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  Susan and I met near the edge of Westway Canal. Her tanned skin glistened in the sunlight and there were tiny specks of white and yellow plant debris stuck to the sweat on her arms. My own arms were sweating—as well as every other part of my body—and they burned from the dozens of tiny cuts I’d sustained from pushing through blackberry bushes.

  Susan scowled as we glanced out over the water. “Do you think Troy’s in there?”

  “God, I hope not. It would kill his mom.”

  She suggested I call the phone again. I did, but we heard nothing. Next, I called Baylor to see if anyone had seen or heard from Troy. No one had. It had been seven hours since he was discovered missing, and every additional minute that ticked by worried me more and more.

  I wiped a stream of sweat from my forehead and walked across the field to meet Takecia and Amy, who were approaching our location from the south.

  “Anything?” I asked when we were close enough to hear each other.

  They shook their heads in unison.

  “Nothing at all,” Amy said. “We didn’t hear the phone and we didn’t see any evidence to indicate any human being had been out here in forever.”

  I scanned the area, wondering if we should bring metal detectors out here. Susan was still at the edge of the canal, but she was now on her phone. After about a minute, she pulled it from her ear and walked over to meet us back at the original pinging spot.

  “They pinged it again and it’s still within this area,” she said, waving her arm around.

  I pointed toward the trees. “That’s the only place we haven’t checked.”

  “Let’s do it.” Susan shoved her phone in her pocket and set off toward the ditch. I moved about ten feet to her right and Takecia and Amy fanned out farther to my right. Keeping a consistent distance between us, we all jumped over the ditch at the same time and began pushing our way through the thick underbrush. I stopped intermittently and called Troy’s phone, but we didn’t hear anything.

  It took us about twenty minutes to push through the initial line of trees, which were about fifty feet deep, and we found ourselves in an open field that was overgrown with wild weeds and bushes. Thistles grew in abundance here and many were taller than me. It was nearly impossible to see the ground at our feet.

  “If his phone is on silent, we’ll never find it,” I said as we all stopped and brushed leaves and picker branches from our clothes. I had to raise my voice so Amy, who was farthest to my right, could hear me. “The foliage is just too thick. You could hide an army in this field.”

  Susan high-stepped it through the weeds—pushing large stems down with her boots—and made her way to where I stood. Beads of perspiration poured down her face. “Maybe we should walk the tree line and look for signs and tracks that would indicate a person came through here.” She swiped at the sweat. “As thick as these weeds are, we should notice something.”

  I nodded and stared up at the bright sky. It had to be close to two o’clock and going on eight hours missing now. If we didn’t find something in the daylight, we’d certainly never find anything at night. “Maybe we need to get some townspeople involved,” I said, idly watching some birds circle overhead. “It would take a couple hundred people to search this field thoroughly.”

  “Say the word and I’ll sound the alarm.”

  I started to say the word when something dawned on me. “Oh, no…that’s not good.”

  “What is it?” Susan asked, following my gaze. She suddenly gasped when she saw the circling birds. “Buzzards!”

  CHAPTER 19

  My heart sank as I rushed through the tall weeds, using the circling buzzards above as my guide. I ignored the slapping of the thick weeds against my face and the sting from the thistles on my arms. Susan, Amy, and Takecia ran with me, pushing the weeds apart with their arms in an attempt to see farther. I fumbled with my phone as I ran and called Troy’s phone again.

  Amy shot off to the right and Susan went straight ahead. I veered left and Takecia was between Susan and me.

  “There!” Amy shouted, pointing in the direction she was running. “I hear a phone ringing.”

  We all changed course and followed Amy. Susan slammed into Amy’s backside when she suddenly pulled up and hollered that we had a body.

  I slowed down and drew to a stop when I reached Amy’s side. There, face down on the unforgiving ground, was the body of a young boy who appeared to be Troy’s age.

