If I Should Die_ A Novel of Suspense - Allison Brennan [38]
Sean whistled under his breath. “That’s pretty damn conclusive. I can’t believe they missed this yesterday.”
“They were looking for a body,” she said. “They weren’t thinking crime scene evidence.”
“They should have been.”
Lucy hesitated—she didn’t want to tamper with evidence. Quickly, before she could change her mind, she picked up three of the maggots with tweezers, then sealed them in a small plastic jar. She wrote the day and time and where she’d found them on the label.
The simple, methodical act of evidence collection calmed her more than her admonitions that she was a professional and shouldn’t get freaked out by bugs.
She turned around and swept the room again with her flashlight, from the angle the killer would have seen. The only reason the body had been moved was because it had been discovered. The dead body could have stayed down here forever, decomposing over the summer, until all that remained was a skeleton.
“Dozens of people knew I found the body,” Lucy said.
“Thanks to the quack doctor who you let sew me up.”
“That, and the Fire and Rescue and the Sheriff’s Department and anyone they told.”
They gave the ground one last going-over, and that was when she found it. Shriveled and brown, almost lost in the dirt, was the flower that had been on the woman’s chest, right next to where the cart had been. Lucy almost picked it up, but instead took a picture.
Sean watched her. “The flower?”
“Yes.” She packed everything up. “I’ll call Weddle and lay out our theories when we get back to the lodge and suggest he send someone down here ASAP. They can learn a lot from those little maggots. They may be able to get her DNA. Until we know the identity of the victim, where, why, and how she died will remain a mystery.”
They returned to the ventilation shaft. Lucy stared at where Sean had been lying, unconscious, at the bottom of the pit. It had been a long drop—he could have broken his back. It could have turned out so much worse.
Sean watched where Lucy rested her eyes, then looked back at her. Her expression was filled with loss. He’d thought that after Lucy’s nightmare last night, then her urgent lovemaking, she’d purged the fear that had grown after his fall and the tragedy that might have been. He realized by the stricken, desolate look in her dark eyes that she was still struggling. She’d merely avoided addressing her feelings, and he’d let her. Was he so scared of losing her that he let her skate by on something so fundamental? Was he strengthening her emotional barriers because he was too afraid to see her in pain?
She’d told him about her nightmare, her fear for his life, but he realized that he’d dismissed it as leftover from the shock of seeing him after the fall. There was far more to it than that. For the first time, he didn’t know what she needed. All he could do was reassure her.
“Lucy, I’m fine.” He put his hands on her shoulders and tilted his head so she couldn’t avoid looking at him.
When she shook her head and plastered a fake smile on her face, he wondered what she was now trying to hide. The mine shaft was no place to discuss this, but Sean knew if he didn’t push her now, it would be twice as difficult to get her to talk later, when she had time to suppress her feelings.
“Let’s get out—” she began.
“Talk to me, Princess,” he interrupted.
“Not now.” Her voice wavered. She leaned up and kissed him. “Later.” But she didn’t look him in the eye.
She pushed on the extension ladder to make sure it was secure, then motioned for him to go first. He began to argue, but she said, “You can’t put all your weight on your leg, I’ll hold the ladder so it doesn’t move as much.”
“You are a bossy nurse,” he said to lighten the tension. He kissed her firmly. “I’m holding you to your promise.”
Sean climbed up the ladder. Lucy was right, his thigh was throbbing, and it helped that she kept the ladder from bouncing with