Read Online Bones to Ashes by Kathy Reichs - Free Book Online Page B

from afar than up close.
    Ryan hadn’t arrived when I entered the coffee shop. Choosing a rear table, I ordered a decaf cappuccino. Ryan joined me as the waitress delivered it. In moments she was back with his double espresso.
    “You planning an all-nighter?” Nodding toward Ryan’s high-test selection.
    “I brought files home.”
    No invite there, cowgirl. I waited until Ryan was ready to begin.
    “I’ll take it chronologically. For the cold cases, there are three missing persons and two unidentified corpses. This week’s Lac des Deux Montagnes floater raises the un-ID’d body count to three.”
    Ryan stirred sugar into his espresso.
    “Nineteen ninety-seven. MP number one. Kelly Sicard, eighteen, lives with her parents in Rosemère. March twelfth, one-forty A.M., she leaves a group of drinking buddies to catch a bus home. She never makes it.”
    “The buddies checked out?”
    “And the family and the boyfriend.”
    Ryan sipped. His hand looked jarringly male holding the tiny white cup.
    “Nineteen ninety-nine. DOA number one. The body of an adolescent female is snagged by a boat propeller in the Rivière des Mille Îles. You worked the case with LaManche.”
    I remembered. “The corpse was putrefied. I estimated the girl was white, age fourteen or fifteen. We did a facial reconstruction, but she was never ID’d. The bones are in my storage room.”
    “That’s the one.”
    Ryan knocked back the remainder of his espresso.
    “Two thousand one. DOA number two. A teenaged girl is found in Dorval, on the shore below the Forest and Stream supper club. According to LaManche, the body’s been in the river less than forty-eight hours. He does an autopsy, concludes the girl was dead when she hit the water, finds no evidence of shooting, stabbing, or bludgeoning. Pictures are circulated throughout the province. No takers.”
    I remembered that case, too. “The girl was eventually buried as a Jane Doe.”
    Ryan nodded, moved up in time.
    “Two thousand two. MP number two. Claudine Cloquet pedals her Schwinn three-speed through a wooded area in Saint-Lazare-Sud. Claudine is twelve and mildly retarded. The bike is found two days later. Claudine is not.”
    “An unlikely runaway.”
    “Father’s sketchy, but alibis out. So does the rest of the family. Father’s since died, mother’s been hospitalized twice for depression.
    “Two thousand four. MP number three. September first. Anne Girardin disappears from her Blainville home in the middle of the night.” Ryan’s jaw muscles bulged, relaxed. “Kid’s ten years old.”
    “Pretty young to take off on her own.”
    “But not unheard of. And this was a streetwise ten-year-old. Again, the old man’s a loser, but nothing’s found to tie him to the disappearance. Ditto for the rest of the household. A canvass of the neighborhood turns up zip.”
    We both fell silent, recalling the massive search for Anne Girardin. Amber Alert. SQ. SPVM. Tracker dogs. Local volunteers. Personnel from NCECC, the National Child Exploitation Coordination Center. Nothing was found. Subsequent tips all proved bogus.
    “And now I’ve got DOA number three, the Lac des Deux Montagnes floater.”
    “Six girls. Three recovered in or near water. Three missing and unlikely to be runaways,” I summarized. “Any other links?”
    Again, a tensing in Ryan’s jaw. “We may have a fourth MP. Phoebe Jane Quincy, age thirteen. Lives in Westmount. Missing since leaving home for a dance lesson day before last.”
    Ryan took a photo from his pocket and placed it on the table. A girl mimicking Marilyn in
The Seven Year Itch,
dress ballooning around her. Backlighting outlined the thin figure through the diaphanous white fabric.
    Thirteen?
    “Who took this picture?”
    “Parents have no idea. Found it hidden in the bottom of a dresser drawer. We’re looking into it.”
    I stared at the photo. Though not overtly sexual, the image was disturbing.
    “Her friends say she wants to be a model,” Ryan