“No one’s coming up that rock face,” Alex said from behind.

  “Unless he’s a climber.” A long shot, but Jackson couldn’t rule out the possibility even though it was remote.

  He heard the sound of their drone taking flight and looked up to see it whiz overhead. Riley was an avid video gamer so operating a drone was really in his wheelhouse.

  “Let’s walk the rest of the perimeter.” Jackson took a winding path across the yard to a large brick patio with a sliding door on the house’s lower level. “Don’t much like this door. It’s way too easy to breach.”

  Alex didn’t respond but took a few steps closer to the foundation and squatted near a flower bed. “You should see this.”

  Everyone on the team possessed strong scouting skills, but Alex took it to a much higher level. Jackson joined him near a large footprint in the soil. Not hardly Maggie’s shoe size and definitely not the petite Daria’s, either. Alex got up to look around the area, and Jackson tried to see it from his teammate’s Recon Marine viewpoint.

  “Sprinklers ran recently,” he said. “The footprint was made after that or the water would’ve obscured the edges.”

  “I heard the sprinklers come on at five this morning. Whoever made this print was out here after that.” Jackson’s gut knotted as he came to his feet and checked the slider to be sure it was still locked. “I don’t see any other sign of an intruder, do you?”

  Alex shook his head. “He must’ve come from the front yard. Maybe we’ll see something on the west side.”

  “What do you think he was doing here?”

  “If it was me, I’d be doing recon. But then I’m always doing recon.” Alex chuckled.

  Jackson found nothing humorous in their discovery. “We need to find a way to secure this patio door.”

  “Best way to do that is for one of us to take the couch down here tonight.”

  “You volunteering?”

  “It’s a cinch that you won’t be leaving Maggie’s side, so yeah, I can do it.” He eyed Jackson. “About that. How long did you and Maggie date?”

  “Nice try.” Jackson shook his head. “Let’s finish the perimeter and get Riley over here to cast this print.”

  As a former police officer, Riley was in charge of forensic collections at non-crime scene locations, but Gage was currently in the market to hire a forensic team member. Not an easy task when most forensic techs didn’t get injured on the job, and Gage was sticking with that criteria for all team members. Something Jackson and the others appreciated.

  Jackson continued along the foundation, looking for evidence.

  “I will get it out of you, you know?” Alex said.

  “I know,” Jackson replied. “But I’m gonna make you work for it.”

  He climbed the incline but struck out in locating any additional signs of a visitor. “You mind tasking Riley with casting that print? I want to talk to Maggie about it.”

  “She’s gonna freak.”

  Would she? “She’s a strong woman. She’ll be able to handle it.”

  “I don’t envy you, man.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “With the personal connection, there’s got to be a lot of additional stress for you.”

  Jackson stared him down. “More like pressure to find this guy before he hurts her.”

  Alex nodded. “After I talk to Riley, I’ll hike out to the road to see if I can find any fresh tracks.”

  “Sounds like a good plan.” Jackson left Alex behind and took the front steps two at a time. Eryn met him at the door. She was being overly cautious, but he appreciated her care and concern.

  Bobby was just packing up his supplies from the coffee table. Maggie got up from the sofa, a drawing in her hand, and joined him near the entrance. Without a word, she handed over the paper.

  The face looking at Jackson seemed innocuous enough, and he couldn’t believe this guy could’ve bested him at the truck. Round face, glasses, and jaw covered with a thick beard, he looked like he could teach at Maggie’s college or even be a student, not someone who would murder a woman. The only thing that would’ve made the sketch more valuable was if his hair wasn’t hidden under a hoodie, and they could add hair color to his description.

  “This’s him, huh?” he said.

  She nodded. “Not very scary looking, right?”

  “No, but you can’t let that make you relax.” He met her gaze and held it. “You—more than anyone—know what he’s capable of doing.”

