Nightshades by Melissa F. Olson Page A

youngest of the missing kids, just sixteen years old. She was a cheerleader who didn’t do so well in school, but her grades had recently begun an upswing after a concerned teacher discovered Rachel’s dyslexia. She didn’t deserve to die, and neither did Ethan Harrison. “Where?” Ruiz growled.
    “Don’t you start,” Greer said severely. “You can’t go out there. This was just a courtesy call; you’re supposed to be in the hospital for at least another ten days.”
    “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Ruiz said. “But I’m just sitting here staring at the ceiling; I might as well think about the case. Where did they dump ’em?”
    Greer paused for a second, deciding whether to trust him. Finally she said, “The big culvert on I-43, just out of town.”
    As soon as he was off the phone, Ruiz began disconnecting the machines.

    There was a portable plastic tent erected around the crime scene—standard Bureau procedure. That meant someone from the BPI was already here, Ruiz realized. He doubted the Heavenly sheriff had sophisticated evidence-gathering tools. The area in front of the tent was cordoned off with the traditional yellow tape, but a crowd of onlookers was gathered around it, whispering to one another and shouting the occasional remark at the sheriff’s deputy guarding the barrier. Ruiz slowly, painstakingly pushed his way through these people, staggering like an extra in a zombie movie, one hand locked across his stitches to keep them from being jarred too much. At the crime scene tape, Ruiz held his badge up to the sheriff’s deputy, who nodded and let him amble past with awe in his eyes. Ruiz had been on the front page of the Heavenly weekly newspaper the day before.
    When he reached the entrance Ruiz had to pause and deal with the problem of getting the tent flap up. It lifted diagonally, and there was just no way he’d be able to raise his arm that high. He stood there for a long moment, feeling stupid, until the baby deputy guarding the line realized the problem and hustled over to lift the flap. Ruiz grunted his thanks.
    There were five people inside—well, five living ones: the sheriff, the same two FBI techs who’d been helping with the rest of the investigation, and two people Ruiz didn’t recognize. Every single one of them stopped what they were doing and stared in silent shock as Ruiz approached. Finally, one of the new people—a kid in a rumpled suit—stepped forward. “Agent Ruiz. I’m Special Agent in Charge Alex McKenna.” He extended a hand, which Ruiz just stared at. Eventually the kid realized why Ruiz couldn’t shake and stepped back again, mumbling an apology. He gestured to the woman beside him. “This is Lindy Frederick. She’s a consultant working with the BPI on these murders.”
    A consultant? That was new. Ruiz studied her. She didn’t look like a federal agent, that was for sure. Frederick was doe-eyed and curvy—not overweight, Ruiz thought, just a little fuller in the hips and bust than most of the gym-toned female agents he’d met. She wore a BPI baseball cap and Windbreaker over jeans, despite the warm morning, and she looked tired and drawn—although Ruiz certainly must have looked a hell of a lot worse. He would have dismissed her as an inconsequential lightweight, a temporary hire who would bail as soon as it got bloody, except there was something about her he couldn’t quite put a finger on. Then Ruiz realized that unlike the sheriff or even the techs, Frederick didn’t look the least bit repulsed or disgusted by the bodies behind her. She just looked . . .
    Annoyed? No: frustrated. Like you’d look at a dog that just wouldn’t stop peeing on your rug.
    Ruiz just nodded at both of them, because if he was being honest, the thought of speaking and standing at the same time made him nauseous. He shuffled forward to see around the two new people. Behind them, the two teens had been tossed in a crumpled heap, with Budchen lying half on top of Harrison.