  “Oh, my God, no,” I said, falling to my knees beside the boy. I pressed my index and middle fingers against his carotid artery. He was cold to the touch and there was no heartbeat. I reached for his hand and tested his fingers gently. They were stiff. He’d been dead for hours, probably since last night. I smashed the button on my phone to call Troy’s number again and the phone in the boy’s pocket started ringing. “Damn it…his poor mom.”

  Susan put her hand on my shoulder. “Want me to talk to her?”

  I stood to my feet and glanced at the ground around Troy’s body. There were breaks in the grass heading southeast that represented a drag path. It was faint, but discernible enough that I didn’t need Gretchen Verdin pointing it out to me.

  I turned to Amy. “Can you stay with the body while I get my crime scene kit?”

  Brushing her blonde hair out of her eyes, she nodded and glanced at Susan, who stood staring at me. I blinked and apologized to Susan.

  “Yes…please, I’d love it if you spoke to Mrs. Gandy.”

  Susan asked Takecia to wait with Amy and then Susan followed me as I tracked the drag marks through the weeds.

  “Are you okay, Clint?” she asked when we were out of earshot of Amy and Takecia.

  “I’m fine.” My mind was preoccupied with trying to figure out who could’ve killed this kid—if indeed he had been murdered. I hadn’t noticed any obvious wounds on the back of his body and there was no blood along the drag trail. What if this wasn’t related to the man in the morgue at all? What if it was an accidental overdose or alcohol poisoning? Back when I was a homicide detective in the City of La Mort, I’d worked a number of such death cases where the friends of the victims had panicked and either dumped the bodies or abandoned the place of death. Of course, Troy’s mother claimed he didn’t have any friends. If she was correct, I could rule that scenario out immediately.

  The drag trail zigzagged through the patch of trees and the ditch, ending at the edge of the shell road east of where our vehicles were parked.

  “That explains why I couldn’t find anything along the ditch west of here,” I said when Susan and I jumped the ditch. “The person who dumped his body stayed on the gravel road.”

  Susan nodded her agreement. “I’ll wait here while you get your stuff. Afterward, I’ll notify Beth Gandy.”

  I frowned and shook my head before hurrying toward my Tahoe. No parent should have to endure such horror. Since it was my case, I knew I should be the one to tell Mrs. Gandy, but I needed time to process the scene and I didn’t want her to suffer with uncertainty any longer than she had to. Besides, Susan was much better at delivery than I was, and it would probably be easier on Beth.

  Once I reached my Tahoe, I backed it to where Susan was waiting and dragged my crime scene box out of the back cargo area. She gave me a brief kiss on the cheek and told me to wish her luck. It was the worst part of our job, and none of us relished death notifications.

  When I returned to Troy’s body, I pulled out my camera and began taking pictures. Takecia left to assist Susan and Baylor with anything that came up at the house, and Amy stayed behind to help me process the scene.

  After I’d documented everything and bagged Troy’s hands, I set the body bag on one side of his body. “Mind giving me a hand?” I asked Amy.

  “Sure.” She pulled on some gloves and grabbed his feet while I grabbed his hands.

  Together, we carefully turned him onto his back. I immediately saw the ligature mark across his throat. His eyes were half closed and his tongue was sticking out. I pushed
back each eyelid. Petechiae (tiny hemorrhages) were present on the eyeballs.

  “He was strangled,” I said.

  Amy reached for my camera. “Want me to take a picture while you hold the eyelids open?”

  I nodded and thanked her when she’d snapped the photographs. I checked Troy for other injuries, but there were none.

  After calling the coroner’s office to have them send someone to transport the body, I pulled out evidence bags and collected his property. His wallet was still on him and there were a few bills inside, along with his driver’s license, a school identification card, an insurance card, and a raffle ticket from his school. There was also a tiny key in his front left pocket, but there were no numbers on it. Whatever it opened, it couldn’t be that important.

