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D oreen carried the last croissant back home, really appreciating that Richie had contacted the captain. She’d also laughed at the truth behind his comment about only asking people who would give him the answer he wanted. That was true of most people. And the fact that he recognized it, whether with a note of humor or not, she really appreciated that he at least was open enough to say it.

She checked her phone and still had no word from Mack. When she got home, now at least ten o’clock in the morning, she transferred the laundry and did a few things. Yet she was getting antsy because Mack still hadn’t contacted her. She didn’t want anybody having a change of heart about letting her work on a cold case. It really bothered her to think that bones were sitting in the coroner’s office all this time, and nobody had gotten much further with it.

Surely every family needed closure. She’d heard horror stories about the number of unsolved cases in the US, and it was probably the same in Canada as well. Yet she’d never seen or heard the actual statistics. Still, it was shocking to hear just how many unsolved cases were out there, how many unidentified bodies were buried in unmarked graves, all because nobody knew who they were—complete families in some cases. It just broke her heart.

She put on tea out of habit, then realized she was already too full to drink more. By the time the laundry was done, she sat here, twiddling her thumbs. When her phone rang, she jumped. It was Mack. “Hey.”

“Sorry, it’s been pretty rough already this morning,” he explained.

She heard the fatigue in his tone that she hadn’t really expected. “Something happened?”

“Just the usual,” he muttered. “Anyway, I’m about to send you the file. If nothing else, that should keep you busy for a little bit.”

“So you have another case?”

“A trial,” he snapped. “And, yes, I do have another case, but it’s not one that you can help with.”

“No, of course not. I’m only good enough for the cold cases.”

Silence followed for a moment. “What?”

“Never mind. Never mind. You’re tired, and you need to focus on what you need to focus on.”

“That I do, but it sounds as if we need to talk.”

“No, we don’t.” She laughed. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Interesting that you did say it though.”

“Not really, just me sitting here, anxiously waiting for you to send the file. Sorry about that.”

After a moment of silence, he said, “Fine, but we’ll pick it up later.”

She winced. “I think we’re just fine without picking it up.”

“Maybe, but you’re the one who brought it up.”

“I did bring it up, but then I apologized for bringing it up and told you to forget about it.”

“Aha, and now you just sound guilty.” When she gasped in outrage, he chuckled. “Now that sounds more like you.”

She groaned. “Thank you for sending the file. It’s been bothering me that this poor case has never really gotten anywhere.”

“I don’t have much to send you. We haven’t had a chance to bring this one up out of the cold case files,” he explained, “so I don’t know if the digital file will be anything you can work with or not. Yet the captain is happy to let you have at it, so take that as a huge compliment.”

“I will. You have a better morning.” She quickly disconnected and was dancing with joy, now that she had the file.

And, with that, she opened up the document and started transferring notes to her notepad. There wasn’t very much. In fact, there was a horribly small amount of information. So little that it made her heart ache. She read through what was here. The body had been found in a garden—a toddler, a female, approximately eighteen months old, with signs of abuse. As she sat back and looked at the short paragraphs of information and the few photos, she realized that this case might have more of an effect on her than she really expected.

Out of all the cases she had dealt with, anything involving children was always something that hurt her more than the others. Plus, to see a child who obviously had suffered prior to death was difficult. Then the unthinkable reality that nobody had any idea who she was made Doreen’s heart ache. This was somebody’s daughter. How could a child live for eighteen months and not be missed?

Doreen sat back, willing herself not to cry as she looked at the pitiful little bits of info they had. Had someone just buried this child in the garden? Or at least that’s where the child’s bones were found. The autopsy report noted some animal damage to the bones too. Surely none of that was okay. Were the bones so old that there really was no better option for burial? Maybe a lot of the damage occurred after death. Regardless it all bothered her.

That these bones had only been found when the garden bed had been turned over was worrisome too. The property had sold numerous times since the small bones had been discovered, so numerous residents had occupied the house over the years, while the bones remained undisturbed in the nearby garden. So, Doreen would need to start at the beginning.

She read a little bit more, finding that the police couldn’t locate the owners of the house around the date and time when the body had been potentially laid to rest, per forensic testing. That left her with a lot more unknowns. She sat back, realizing just how much these cases depended on people remembering correctly events that happened decades earlier, potential witnesses who were quickly dying before she could get to some of these cold cases. Some people may have answers but may not even know it. These people would help if they knew that help was needed. Sadly, in most cases, Doreen couldn’t get to these people fast enough, particularly the age of her potential witnesses in this case.

She sighed, her heart torn, as she looked at a photo of a small pile of bones. “It’s all right, sweetheart,” she muttered. “I know they call you Baby Jane, but we will find your legal name for you. And hopefully we can find out what happened to you.”

The fact that this toddler had been in an unmarked grave and that there was damage to her body—aside from the teeth marks of animals—suggested murder. Yet Doreen also knew that everybody else wouldn’t be quite so quick to judge. As she looked at the file, a note on the bottom stated wrongful death . Beside that, another note popped out. The cause of death could not be determined .

However, the report mentioned that excessive force had been used to leave the body in the state it was in. So, most likely, death was caused by physical trauma—beatings. She frowned as she thought about that. The child’s age was determined to be eighteen months. With birth registries in town as a logical resource, this would still be a daunting task, without a name or an exact date of how long ago the child had been buried in the garden.

She couldn’t exactly go through every registered birth and follow up to confirm each one lived past eighteen months, yet a part of her felt as if she may need to do just that. She also knew that would take her forever. It did cross her mind that maybe that was on the captain’s mind when he told her that she was welcome to pursue this one. Anything to keep her out of their way while they finished catching up on all the current paperwork. And yet she was up for the challenge.

As she looked at the small photo of the bones again, she realized it wasn’t so much that she was up for the challenge because of the captain or because of any time frames he might want to clamp down on. She was up for it because of the little girl. If nothing else, Doreen wanted to find out what her name was, what happened to her, and if justice could be served. She wanted to find out who was responsible for her death, before it was too late for them to pay the price. This child had already paid the ultimate price herself.