Web of Lies by Brandilyn Collins Page A

him. The last thing he needed was more sights of death in his neighborhood.
    I focused on the scene before me. The potential area for finding more bones stretched wide. The three men were combing and picking through it one square foot at a time. The crewmen, told they could not continue work until the scene was officially cleared — and that could be days — had muttered a few expletives and left. So much for their overtime pay.
    Minutes ticked by, indecision playing tug-of-war in my head. Chelsea and I had a task to do; we couldn’t stand here all day. But neither could I leave, not with more skeleton pieces surfacing by the minute. The sight of those mournful, soil-caked bones rooted me to the pavement.
    I watched Delching work. The man had a lean, compact build and moved with precise motions, craning his neck toward the ground, plucking bones with thumb and forefinger. On the long white sheet the three men continued to piece the body together, one bone at a time. When this onsite work was done, the skeleton would be moved to the morgue. There Harry Fleck would measure certain bones. Shape and size of the pelvis would help determine whether the person was male or female. The skull’s eye sockets, nasal cavity, and lower portion together would lead to a determination of racial ancestry.
    “Look here.” Delching pushed back soil and debris with both hands as Cisneros and Chetterling squatted beside him. I leaned forward, trying to see. “A femur.” He pulled the long leg bone out of the dirt and gently brushed it off. Stanish took it from him, crossed to the white sheet and laid it in place.
    Delching wiped sweat from his face, leaving a smudge of dirt on his jaw. “My guess is, with us finding pieces
this close together, the skeleton was intact. The backhoe broke it apart.”
    I absorbed the news, questions swirling. Who was this person? Why was the body here? And — was the timing of its discovery significant? I thought over the events of the last two days. The 7-Eleven shooting . . . Chelsea’s vision . . . now this. Suspicion niggled in my gut. Three disturbing events in a row. Something told me that two of them were more than coincidence.
    “What do you think?” I asked Chelsea.
    A troubled expression flicked across her face. “I have no idea.”
    “Does it . . . I mean, do you see anything?”
    Annie, what an idiotic question.
    Jenna tilted her head, eyebrows raised, as if she indeed expected some supernatural insight. Chelsea hitched her shoulders. “I’m sorry, I don’t know any more than you do.”
    Jenna spread her hands, then dropped them. “Oh well. It was worth a try.”
    Chelsea offered her a self-conscious smile.
    Tires zinged against pavement. I turned to see a beige car cut to a stop. Adam Bendershil bounded out of the driver’s seat, notebook in hand. The passenger door opened, spewing a photographer with camera.
    Shades of two days ago. “Oh great.” My shoulders slumped. “My favorite reporter is here.”
    Chelsea jerked around. Up swung the camera, straight at us. Click. Click. “Oh.” She ducked. Too late.
    Jenna practically growled and turned a purposeful back to Adam. He made a beeline for me, a man on a mission. His photographer advanced to the end of the runway, snapping photos of the men, the half-pieced skeleton. Anger tightened my shoulders. That was someone’s body lying there, not some object of fascination. Couldn’t he show a little more respect?
    “Annie Kingston.” Adam drew up before me, pen poised over paper. “What can you tell me about the skull?”
    Sure, Adam, what would you like — name, date of birth, social security number? I shot him a withering look. “You know I don’t talk to you.”
    “Oh, come on now, the Bill Bland case was a year and a half ago. How long are you going to hold a petty grudge?”
    Jenna whirled on him. “Leave her alone!”
    Adam held up a hand, feigning surprise. “Whoa. Aren’t we touchy!”
    In my pocket my cell phone