With mug in hand, she switched off the light in the kitchen and made her way down the hallway to her bedroom, guided only by memory and moonlight.
* * *
Clayton strode into the squad room and Ellie kept her head down. She wasn’t ready to talk to him. The fact that Ben had informed her the moment she’d arrived for duty that they hadn’t gotten a hit on the fingerprints had further soured her mood. She was thankful he hadn’t asked her where the Fed was. Still peeved, she’d left Clayton to find his own way to the station.
She’d checked her phone when she’d crawled out of bed, but he hadn’t left a message. It was probably just as well. Then she’d have to acknowledge he’d rung. For now, she’d do her best to ignore him. As much as anyone could ignore a six-foot-plus wall of muscle whose impeccably dressed body was now planted firmly in front of her desk.
She swallowed a groan and studiously continued writing in the file before her, paying no heed to the pulse that beat a frantic rhythm in her neck.
“So, you’re just going to ignore me. Is that it?”
His voice was loud enough to cause curious gazes to turn their way. She blushed and damned him silently to hell. Why couldn’t he leave her alone?
“I’m not going away until you look at me, Ellie.”
She cringed inwardly at the determination in his voice. She should have known he wouldn’t give up easily. Despite their lack of progress, his dogged persistence with the case was proof of that. But did he really have to turn it on her?
He cleared his throat noisily. “I’m sorry for going behind your back. I should have just asked you. I know that now, but as much as I’d like to, I can’t take it back.”
He hesitated and she willed herself to keep writing.
“All I’m asking is that you forgive me.”
Her eyes snapped up to meet his. “Why should I?”
He shrugged and she almost softened. He looked so lost and helpless. He looked completely unsure of himself. A state she’d never seen him in.
“I just thought you might… We might—”
“Clayton. Good, you’re here.” Ben strode across the squad room, his expression grave.
A tightness gripped her throat. She’d seen that look before. “What is it, boss?”
Ben gazed down at her, a frown creasing his deeply lined forehead. “A couple of hikers have come across a body in bushland. It looks like it’s Sally Batten.”
* * *
Ellie deftly manoeuvred the squad car in and out of the early morning traffic, scowled in ferocious concentration. Her protest that Clayton catch a ride with someone else had fallen on deaf ears and he now sat rigidly in the seat beside her.
They hadn’t spoken since Ben had given them the news. Even now, she studiously avoided the weight of his stare. Her jaw clenched when he broke the tense silence, his voice low.
“You don’t have a monopoly on grief, Ellie.”
Anger steamed to the surface. Hot. Immediate. Choking. Her eyes narrowed on his face. She fought for control.
“Oh, like you know what you’re talking about. How many children have
you
buried?”
He hesitated and she thought she caught a flash of pain in his eyes. When he replied, his gaze stayed fixed on a point outside the window and his voice was thick with emotion.
“None.”
“I know you lost your wife….”
“Yes, and it felt as if my world ended the day I buried her.” His voice seethed with quiet pain.
She gritted her teeth. Okay, so maybe he did know something about it. But a spouse hardly counted against a child. Anyone would agree with that.
Clayton’s face darkened with fury and disbelief when she said as much.
“You’ve never been in love before, have you Ellie?” He didn’t wait for her to reply. “You’ve never known what it’s like to love someone so much you want to breathe in the very air they breathe out, just so you can keep a part of them inside you. You’ve never known what it’s like to want someone so much you feel like you’ll die if you can’t be near them, touch them, hold them.”
She shivered at the raw passion in his voice and the pain that lingered in his eyes and felt a stab of envy for the woman who’d invoked such a reaction. Then she shook her head, appalled.
For God’s sake, she was feeling jealous of a dead woman. How low could she go?
Still, she couldn’t help the wistful thought that maybe one day someone would feel that way about her. His gaze was still fixed upon her. She turned away.
“What? Nothing to say, Cooper?” His voice dripped sarcasm. “That’s funny; you’ve never been short of words before.”
Ellie pressed her lips tightly together and turned left off the main road. They bounced along a rough dirt track in taut silence. Spying vehicles up ahead, she sighed inwardly in relief. Avoiding his gaze, she murmured, “Looks like we’re here.”
* * *
Tall gum trees stood in a thick line bordering both sides of a narrow, sandy track. It wasn’t yet mid-morning, and the sun was only a lukewarm presence in the sky. The smell of eucalyptus and lemon scented the still air. Clayton breathed in deeply, appreciating the smell of the bush despite the reason that had brought them there.
A small group of bystanders and a larger contingent of uniformed police officers crowded the scene. Crime scene tape had been strung up around the trunks of the huge gums in a rough rectangle around the body.
Ellie walked ahead of him, picking her way through low bushes, long grass and other shrubbery before ducking under the tape.
“Hey, Jake. Good to see you again.” Ellie gave the forensics officer a bright smile.
Clayton’s jaw tightened.
Great. The good-looking beefcake was back. Just what he needed.
“You too, Ellie.” Jake gave her a slow onceover that set Clayton’s teeth on edge. “Looking good, as always.”
“We have to stop meeting like this,” she replied with a quick smile. “Surely we can think of somewhere better?”
“Yeah, a drink down near the Quay sounds like a much better idea. Mid-afternoon would be good, when the sun’s got some heat in it. These early winter starts are a bitch.”
With a snort of impatience, Clayton strode forward and planted himself between them. Nodding toward the body that lay on the ground covered by a blue tarpaulin, he did his best to ignore the smell that emanated from it and shot Jake a narrowed look.
“What have you got?”
Jake’s eyes widened knowingly. A sardonic grin tugged at his lips, but he remained silent and turned toward the corpse.
