Unspeakable by Laura Griffin Page B

looked away. She chewed on her lower lip and debated the wisdom of accepting help, once again, from a ridiculously attractive man who was practically a reporter. There wasn’t much to debate. It was a bad idea.
    “Come on.” He patted her hand and got out of the car.
    She sighed again. Then she grabbed her purse from the backseat and shoved open the door.
    Her vehicle was a piece of crap. The navigation system inside it was a piece of crap. And she wasn’t up for another challenge tonight. She crossed the parking lot to Troy’s truck, stepped onto the shiny chrome running board, and hoisted herself inside.
    “How’d the autopsy go?” he asked as he fired up the engine.
    She shook her head.
    “Any chance of getting an ID soon?”
    Elaina clenched her teeth as she recalled the ME actually
removing
the skin from the victim’s hand to get a set of prints. It had been so decomposed, it had just slid off like a glove, and Elaina almost had to duck out of the autopsy suite and throw up.
    She swallowed the bile in her throat now. “Nothing confirmed yet. But we recovered some jewelry. A dragonfly pendant her parents had told us about. We’re fairly sure it’s her.”
    “Valerie Monroe?”
    “Yes.”
    Troy pulled onto the highway and headed north, toward the bridge leading off the island. It was getting dark out, and the neon signs were starting to light up at the bars and restaurants lining the road. Tourists crowded the sidewalks, undeterred by some sick freak and his hunting knife.
    “Her parents were at the station house this afternoon,” Elaina said.
    “Valerie’s?”
    “Yeah.” She paused, remembering the woman sitting in that reception room, staring blankly out the window. “I guess no one would give them any news, everyone was avoiding them. Anyway, her father saw my badge and pulled me aside. There wasn’t much I could tell him, but I promised to keep him updated, told him we’re doing everything we can.” A knot formed in Elaina’s chest. “I’ve never felt so inadequate in my life.”
    The truck filled with silence. As they crossed the causeway, Elaina gazed out over the water. The setting sun made it shimmer with gold, but the postcard-perfect scene did nothing for her. She felt flat.
    “Been doing some poking around,” Troy said.
    She looked at him.
    “Some folks in Bay Port remember a rash of break-ins about ten years ago. Someone was rifling through women’s underwear drawers, taking stuff here and there.”
    “Is this on record?” she asked.
    “No one ever called the cops. He wasn’t taking valuables or anything, so I guess it seemed harmless. And maybe the women were embarrassed about it at the time.”
    Elaina shook her head. One of those “harmless” break-ins could have turned tragic if some woman had come home and found a man in her bedroom. Cops had a tendency to shrug off panty raids, but those crimes were often warning signs. It was all about patterns of behavior—persistent, disturbing patterns that got worse over time.
    At least her father believed so. And Big Mac McCord was known for being right. His conclusions about violent offenders were based on hundreds of jailhouse interviews and years of painstaking research.
    Elaina shifted in her seat. Thinking of her dad made her feel anxious. She hadn’t talked to him in weeks and she tried to tell herself it was because they’d both been busy. But she was beginning to feel hurt by his lack of interest in her new job. Somehow she’d always thought that when she finally joined the Bureau, they’d have lots in common. But their relationship was as silent now as it had ever been, maybe even more so.
    Elaina’s mother had been the talker in the family. Julia McCord could go on and on, a mile a minute, in a hyper way that made people uncomfortable. But for all her chatter, she’d never found a way to talk about what really mattered to her—which was one reason Elaina and her dad had been stunned when she’d packed up one