Be Afraid Read online

  Georgia shook her head, just as she’d done as a child when she received an answer she didn’t like. “This isn’t acceptable.”

  “You think this is what I want?” Bishop asked.

  “Sounds like you’re giving up.”

  “No, I’m not.” Bishop’s eyes blazed with fury. If Georgia had been a man, he just might have slugged her.

  Georgia noticed his annoyance but didn’t seem to care. “I hate this.”

  “No one likes this, Georgia.” Rick reached for his coffee and raised it to his lips until he discovered it had turned to black sludge.

  “We’re doing all we can,” Bishop said.

  She waved away his comment and to Rick asked, “What if I could get you a face?”

  “A face?”

  “Of the child. What if we had her face?”

  Bishop shook his head. “You’re talking about forensic reconstruction. Hell of a cost that isn’t likely to get approved in the near future. We could be waiting for months. Years.”

  Georgia shifted her gaze to Bishop. “What if I knew someone who would do it for free?”

  “Free.” Bishop looked amused now. “We’re talking about thousands of dollars of work.”

  She held up her hand. “If I got the help, would you take it?”

  “You aren’t going to get that kind of help just like that for free.”

  “What if I can, smart-ass?”

  Bishop interlocked his hands behind his head, leaned back, and smiled. “So you got connections we don’t know about?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I know all the artists in the state,” Rick said. “Whom are you talking about?”

  “This gal I met at KC’s bar.”

  “In KC’s bar? The place where you sing once in a while?” Bishop laughed. “I can’t wait to explain this one to the judge if we ever get this case to court.”

  Georgia had a great singing voice and when she wasn’t working she sang at KC’s bar, a place called Rudy’s. KC, a former cop, had bought the bar last year. No one thought he’d make it work, but he’d surprised everyone by not only keeping the business afloat, but also growing it. He packed them in nightly with singing acts.

  “Does she sing too?” Rick asked.

  “No, she doesn’t sing. She draws. Portraits. Six nights a week. She’s really good.”

  “Georgia, what’re you smoking?” Rick asked. “Just because you can draw a face doesn’t mean you can reconstruct one.”

  “She’s a cop, jerk. Baltimore Police Department. And she’s a trained forensic artist. She’s taken some kind of leave.”

  “On leave? Working in a bar in Nashville drawing portraits?” Bishop asked. “So what the hell kind of issues does she have?”

  “I don’t know,” Georgia said. “She’s nice. She’s talented, and she would do this if I asked.”

  “I don’t know, Georgia,” Rick said.

  “I got her a lead on a house that she rented a couple of weeks ago so she kind of owes me.”

  “Is she the one you got to rent the Murder House?” Rick asked.

  Georgia shrugged. “She said that kind of thing doesn’t bother her.”

  Bishop laughed. “Hell, if anything, I got to meet this woman for a laugh.”

  Rick rolled his head from side to side. “Georgia.”

  “Rick,” Georgia said. “She’s really good. I’ve seen enough of these artists in action. She’s good.”

  He shoved out a sigh.

  “You aren’t considering this, are you?” Bishop asked.

  “If the medical examiner’s preliminary write-up doesn’t match our records, then we’ll be at a loss. You got a better lead?”

  “Not now.”

  Rick rose. “Give her a call, Georgia. If we end up needing her, I’ll pay her a visit.”

  She clapped her hands in victory. “You won’t be sorry.”

  Rick wasn’t so sure.

  Chapter Two

  Monday, August 14, 3 P.M.

  Eyes were the mirrors to the soul, weren’t they?

  Jenna Thompson studied the eyes in the sketch. Lately, when she sat down to draw, she was never satisfied with the subject’s eyes. Often she’d draw, erase, and redraw them. She’d developed an issue with eyes that had started as a quirk but was getting worse.

