LITMIR.BIZ

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was his job.

      So he watched as the CSI team members continued to find more and more body parts, carefully laying each part on the long, unfurled rectangular cloth beside the somber medical examiner. From all appearances—at least to his limited range of expertise in this particular field—time had been the butcher rather than some overzealous serial killer trying to bolster his sagging self-esteem by hacking apart people.

      Rather than walk away and get back to the owner as he’d intended, Malloy retraced his steps to the medical examiner.

      “Any chance that those overly observant construction workers ogling you over there might have stumbled across some old Native American burial ground while plowing up the ground with their bulldozer?” he asked her.

      Kristin looked up to see if the cocky detective was joking. But the expression on his face, while exceedingly friendly, was apparently serious.

      She turned back to her work. “If that were the case, Detective, it was a pretty exclusive burial ground. So exclusive that I highly doubt it existed.”

      “Again, please,” Malloy requested. “In English this time.”

      Impatient, Kristin rocked back on her heels. In order to be able to look at him, she shaded her eyes. “The bodies that have been dug up so far all belonged to women. While there were some tribes that were predominantly matriarchal in nature, I’ve never heard of any of them segregating their dead.” And then she shrugged as she added a coda. “Anyway, these bodies aren’t really that old.”

      Malloy’s eyes swept over the various piles of bones. They looked dried and, in some cases, splintered. “Could have fooled me,” he murmured.

      “I’m sure a good many things could fool you, Detective, but I don’t have time to discuss that,” she said, getting back to work. “I’d like to finish up here before the turn of the next century.”

      Rather than take offense, Malloy merely shook his head. “That was cold, Doc,” he told her.

      Kristin felt herself bristling. She didn’t like the note of familiarity in his voice. “That was accurate, Detective Cavanaugh.”

      He didn’t back off, the way she’s hoped. Instead, he said, “Call me Malloy. All beautiful women do.”

      At a loss as to how to respond or how to put this man in his place, Kristin retreated. Sighing deeply, she went back to ignoring him. She turned her attention to tagging body parts.

      “Are you sure they didn’t unearth some kind of a cemetery when they broke ground over here?” Malloy pressed. There seemed to be just too many body parts for anything but a cemetery.

      Kristin raised her eyes to look up at him just for a moment. She didn’t bother hiding her disdain. “You have trouble understanding the word ‘no,’ Detective? Or is it that you’re just not accustomed to hearing it?”

      He didn’t answer her.

      He didn’t have to.

      The grin that found its way to his lips did it for him.

      Kristin bit off a few choice words that rose to her own lips. This wasn’t the time to get distracted or get embroiled in a verbal exchange that wasn’t going to lead anywhere. Especially when what she had before her could very well be the defining moment of her entire career. She didn’t have time to get sidetracked by a sweet-talking, sinfully good-looking, dark-haired detective who obviously thought that all he had to do was glance at a woman with those bone-melting, seductive green eyes of his and she automatically became his.

      Her bone-melting days were definitely in the past.

      Long in the past.

      So rather than tell this man what she thought of him, Kristin restrained herself and asked what to her seemed to be an entirely logical question.

      “Don’t you have work to do, Detective? Or has the department taken to paying its detectives to stand around like obtrusive lead statues that do nothing but get in the way?”

      “Is there a problem here?” Sean Cavanaugh asked, coming up behind the unit’s newest—and in his estimation, brightest—medical examiner.

      He’d interviewed and hired her himself after Jacobs, the department’s last medical examiner, felt compelled to accept a better position in the private industry. Outside of proposing to his second wife, he felt it was one of the best decisions he’d ever made.

      “Just asking the doc here some general questions pertaining to this boneyard that’s being unearthed even as we speak.” He flashed a wide grin in her direction. “She’s giving me the benefit of her rather droll point of view.”

      Sean looked from his nephew to the young woman he felt was capable of great things. He knew all about Malloy’s reputation. He’d raised several sons like that himself and knew firsthand that it took a while for the kinks to work themselves out. Malloy was a good cop and ultimately an even better human being. The name of the game was patience.

      Sean, in turn, smiled at the young woman between his nephew and him. “I’m sure that Dr. Alberghetti will let us all know when she’s had time to formulate a scientific opinion regarding this unfortunate treasure trove of death that the construction crew stumbled across.”

      Easygoing almost to a fault, Brian Cavanaugh’s somewhat slightly older brother had just finished his sentence as a teeth-jarring, crowing sound pierced the air again.

      The closest thing to a dirty look passed over Sean’s face as he glanced over his shoulder. “Doesn’t that blasted bird ever just stop making noise and go to sleep? That’s the third time he’s crowed since we got here. Isn’t he supposed to be tuned in to some inner clock or something?”

      “I don’t know about an inner clock, but it’s too bad that he can’t talk,” Malloy commented, his eyes sweeping over the immediate area, then taking in the weather-battered trailer in the distance, as well. He had to be getting back to the unfriendly owner. “Maybe then he could give us some insight on what happened here.”

      “He wouldn’t be able to,” Kristin said flatly, not bothering to look up. “Roosters live about ten years. Fifteen at most. These bodies all appear to be older than that.”

      Taken aback, Malloy looked at her quizzically. “You actually know how long roosters live?” He raised his eyes to meet his uncle’s. “Wow, she’s just a regular font of miscellaneous information, isn’t she?”

      Sean smiled in response. “She reads a lot in her downtime,” he told his nephew. “Although there isn’t going to be very much downtime in her immediate future, I’m afraid.”

      “She also has excellent hearing,” Kristin interjected without pausing what she was doing.

      “My apologies, Kristin,” Sean told her, willingly taking the blame. “That was rude.”

      This time Kristin did stop what she was doing. When she spoke, her words were addressed only to the older man, who she considered to be her mentor despite the fact that he had no medical degree.

      “You could never be rude, sir. He, however,” she went on, casting one dismissive glance in Malloy’s direction, “is an entirely different story.”

      “Ouch.” Malloy pretended to wince. “Moving right along—”

      “Please, do,” Kristin murmured just audibly enough to be overheard.

      Roy Harrison picked that moment to approach the trio, a dark, impatient scowl all but embedded on his long, thin face. “Hey, when is she going to be finished?” he demanded, irritably waving his hand at Kristin.

      Kristin was about to speak up and put the sour-looking man in his place when she heard someone else doing it for her.

      “When she’s done,” Malloy informed the disgruntled new owner of the nursery in no uncertain terms, his tone far removed from his usual friendly cadence.

      Kristin

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