding those hairs stay put. Amanda’s girlie parts didn’t just tingle, they damn near sizzled.
Whew.
The object of her indecent thoughts gestured to the piece she’d worked on that morning. “May I?”
“Of course.”
He took his time getting to the sculpture, his gaze on it as he moved, and Amanda’s skin caught fire. Prowling, sexual energy streamed from him as he contemplated her work, head cocked one way and then the other, that strong jaw so perfect she’d love to sculpt it.
And her without a fan.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I think your work is exceptional. And I’m not saying that because I want something from you.” He smiled. “Certain lines I won’t cross, and doling out high praise when it’s not warranted is one of them.”
“Thank you. I take it you like art?”
He shrugged. “I like to study things. To research them. Like this building. I saw it and had to know its history.”
“All right, what do you see in that sculpture?”
“The mouth.” He went back to the photo on the stand. “It’s not quite there yet.”
Amazing. “I worked on the lips all morning. Something isn’t right.”
Now he looked back at her, a full-on smile exploding across his face, and Amanda’s lungs froze. Just stopped working. To heck with Michelangelo, Amanda LeBlanc now had a David of her very own.
“I have another deal for you.”
Her lungs released and she eased out a breath. “You’re full of deals today.”
“I’m a lawyer. It’s what I do.”
“Fine. What’s your deal?”
“I’ll tell you what the problem is with your sculpture if you go with me to see this detective.”
Moving closer, she kept her gaze on him and the not-too-smug curve of his mouth. “You know what’s wrong with the lips?”
“I believe I do.”
As a trained artist, one with a master’s in fine arts, she’d spent hours trying to figure it out, and now the history major thought he knew. Oh, this was so tempting. She’d love to prove him wrong and knock some of that arrogance right out of him. But, darn. The way he carried that confidence, that supreme knowing made her stomach pinch.
“What’s wrong, Amanda? Cat got your tongue?”
And ohmygod, he was such a weasel. A playful weasel, but still. She snorted. “Please. The cat having my tongue has never been an issue. Perhaps I’m merely stunned by your gigantic ego.”
“Oh, harsh.” He splayed his hand and his beautifully long fingers over his chest, but his face gave him away, all those sharp angles softly curving when he smiled. “You wound me.”
Such a weasel. From her worktable, she grabbed her flat wooden tool. “Okay, hotshot. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
“If I tell you and it works, you go with me to see that detective. That’s the deal.”
“Yes. If it works, I’ll go with you.”
Silly, silly girl. All this to prove him wrong. Something told her, if he nailed this, she might never hear the end of it.
He smiled at her, spun to the sculpture and, without touching it, pointed to the right corner of the mouth. “It’s not the lips so much but the small depression that should be right there.”
What now? Lunging for the photo, she analyzed the corner of the CEO’s mouth. Dammit. Right there. Well, not right there. The dimple was so slight it couldn’t even be called a dimple. Her issue hadn’t been the lips at all, but the mouth in general. And, oh, she could rail about how David had tricked her, about how she specifically meant the lips and the deal would be negated.
But she should have caught that. Even the tiniest of details, as they’d both just learned, could ruin a project.
“David Hennings, I don’t know whether to kill you or kiss you.”
His hand shot up. “Can I vote?”
She cracked up. “No. But darn it, I can’t believe I didn’t catch that.”
“You were looking too hard. Happens to me sometimes when I’m working cases. I’ll be searching for precedents and—bam—someone else reads my notes and in five minutes knows exactly what I need. It’s irritating as hell.”
“It sure is.”
“That being said...”
He strode back to where they’d been sitting, his smile growing wider by the second. So smug.
And she’d just handed him that victory.
He slid his phone from the side pocket of his jacket and held it up for her to see. “What time shall I tell the detective we’ll be there?”