  When she drew at KC’s, the portraits were quick and dirty. Twenty bucks for a ten-minute drawing and forty bucks for a twenty-minute drawing. She always saved the eyes for last and when she drew them, she sketched quickly and refused to study them too closely. It often pained her to hand over a drawing when all she wanted to do was refashion the eyes. A bit more light. Wider. Narrower. Brighter. Sadder. They were never right. But she didn’t have the time to worry.

  But when she was at home in her studio, and time wasn’t an issue, she found herself trapped in endless drawing cycles.

  She studied the portrait of the young bride. She’d met the woman at KC’s when she’d done a quick drawing. The woman had been so thrilled she’d asked Jenna if she could do her wedding portrait. It had been years since she’d done any commission work but the added cash was too hard to resist.

  She studied the preliminary attempt. Why couldn’t she capture the eyes of the young woman? She leaned to the left and studied the dozens of photographs she’d taken of the young blond woman with the bright smile and dancing eyes. The photos had captured her image perfectly. But it was her job as the portrait artist to capture her soul. Her essence. In the eyes.

  As Jenna reached for her eraser, someone knocked on her door. Quick, hard raps that spoke of impatience, annoyance, and anger. Frustrated, she glanced at the cottage’s front door and then back at the portrait. The eyes reflected happiness but somehow fell short. What were they missing?

  Another knock.

  Irritated, she turned the easel away so that whoever was barging into her quiet time would not see the work. She grabbed a rag from the back pocket of her jeans and wiped the paint from her hands as she padded in bare feet across the cabin’s pine floors, which smelled faintly of pine cleaner.

  Jenna had rented the cabin a couple of weeks ago. The price had been too good but Georgia Morgan had been upfront about the place’s history. A woman, a private detective, had been killed on the property. Locals knew the story well and had no interest in a sale or a rental. They called it the Murder House. But Jenna had agreed to see the house and, the moment she’d seen it, had fallen for the rustic exterior, large windows overlooking expansive woods ringing the open field, and stream behind the house.

  A day after she’d signed the one-month lease she’d been at the local grocery store. When the clerk had read her handwritten new address on her check, he’d raised a brow.

  “The house is haunted,” the clerk had said.

  “Everyone’s got to live somewhere, even ghosts,” Jenna had joked. She could have explained that she wasn’t afraid of death or ghosts and she had an affinity for the damaged and lost. All had stalked her most of her life. But she’d only smiled. Sharing too much about her past never won her points.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  Jenna glanced out the door’s peephole and saw the two men. One had his back to the door and the other faced it. A tension rippled through their bodies; each was braced ready to fight. The body posture might have been clue enough but then she also noticed the one in front had a mid-grade suit, sensible shoes, and a short haircut. The one facing away from the house dressed with more style, but she also had him pegged.

  They were cops.

  Jenna could spot a cop because she was a cop in Baltimore, Maryland. She’d entered the academy when she was nineteen after two years of college had eaten what savings her aunt had squirreled away. She’d been faced with taking on more debt or getting a job. Becoming a police officer had never been on her life list, but when she’d read the recruiting ad and seen the salary and benefits, the decision to apply made sense. She’d never imagined a life of service when she’d made the commitment but she�
�d taken to structure and regime like a duck to water.

  She’d been raised by a woman who craved organization like a junkie craved drugs. No dirty dishes in the sink. No clothes on the floor and the ones that landed in the hamper didn’t stay there long. Jenna still associated liquid pine cleaner with her aunt Lois.

  Aunt Lois had been in her mid fifties when she’d made the decision to take Jenna away from Nashville. Many of Lois’s friends had questioned her decision to take on a troubled five-year-old. But Lois had been determined to take the child who was her last living blood relative. The two had made the seven-hundred-mile trip from Nashville to Baltimore alone. Jenna didn’t remember much conversation on that long-ago trip, only growing relief as they’d driven farther and father away from Nashville. There was never a lot of money to go around, but Lois saw to it that they got by. Turned out living together had been good for both. Lois and Jenna had come out of their shells, at least partway, together.

  Pine cleaner. The scent lingered in Jenna’s new home, a holdover from the big scrubbing she’d given the home when she’d moved in her few belongings. Jenna inhaled and opened the door.

