“What if I don’t want you out of my hair?” Her face is still wet, whether from tears or the water she splashed on it.
“Tempting,” I admit, putting my hands on her hips and bending my head so our noses almost touch. “Dangerously so, but we’re both tired and I’m afraid the night will be over before I can put on my best moves.”
The grin creates fine lines by the corners of her eyes.
“You’ve got moves?” she teases, and I can’t resist stealing a kiss from her smiling mouth.
“Saving my best ones for the right time.”
She rolls her eyes.
“Now you’re just being cruel.”
Chapter 11
Meredith
“Casey.”
I’m almost breathless with anticipation.
Tomorrow Casey heads back home and I was starting to get worried she wouldn’t be able to get me any results before leaving.
“Meredith, hey. Sorry I haven’t gotten back to you. It’s been quite a week.”
“Hey, I get it, I had one of those myself. Are you gearing up to head home?”
“First thing in the morning, so I was wondering if I could pop by this afternoon?”
I have nothing left but paperwork. A few reports and some death certificates I have to complete. I glance at the clock on my computer. Four thirty. I’d hoped to get home early enough to give Beau a good run, start my laundry, and get cleaned up. Jay repeated his offer of dinner last night before he left and told me to be at his place for seven. I haven’t heard anything from him today, so I assume we’re still on. I really don’t want to be the one to cancel.
“When can you be here?”
If I can get out of here by six, I’ll have to cut short Beau’s walk and skip the laundry, but could still make it on time. I’ll have to come in tomorrow morning to finish my paperwork.
“I’m leaving the college now.”
It’ll only take her ten minutes at most.
“Perfect. I’ll see you shortly.”
I manage to get one report finished and am just dropping it off with Janey to process when Casey walks in, dripping wet from the rain that is suddenly pouring down outside, with a cooler in her hand.
“Brought your samples back,” she says, handing it to me.
“Thanks.” I turn to Janey and set the cooler on her desk. “Is Paul still here?”
“Yup.”
“Could you take this down to him for storage?”
“Sure.”
“We’ll be in my office.”
I invite Casey to go ahead and in passing grab us a few bottles of water from the fridge in the small kitchen.
“Wasn’t sure if you wanted coffee at this hour. I’d be wide awake in the middle of the night, but I can easily make you a cup,” I offer.
“This is fine. Thanks.” She opens the bottle and takes a long drink. “I’m sorry to be doing this on the fly, but I was just notified the department wants to take me out for dinner as a thank-you tonight. I couldn’t say no but I didn’t want to leave tomorrow without discussing my findings with you.”
“I appreciate it. This is better for me too, I have a dinner date myself tonight,” I volunteer with a smile.
Casey raises one eyebrow.
“Why do I get the feeling your date isn’t a dry academic gathering as mine is likely to be?”
I chuckle and shake my head, feeling a little flushed.
“I don’t know what it’s going to be yet. It’s all a little new and unexpected. Not to mention complicated.”
“Trust me. I know all about unexpected and complicated,” she commiserates, but with a satisfied smile. “I fell in love in the jungles of Costa Rica with my brother’s teammate, who rescued me after I’d been kidnapped.”
My mouth falls open. “You were kidnapped?”
“It’s a long story I’ll be happy to share next time when we don’t have any time constraints.”
“Fair enough, but I’m gonna keep you to that.”
“That’s fine, as long as I get the full skinny on your date tonight.”
“Deal.”
We grin at each other for a minute, enjoying what could easily be the start of a friendship. Aside from Autumn, who is an exception, it hasn’t been easy connecting with people since I went back to school to study forensic pathology. The truth is, what I do creeps people out, but Casey…well…she probably gets it better than most. Neither of us have picked a particularly sexy profession. At least not to the general public.
“So…here’s the short of it; from the samples you gave me I’d agree at some point the remains were frozen. The larvae of the Calliphoridae can survive low temperatures for some time under certain circumstances. Sparing you the full explanations—I’ll add those into the report I’ll write up for you—they can go dormant, almost halting their development. Taking into account a range of decomposition prior to the body being frozen, and based on the age and development stage of the specimen, the best guesstimate I can come up with is a time of death between four to ten weeks. Any longer and it’s unlikely any larvae would’ve survived the freezing temperatures.”
Not as narrow a window as I’d hoped, but helpful nonetheless.
“Thank you. I’m sure it will help narrow things down for the ongoing investigation.”
“My pleasure, it would’ve been nice if I could be more specific, but I may have found something else that might assist you.” She pulls a folded sheet of paper from her purse and slides it across my desk. “I’ll include this in my report as well, but this is a copy of the drug screen I did on the larvae at the lab. As you can see, a large quantity of cocaine was detected. Enough to suggest the possibility the deceased died from a drug overdose.”
I execute a mental fist pump. Any toxicological evidence deteriorates quickly during decomposition, but I knew it was possible to obtain more accurate readings from insect larvae feeding on the body, which is why I wanted Casey to check. This is huge, it gives us our first lead to the identity of the victim.
“That’s a great help. I don’t know how to thank you.”
She gets up from her seat. “You can buy me dinner next time I’m in town. I’ve been invited to do this again for the fall semester, so it looks like I’ll be back.”
“Then we’re on for dinner.”
I round the desk and hold out my hand but instead she pulls me into a warm hug.
I’m ten minutes late, I drove past the driveway and had to retrace my steps twice.
In my defense, it’s still raining, and I wasn’t expecting Jay to live on a horse ranch.
The countryside south of Durango is vastly different from where I am on the mountain. It’s flatter and more like the mesas closer to the Utah border with generally lower vegetation.
A little confused, I pull into the dirt driveway lined on one side with fencing meant to hold back the handful of horses huddling under a shelter at the edge of the field. I’d imagine him living in a new subdivision or maybe one of the older bungalows dotting the side of the highway to New Mexico, and I distinctly recall him saying his place wasn’t as nice as mine. So this sizable, single-level, traditional adobe farmhouse with its large barn is a surprise.