Page 11 of Crime Lab Cold Case (Pacific Northwest Forensics #2)

After studying the pendant more closely, Natalie was convinced it was hers. How did her pendant from that night wind up around Sierra Conchas’s neck when she was murdered? The person who killed Katie must be the same person who killed Sierra. This had to be the answer.

She’d given her witch’s knot to Katie that night to ward off the evil spirits of the forest, or some such nonsense.

Katie had been wearing that pendant when she’d disappeared.

It had never been found. Natalie hadn’t even thought about it at the time, and Katie’s mother wouldn’t have reported it as something her daughter was wearing because she didn’t know Natalie had given it to Katie.

Natalie’s family had moved out of the area before she graduated from high school and before Sierra’s murder. Had Sierra’s mother told the police that the necklace didn’t belong to her daughter. Did the police ever wonder where it had come from?

She knew being close to the scene of Katie’s disappearance and looking at other cases would yield clues.

This had to be the first of many. Katie’s killer had taken her pendant and left it on another victim.

Was that part of his MO? Had he taken items from his victims and given them to other victims?

Sierra’s killer had stabbed her, but the police never found any blood in the area where Katie went missing. They hadn’t found Katie at all. Where had he taken her? What had he done with her?

When they took off running in opposite directions that night, she’d run toward the campsite area, even though it had been empty.

But Katie had foolishly barreled toward Devil’s Edge itself, toward the steep drop-off into the craggy rocks.

The sheriff’s department had searched the rocks, though. They hadn’t found anything.

Natalie thought she’d heard a car’s engine that night. Had their pursuer somehow gotten Katie in his car and taken her away. Her breathing became shallow, and her fingertips started going numb.

She made her mind a blank and took deep breaths through her nose from her stomach until they filled her chest, and then released them slowly through her mouth.

She’d never taken meds for her anxiety, but a behavioral therapist had taught her to control the onset of a panic attack through modulated breathing. It worked most of the time.

Water helped, too. She pushed away from the desk and locked the conference room door behind her.

A lot of good that lock had done her this morning with Michael spying on her through the blinds, but she’d look even more suspicious if she closed those blinds and tried to keep everyone out.

She decided to stop at his office on the way down to the breakroom just to keep the lines of communication open.

She slowed down when she approached his closed office door. He usually left his door wide open for his staff. She tapped on it.

He answered in a muffled voice. “Come in.”

She eased open the door, and he turned from where he was standing at the window, hands in his pockets. His stormy scowl softened a tad when he saw her.

“Do you need something?”

She didn’t, but he obviously did. She stepped into his office and shut the door behind her. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. What do you mean?” He tried a smile, but it didn’t work.

She placed a hand flat on her belly. “It’s not your daughter. Is Ivy alright?”

“Ivy’s fine.” He ran a hand through his black hair. “I guess it’s no use pretending to an FBI agent. Have a seat.”

She perched on the edge of a chair facing his desk, as he took his own advice and dropped to his swivel chair.

“I just had some interesting news about my wife’s murder.” He swiped a hand across his mouth. “They found elevated levels of her antidepressant medication in her system.”

“What does that mean? Not suicide?”

“No, she was definitely strangled with a garrote, but the detective is implying that someone drugged her first. Someone she knew. How could a stranger be able to slip her meds?”

Natalie bit her bottom lip. “What about at a bar? Had she been drinking at a bar? Someone could’ve slipped her something and then followed her to the woods.”

He folded his hands in front of him, his knuckles white.

“The day Raine died she’d been at my house to visit Ivy.

The babysitter, Natasha, had been home at the time.

When Raine left my house, she took our dog for a walk.

Natasha wasn’t sure, so she called me at work, and I told her it was fine. Raine never returned.”

“And the dog?” Natalie tucked her hands beneath her thighs as her knees bounced up and down.

“Peaches never returned. Never found her leash. The point is—” he flattened his hands on his desk, his thumbs touching “—Raine didn’t go anywhere else.

She took the dog out for a walk and ended up dead on Devil’s Edge Trail.

I always figured this was a crime of opportunity.

She’d gone to the trail for a walk, someone with bad intentions saw her and killed her. Now…”

“Now it looks like someone drugged her first.” She scooted her chair closer to his desk and leaned forward. “Maybe Raine took the meds herself. Maybe she did plan to kill herself.”