  Her gaze landed first on the cop who faced her. He had dark eyes reflecting disbelief and curiosity. Those eyes would be hard to capture on paper. Too elusive and she’d always wonder if what he chose to reflect was indeed true.

  Dark Eyes reached in his pocket and removed a slim black wallet and with the flick of his fingers revealed a shiny, new police shield. “Jenna Thompson?”

  She studied the badge an extra beat and then nodded. “That’s correct.”

  “I’m Rick Morgan. I’m a detective with Nashville Metro Homicide. This is my partner, Detective Jake Bishop. My sister, Georgia, said you’d be expecting us.”

  At the sound of his name, Bishop turned. His eyes, a vivid gray, flickered over her, cataloging her loose peasant top, faded jeans, short nails dirtied by paint and charcoal, and a long, black braid that looped over her square shoulder. “Ma’am.”

  “You’re Georgia’s brother?” She studied him for a family resemblance but didn’t find one.

  “Yes. She said you might be interested in working with us on a case.”

  Those eyes studied her and she suspected he was trying to peel back the layers. No doubt he’d asked around about her. He knew about Baltimore, knew she’d taken leave abruptly to visit Nashville. Dark Eyes wouldn’t be satisfied with the facts in her employee file. He’d keep looking and searching until all the stones had been flipped over and examined.

  A fist of tension clenched in her chest. She’d said yes because she’d liked Georgia but now questioned the decision. “She said you had a tough case.”

  Rick drew in a breath. “You’ll help?”

  “Yes.” When Georgia had called her an hour ago, Jenna had said no. She needed a break from police work. It had been police work that had triggered this need to come to Nashville. But Georgia had not heard her first or her second no. She’d pressed and pointed out the victim was a child.

  Hearing that, Jenna’s opposition had melted. She’d agreed to this one favor.

  Detective Morgan raised a manila folder she’d not noticed before. “I’ve pictures I can show you. Can we come in?”

  “Sure.” She stepped aside and allowed them into the cabin. As they moved toward the large A-framed living room, she slid her feet into a pair of flip-flops and followed behind.

  As if he’d entered a crime scene, Detective Morgan’s gaze wantonly roamed the room. He absorbed the scene: two small sofas that faced each other, the coffee table between and the stack of art books arranged neatly in the center, a kitchen counter sporting only a bowl of apples, and then the easel that faced away. The furniture had come with the house, but the books and small touches were hers.

  “I hear you do portraits at KC’s now,” Detective Morgan said.

  “Yes.”

  He moved toward the picture and for a moment she was distracted by the very small hitch in his step. He was doing his best to hide it but she catalogued the detail as if she’d never left the job.

  “She said a few weeks.”

  “That’s about right.” An image of half-erased eyes crossed her mind. “And I don’t allow anyone to view my work before it’s finished. So if you don’t mind.”

  Detective Morgan hesitated just inches from the canvas but to his credit didn’t overstep. He faced her, a measure of curiosity now humming behind those eyes. “Sure.”

  Extending a hand toward the couches, she looked at the other detective, taking comfort in his lack of interest. “Have a seat.”

  Both officers took a seat on one sofa and she chose the one across.

  “It appears to be the skeletonized remains of a child,” Morgan said. “We believe the child’s age would’ve been between four to six years old at the time of death.”

  Sadness pressed against her chest. She mourned for the child who had died far too young. “How intact is the skull?”

  “We have it all.”

  “Including the mandible?” The mandible was the lower jaw, which after decomposition became detached from the top of the skull. Animals often scavenged the remains spreading them far afield.

  “Yes,” Morgan said. “The body was wrapped in a blanket and then encased in a plastic bag.”

  She opened the manila folder and laid out the crime-scene pictures. In the center of the shallow hole was a black muddied plastic bag that had been sliced open like a large pod. Lining the bag was the blanket. Pink. Detective Bishop had not said pink. Seeing the pink added an element of humanity that jostled her concentration. Pink. A little girl. A chill crackled through the woman even as the cop celebrated a clean sample. It would make the work easier. “Was there any other identifying information in the bag?”