“The ID in the handbag we found lying a few feet from the body says it’s Sally Batten. Twenty-two years old, she’s been missing a couple of months.”
Clayton’s eyes drilled into his. “You’re sure it’s Sally?”
Tension sizzled between them.
“Well, Federal Agent Munro, we haven’t carried out DNA tests yet, but there are some definite similarities to her license photo. She was half-buried under leaf matter and of course, the cold temperatures have helped slow down the decomposition. Even though there’s a fair amount of it, I’d hazard a reasonable guess we’re talking about the same person.”
Ellie stepped forward, effectively placing herself between the two men. “Who found her?”
Jake flicked his head in the direction of a young couple who were huddled together a short distance away with a uniformed officer who looked like he was still taking notes.
Clayton took them in at a glance. Early twenties, fit-looking. The male with longish brown hair and a light fuzz on his chin had his arm around the girl. Her blond head was buried against his chest, her arms tight around his waist. His gaze returned to the forensics officer.
“Hikers,” Jake continued. “Out bushwalking early this morning. Stumbled across her.”
Stepping closer to the bundle covered by the tarpaulin, Clayton kneeled on the damp ground and lifted the stiff plastic away from what remained of Sally Batten.
The smell hit him even harder. Rank. Rotten. Putrid. Sweet. His nostrils and stomach rebelled and he stood and moved a couple of feet away, trying not to gag. He caught a glimpse of a smirk lining the beefcake’s face and tensed.
Turning slightly away, he fumbled in the back pocket of his suit pants and pulled out a pair of latex gloves, pretending that getting the gloves was his intent all along.
Ellie squatted beside the body. With gloved hands, she tugged at the trash bags that partly covered the remains. “Phew, she’s in a bad way.”
Clayton moved up beside her and hunkered down as close as his stomach would allow. He’d never been fond of fieldwork. There was a reason why he’d found a home behind a desk.
Taking hold of the tarpaulin, he hauled it and the trash bags further out of the way until what remained of Sally Batten was revealed.
She was dressed in what had once been a long-sleeved, white T-shirt. It had been ripped away at her right shoulder, exposing one side of her chest. Dark stains that looked like blood covered most of her shirt.
Pulling the covering down lower, Clayton tensed, his gaze shooting to Ellie’s. Her face reflected his sudden anger. Not only was Sally naked from the waist down, she was missing both legs.
He shook his head in bleak despair at the savagery of the monster they hunted.
A torso, two arms and now two legs. Christ, the bastard was collecting body parts.
What the hell were they dealing with?
A hot ball of anger and dread lodged in his gut. It was something out of a horror movie. Things like this didn’t happen in real life. It was unthinkable. It was beyond comprehension. Yet, it was happening.
“No legs,” Ellie murmured, her lips compressed into a thin line.
His gaze swept over the rest of the body. Everything else seemed to be intact. Her arms and hands were relatively clean. He leaned forward and examined the area where her legs used to be. The underside of her torso was caked in mud and black debris clung to the open wounds.
He met her gaze. “She wasn’t attacked here. There’s a copious amount of blood on her shirt, but barely anything on the ground beneath her. And there’s mud all over her back.”
He pointed to her arms. “There’s no mud on her hands. I’d say she’s been dragged along the ground by her arms for some distance. And not long after it rained, from the amount of mud that’s on the bottom of her.”
He took in the slight form of Sally Batten and frowned. “The monster we’re hunting isn’t large. In fact, I’d put him somewhere around one hundred and twenty or thirty pounds. Sally wasn’t a big woman and yet he had to drag what’s left of her to get her here. A larger man would have simply carried her.”
“We’re lucky she was protected by the bushland. With the rain we’ve had since she went missing, a lot of our evidence would have been washed away,” Ellie said.
Clayton nodded. “We need to get her to the morgue and see if they can give us a time of death.” He motioned with his head in Jake’s direction. “That’s if you can drag yourself away from your boyfriend.”
She followed his gaze. Jake wandered around the crime scene taking photos. A smile tugged at her lips.
Her gaze eventually came back to his, amusement sparkling in their green depths. He tensed, not at all in the mood to be played with.
“I’m sure Michael will have something to say about that.”
He stared at her blankly. “Michael?”
Her grin widened. “Yeah, Michael. Jake’s partner.”
Heat flared up Clayton’s neck and he looked away in confusion. “But, what about…? He asked you out—I heard him.”
She laughed and shook her head. “He wasn’t asking me out, you idiot. He was mucking around. Stirring me up.” She looked at him from underneath her lashes. “Sounds like he stirred
you
up.”
Clayton clamped his lips shut as his embarrassment deepened. She was right. He was an idiot. If she hadn’t been involved, he probably would have noticed straight away.
“You two seen enough?”
He looked up to see Jake looming above them. Standing slowly, he peeled the latex off his hands and wadded them into a ball. “Have you taken photos of the body, yet?”
“Done before you got here. I’ll email them to you when I get back to the station.”
“Sure,” Clayton replied. “Send them to Ellie’s address. I don’t have access to a secure server here.”
Jake’s eyes taunted him. “What, you couldn’t get clearance, Fed?”
If Ellie hadn’t told him Jake played for the other team, Clayton would have been ready to take the man’s head off. Now, he just smiled and shrugged. “Something like that.”
Jake’s eyes widened in surprise and then comprehension. He looked across at Ellie. “I guess I’ll see you round, sweet cheeks.”
“Yeah. Thanks, Jake. You take care.”
“You too, Coop.”
* * *
“As much as I like to ogle your eye-candy, Detective Cooper, this is getting beyond a joke.”
Ellie strode into the sadly familiar environs of Samantha Wolfe’s workplace with Clayton close behind her.
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know, Sam.” She closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. “Let’s hope this is the last of them.”