Read Online Bones of the Lost by Kathy Reichs - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kathy Reichs
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direction, back toward uptown, I pulled to the shoulder and studied my surroundings. No sidewalks. No traffic signals. Deadly for pedestrians.
Off my passenger side ran a broad strip of weeds and scrub vegetation. Beyond that, the tracks of the Lynx Blue Line, the first and only spur on Charlotte’s light-rail system.
Had the girl come here by train? To what station? Woodlawn? Scaleybark? If she’d descended from a Lynx platform, might someone have seen her?
Had she come by car? On foot? Was she alone? With a companion? A kindly stranger who’d offered a lift? A burger? A drink?
And, above all, why? Why was she here? Larabee was placing her time of death at somewhere between eleven and two. What had lured a teenage girl to this isolated spot in the middle of the night? With no jacket in the chilly weather.
I knew the CSU techs had photographed and bagged every scrap of evidence. So why was
I
here after my long, frustrating, blister-raising day?
To see for myself. To hear. To smell. To sense the place.
Keys firmly in my pocket, I popped the door. A gust of wind caught my hair and flipped the hem of my jacket. Though summer lingered by day, come sunset the air was already turning cool.
I zipped up to my chin.
I was more warmly dressed than my Jane Doe had been. Why? An adolescent fashion statement? A rushed departure? Anticipation of an evening indoors?
I pictured the high-heeled boots and denim skirt. Meaningless. Kids dressed like that to hang out at the mall, attend school, or party with friends.
A train whistled softly in the distance. Not the light rail. A freight line on parallel tracks. Norfolk Southern? CSX? Aberdeen and Carolina Western?
Had the girl hopped from a boxcar and walked to Old Pineville Road? A long shot, but possible.
If the girl had arrived by car, it was doubtful she asked to be dropped here. Did the driver force her to disembark? Why? An argument? The conclusion of a cash transaction?
I thought about the semen stains.
Was the sex consensual? Was it followed by a disagreement, her slamming from a vehicle in anger? Was she raped, then tossed aside like last week’s trash?
Was Slidell right? Had the girl tried to turn a trick and been run over by a renegade john?
I scanned the far side of the road, saw the black silhouettes of commercial buildings. Pewter-gray space between.
I thought about the US Airways club card in the girl’s purse. About John-Henry Story. Why was she carrying a dead man’s plastic? Had she been traveling with him the last time he used it? Going where? Had he given the card to her? Had she stolen it from him? It was nothing she could have used without him present. Why had she kept it?
The girl’s body was found near the intersection of Old Pineville and Rountree, a short distance in front of me. Was she running whenhit? Standing still? Walking? How far had she crawled after being struck?
A truck rumbled by, arcing wide to avoid my Mazda.
Note to self: Have Slidell check with truckers frequenting this route. Appeal to motorists driving here late last night. But he would know to do those things.
Did the girl see the vehicle that killed her? Did she try to avoid it, or was she hit before sensing danger?
I stood a moment, shivering, listening. The silence was broken only by the tic-tic of a wind-tossed wrapper. A muted car horn.
My nose took in the scent of oily cement. Exhaust. Dry leaves, the way they smell only in autumn.
I scanned up and down the pavement. On the opposite side, maybe a quarter mile behind me, I detected a faint blue-and-red twinkle I hadn’t noticed before. Sliding behind the wheel, I hung a U-ey and drove toward it.
The twinkle came from a white stucco cube that probably began life as a filling station. Christmas lights rimmed a front window in which faded announcements covered most of the glass. Red lettering on the front wall identified the establishment as the Yum-Tum Convenience Mart.
The only vehicles present in the Yum-Tum’s
Off my passenger side ran a broad strip of weeds and scrub vegetation. Beyond that, the tracks of the Lynx Blue Line, the first and only spur on Charlotte’s light-rail system.
Had the girl come here by train? To what station? Woodlawn? Scaleybark? If she’d descended from a Lynx platform, might someone have seen her?
Had she come by car? On foot? Was she alone? With a companion? A kindly stranger who’d offered a lift? A burger? A drink?
And, above all, why? Why was she here? Larabee was placing her time of death at somewhere between eleven and two. What had lured a teenage girl to this isolated spot in the middle of the night? With no jacket in the chilly weather.
I knew the CSU techs had photographed and bagged every scrap of evidence. So why was
I
here after my long, frustrating, blister-raising day?
To see for myself. To hear. To smell. To sense the place.
Keys firmly in my pocket, I popped the door. A gust of wind caught my hair and flipped the hem of my jacket. Though summer lingered by day, come sunset the air was already turning cool.
I zipped up to my chin.
I was more warmly dressed than my Jane Doe had been. Why? An adolescent fashion statement? A rushed departure? Anticipation of an evening indoors?
I pictured the high-heeled boots and denim skirt. Meaningless. Kids dressed like that to hang out at the mall, attend school, or party with friends.
A train whistled softly in the distance. Not the light rail. A freight line on parallel tracks. Norfolk Southern? CSX? Aberdeen and Carolina Western?
Had the girl hopped from a boxcar and walked to Old Pineville Road? A long shot, but possible.
If the girl had arrived by car, it was doubtful she asked to be dropped here. Did the driver force her to disembark? Why? An argument? The conclusion of a cash transaction?
I thought about the semen stains.
Was the sex consensual? Was it followed by a disagreement, her slamming from a vehicle in anger? Was she raped, then tossed aside like last week’s trash?
Was Slidell right? Had the girl tried to turn a trick and been run over by a renegade john?
I scanned the far side of the road, saw the black silhouettes of commercial buildings. Pewter-gray space between.
I thought about the US Airways club card in the girl’s purse. About John-Henry Story. Why was she carrying a dead man’s plastic? Had she been traveling with him the last time he used it? Going where? Had he given the card to her? Had she stolen it from him? It was nothing she could have used without him present. Why had she kept it?
The girl’s body was found near the intersection of Old Pineville and Rountree, a short distance in front of me. Was she running whenhit? Standing still? Walking? How far had she crawled after being struck?
A truck rumbled by, arcing wide to avoid my Mazda.
Note to self: Have Slidell check with truckers frequenting this route. Appeal to motorists driving here late last night. But he would know to do those things.
Did the girl see the vehicle that killed her? Did she try to avoid it, or was she hit before sensing danger?
I stood a moment, shivering, listening. The silence was broken only by the tic-tic of a wind-tossed wrapper. A muted car horn.
My nose took in the scent of oily cement. Exhaust. Dry leaves, the way they smell only in autumn.
I scanned up and down the pavement. On the opposite side, maybe a quarter mile behind me, I detected a faint blue-and-red twinkle I hadn’t noticed before. Sliding behind the wheel, I hung a U-ey and drove toward it.
The twinkle came from a white stucco cube that probably began life as a filling station. Christmas lights rimmed a front window in which faded announcements covered most of the glass. Red lettering on the front wall identified the establishment as the Yum-Tum Convenience Mart.
The only vehicles present in the Yum-Tum’s
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