Chapter Two
She wasn’t going to survive this.
Special Agent Maeve Perry did everything in her power to focus on the remains sitting against the red rock wall as though the victim had merely sat down for a break from hiking and not on the man currently staring at her as though she could burn where she stood.
“Agent Perry, Ranger Russell.” Simpson motioned between her and Callen. “He responded to the report and set up the perimeter.”
“We’ve met.” Callen didn’t say anything more, didn’t even seem to breathe, as he turned toward the skeletal remains. Dismissing her altogether.
“Nice to see you again.” It’d been one year.
Almost to the day. She swallowed the thickness coating the sides of her throat at that last memory of seeing Callen in person.
He’d worn that same expression he had now.
Nothing had changed in that regard. He still hated her.
Still blamed her for what’d happened. And she’d let him.
Because it was her fault the investigation into Lauren’s disappearance had stalled.
She’d been the one to lose track of the one piece of evidence that might’ve led the FBI to finding her best friend, and she’d paid the price for it. Was still paying the price for it.
But Callen didn’t need to know all that. She’d run out of explanations and apologies. There was nothing left to say between them, and nothing she could do to prove how sorry she really was.
Except find Lauren.
She knew the statistics. Lauren had last been seen after a town hall meeting in Springdale after presenting an argument for bringing more development into the tourist town.
Witnesses from the meeting itself had stated the meeting hadn’t gone in her favor.
Places like this, built solely for tourism and to support a national park rather than the citizens themselves, preferred to keep the small town culture they were known for, and Lauren had left that meeting frustrated and upset.
Within twelve hours, her vehicle had been located abandoned along the Virgin River, nothing but Lauren’s notebook inside.
She never went anywhere without that thing, and Maeve had always given her a hard time, but that one piece of evidence had told authorities her best friend hadn’t left her vehicle willingly.
And Maeve had been the one to misplace it.
The chances of bringing Lauren home had lessened every day since, and now it’d been almost a year since the FBI had any kind of lead. The case was dead in the water.
Until now.
Sweat pooled under her arms and at the back of her neck despite the near freezing temperatures closing in.
Zion was beautiful in winter, almost desolate and unaltered.
The way a national park should be. Apart from the set of bones staring back at her.
Maeve lowered herself level with the skeleton’s eyeline.
Her jeans stretched uncomfortably. Not her usual uniform when working a case, but these were unusual circumstances.
“Has anyone moved or touched the remains?”
“My rangers know how to do their jobs.” Ranger Simpson crossed his arms over a broad chest that could probably move a mountain if up for the challenge.
“I believe you. Everyone in my office has heard of the work you and your law enforcement rangers have done in the past year to catch a wide array of violent offenders.” Maeve tugged a set of latex gloves from her jacket pocket and snapped them on before raising the skeleton’s right hand.
No fractures or metal pins indicating surgery that might make getting an identity easier.
The bones had been stripped of all identifying characteristics, too.
Dental was their best bet, but she didn’t have the equipment here.
She’d have to have these bones transported to the nearest medical examiner in Hurricane.
Maeve moved on to the opposite arm, taking everything in.
“Seems to be quite an uptick in crime around here, though. Why is that, do you think?”
“You’re asking why criminals are flocking to Zion?
” Callen’s voice cut through the noise in her head, and her stomach bottomed out.
There’d been days she couldn’t wait to hear that voice, relied on it to get her through the day.
The warmth and tone, the ability it had to soothe even the most brutal cases she worked.
But she didn’t feel it now. All that was left felt cold and distant.
Hard. “Seems like a question for the criminologists. Not some agent who can’t do her job right. ”
Every cell in her body screamed to argue, but she couldn’t. There was no argument, and she’d known coming here would aggravate the no-contact peace they’d sustained since Callen had broken their engagement.
“I miss something?” Simpson’s attention pressed between her shoulder blades, but she wouldn’t be the one to break professionalism here.
“No.” Maeve continued her mental catalog of potential identifiers.
While the ME was better suited for the job, there was a desperation building behind her sternum that she couldn’t unknot.
Something. There had to be something here to clue her in to the connection between Lauren’s disappearance and the missing person investigation that’d brought her all the way here to Zion National Park. “Your victim is female.”
“We already knew that.” Callen shifted his weight between both feet, one of his tells she wished she didn’t remember that said a storm was about to erupt.
“The female hiker who found her is studying to be an anthropologist. Got anything else that would actually help us, or are you just here to assert jurisdiction?”
Wow. Okay. Maeve shoved herself upright to counter the acid working its way up her throat.
Peeling off her gloves, she let herself take him in for the first time since stepping foot onto the scene.
His uniform of slacks and a button-down almost failed to contain the amount of muscle he’d put on since she’d seen him last. He was a different man altogether at a glimpse, but familiarity bled through in the details of those intense brown—almost black—eyes and the etched lines at the bridge of his nose.
The National Park Service ball cap covering his short, dark hair cast shadows along cut cheekbones and the sharpness of his jawline beneath several weeks’ worth of beard growth.
