Trace Evidence

She’d known instinctively that it was a place where her creativity would thrive. The woods held a primal serenity that seemed to wrap her in its arms.

As she approached the cottage, she frowned. There was something on her porch…something that didn’t belong there. She shut off her engine and sat for a long moment, trying to identify the dark bulk that was right in front of her front door.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t moving. She got out of the car, feeling a bit unsteady on her feet as she approached the porch.

A deer. A doe, actually. Lifeless, with soft brown eyes staring toward the heavens, it looked pitifully small.

Tamara sent up a prayer for the soul of the doe, at the same time wondering how it had gotten on her front porch. Had it been hit by a car and somehow stumbled here, broken and bleeding?

She bent down to get a better look, to try to discern what injuries the poor thing had sustained. Her blood chilled as she saw the claw marks that marred the tan hide of the doe’s side. The claw marks looked like the ones that had marked her classroom walls. What was going on?

Fear walked up her backbone with icy fingers as she looked around. The surrounding woods was beginning to take on the shadows of twilight, creating dark pockets of shadows that she recognized would make perfect hiding places.

With trembling fingers, she unlocked her front door and stepped over the dead deer. She stood in the threshold of her home, listening for a sound that didn’t belong, smelling the air for an alien scent, needing to be sure the sanctity of her home hadn’t been breached before she entered farther.

She heard nothing, smelled nothing, but was spooked beyond belief. She hurried across the living room, grabbed her cordless phone and punched in 911.

Chapter 4

Clay had just left the lab and entered the police station when he heard Jason Sheller grumbling about having to go out to the Greystone residence because she’d found a dead animal on her property.

“She lives out in the woods, for crying out loud,” Jason complained. “There’s always dead animals out in the woods.”

“I’ll take it for you,” Clay said.

Jason looked at him in mock surprise. “Ah, I forgot you lab rats were actually real cops who could take a report.”

Clay eyed Jason with narrowed eyes. He’d never liked the man. He found him arrogant, self-centered and obnoxious. “You call me a lab rat again and I’ll do an experiment on your face with my fists.”

“Geez, lighten up, James.” Jason backed up with hands in the air, the smug smirk that had crossed his mouth vanished. “It was just a little joke.”

“I don’t find your humor amusing,” Clay replied. “Now, do you want me to take the call or not?”

“Sure, knock yourself out,” Jason replied. He sank down at his desk. “Anything new on our slasher murders?”

“No.” Clay gave his reports to the chief, not to individual officers. Glen would let the officers know what they needed to know when they needed to know it.

Besides, Clay was eager to get to Tamara’s place and find out what was going on. She hadn’t struck him as the type of woman who would freak out over some critter dying on her property.

Contrary to Jason Sheller’s smart-ass remark, Clay and his team often worked as regular officers, filling in whenever necessary.

In a town the size of Cherokee Corners and with their limited equipment, there wasn’t enough forensic work to keep the CSI team busy all the time.

He got into the van and took off for Tamara’s place, his thoughts racing as he drove. After eating dinner with her and Alyssa, he’d gone back to the lab and had tried to make sense of the customer lists from quarries and landscaping services that had begun to come in.

Most of the places had simply printed off customer lists without pulling the ones Clay was specifically looking for. He now knew the decorative rock he’d found both at his parents’ home and at the Frazier murder scene was called Dalmatian mix because of the unusual black and white coloring. Thankfully it was a high-end decorative rock, so not many people sprang for it.

From the lists he’d received so far he had a list of fifty-two names from Oklahoma City and its surrounding area. Who knew how many more names would be added when all was said and done.

And even then, being armed with a list of every person in Oklahoma who’d ever bought the Dalmatian mix didn’t mean he had the name of the person who had killed at least two people and stolen his mother away. For all he knew the killer could be from Texas, or Kansas, or forty-seven other states.

As he turned down the dirt road that led to Tamara’s cottage, he tried to put it all out of his head. Instead his thoughts were replaced with the memory of Alyssa telling him about the vision she’d suffered the night before, the vision of Tamara being killed by a monster.