  She shuddered, touching her bruised neck, and he instantly regretted his statement. He’d never been one to pull any punches, but maybe he should try to be less blunt with Maggie. She seemed to understand what she was up against now, and he could try backing off a little. If he saw signs of her letting up, he could start being more direct again.

  Bobby tentatively crossed the room. “Let me know if you want to make any changes, and I’ll be glad to come back out.”

  “Thank you,” Maggie said.

  Eryn walked him to the door and secured the lock behind him.

  Jackson laid the sketch on the hall table, his focus on Maggie. “You don’t have a gardener or anyone who would’ve come out here this morning, do you?”

  “No. Why?”

  “We found a footprint in the flower bed by the patio. It was made after the sprinklers ran this morning.”

  “He was here? Today?” She twisted her hands together.

  “Him or someone else,” Jackson said to try to ease her concern, but the lingering fear in her expression told him he didn’t succeed. “Don’t worry about that access point, though. Alex will bunk down by the lower-level door tonight.”

  She laid her hand on his arm, and her touch sent a jolt of emotions racing through his body. His attraction to her hadn’t cooled one bit in six years. Not a drop. Not a pinpoint. It remained on high octane, and he had to admit he loved feeling this alive again. He didn’t realize how emotionally dead he was since they broke up.

  She smiled up at him, and he forgot everything. Forgot his defenses. Forgot the promise to himself to protect her without getting involved. Let it all go in favor of enjoying the soft, warm smile that replaced his concern with an awareness of her as a woman. Her curves. Her silky skin. Her full lips, soft, and ready for kissing. He knew the feel of them. The touch. Years ago. He wanted more than the memory now. Couldn’t have it.

  What are you doing, man, other than torturing yourself?

  He forced himself to look away.

  She squeezed his arm and removed her hand. “I’m so thankful you’re here. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “Cook less,” he said to lighten the mood and forget how his heart continued to betray his common sense.

  “It’s the least I can do for you.” She exhaled loudly as if the touch affected her too. “So what happens next?”

  Perfect. Move back to what they should be talking about. “Riley’s finishing the drone flyover. We’ll review that footage while he casts the footprint.”

  “What good will a cast do?”

  “Every shoeprint is sort of like a fingerprint,” Eryn said, giving Jackson a pointed look.

  He totally forgot she was in the room with them. If her look meant anything, it said she saw his personal reaction to Maggie. Eryn was too polite to mention it now, but she would say something later. That, coupled with Alex’s earlier comments, told Jackson that he had to do a better job of focusing on the investigation and Maggie’s protection. If word got back to Gage that Jackson lost focus of his job when he was with Maggie, Gage might pull him from her detail, and he couldn’t live with that.

  Case in point—the shoeprint. That’s what he needed to focus on. “Two people can wear the same brand and style of a shoe, but the wear pattern on the bottom will be unique for each person. This could also be an unusual style carried only by select vendors, and that could allow us to figure out where he bought it.”

  “And all of that could lead to your attacker’s identity,” Eryn added.

  “Once Riley is finished with those tasks,” Jackson continued. “He’ll head over to the Summit neighborhood and take an aerial look there, too. That way we can plan our best defense for the day.”

  Maggie frowned. “In other words, I won’t be heading out to Summit until you have a plan.”

  He nodded. “I wish we could move faster, but caution is the name of the game.”

  5

  Jackson had never been in a morgue, but he wasn’t surprised to find a sterile and clinical-looking room. Big stainless-steel sinks lined one wall and another wall was filled with lockers. Two stainless tables took up the middle of the room, and the bones recovered last night were laid out in the shape of a body. But even Jackson, with his limited anatomy experience, could see many of them were missing.

  Dr. Owing stood by the table, her hair spikier today and her eyes bloodshot. She wore a clear plastic face shield, latex gloves, and a lab coat.

  Maggie crossed to the table and set her tote bag on the floor. Jackson followed but hung back to observe. The last thing he wanted to do was interfere with their important work.

  “The bullet.” Dr. Owing held up an evidence bag.