He’d never been a beard guy. Never been one to live in the gym, but Maeve couldn’t deny the flare spiking in her belly.
He’d always been handsome and knew just how to flash that blazing smile that gutted her every time it was thrown her way, but she had the distinct impression he hadn’t smiled for a long time.
And he looked good apart from the severity in his expression, almost daring her to contradict every nasty thought running through his head as he studied her.
“Based on the lack of deterioration of the bones or any signs of osteoporosis, I would place her age between twenty-five and thirty. A trained radiologist and a physical anthropologist will have a more accurate estimation, but she’s fully developed in the ossification centers, which finishes producing bone in the early twenties.
There’s also the bones that form sutures in her skull.
They’re closed, indicating full development.
” Maeve studied the remains, pointing to the skeleton’s hips.
“The lack of scarring on her pelvic bone suggests she’s never borne children, and the texture of the bones indicate she is, in fact, female.
Most likely Caucasian, determined by her height and shape of her eye sockets and nasal bone.
Her bones don’t provide evidence of malnutrition or obesity either, so I would be confident in saying she probably weighed anywhere between one-hundred-and-twenty to one-hundred-and-forty pounds based on a healthy BMI for her height. ”
A low whistle broke through the hard thud, thud, thud of her heart behind her ears.
Ranger Simpson. But Maeve had attention only for Callen.
If she didn’t know any better, she would say he might’ve been impressed by her assessment, and a glimmer of hope—of making this right between them—flared bright.
Only it didn’t last. As though he’d caught himself, that immovable mask he liked to hide behind slammed into place.
She hadn’t just lost Callen when Maeve had misplaced that notebook.
She’d lost his parents.
She’d lost his brother, Cieron.
She’d lost an entire future she’d imagined for herself.
She’d lost a family.
The summer barbecues and movie nights in the backyard with their favorite comedies queued up on the projector.
Swimming in the Russells’ backyard pool or going out to dinner to celebrate birthdays and promotions.
Christmas hadn’t been the same with Lauren’s disappearance, like a vital piece had gone missing.
This time of year had always been her favorite—a time for family and friends and a feeling of no longer being an outcast—but she would be spending it alone this year.
Lauren had made her part of the family.
And now that family wanted nothing to do with her.
Maeve stripped off the latex gloves that suddenly seemed too tight, all too aware of the empty feeling on her ring finger. Callen’s attention seemed to home in there, too. Like she’d misplaced her engagement ring instead of him demanding it back. “Has the medical examiner already been contacted?”
“They’ll be here in about thirty minutes.” Simpson set both hands on his hips.
“Great. You’ll want to bring in a forensic anthropologist who can confirm or alter my assessment of the bones and collaborate with the ME.
” There wasn’t much more she could do here other than document the scene.
Unpocketing her phone, she recorded every angle, close and far, and the area around the body.
Several treads interrupted the red sand, but there was something she just couldn’t put her finger on.
Maeve lowered her phone and glared up into the cloud-covered gray sky.
“Does she seem overly white to you? Like the coloring of the bones is off?”
“They’ve been bleached. You can smell it if you get close enough.” Callen maneuvered for the narrow path between two large boulders to head down the rocky incline. “Surprised you didn’t pick up on that.”
She wouldn’t give in to the taunt. Wouldn’t break under the massive pressure begging her to air their grievances and move on. Because she wasn’t leaving Zion. No matter how hard he pushed. She’d see this through to the end. With or without Callen’s help.
Simpson lowered his voice, his jaw ticking just below his ears. “You’ll have to excuse Ranger Russell. This case hits a little too close to home for him, is all. He’s not normally such an—”
“I’m aware. Like he said, we’ve met.” That wasn’t all that hit a little too close to home, but this was an investigation. She would keep her personal life to herself, even if she wanted to scream.
Simpson nodded toward the skeleton. “You think this is connected with your missing person?”
“I’m not sure yet.” There were still too many unknowns.
Pieces she couldn’t put together. She’d been looking for an excuse, she realized.
A reason to step into Zion National Park.
To confront Callen or to pick up where the FBI had left off in Lauren’s investigation, she wasn’t sure, but when a witness from one of Maeve’s first investigations went missing in the same general area as Lauren Russell, Maeve couldn’t sit back and wait.
“There are a lot of similarities between Iliana Meyer and these remains, but until your ME has a positive identification, I’ll have to focus on going over her movements from the weeks leading up to her disappearance. ”
“Right. Well, I’m going to be stuck here for the next few hours while the ME takes custody of the body.” Simpson rubbed both hands together. “Ranger Jordan can give you a ride back to headquarters. You have the full support of my division. Anything you need, reach out.”
“I appreciate that, but I’d like to speak to the hikers who found the body before I go.” Maeve was already moving down the path between the boulders Callen had disappeared through. “See if there’s anything else they might remember, or if they saw anyone else on the trail today.”
Simpson crouched in front of the remains, putting his own assessment together. “Let me know what you find.”
Her calves protested the slightest shift in her balance as she hit the bottom of the trail. Maeve sucked in a breath and prepared to face off with the ranger who would do anything to get her out of Zion.