Chapter 9
NOELLE
After that night at the playground, Noelle’s life changed in leaps and bounds.
The face she’d been working on came together in a few hours, at least in her head.
It took the better part of two days for her to draw it to the point where she felt it was as accurate as possible.
When she walked into West’s office she handed the drawing over she felt a warm feeling of pride in her chest.
West looked up at her with a curious sort of smile.
“How sure are you of this… this face?”
Noelle handed him the second canvas board. “Here. This might make it easier to see.”
He took the canvas board and saw the life size image of the skull on the canvas.
She reached out and lifted the layer that had been tucked behind the canvas and lifted it to overlay the image of the skull.
The vellum layer was the same ‘finished’ image that she’d shown him first, but on a translucent sheet it gave a clear image of the face she’d built from the skull.
West lifted the vellum and laid it down again.
And then he looked at the finished, solid image.
“Wow… I… I can see it. I can see her.”
Noelle smiled. “Thanks. I’m glad.”
He looked over both images again, flipping the vellum up and down. “Damn… this is…” He looked up at her with a wincing smile. “Creepy.”
She giggled. “I get it. And it’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”
The door to West’s office opened up and Noelle stepped to the side as another of the Rangers walked in. She looked at the taller man and frowned a little.
He looked familiar, but she couldn’t remember how she knew him. Or where she’d seen him before.
He had what people called salt ‘n pepper hair, white and black. His mustache was thick but well trimmed. The stubble on his jaw looked like it would feel like a rough sandpaper and she felt her lips press tightly together.
She much preferred McCrae’s smooth jaw over this man’s rougher appearance.
He held out his hand to her, startling her from her thoughts. “I’m Kelly Miller. Another one of the S.W.A.T. team.”
Noelle took his hand and nodded. “Ranger Miller.”
Curious, she looked between him and West. “What’s your nickname?” She shook her head. What had McCrae called it? “Your team name?”
The ranger stilled and West shifted back in his chair. “They call him Fox.”
“Fox,” she repeated the name and nodded. “Hmm.”
West cleared his throat. “Like silver fox.”
‘Fox’ glared at the Major.
That didn’t help jog her memory, so Noelle narrowed her eyes at his face. “You look familiar.” She looked away from his face. “Sorry. I’m usually really good with faces.”
He smiled and it was like the tumblers in a lock fell into place.
“You’ve done press conferences for the Texas Rangers before.”
“Guilty as charged,” he sighed softly. “They keep telling me that the ‘camera likes me’ whatever that means.”
“It’s true.” She held her up hands and waved them. “It’s true. But if I remember correctly, you didn’t have that mustache back then.”
Kelly lifted his hand and rubbed his hand over his mustache and the scuff on his chin and jaw. “It was too much work to shave all the time. My hair grows fast.”
She heard the hard T at the end of fast and nodded. “My dad was the same, she explained. He’d shave in the morning before work and by the time he came home it looked like he had shaved in a couple of days.”
“This way I only have to scrape off the scratchy stuff on my jaw before they shove me in front of the cameras, but since then, they’ve found other people who like being in front of the cameras so I’ve been relieved of that particular responsibility.”
Noelle saw that the relief was real.
He looked very pleased with that outcome.
“I get it,” she relaxed a little now that she’d figured out where she knew him from. “I’m not much of a fan of public speaking. I think it’s why art is my ideal profession.”
“Art?”
“Incredible artwork.” West stood up and gestured at the pictures on his desk. “Like this.”
Fox tilted his head to look at the pictures on West’s desk, but changed his tact and walked around to the same side of the desk to stand beside the Major.
“This is…”
West nodded. “The skull they found on Duval’s family property. We brought Noelle in to give the body a face.”
Fox nodded. “There wasn’t any usable dna.”
West hesitated. “They’re still looking to see if the rest of the skeleton can provide some clues, but there wasn’t anything they could find. The higher ups okayed us bringing in Noelle as a consultant.”
“That’s a great idea.” Fox lifted up the finished artwork that Noelle had given West first. “If we don’t have anything to identify her with the body, maybe this picture will stir someone’s memory.”
He gestured at the other canvas and West handed it over. Fox lifted the vellum overlay and looked at the skull. Then he turned his head to look at the completed image. And back again.
“How…” He looked up at her. “How do you do this?”
She managed a little smile. “I’ve always been fascinated by anatomy. Especially drawing it.” She winced, her shoulders riding up. “It made my grade school teachers… really uncomfortable.”