  “It did survive the fire, then.” Jackson stepped closer. So much for restraining himself and hanging back.

  Dr. Owing nodded. “I’ve been told by a gun enthusiast who works here that it was jacketed with a copper alloy.”

  “May I look at it?” Jackson asked.

  She handed over the bag.

  He held it up to the large light above the table and turned the bag to get a good view of all sides. “Appears to be in pretty good shape.”

  “If a gun is recovered,” Maggie said. “Then Nate’s team should be able to match this bullet’s rifling to it.”

  He stared at her in surprise. He didn’t expect her to understand that all bullets fired from a gun would have the same rifling marks, and no two guns created the same bullet lands and grooves.

  “Don’t look so surprised.” Her eyes crinkled. “As a forensic anthropologist, I often have to identify the cause of damage to bones. Bullets are a big part of that. So big, that I took several classes at our local firing range to become more familiar with handling and firing guns.”

  Jackson would do well to remember that the woman he was looking at wasn’t the Maggie he once knew. Shooting guns? He never expected that from her. She’d changed, and so had he.

  He gave the evidence bag to the doctor and stepped back again. The door opened, and Nate entered the room. He nodded his greeting as he joined them at the table.

  “Bullet.” Dr. Owing held out the bullet to Nate.

  Jackson was glad to see he gave it careful study. “This looks like it’s in good enough shape to do some comparisons. If we recover a weapon, that is. If not, at least we can positively confirm this man died from a gunshot wound to the head.”

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that’s the cause of death,” Dr. Owing said. “He could have died of smoke inhalation or other fire-related causes. Without organs to evaluate, I can’t declare the bullet as his actual cause of death. I can rule the death suspicious, though.”

  Maggie took a ruler from her bag and cleaned it with the disinfectant wipes at the table. Moving to the skull, she rested it against a circular hole. “I measured this last night, but I wanted to double-check that the hole was made from a small caliber like the recovered bullet.”

  “Too bad you can’t dial it down to the actual caliber,” Nate said.

  Maggie looked up. “Sadly, we can’t now, but a current study discovered that the density of skull bones affects the size of bullet holes made in the skull. So with further research on bone density and diameter of the entry wound, we may be able to pinpoint the caliber in the future.”

  “That would be an amazing advance,” Nate said.

  Maggie nodded and shifted her attention to Dr. Owing. “Our first priority is to ID the victim. Have the dental x-rays been done?”

  Dr. Owing nodded. “I’ve emailed the images to our forensic odonatologist who’s been working the fire. He’ll compare them to the films for the two missing men. We should hear back soon and may have an ID for John Doe in only a few hours.”

  “And if that doesn’t pan out, can you collect DNA from the bones?” Nate asked.

  “May be possible,” Maggie said, tapping her finger on the table. “But I wouldn’t hold my breath. Usually we can get good DNA from bones, but when it’s extracted from burnt bone fragments, it can be highly degraded. That would make an amplification of genetic markers difficult or even impossible. And heavily burnt bones are prone to contamination with external DNA.”

  “That’s a no then?” Jackson asked.

  “No, it’s a maybe with long odds.” She set down the ruler. “I have a friend who’s having success with MPS—Massively Parallel Sequencing—in her DNA work with burnt bones, and we could send her a sample to process. No guarantees, but it might work.”

  Jackson looked at Nate. “Is that something your DNA lab is doing?”

  “Shoot, I don’t know.”

  “I would highly doubt any criminal forensic lab is using MPS,” Maggie said. “They’ve been slow to adopt the process.”

  “If it works, why not do it?” Nate asked.

  Maggie rested her hands on the table. “First, it’s slow. The currently accepted procedure takes six to eight hours to obtain twenty CODIS markers from a DNA sample. MPS technology produces ten times the data but takes at least twenty-four hours to do so. And then, practice standardization would be an issue if MPS was introduced in a court of law. However, in this case we’re only looking to ID John Doe, not discover the killer’s identity, so the courts are irrelevant.”