* * *
DETECTIVE LARRY MCCALL ushered Amanda and David into a small conference room at Area North headquarters. The old building didn’t have the charm her building had, but with a few fixes and a splash of fresh paint the dreary and dull white walls wouldn’t feel so confining. Then again, Amanda supposed a police station wasn’t meant to be paradise.
Inside the room, a veneer table large enough for six had been jammed into the corner. Probably the only way it would fit. Five chairs—what happened to the sixth?—were haphazardly pushed in, a couple almost sideways. Maybe the last meeting had ended in a rush.
Amanda took the chair Detective McCall held for her while David remained standing, casually leaning against the wall directly across from her. “Thank you,” she said.
“No,” the detective said. “Thank you for coming in.”
“Detective, please, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. As I said—”
McCall waved her off. “Yeah, I know. You’re not a forensic artist and you’re only having a look. I get it. Still, I appreciate whatever you can do.”
He slapped a file onto the table, the fwap reverberating in her head, making her ears ring. What am I doing? She shouldn’t be here. She’d spent years running from the lure of this kind of work. Years. And for good reason. As talented as her mother had been, her work with law enforcement had been the end of the fairy tale. For Amanda. For her father. And most of all, for her mother.
David shifted, drawing her attention, and she brought her gaze to his. He cocked his head—he did that a lot—and stared at her face while she worked on arranging her features into neutral. No clues here. Still, he narrowed his eyes and she knew he’d sensed something. Those haunting dark blue eyes of his burned right through her.
The file McCall had slapped on the table was open in front of her and she pulled her gaze from David, needing to be free of whatever psychoanalysis he performed on her. In front of her was a two-dimensional facial reconstruction—a detailed sketch—of a woman with shoulder-length dark hair flipped up at the ends. Big eyes. So young. The woman appeared to be late teens, perhaps early twenties. If so, the hair was wrong. No teenager would wear her hair in that style.
Not my call.
Keeping her hands in her lap, Amanda leaned forward. The drawing had been done on bristol paper, its surface rough and able to tolerate abundant erasures.
She glanced at McCall. “Was this done from the skull itself?”
“Uh, no.” He reached over, shuffled through some pages in the file and pulled out photos of the skull. “These. Why?”
“Photos can distort the skull. If the lighting is wrong, the artist can misinterpret something.”
Which could have been her problem with the photo of the firefighter.
“No foolin’?”
Amanda sat back, still refusing to touch the pages. If she did, they’d somehow bond her. “It can happen. The hair is long. Was there hair found near the skull?”
“Yeah. A few strands. We have it in evidence.”
Okay. Well, she knew that was right at least. But truly, if they wanted an accurate image, the artist should have been given access to the skull.
“Did you have any hits at all on the drawing?”
“Not a one.”
David finally moved from his spot against the wall and looked over her shoulder at the photo. His presence behind her, looming and steady, sent her body mixed messages. Messages that made her think he could handle anything. That the sheer size of him wouldn’t relent. Ever.
Her gaze still on the composite, Amanda cleared her throat. “No missing-person reports?”
“Nothing that fits the timeline. Or her age.”
“I’m assuming an anthropologist has studied the bones and given an age estimation?”
“Yeah. His notes are in there. He thinks she was early twenties. White.”
Amanda dug through the stack of papers, located the anthropologist’s notes and began her review, alternately checking the photos of the skull until she’d read the entire report.
David moved back to his spot against the wall, this time crossing his legs at the ankles and sliding his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “What do you think?”
“About?”
He shrugged. “Anything. The photo, the file.”
“The drawing is good. At least from what I can tell. One thing that’s bothering me is that the artist didn’t have a chance to study the skull. If I’d been assigned this, I would have requested to see the actual skull.”
“What would that have done?”
“Sometimes photography distorts images. As I mentioned, the lighting could throw something off. Plus, I’d want to check tissue-depth data and get a frontal and lateral view of the actual skull. Looking at these photos, it’s hard to tell how big it is. All of that plays in to the drawing.”
