Read Online Blood Will Tell by April Henry - Free Book Online Page A

below freezing, but she was dressed in so many layers she wasn’t cold, except for her hands. The chill even seeped through her leather gloves. At least Alexis had leather gloves now, and painter’s kneelers. On her first evidence search, she hadn’t had either. Afterward, she had to rub her fingers to get the feeling back. But leather gloves and kneelers were too expensive to buy, and neither ever showed up at Goodwill. A week later Jon had slipped her both, claiming he had found extras in the back of the equipment closet. They both had pretended to believe him.
    Now, inch by slow inch, the teens crawled forward. Alexis’s eyes scoured the ground. She was careful to brush back the leaves of larger weeds to look under them. She didn’t want to miss something small, like a torn fingernail. Dirt, pebbles, small rocks, slightly bigger rocks, weeds, brown leaves, red leaves, yellow leaves, multicolored leaves. A snail in its shell, which she was careful not to crush as she crawled over it. In Portland, you usually didn’t see snails, just slugs.
    Beside her, Ruby sucked in her breath. Before Alexis could ask what was wrong, the other girl bellowed, “Team halt!”
    Rubbing her ear and wincing, Alexis echoed “Team halt” with the others, and then straightened up. Her gaze followed Ruby’s pointing finger. It had been drilled into them not to touch anything they spotted. Touch it and they became part of the official chain of custody.
    Mitchell hurried up behind them. “Who called team halt?”
    Ruby said, “Thirteen. Possible evidence.”
    Mitchell leaned down to look as Harriman came up.
    â€œWhat did you find, Ruby?” Harriman asked.
    â€œA beer bottle cap.” It was upside down, the inside flecked with rust.
    â€œFlag it and keep going.” Harriman sounded disappointed. It was hard to imagine that the rusty cap had anything to do with the dead girl.
    Mitchell handed Ruby a small orange plastic flag on a wire, which she poked into the dirt next to the cap. By the time they were done, this lot would be dotted with dozens of flags.
    â€œTeam forward!” Jackie called.
    â€œTeam forward,” Alexis echoed with the rest.
    â€œKeep the line tight,” Mitchell called out as they started moving forward again. “Shoulder-to-shoulder. We want a high POD.” POD meant probability of detection.
    They ended up stopping every fifteen or twenty seconds. Nick found a yellow napkin from McDonald’s. Ruby spotted some broken glass. Alexis called a halt for the lid to a coffee cup.
    As she stuck the flag into the ground, Alexis glanced ahead. Her path would soon intersect with a blackberry bush, the one near where the police thought the girl had been initially stabbed. How many times had Mitchell told them, “Go where your grid takes you”? And “If you can’t see through it, you have to go through it”? The saying didn’t apply to tree trunks—even SAR hadn’t figured out how to do that yet—but they had been told it did to blackberry bushes. A bad guy might be counting on you not finding his gun because you weren’t willing to brave thorns.
    Right before she reached the clump, Ezra found a cigarette butt and called another halt. While Harriman was looking at it, Alexis was frowning at the blackberry bush. It was a four-foot-tall mass of canes studded with wicked-looking thorns at least a half inch long. How in the heck was she supposed to go through that ?
    Behind her, Mitchell cleared his throat. “Want some advice?”
    â€œUm, sure.” She turned. Mitchell’s normally pale face had two high spots of color.
    He dropped to his knees behind her. “Tuck your chin down and push forward and down.” He demonstrated, butting his head against the air. But he was a little too enthusiastic and ended up bumping his helmet against her butt. Nick giggled. Face flaming, Mitchell got to his