The Bone House Read Online Free PDF

body?'
        Lala
gestured up and down the beach with frustration. 'We're combing the sand, but
you've got a few thousand people along here every day. We'll bag and test what we
find, but don't get your hopes up.'
        'How
about the body itself?' Cab asked.
        'We're
checking for DNA under her fingernails, but her hands were lying in the water.
Even if she fought back, I'm not sure what we're going to find.'
        'See,
this is why I hate beach bodies,' Cab repeated.
        Lala
opened her mouth as if she had more to tell him, but he held up a hand to stop
her as he let the details soak into his mind. His way of approaching an
investigation was to add layers of fact to his brain like coats of paint. He
liked to let one coat dry before slapping on the next one. Lala was different.
She preferred to blurt out her whole report at once and sort through the puzzle
pieces.
        Lala
was dressed all in black. Black T-shirt, black jeans, black sandals, all of it
matching her shoulder-length black hair. She was in her mid- thirties, like
Cab, and had spent her entire career with the Naples Police. She was intense
about everything that Cab wasn't. Her Cuban family. Her Cuban politics. Her
Catholic heritage. Her job. Her temper. She was fire; he was water, always
flowing downhill, always running away. Still, she was about the only cop in
Florida he considered a friend.
        Not
that he would ever say so to her face.
        'Cab?'
Lala asked impatiently.
        'Yeah,
OK, keep going. Do we know who this girl is?'
        'We
got lucky about that. Her name's Glory Fischer. Sixteen years old.'
        Cab
exhaled in dismay. 'She's just a kid.'
        'Sixteen's
older than you think these days.'
        'Yeah,
yeah, thirteen is the new eighteen, sixteen's the new twenty- one. How'd we
make the ID?'
        'Her
sister and Glory's boyfriend were looking for her in the hotel grounds when we
showed up. The sister said Glory wasn't in their room, and when they heard
about the body, they both freaked. The sister confirmed Glory's ID from a
photograph. We've got them with a policewoman now. A counselor's on the way.'
        'What
about a parent?'
        Lala
shook her head. 'The girls are from rural Wisconsin, an area called Door County.
Mom's back home, Dad's deceased. The sister already called the mother and gave
her the news. She's flying down here today.'
        'Wisconsin,'
Cab said. 'Remind me, that's north of Michigan, right?'
        'No,
the place north of Michigan is called Canada, Cab.'
        'Same
difference. What were these girls doing here anyway?'
        'The
hotel is crawling with college dancers,' Lala told him. 'There was some kind of
competition this week with student teams from all over the country. The sister
- her name is Tresa, T-r-e-s-a - she goes to school at the University of
Wisconsin at River Falls. She came down here on a bus with her teammates. Her
mother couldn't come, so it sounds like Glory and her boyfriend - his name's
Troy Geier - drove down here separately to cheer for Tresa during the program.
They were all supposed to be heading back home today.'
        'The
victim, Glory, she wasn't part of the competition?'
        Lala
shook her head. 'Nope.'
        'Did you
get any more info about Glory out of the sister or the boyfriend? Do they have
any idea what she was doing on the beach last night?'
        'They
say no.'
        'Do
you believe them?' Cab asked.
        'If
one of them was involved, they put on a good act. Most of the time, you can see
through kids if they're lying.'
        'I
pretty much assume everybody's lying,' Cab said.
        That
was part of his legacy growing up with a mother who worked as an actress. If
someone was moving their lips in LA, they were probably lying. Being a cop had
done nothing to change his conviction that people were dishonest at heart. He'd
learned that lesson the hard way.
        'How
old is the sister Tresa?'