And might be why they didn’t get any hits on this poor woman. The artist, although quite good, could have missed something simply because he—or she—was not given the actual skull to sketch from. This victim was buried in a field, tossed away like trash, and the drawing might not even be accurate.
Which meant a family somewhere was still wondering where their loved one could be. And that old yearning for her mother kicked in.
At least she knew where her mother was.
She glanced at the drawing again, and McCall jumped all over her. “What if I could get you the skull? I cleared you with the brass already. They’re on board with any help you can offer.”
Oh, no. She stacked the papers, setting the anthropologist’s report on top of the drawing and the photos of the skull so she didn’t have to see them. Didn’t have to feel the pull of a dead woman begging for justice.
She bit her bottom lip, really digging in because—what am I doing?—as hard as she tried to bury the image of that young woman, it was there, flashing in her mind.
“Amanda?”
David’s voice. He was still leaning against the wall, once again studying her, trying to read her. Such a lawyer. Damn him for bringing her here. And damn her for allowing him to do it. For making that stupid bet.
She shoved the folder toward Detective McCall. “If I can see the skull itself, I’ll do another drawing so you can compare it to what the other artist did. Having the actual skull might make a difference. That’s as far as I’ll go, Detective.”
McCall bobbed his head, smiling as if he’d won the lottery. “No problem. I’ll call the lab, tell ’em you’ll be over. Anything you can do is great. We—uh—can’t pay you, though. You know that, right?”
Now she looked back at David, grinning at him, returning the smugness he’d hit her with earlier. “Detective, it’s your lucky day because Mr. Hennings has agreed to pay my fee. So, as soon as you arrange for me to see that skull, I’ll get to work and hopefully, we’ll find out where this woman belongs.”
* * *
WANTING TO BE done with the entire situation, Amanda had agreed to go right over to the lab. Like Pamela Hennings, the detective was on a mission. Which meant David had had to drive her home to pick up her tools.
She’d offered to make the trip to the lab herself, but he’d claimed the least he could do was take her and then pick her up again when she’d completed her work.
Considering her nerves and angst over seeing the skull, Amanda didn’t argue. Getting behind a wheel while distracted would do her no good.
And here they were. The forensic anthropologist, Paul something—she’d missed his last name thanks to the ringing in her ears—from the county’s forensic lab set the skull with its vacant eyes staring straight up at her on the cork ring. She clasped her fingers together, squeezing hard enough that her knuckles protested, and snapped her mind back to her task rather than her nerves.
Dull beige walls and glaring overhead lights added to the sterile, stark atmosphere of the lab and sent a fierce chill snaking from her feet right up into her torso.
She forced her thoughts to the gloved hands positioning the skull inside the ring. Paul tilted it up another half inch so it would rest against the back of the ring, his hands gentle—reverent even—as he completed his task. This person, whose only remains were the skull in front of them, belonged somewhere.
Give her a name. Whether Amanda could complete that task would be determined, and she’d resist pressuring herself. For now, she’d be an artist, studying a subject, keeping her emotional distance, but doing her best to re-create a drawing that might help identify the victim.
Amanda squeezed the pencil in her hand, then relaxed her grip before she broke the thing. “Tell me about her.”
“She’s in remarkably good shape considering the elements. Based on the teeth and shape of the head, we’re estimating her age at early twenties. Maybe late teens. We made a cast of the skull in case of reconstruction, but there’s never been one done. Budgeting issues.”
“So the cast is already made?”
Ugh. Amanda closed her eyes, thought of her mother and let out a frustrated laugh. It would be so like her mom to throw this project in her path, urging her to press on because, yes, they had a cast already made and she could take possession of it. To at least try the reconstruction. Nice, Mom.
“Yes,” Paul said. “It’s been sitting here waiting for someone to work on her.”
Amanda brought her attention back to the skull on the table. Detective McCall had told her the anthropologist had determined the victim was a white female, and the flatness of the face and the long, thin nasal openings appeared to represent that.
