Page 35 of Lost Lake
He stared at her with something between a grudging respect and disbelief that she was leaving.
Was he right? Was she deciding too quickly to go back to the car?
She turned toward the car. Then stopped.
A small window was set high on the boathouse wall. She’d missed it on the approach. One corner of the glass was cracked, and a triangular piece was missing. An open gap no bigger than a fist she could look through.
She changed course, moved beneath it, and rose up on her toes to bring her face level with the opening.
It hit her then. She whipped back. Stepped down. Couldn’t form a word to say. Just stood for a moment with her hand resting against the wall.
“What?” Gabe’s voice was low. “What did you see?”
“It’s not what I saw.” She turned to face him.
His eyes were wide, his mouth pressed into a hard line, the muscles around it taut with something he was working to contain. “Tell me. Now!”
“It’s the smell coming through that window. There’s only one thing that produces that kind of odor.” She held his gaze. “A decaying body.”
8
Gabe’s mind went directly to Lucy. He couldn’t stop it. Every dark thought his brain could manufacture landed in the same place. Her face, her size, how small she would look on a dirt floor. He opened his mouth to say it out loud, then couldn’t.
El had already turned back to the window. She rose up on her toes and looked through the broken pane for a longer count this time, her hand braced against the weathered siding.
“There’re metal tracks and a garage door that opens over the water,” she said, her voice low and even. “Tracks run full length and down into the water. Boat cradle’s empty.”
“Could be the boat that put in at the ravine near Kenna’s van.”
“You could be right. Nothing to suggest that here, though. All I see are walls covered in fishing gear and an old tarp spread out on the floor. Looks like something under it.”
A body?
She stepped down and turned to face him. He knew that expression. She’d already figured out what he was thinking as she’d done many times in the past. Helped fuel the connection between them.
Her gaze softened. “Before your mind goes where I think it’s going, Lucy hasn’t been missing long enough for her body to reach this level of decomp. Not even close.”
He exhaled. She was right. He knew she was right. His training knew it too, even if the rest of him had temporarily stopped listening. “You’d need at least three days minimum to reach this odor level. Probably more, given the cold.”
“Exactly.” She held his gaze a moment longer, making sure it had landed. “And there’s no guarantee it’s even human. Could be an animal.”
He wanted to hold onto that. He tried.
But until someone went inside and confirmed it, he wouldn’t believe it. “One thing this does give us,” he said. “Exigent circumstances. We don’t have to wait on the warrant to make entry.”
She nodded. The law was clear. If waiting for a warrant created a genuine risk of death, serious injury, or the destruction of critical evidence, officers could enter immediately. A potentially decaying body qualified without argument.
“We need N95 masks.” She dug out her keys. “They’re in my trunk.”
Standing still wasn’t helping anything, and moving helped. “I’ll get them.”
She didn’t argue, probably thinking it was better for him to take action. She held out the key fob and clicked the trunk open.
When he came back, she’d successfully pulled on disposable gloves. He handed her a mask and unfolded the other one.
“Stay here.” She released the elastic straps on hers. “You’re not carrying a badge anymore. Technically, you shouldn’t even be on this property.”
He knew she was right. He also knew he wouldn’t stand back while she walked into an enclosed space alone with whatever was under that tarp.