He knew his cousin had been particularly fragile over the last couple of months. Before the crime at his parents’ house Alyssa had been experiencing what she said were the worst visions she’d ever had. She’d told him all she saw was blackness, but accompanying the dark was an overwhelming feeling that something terrible was going to happen.

Since the crime, Clay knew she blamed herself for not “seeing” exactly what was going to happen, for not “seeing” clues that would lead to the recovery of Rita wherever she was.

Alyssa was fragile and under stress, and he was certain that hearing about the damage to Tamara’s classroom was what had prompted her latest vision.

Twilight was on its way out the door, leaving behind the deep shadows of night. It would be even darker around Tamara’s place where the woods were thick and kept out most of the moonlight.

As the cottage came into view, he saw that there were no lights on. It looked as if nobody was home. He parked next to her car, then saw her seated behind the steering wheel.

She got out as he did. “Clay,” she said with obvious surprise. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

“Since I was out at the schoolhouse, I decided to go ahead and come out here and take a report.” She looked tense…frightened. “Is there a reason you’re out here sitting in your car instead of inside?”

“I wasn’t sure it was safe inside. I know it sounds silly, but I got spooked and just stepped in long enough to grab the phone and call the police, then I came out here, started the car engine and locked myself inside.”

“It doesn’t sound silly, it sounds like the intelligent thing to do.” He leaned into the van and removed his handgun from the seat. “So, what exactly have we got here?”

“There’s a dead deer on my porch.” Her voice was low and steady. “At first I thought maybe it had been hit by a car and had somehow made its way to the porch, but when I looked more closely at it, I realized there were claw marks across its side like the ones that were made in my classroom. That’s when I got spooked.”

“Lock yourself back in the car and let me check out the house. Once it’s clear, then I’ll take a look at the deer.”

He was glad she didn’t question or argue with him, but instead did exactly what he asked.

When she was back in her car, he released the safety on his gun and approached the cottage. There were no lights on, but he could see just enough to step over the dead animal and push open the front door.

Gun firmly gripped in his hand and held up before him, he stepped through the door and flipped on the light switches that illuminated both the porch and the lamps on the end tables in the living room.

The room looked exactly as it had last night when he had been inside. Nothing appeared to be out of place, but he wouldn’t be at ease until he’d checked every room, every closet, every place that a person might hide.

From the living room he moved into the kitchen, hitting the switch to light the room. Again, everything looked normal. He checked the small pantry, finding nothing more than canned goods, then left the kitchen and moved down the narrow hallway. The bathroom was tiny and the shower curtain hid nothing more than a spotlessly clean tub.

At the end of the hallway was the single bedroom. Clay turned on the light switch, tensed and ready for confrontation. Again he found nothing…except a bedroom that instantly assailed him on all senses, evoking thoughts that definitely had nothing to do with his job.

A bright red spread covered the double bed. Sprawled across the bed was a splash of yellow silk that he recognized must be Tamara’s nightgown. Yellow and red curtains hung at the single window the room boasted, a window unit air conditioner filling the lower portion of the window itself.

The room breathed color and life and passion and it smelled like her…that mysterious blend of wildflowers and fresh rain and dark woods.

Dream catchers hung on the wall above the bed and Tamara’s artwork—rich, bold and intense in stroke, color and content—decorated the remaining walls. A tabletop fountain sat in the center of the dresser and it was easy to imagine making love to the sound of the gentle, bubbling water.

He yanked open the closet door, irritated that the thought of making love in this room, to the woman outside sitting in her car, had even entered his mind.

There was nothing in the house to indicate that somebody had been inside other than Tamara. He returned to the front door, stepped over the deer, then went to her car. Before he could reach it, she stepped out.

“Everything looks okay inside,” he said. “And now I want to take a look at that deer.” He went back to his van and pulled out his kit, then carried it back to the front porch.