Fox snorted a laugh and shook his head. “I bet. I would have loved to see Open House at your school when they posted artwork on the wall.”
Memories of just that situation popped up in her head. “It was… interesting,” she grinned. “Someone told my mother and father that they needed to send me to a therapist. A few teachers over the years insisted that I must have suffered some sort of trauma.”
She looked up at West and Fox, wondering what kind of expression she’d see.
She didn’t see any judgement for the strange bent of her art.
She saw appreciation.
And it felt good.
“I guess it’s one thing when you’re a child, but as an adult?
” Fox shook his head. “I’m grateful for your skill and the energy you put into this.
” He looked at West. “I feel like we’re going to get hits on this image and not just random people ‘seeing’ likenesses in general ways.
” He looked at her. “No matter the information we put out when he asks for help from the public, we’ll always get hundreds of… tips that aren’t helpful.”
West agreed. “Sometimes we get hundreds of tips that come from people who can see…” He bit into his bottom lip as he was struggling to find the right words. “Forgive the bad likeness here, but people would can see Jesus in a piece of burnt toast.”
Fox nodded. “I saw someone selling a potato chip that he swore looked like Jeff Goldblum’s profile.”
West leaned back with confusion on his face. “Really?”
“I think it sold for a couple thousand dollars.”
Noelle stared at him. “What?”
He shrugged. “People can see what they want to see when they’re looking at it, but this,” he gestured toward the drawing, “there’s a real… tactile feeling to it. I feel, really feel like we’re going to get some helpful tips off of this.”
She nodded, lightly tapping her fingertips on the hard wooden desktop. “I hope so. In examples I’ve seen by other reconstructionists I’ve always felt that they look… flat. Like the image they’ve created is just like one of those flat masks that they had in the seventies.”
Fox and West nodded at her words.
“I try to create a portrait like I’d make for my family or friends.” She chuckled a little. “If it didn’t weird them out that I normally draw dead people.”
Fox’s smile pulled up the corners of his mouth. He whispered in a young boy’s voice. “She draws dead people.”
West hung his head. “Oh boy.”
Fox gave her a wink before turning to West. “You take this to Chief Fagan, yet?”
West shook his head. “That’s what I’m going to do now.”
He looked at her and he lifted a brow in a silent question. “Do you want to come with me?”
Noelle hesitated. “Will the Chief need to ask me questions?”
West and Fox shared a look before West answered her. “I don’t think so. You don’t… you don’t want to see him?”
She swallowed. “When I met him during the vetting interview… he kind of scared me.”
Fox laughed out loud, a quick barking laugh as he clapped a hand down on West’s back. “Does the Chief scare you?”
For a moment she thought they were making fun of her but Fox quickly explained.
“West’s father-in-law is Chief Fagan.”
West nodded. “He didn’t scare me until I fell for his daughter. Now,” he shrugged with a smile, “he terrifies me.”
That night when she walked in the door at home, Ciela launched herself at her legs. “Whoa there!”
“Whoa there!” Ciela parroted her mother. “That’s for horses!”
“Yes,” Noelle reached down and lifted her daughter into her arms. “And you’re my sweet little pony.”
“Neigh! Neigh!”
Noelle hugged her tight and pressed kisses to her face. “I love my little pony.”
“Nena?” Her mother called from the kitchen. “Can you give her a bath?”
“Yes, I can, Ma!”
Noelle dropped her bag off on the couch and headed for the bathroom with Ciela giggling and pressing kisses on her cheek now.
“See, mama? Kisses! Horse kisses!”
Oh boy.
Noelle switched on the light and lowered Ciela down to the floor.
She pressed a kiss to her daughter’s head. “Pick out three toys and put them into the tub.”
“Okay!”
Noelle heard the lid to the toy hamper fly open and hit the wall.
Wow.
She put the plug in the tub and turned on the water, reaching her wrist under it to test the heat. It took a moment to get warm enough to feel it and then she let it run while she stood and reached for the soaps. “What do you think? Strawberry? Or Peach?”
Her daughter’s voice split the air. “Peach!”
“Softer, baby.”
Her daughter theater-whispered. “PEACH.”
Noelle rolled her eyes. “Thanks.”
“Welcome.”
Her phone rang and she took it out of her pocket, tapped the pick up button and then the speaker button and set it down on the bathroom counter. “Hello?”
“Noelle? This is-”
“Mister King!” Ciela was suddenly at her side, hovering near the phone. “Are you coming for dinner?”
“Uh… Hello, Ciela. How are you?”