  Jackson thought he caught most of what she was explaining, but the whole court thing was still a gray area. Still, this wasn’t related to Scott’s investigation so he wouldn’t waste their time by asking for clarification.

  “Can you contact your friend?” Nate asked.

  “I’ll overnight a sample to her.” Maggie bent to grab her bag. “In the meantime, I can give you an approximate height, age, and ethnicity so we can begin building a physical profile.”

  “But you’re sure it’s a man?” Nate asked.

  She nodded. “A male’s pelvis is heart-shaped and narrow like this one.”

  From her tote, Maggie took out a tool that looked like a T-square with a sliding scale. She cleaned it, measured the femur, and entered data in a calculator. “He was five eight, give or take a couple of inches.” She bent closer to the skull. “The narrow nasal root and bridge as well as the narrow face tell me he’s Caucasian.”

  She moved on to the bones of the wrist and then studied the ribs. Jackson was very interested in this information, especially interested in seeing Maggie’s expertise, but he couldn’t lose sight of the fact that he wasn’t here to help find the person who murdered this man. He was here to find Scott’s killer and protect Maggie.

  “I’d put him in his late twenties,” she announced.

  “So we have a Caucasian male in his late twenties about five foot eight who was shot with a smaller than .32 caliber bullet,” Nate summarized.

  Maggie nodded.

  Nate tapped the screen on his phone and stared at it. “He fits the description of one of the two missing homeowners.”

  Maggie frowned. “I just can’t see him being one of these men.”

  “Why’s that?” Nate asked.

  “If it is him, how would we explain the dogs lighting on remains in two other locations, and why was he in this shed, not on his own property? And why murdered?”

  “No point in speculating until we hear from the odonatologist,” Dr. Owing said.

  “True.” Maggie’s eyes tightened as if she didn’t want to let it go.

  Jackson remembered her tenacious approach to life. Give her a goal, she achieved it, and usually did so in record time. She was extremely intelligent and motivated, which was how she attained her PhD in a shorter-than-normal timeframe.

  “I need to get my forensic staff out there to process the scene ASAP,” Nate said. “So where do you stand in releasing the scene to us?”

  “We’re missing bones, and I’d like to do one more pass of the area in daylight,” Maggie replied.

  “I have a deputy stationed out there to protect the integrity of the scene so just let him know when you’re finished.”

  “Thank you, Nate. I will.” Maggie turned her attention to the ME. “Would it be possible for me to come back here tonight so I can drop off anything I find at the site? Plus give all the bones a close examination.”

  Dr. Owing smiled, her long face widening. “I’m glad to meet you here. Just text me when you’re ready.”

  Maggie looked at the doctor then Nate. “And one of you will let me know what you hear from the odonatologist?”

  Nate nodded. “If there’s nothing else you need me for, I’ll head out.”

  “Go. Go.” The doctor shooed him away with her hands, and he left the room.

  “Before I go,” Maggie said. “I’ll need packaging materials to send the sample to my friend.”

  Dr. Owing nodded. “I’ll get it.”

  “And I’ll call Stacey to be sure she can process the sample before I send it on.” Maggie stepped away from the table and made the call. Jackson was content to lean back against the wall and watch her as she talked. She twisted her hair in her finger as she often did on phone calls, one of the many things he’d found cute about her.

  Dr. Owing returned and placed the packaging supplies on the table. “You ever been through anything like this?”

  Jackson shook his head. “But I did see a lot of trauma in the army.”

  “Ah, a former solider. I know it’s kind of trite to thank you for serving our country, but I have a lot of respect for soldiers.” She sighed. “And I, too, have seen firsthand the damage war can do.”

  “Not trite at all, but none of us do it for thanks.”

  She gave a crisp nod. “My son would agree. He’s career navy.”

  “Then you’re the one needing thanks,” Jackson said. “A soldier’s family carries the heavy weight of service and the worry, too.”