Page 9 of Lost Lake
She was right, but how could he leave his best friend lying there all alone? Soaking wet. Cold. Tangled in seaweed and covered in sand. She needed him. Needed him to find who did this. Needed him to find Lucy.
“I can’t leave her,” he said hoarsely. “Can I stay until they take her away?”
El bit her lip. “There’s nothing you can do for her, Gabe.”
“I know. But I can’t go.” His voice broke. “If you want me out of here, you’ll have to arrest me and haul me away.”
Her expression softened, and she looked up the hill. He followed her gaze to see the ME arriving with her assistant carrying a backboard. Visions of the morgue flashed through his mind. Cold, dark, wrong. No place for Kenna. For his best friend.
El turned back to him and pointed across the beach. “I understand. Take a seat on that rock. But don’t move until I tell you. Understood?”
He nodded and scanned the beach, desperate to do something—anything. He pulled out his phone. “I’m calling my team to start searching for Lucy.”
She scrubbed a hand over her face. “I can’t give any of you access to the scene.”
“Trust me, I know that, but there’s plenty of wooded areas you haven’t secured. We’ll search for Lucy there.”
She hesitated, then nodded. “Go ahead, but promise you won’t interfere once we begin our search.”
“I promise.” He meant it.
For now.
In a few minutes? Maybe not so much. If interfering was what it took to find Lucy, he’d do it. No matter the cost.
El kept Gabe in her peripheral vision as she stood beside Dr. Faye Briggs. The county’s new medical examiner pulled on gloves, pink nails disappearing beneath latex. El had met the ME only once in her six months on the job, but she’d heard good things about the doctor’s skills.
Her assistant, Theo, walked toward them from the lake, thermometer in hand. In his early twenties, he had a stocky build and was new to the job and the town.
El moved closer to the doctor, aware of Gabe’s gaze tracking her every move.
She shrugged it off and watched Dr. Briggs squat by the body, insert a thermometer probe into the liver, then stand and look at her assistant. “What did you get?”
He held out his thermometer. “Air temp’s fifty degrees. Water, forty-six.”
Dr. Briggs nodded sharply, her focus lingering on the lake.
“Tell me you have the time of death,” El said.
The ME turned to her. “I’d like to give you that, but the water’s cold enough to stall everything. Plus, from what you said, our victim was exposed to the elements on the beach for an hour or so. That compounds things.”
“So, no estimate then?” Disappointment crept into El’s voice.
“I can give you my best estimate, but don’t hold me to it.” She looked at her thermometer. “Liver’s at eighty-eight degrees and rigor hasn’t set in. Plus, there’s no lividity yet. I’d say she’s been dead less than three hours, maybe two.”
That made sense. Rigor mortis—the stiffening of muscles after death—often helped determine the time of death. Lividity occurred when blood settled in the body after the heart stopped.
Plus… “We know she left a voicemail at six p.m., so that fits with this timeline.”
Dr. Briggs nodded then glanced toward the lake. “If she drowned, it happened not long before she was discovered.”
El checked her watch. 10:07. “So Kenna died between seven and nine p.m.”
“Yes,” Dr. Briggs said. “I’ll have to confirm that in the autopsy, but it gives you something to go on now.”
El jotted it down. “You saidifshe drowned. I’ve been questioning that. The welts.” El pointed to Kenna’s neck and waited for the ME to bristle at the observation.
The doctor studied her. “We’ll be working together on this investigation and future ones. I’m always willing to hear a lead detective’s theory. Also, call me Faye.”