  “No,” Morgan said. “Just the blanket.”

  The pink blanket. “What about remnants of clothing?”

  “No signs of clothes.” If the blanket had remained so should have the clothes. She’d been naked when she’d been buried.

  “Okay.”

  “Georgia said you used to be a forensic artist,” Morgan said. “You worked for Baltimore Police Department but you quit.”

  She noted the extra emphasis on quit. “I haven’t quit. I’ve taken a six-week leave of absence.” She’d told herself the day she’d left that the break was temporary. But each day away from Baltimore took her another step away from the job. One day she might cross the thin blue line and find herself on the outside, unable to get back. She suspected this detective had already branded her as lacking. A failure.

  “You drew for them,” Detective Morgan said.

  “Correct.” There were still some cops who didn’t put much stock in her work, leaving her always at the ready to recite the facts about cases closed by a forensic artist. Whereas fingerprints caught criminals ten percent of the time, forensic artists had a success rate closer to thirty percent. She’d encountered skepticism in Baltimore at first, and then she’d started to work with victims, many traumatized, and painstakingly re-created the faces of their attackers. Many faces would later prove to be dead-on matches to mug shots.

  “I’ve heard the stats on your kind of work,” Morgan said. “Impressive.”

  His tone, bordering on boredom, stoked her temper. Who was this guy to get an attitude with her when she was doing him the favor? If not for the child, she’d have called it quits. Told him to get the hell out. “Wait until you see the sketch I draw for you. You’ll be impressed.” Yeah, she was letting her annoyance get the better of her. But she’d be damned if she’d let this guy judge her or her work.

  “You can give this victim a face?” Detective Bishop asked.

  “Yes.” She sat back, confident in her skills. “You aren’t from around here?”

  Bishop shrugged. “Boston. But I been here ten years.”

  A challenge underscored the last two words. Still an outsider. “What brought you to Nashville?”

  Bishop’s brow a
rched. “I could ask you the same.”

  A smile tweaked the edge of her lips at the dodge. “I heard good things.”

  “Me too.” Bishop leaned back on the couch and folded his arms. “We don’t have a budget.”

  “That’s what Georgia said. I told her I’d donate my time.” She dropped her gaze to the photos and zeroed in on the empty eye sockets that glared up at her. Who are you?

  “Why?” Rick asked.

  “Why what?” Jenna asked, raising her gaze.

  “Why’re you donating your services?”

  Her shoulders lifted in a small shrug. “I’ve a skill.” She tapped her index finger, calloused from holding a drawing pencil for countless hours, on the photo. “I can give this child a face. Isn’t that enough?”

  He studied her, shaking his head. “Just seems odd a sworn cop ends up in a bar drawing faces. Who takes that kind of path?”

  She closed the file but fell short of pushing it back toward him. “I didn’t realize volunteering would come with so many questions.”

  “Wouldn’t you be asking the same questions?”

  “Sure. I’m on leave but I’m still a cop. Hard not to help.” And now she had the last kind of case she’d ever wanted. A lost little girl. In a pink blanket.

  Detective Bishop put his hands on his thighs and pushed to his feet. “I’ve seen your work. Checked it out before we came. You’re good. Real good. And frankly I’m not worried about the whys driving you. I want this case solved.”

  Jenna rose, meeting his gaze. “Me too.”

  “When can you get started?” Detective Morgan stood and shifted his stance as if he was working out a painful kink in his hip.

  She searched for a grain of pity but couldn’t find one. “I’ve a freelance project but I can work around it. When do you want me to start?”

  “The medical examiner will have a clean sample for you by tomorrow afternoon. She said you could start any time.” Clean sample. That meant that the skull would be stripped of any remaining flesh and ready to accept the clay she’d use to create muscle and flesh.

  “Tomorrow then at two at the medical examiner’s office?”