  Once those items were bagged, I reached in his front right pant pocket and removed his cell phone. Saying a silent prayer it wasn’t locked, I pressed the Home button twice to open it—it worked! I checked his phone contacts and his mother showed up in his Favorites file. I then checked his recent calls. His mom’s number appeared dozens of times.

  I swiped out of that screen and then clicked on his Messages icon. My heart leaped a little when I saw a string of text messages between him and a contact called “Sin”, and they were at the top of the list. They were all from last night. I opened them and read from the beginning:

  9:02 – Troy: my mom just went to bed

  9:02 – Sin: Good!

  9:04 – Troy: gonna wait to make sure shes sleep

  9:04 – Sin: K

  10:11 – Troy: on my way

  10:12 – Sin: Yay! Can’t wait to see you!

  10:35 – Sin: Where are you?

  10:43 – Sin: Hey…

  10:55 – Sin: Troy!!!

  11:16 – Sin: Are you still coming???

  11:49 – Sin: Going to bed. :-(

  I handed the phone to Amy. “What do you think?”

  Her brow furrowed as she read the messages. “It looks like he was going to meet someone.”

  “And they weren’t very far away, because Sin expected him there within about twenty minutes.”

  Amy shuddered slightly as she pointed to Troy’s last message and the one from Sin wondering where he was. “He died between ten-eleven and ten-thirty-five.”

  “Or he was at least incapacitated between those times.” I recorded the phone number associated with Sin’s text messages in my notebook and then searched through his pictures, hoping he had captured something relating to his murder. No such luck.

  I checked the dates and times on the images. The last picture he’d taken was of a girl with a mesh backpack sitting at what appeared to be a school cafeteria table. There were other kids milling around, but they were blurred out. The focus was on the girl smiling back at him. I turned the picture so Amy could see it. “I bet this is Sin.”

  “And I bet he was on his way to sin with her when he was killed.”

  CHAPTER 20

  6:18 p.m.

  Baylor parked his patrol cruiser on the side of the street and shoved the gearshift in park. He had stood beside Chief Wilson three hours earlier while she delivered the horrifying news about Troy Gandy to Mrs. Gandy. He had watched as the woman fell to her knees in a heap and wept uncontrollably. It made him think of his own mother, who had years ago begged him not to join the military. She’d once revealed that her greatest fear was having someone knock on her door to inform her he’d been killed in combat. That revelation stayed with him throughout his years of service and it haunted him.

  Mrs. Gandy was reacting exactly as he’d imagined his own mother would react if she ever received that knock at the door, and it was more than he could take. Overcome with emotion, he had inadvertently dropped to the ground with her and held her as tight as he could. He might’ve even called her mom in his sobbing attempt at comforting her.

  Thinking back to that moment caused his eyes to blur and a tear found its way down his cheek. He quickly swiped at it with his palm, angry at himself for showing emotion on the job. Embarrassed beyond words, he had apologized profusely to Chief Wilson afterward, but she had told him it was okay.

  “This job can be extremely sad at times,” she’d said in a comforting voice. “I just hope you never get so used to it that it stops affecting you. Emotions and feelings are a good thing. It only becomes a problem when you stop feeling anything at all.”

  Confused, he had asked her if she’d lost the ability to feel. She hadn’t shed a tear as she calmly assisted Mrs. Gandy and her face had been void of emotion.

  She had smiled and shook her head. “I’ve felt—and still feel—a lot of pain in this job,” she’d admitted. “I keep it inside while I’m in front of the victims and, if need be, I cry about it later when I’m all alone.”

  Baylor took a deep breath and blew it out forcefully. He didn’t have time to cry right now. He had some work to do.

  While Chief Wilson was attending the autopsy with Detective Wolf, he and Amy had been tasked with canvassing the neighborhoods in the area in search of a girl named Sin. It was a weird name, but Chief Wilson had sent a picture of the young girl to their phones and delivered a simple message; “Find her!”