“And someone finished the job for her? Far-fetched.”

She drummed her fingers on his desk. “She could’ve had a pact with someone. What if she wanted to die, anyway, and figured she’d stick it to you on her way out by having someone kill her to pin the blame on you.”

“Whoa.” He held up his hands and crossed one finger over the other. “Raine had issues, but even she wouldn’t go that far. You’ve got quite the imagination.”

“It’s happened before, hasn’t it? I’ve seen a few cases where people didn’t want their families to lose out on their life-insurance money with a suicide, so they staged a murder.

” She swallowed. “Why did the cops zero in on you at first? Was it just because you were the husband, and the two of you were in a custody dispute?”

“That and I didn’t have a clear alibi. After Natasha told me Raine had taken Peaches for a walk, I didn’t feel like running into Raine when I got home.

So, I left work a little early and drove to the woods to take a walk.

” He spread his hands. “Cell-phone service is spotty on some of those trails and the cops couldn’t track my phone continuously. ”

“Definitely a problem.” She twirled a finger in the air. “Does this new information put you back on their radar?”

“It doesn’t help, but a witness saw me coming out of the woods and getting into my car at about the same time as Raine’s murder. Saved me.”

“Thank God for that. I guess Peaches couldn’t do much to protect Raine?”

He put his hands about eighteen inches apart. “She was…is a little pug.”

The knock on the door startled Natalie, and she pulled back from Michael’s desk. His tale had her spellbound.

He leaned back in his chair. “Come in.”

Nicole popped her head inside the office. “Oh, good, both of you. I have the food all ordered for delivery, Natalie. Seven o’clock? I’ll email you my address.”

“Seven is fine, Nicole. Thanks.”

Nicole nodded her curly head. “And, Michael, is it okay if I take off a little early today? I don’t have any more deliveries scheduled, and I have a few errands to run.”

“I hope not on my account.” Natalie stood and smoothed her slacks.

“That’s all taken care of. I have a few personal matters.”

“Sure, no problem.” Michael stood and stretched, and Natalie had the satisfaction of noticing that the storm clouds had cleared from his brow.

Nicole remained in the doorway, so Natalie scooted past her. “I’ll look out for your email, Nicole. Thanks, again.”

For the rest of the afternoon, Raine’s homicide occupied Natalie’s thoughts, replacing the mystery of how the pendant got around Sierra’s neck.

Michael had been through the ringer these past six months. She’d remembered how the cops had suspected Katie’s boyfriend, Zane, in her disappearance, and it had wreaked havoc on his life. He had to transfer schools—just like she’d moved away.

She couldn’t imagine what Michael had been through, trying to take care of his daughter while law enforcement had him as their prime suspect in his wife’s murder.

By the time she wrapped up her work, quiet had settled on the second floor of the lab, and she had an hour to go back to her hotel, change, pick up a bottle of wine and make it to Nicole’s place.

She glanced down the hallway toward Michael’s office, the door firmly closed. He hadn’t stopped by on his way out to say good night. Had their discussion this afternoon unsettled him?

When she’d seen him in distress at his window, she couldn’t help herself.

Something about a strong man showing his vulnerable side plucked all her strings.

Her ex-husband had never shown her that side.

Joe didn’t have any demons at all, and at first, she thought that’s what she needed in a partner.

She’d had enough for the two of them, and Joe just couldn’t handle her tormented side.

She didn’t blame him. They’d parted as friends. But she didn’t want a friend as a spouse. She wanted someone who understood her down to the core. Someone with his own darkness to wrestle. Michael had that darkness.

Snorting, she locked her office door. She’d just met a potential wife killer, and she had him pegged as her next spouse.

An hour later, bottle of pinot noir on the seat beside her, Natalie followed her GPS to Nicole’s house. She did a double take when she passed the turnoff to the campsite near the Devil’s Edge Trail.

The location of Nicole’s home defied Natalie’s expectations of a modern condo in the heart of the city. Older homes tended to hug the forest line, unless some developer had come in to rip down an outdated house and put up an expensive cabin with glass walls and wooden decks with hot tubs.