Battle Tested

Steve set the division updates—the weekly reports that allowed all the directors to know what was happening in the different sectors of Omega—in one pile. He grabbed the Pensacola police reports and prepared to throw them in the trash.

A picture from that group caught his attention and brought him up short. A Jane Doe the Pensacola police hadn’t been able to identify.

It was Rosalyn. She looked like she was sleeping peacefully.

But the picture was from the county morgue.

Rosalyn was dead.

Chapter Five (#ubeb5ecb4-10a4-5a9a-b1b9-6c74460d357d)

Steve caught the first flight he could get to Pensacola. Sadness and guilt weighed on him the entire time.

The prints on the glass in his office—immediately fished out of the trash—were being run right now. If Rosalyn was in any law enforcement system, Steve would have the full results by the time he met with the Pensacola police.

Damn it, he should have run them earlier. Should’ve gotten her information and gone after Rosalyn himself. Okay, maybe she might have had to do a short stint in prison for theft, but at least she would be alive.

Steve had known something was wrong, known Rosalyn was in serious trouble, but he hadn’t been able to look past his wounded pride to see she got the help she needed.

And now it was too late.

He got the information about the prints via email as he was getting off the plane in Pensacola.

Rosalyn Mellinger.

Twenty-four years old from Mobile, Alabama.

Her prints actually weren’t in any of the law enforcement databases; that’s why the Pensacola PD hadn’t been able to identify her. Cynthia had been able to identify Rosalyn from something to do with her juvenile record. She couldn’t access the full record but had been able to link the print from the glass to the record.

Steve drove straight to the police department, which also housed the coroner’s office. It was midafternoon but Steve was determined to identify Rosalyn’s body today. Somehow he couldn’t stand the thought of her sitting another night unidentified in the morgue.

The Pensacola county sheriff and the coroner were both waiting for Steve when he walked in.

“Agent Drackett.” The sheriff, a portly man in his fifties, extended his hand for shaking. “Is agent the right title? I’m Sheriff Harvey Palmer.”

“Just call me Steve.” He shook the man’s hand.

“This is Dwayne Prase, our county coroner.” Steve shook his hand too.

They began walking down the hallway to the morgue.

“We really appreciate you coming all the way from Colorado,” Sheriff Palmer said. “I have to be honest—I didn’t expect your call.”

“I don’t know the victim in any official capacity. I met her when I was on vacation here six months ago. We spent a few days together. I recognized her immediately when the Jane Doe picture came across my desk.”

“I see.” The sheriff nodded and thankfully didn’t ask why Steve would be getting police reports from Pensacola. “No one here has missed her at all. No missing-persons report or anyone asking about her. Her prints didn’t show up in any of our computers.”

Steve nodded. If he hadn’t had access to the Omega databases, he wouldn’t have known anything about Rosalyn either.

“She was definitely murdered?”

Palmer nodded. “Yes, strangled. In her car in a parking lot.”

“She’d been dead for hours before anyone found her,” the coroner chimed in. “And has been here unidentified for nearly thirty-six hours.”

Steve brought his fingers up to the bridge of his nose. There was so much he wished he’d done differently.

They reached the cold chamber of the morgue, where the body was being kept to reduce decomposition. Steve entered with the two men and saw the body was already on the table ready to be identified.

Prase pulled the sheet slowly off the body’s face.

Steve hadn’t realized how much he’d been praying there had been some type of mistake, that it wasn’t really Rosalyn, but looking at her now, he couldn’t deny it.

“That’s her. That’s Rosalyn Mellinger.”

* * *

STEVE SPENT THE next couple of hours with Sheriff Palmer, filling out some paperwork. He’d asked the sheriff if his men would mind if Steve stuck around for a couple of days and helped in any way he could with the investigation. Thankfully, Palmer hadn’t felt threatened by the offer and readily agreed.

He’d called back into Omega and let them know he’d be out for a few days. One thing about having a team as good as his: they could continue to function without him when necessary.

Steve planned to find Rosalyn’s killer. It was the least he could do.

But not tonight. Tonight he was going to go back to the tiki bar where he’d met her and have a drink in her memory.

Steve decided to stay at the same hotel he’d used before. Not the romance package, but still a nice place. It was only a few blocks from the station. He checked in and unloaded his overnight bag. He took off his suit and changed into jeans and a T-shirt. No shorts and flip-flops this time.

He decided to walk to the tiki bar from his room even though it was through sand. He stopped for a minute as he reached the area where he and Rosalyn had sat and talked for so long that first night, partially because he wanted to take a moment to remember that place.

But also because Steve could feel eyes on him.

Someone was watching him.

As inconspicuously as he could manage, Steve turned. He didn’t see anything to his left. He knelt down into the sand as if he’d found some great shell and spun to the right. No one there either.

Maybe this feeling was just a result of stress. God knew today had been stressful enough.

He stood back up and began walking to the bar.

It was a Wednesday now, not a Sunday like when he’d been here before. The TVs had some basketball games on, and the place wasn’t nearly as full.

No Jimmy Buffett playing on the jukebox, no storm driving in beautiful women from outside.

Steve didn’t plan to be here long so didn’t get his seat at the end of the bar. Instead just sat at the first seat he came to and ordered a beer.

He was only a few sips into it when he felt eyes on him again. Steve quietly paid the bartender in case he had to leave in a hurry but then sat back and eased himself casually around in the barstool.

No one seemed to be paying him much mind, but he’d been in law enforcement too long to ignore a gut feeling twice in one hour.