CHAPTER ONE
When are we ever going to stop hurting each other?
That was the question she kept asking herself, as the outside world sped past in a blur; the dark SUV steadily moving towards its destination.
Bernadette sighed. She had retired from this, hadn’t she? Wasn’t this supposed to be over?
She’d been watching her son’s football game, when she saw them. The alphabets were easy to spot, even if he hadn’t been in a suit and tie at the small university stadium.
The suit found her and walked towards her. A quick glance told her he was FBI – two guns, one in the shoulder harness the other strapped to his ankle.
“Bernadette Meadows?”
Bernadette hadn’t moved, but kept her eyes on number twelve as he executed the quick pass – first down.
“Are you Bernadette Meadows?” He flipped open his badge and the once friendly crowd around her moved silently away.
She pulled her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose and looked up at him.
He sat down, deliberately opening his suit coat allowing a quick view of the Glock tucked neatly in his shoulder harness.
“I need you to come with me.”
Bernadette pushed her glasses up and watched the Wildcats push closer to the goal line. Come on, baby. Twenty yards and we’re up by two touchdowns.
She’d taught Jason teamwork won football games and working together was one of the single most important thing as a leader. She only wished she could practice what she preached. Her job and its duties often isolated her. That was why; after the ABI pulled two teenagers out of the Alabama River she’d taken the early retirement the bureau offered for burnt out agents. There were far worse things in this world than retiring at fifty.
Fifty; and for thirty of those years she’d been chasing some of the sickest perverts in the world. Hunting them had cost her two marriages but more importantly it took time away from Jason. She’d been in Oklahoma extraditing a team of serial killers back to Alabama when he’d said his first word, Louisiana following an arsonist group targeting black churches that had begun near Selma, when he’d graduated high school.
Too much time away from events a mother was supposed to be there for.
The kicking team was making their way onto the field when she caught Jason’s eye. He frowned at the agent. He’d seen this before and while he would never show it; Bernadette knew how much her job affected him. God he’s a good kid, she thought as she sent a smile his way before following Special Agent what’s-his-face from the stadium.
The ride from the university was a quiet one with only the occasional buzz of her companion’s cell phone. The SUV had slowed and entered a park. Bernadette didn’t move but kept her eyes fixed to the passenger window. Instincts took over as she noticed the gated entrance and the suit producing his credentials to get in. During the day the high scale park would have been filled with children, nannies and the occasional jogger. Now it was a sea of red and blue lights; local law enforcement was making their presence known as well as the federal agents.
Bernadette hit the clasp of her seat belt as the vehicle came to a stop and left the Fed talking to her door. She wasn’t trying to be rude but if she were going to work this crime scene she needed to see it for herself with no outside judgments to influence her.
She looked up as Aaron made his way through the uniforms. She’d trained him when he started working with the bureau.
“Bernie, it’s good to see you.”
Bernadette smiled as he approached, “You too Aaron, but why can’t it be under different circumstances?”
Aaron ran a hand through his thick brown hair. “The Feds are taking a big interest in this one Bernie.”
She recognized the heads-up. Sure the Feds were interested, after all they had sought her out at a college football game but that wasn’t what Aaron wanted her to know. This case was high-profile and filled with all the nuances the ABI detested. With a nod to Aaron she walked towards the flashbulbs near the swings.
Bernadette looked around her. Officers in their late twenties to early thirties scrambled around the scene; she smiled. She’d forgotten what most of them had yet to learn.
Being older had its advantages though; she’d seen enough and learned enough to know what-was-what. Still she did envy them. It wasn’t so much their youthful faces or trim physiques she admired now. Truth was she could still pass the physical training course, and time had been good to her. Sure she had a few more laugh lines and there were a few more grays in her auburn hair but she’d never been one of those women obsessed with looking younger.
No, Bernadette envied the pulse-beating, heart-pounding excitement on their faces. The hunt was still fresh and more than a little exhilarating for them.
She pushed her hands deep in her pockets and waited. Tia Salm was probably the only other woman in the state who knew how she felt. She’d been called to pronounce.
“Bernie?” Tia was making her way towards her.
“Tia,” Bernadette took the hand offered her.
“What are you doing here? I thought you’d retired?”
“Yeah so did I,” Bernadette jerked her head toward the group of federal agents.
Tia nodded, “What was the score?”
Bernadette followed her friends gaze to the group of officers she’d once worked with. Tia knew what it was like to work in a man’s world. Her friend had fought hard to become the state coroner.
She also knew what it was like to be an absent mother.
“We were up by two touchdowns when they found me.”
Tia motioned towards her old peers, “They weren’t keen on you coming back you know.”
“I’m not surprised,” she replied and meant it. Bernadette would have been more surprised if the Alabama Bureau of Investigations had actually wanted her help.
Yeah me too,” Tia added.
The two women walked in silence towards the yellow tape, falling back into familiar strides.
Bernadette paused as Tia lifted the crime scene tape. Once she stepped beneath it there was no turning back. When she ducked beneath the yellow barrier there would be another monster lurking in the dark, another nightmare carving a place among those that plagued her.
She knew deep down her tenacity was an advantage over her fellow officers. She never let go, no matter what. Even with the cold cases she never stopped turning the evidence over and over in her mind. It was usually that attention to detail that solved cases.
Bernadette often wondered why she could never let a case go, with each new case she’d been handed at the ABI every detail became a repetitive event in her mind; like an old vinyl record that would sometimes get stuck. She would fixate on every detail. Even now, there were still those cases that haunted her.
She wanted to blame her obsessive behavior on an overbearing mother, or passive father but the truth was she blamed herself. Somewhere, somehow she’d managed to convince herself that she would never measure up to…something. Whatever it was that drove her even retirement hadn’t eased the obsession.
Bernadette took a deep breath. Her attention to detail; her unwillingness to let go was also the source of her nightmares.
Bernadette could never forget any of her cases and she was about to add one more to the long list - but then what was one more monster beneath her bed?
Bernadette accepted the latex gloves Tia fished from her kit. Damn, this was another kid – twelve or thirteen at the most. Her dark hair fanned across her face; the iPod music blaring from her ear buds. Bernadette wondered if she’d even heard her attacker coming. She bent closer to the body; the bluish bruising around her neck no doubt the COD.
“Strangulation,” Bernadette offered as she crouched closer to the young girl.
“Yeah, judging from the ligatures I’d say a two and a-half inch belt.”
She looked around the body, “It didn’t go down here,” Bernadette offered. It was more a statement than a question.
“Body dump for sure, no signs of a struggle taking place here and judging by the defensive marks on her hands and arms – she put up a fight.” Tia offered.
“And since she fought him someone would have heard her.” Bernadette agreed.
She’d been here – done this too often in her career. Why did the Feds bring her in on this? She began her overview of the body from the top of the girls head and meticulously swept her eyes from right to left when she saw it. She turned to face her friend.
“What the hell?”
Tia nodded, “I thought you’d be interested.”
“Interested?” Of all the things Tia could’ve said, interested didn’t even come close. She stood and walked around to the slim hand clutching the iPod.
The thumb severed at the joint – yeah she was definitely interested.
“Tia, did you pull strings to get me here?” Tia had been at most of the cases Bernadette had worked and knew this was the worst monster of all. How many times had they sat over drinks and discussed it?
As if reading her mind Tia answered the unspoken question, “Ten, there’s been ten.”
Ten children - in a span of fifteen years, dear God; and all of them were missing a digit in some form or other from their right hand.
Interested?
Hell yes, she was interested.