“Nekkid!”
Noelle’s face went red. “It’s bathtime! It’s bathtime.”
McCrae’s laughter relaxed her. “I had a feeling.”
Ciela had dropped her panties on the floor, but in trying to get her t-shirt off, she’d gotten stuck.
“Let me help, baby.”
Ciela grumbled through the t-shirt. “Big girl, mama. I’m a big girl.”
Noelle didn’t argue with her daughter. She turned her head toward the phone. “Did West tell you I finished the reconstruction?”
“Yeah. He told me and I went into the office so I could take a look.”
She smiled and tested the water one more time before she helped Ciela into the tub.
“What did you think?” Noelle felt more than a little nervous about his answer.
“It’s great, Noelle. Really great.”
She smiled. McCrae wasn’t very effusive in his words. She was very pleased with what he said. “Thanks. I hope it will help to identify her.”
“With your work? I’m sure we will. I’m going to show it to my mom and see if she knows the woman.”
Noelle put some peach bodywash on the hand towel and gave it to her daughter.
“I kind of hope your mom doesn’t know her.”
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the call and then…
“Yeah. I kind of hope she doesn’t either.” He sighed softly.
“I hope they find her family and she gets to rest… soon.”
“Yeah,” he sighed again, “that would be nice. She deserves to have a name and a decent resting place.”
Ciela was busy bathing the dolphin toy she had in the tub and Noelle reached in and tapped her daughter on the shoulder. “Wash your body first.”
Her daughter rolled her eyes and Noelle saw a lot of herself in that eye-roll.
“Now that you’re done with the reconstruction for the Rangers,” McCrae drew out his words a bit. “I was wondering if you’d like to come out to the house on the weekend with your mom and Ciela. We’re having a little barbecue and my mom wants to have you and your family over.”
Ciela perked up at his words. “Mister King? Do you have horses?” Before he had a chance to answer, Ciela rushed on. “Cuz I’m a horse! I’m a little pony!”
Noelle opened her mouth to say something. To clarify what Ciela had said, but she couldn’t quite figure out what to say.
“Well then,” McCrae answered her daughter, “it’s good that I have other horses for you to play with.”
Ciela turned her head and started at her with eyes wide and filled with wonder and excitement. “Mama, can we?”
“What day? Time?”
Her phone pinged with an incoming message.
“Already sent.”
Noelle smiled, her cheeks warming with anticipation. “Let us know what we can bring.”
McCrae made a non-committal sound. “My mom would say nothing. She’s already planned out the menu.”
“And my mom,” she shot back, “will go stir crazy showing up without something to contribute.”
McCrae’s laughter warmed her in ways she didn’t want to think about. “Then… have your mom bring her favorite dessert and our moms can trade recipes with each other.”
“Okay,” she grinned. “She’ll like that.”
“My mom will, too.”
“I like it, too!”
Noelle looked at her daughter and grimaced with love. Her daughter was nearly covered in bodywash bubbles.
“Okay. I’ve got to go and find my daughter in a pile of bubbles.”
“That sounds like fun.” McCrae chuckled at that.
“Loads,” Noelle sighed. “You take care, McCrae King.”
There was a strange silence on the line.
“You sound like we’re not going to see each other again.”
Noelle sat up and bit into the inside of her cheek before letting it go. “Well, we’re seeing you on the weekend. Right?”
“Yes,” his voice deepened a little, “but I think you know that this weekend isn’t going to be the last time either.”
Her cheeks warmed and she pressed the back of her hand to her opposite cheek.
“Noelle?”
She closed her eyes, trying to figure out if she wanted to admit the truth.
It turned out that Ciela helped her with the answer.
“I want to see Mister King and his friends, Mama. They’re lots of fun!”
“That’s right, Mama,” McCrae’s voice sounded warm and she felt it like a touch on her skin. “Lots of fun.”
“I can see that if I wanted to say no, I would be outnumbered.”
“But,” she heard the soft but distinct ‘t’ at the end of the word, “you weren’t planning to say ‘no.’”
“No,” she smiled and sighed, “I wasn’t going to say no.”
“That’s good, honey.”
His voice moved over her like a physical touch.
“That’s really good.”
Her cheeks were starting to hurt from smiling so much. “Good bye, McCrae.”
“Until this weekend, Noelle.”
The call ended then and Noelle turned to look at her daughter.
Ciela had a puff of bubbles on her head like a mushroom cap. “I like it when you smile like that, Mama.”
Noelle nodded. “Me too, baby. Me too.”