  After grabbing his notebook and pen, Baylor stepped out of his patrol car and shined his flashlight at the street sign. It was Dire Lane. He made a note of the name and the time, and then proceeded to knock on doors. He showed the picture to people at the first six houses on either side of the street, but no one knew her. One lady said the girl looked familiar, but she couldn’t say for sure.

  “Do you have a better picture?” she’d asked.

  When Baylor told her no, she’d frowned and said she wished she could help, but she wasn’t sure where she’d seen the girl, or even if it was her.

  Baylor moved his car to the second block and strode up a long concrete driveway and rang the doorbell at the next house down the street.

  A man answered and Baylor went through the motions, asking the man if he’d ever seen the girl before. The man pulled some reading glasses from his pocket and pulled the phone close to his face.

  “She looks young.” He turned his head and hollered over his shoulder. “Kegan! Come here, son.”

  A few seconds later a short kid with dark hair appeared from a back hallway. He approached the door with apprehension when he saw Baylor in uniform.

  “What’s up, Dad?”

  The man handed him Baylor’s phone. “Do you know this girl? She looks familiar.”

  “Yeah,” the boy said, seemingly relieved Baylor wasn’t there for him. “That’s Burton’s adopted sister.”

  “Do you know her name?” Baylor asked, his pen poised over his notepad and his heart thumping with excitement. This was the first major case he’d been involved with and he might’ve just cracked it.

  “Yeah, it’s Cindy. Cindy Vincent.” The kid cracked a wise-ass smile. “She’s not really adopted. Burton just says so to piss her off.”

  Baylor stifled a chuckle. “Where do they live?”

  Kegan gave Baylor back his phone and shot a thumb toward the back of the street. “Third to last on the right,” he said. “Is Cindy finally going to jail for annoying Burton?”

  “Not quite, big man,” Baylor said, resisting the urge to call him “little” due to his height—or lack thereof. “Thanks a bunch, though. It’s much appreciated.”

  As Baylor drove to the back of the street, he called Chief Wilson and told her what he’d found.

  “Good work!” she said. “Make contact with her and let her know the Chief of Detectives is on his way.”

  Before Baylor could answer, he heard Detective Wolf’s voice in the background saying, “Stop calling me that! My name’s Clint.”

  He ended the call and made a mental note to call him Clint from now on. He didn’t want to piss the man off. He knew there was a lot he could learn from him and he didn’t want to start off on Clint’s bad side.

  Baylor pulled into the driveway of the third to las
t house on the right and stepped from his patrol cruiser. He didn’t know the girl’s connection to the case, so he kept his hand close to his holster and surveyed his surroundings as he approached the raised house. When he’d first rolled into Louisiana he’d asked why so many houses were built high off the ground, and he’d been given a simple answer: floods.

  He strode up the flight of wooden steps and knocked on the door, then stepped to one side. A man appeared in the doorway and smiled.

  “Hello, officer, what can I do for you?”

  After introducing himself and learning that the man’s name was Rick Vincent, Baylor explained he was there to make contact with his daughter, Cindy. “Our Chief of Detectives, Clint Wolf, will be by shortly to question her.”

  The man scowled. “Cindy? Are you sure you don’t mean Burton?”

  “I’m certain,” Baylor said. “It’s about her boyfriend.”

  “Her boyfriend, eh?” Rick’s face hardened a little. “Please come in, Officer Rice. I’ll call Cindy down and we can wait for Chief Wolf together. I think I might also have a few questions for Cindy.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Twenty-eight minutes later…

  I parked my Tahoe behind Baylor’s patrol cruiser and hurried up the steps to the Vincent home. My mind was racing. How did this young girl factor into Troy’s murder? The coroner had ruled the cause of death as asphyxiation due to ligature strangulation and the manner of death was a homicide. The ligature marks were consistent with quarter-inch wire or rope of some sort, but the marks were deep, which indicated some amount of force was used. There had been a little blood within the ligature marks, and the doctor thought a piece of rough wire was more likely the murder weapon, rather than a piece of rope.