“She’s a Caucasoid,” Amanda said.
“Yes.” He pointed to an area at the back of the skull. “In terms of injuries, there’s a small, depressed spot here. Looks like she was hit with something small, but it was a forceful impact. From the shape of the wound, it could have been a hammer. It fractured her skull.”
“Poor thing.”
“Whoever buried her didn’t dig far enough. That’s why the dog dug up the skull. We never found the rest of the bones. Animals may have gotten to them and dragged them to another spot. That field is too big to dig up the entire thing looking for her.” He held his hand out. “This is what we have.”
Amanda’s stomach twisted. “If they’d buried her deeper, she might never have been found.”
“Probably not.”
“I’ll do another sketch. See if it’s any different than the last one. I brought everything I need.” She pointed her pencil at the table. “Can I work here?”
“That’s fine. Holler if you need me.”
“I will. Thanks.”
Paul wandered off to a lab table with a giant microscope on the far side of the room. From the looks of all the equipment stacked on shelves and the shiny tables, he had plenty to do.
She dug her iPod from her purse, shoved the earbuds in place and scrolled her music library. For this, she knew exactly what she needed. A nice classical mix. She poked at the desired playlist, aptly named DESPERATE, and got down to business.
From her briefcase, she pulled a small stack of tracing paper, pencils and her copy of the tissue-depth table for Caucasoids. In the file Paul had left her, she located the life-size frontal and lateral photographs of the skull, set them side by side on her drawing boards and taped the corners. Over the frontal photograph, she placed tracing paper and began outlining the face while Chopin’s Nocturne No. 2 softly streamed through her earbuds.
Song after song played as she carefully outlined, corrected and outlined again, taking her time, double-checking each element until it was time to call Paul over to help with tissue-depth markers. Then she’d begin filling in the face, adding the contours of the jaw and cheeks and then the eyebrows and hairline. The tiny details she could add later, but for now she focused on a blueprint to work with. Little by little, each element brought some new aspect to the face, giving it lifelike qualities.
The hair. Detective McCall had told her they’d found a few long, dark hairs with the body. How long, she wasn’t sure, but she’d try shoulder length. After outlining the overall shape of the hair and filling in the length based on the hair found at the scene, she added subshapes—loose waves in the front—and then blended dark and light tones for contrast.
Chopin shifted to Beethoven again. Could that be? More than two hours’ worth of a playlist? And she still had to fill in the details on the frontal eye–nose area. She stopped shading and glanced around. Paul had moved to a desk in the corner of the lab, clearly unconcerned about the approaching end of the workday.
Amanda sat back and stretched her shoulders as a beautiful young woman with sharp cheekbones and a small button nose stared back at her.
A woman with a hole in the back of her skull.
Stomach knotted, Amanda closed her eyes, forcing herself to detach. To not get sucked into the mind-ravaging warfare this case would create. Her mother had done this work on a regular basis, felt this pull of longing and heartbreak. Amanda supposed a person eventually got used to it. After all, the cause was noble, if not emotionally eviscerating.
She opened her eyes to someone whose family had yet to know her fate. Amanda thought back to those first brutal days without her mom, to the shock and anger and bone-shattering ache that came with sudden and tragic loss.
To this day, she didn’t fully understand—probably never would—how her mom had thought suicide was the only option. Obviously, the emotional place her mother had reached was too dark, too painful to find her way free. Her work as a forensic artist probably hadn’t helped, but Amanda would never truly know why her mom had done what she did.
At least Amanda had a place to visit. A place to sit and talk and grieve.
A proper grave site.
She ran her fingertips over the edge of the paper she’d sketched on. This woman’s family had no answers. Maybe they assumed she was dead. Maybe not. Maybe down deep they held on to hope that she’d walk back into their lives.
And that tore into Amanda like a rusty chain saw. At least she knew her mother was gone.
“I’ll bring you home,” she said.
