Kerry wiped her forearm across her face to clear the cobwebs from her mind. She’d been lucky when she found an identifying mark on Jane Doe #2. The female had a tattoo of a sailboat.

During the autopsy John had called her in and showed her a faint discoloration on the ankle. Kerry had dabbed a bit of diluted household bleach on the skin, a trick she’d learned in New Orleans, and the image of a boat appeared. John seemed impressed—always a good thing for a person on contract.

Underneath the boat was the name Bra_y_ne. The skin had broken apart in the middle of the word, making identification difficult but not impossible. One good thing about the woman’s choice of shapes was its uniqueness might help identify her.

Once John finished the autopsy, he handed the body over to Kerry. She photographed the details of the tattoo, and then began the painstaking job of cleaning the bones. She understood all too well the results from the autopsy would not be back for days.

It was evident from the fracture on the boat lady’s body that her arm had been broken about three years ago. The spiral nature of the injury implied abuse. The broken jaw looked more recent.

Kerry had been working on the body for less than an hour when her lab door squeaked open and John popped his head in.

“Hey, Doc. I just received another call.”

Her heart sank to her stomach. Another call. Another death.

“What do we have?” The usual heart thumping and belly souring blasted her.

“It’s...bad. They think they found the bones of an infant. They’re hoping you’ll tell them the remains are animal.” He scratched his beard and looked out the window.

“What aren’t you telling me?” John was an easy read.

“A piece of a child’s jacket was beside one of the bones.”

Damn. “Let me gather my gear.”

Forcing her emotions aside, Kerry grabbed her kit. She’d left the shovel and some of her digging tools in the M.E.’s van, ready to go at a moment’s notice.

They drove in silence for a good ten miles, east past Brahman University, then headed north another five miles. The area was close to where they’d found yesterday’s bodies.

For a brief moment she wondered if Detective Markum had been assigned to this case, but she refused to address the strange and unwanted flick of excitement that shot through her.

Crap. How could she forget? The man might be married. The last man Kerry had slept with had kept his wife hidden. Too bad he’d never told her until she joyfully informed him about their unborn child.

John pulled to a stop on the road behind a long line of sheriff cruisers parked along the rim of a wooden area. Some officers were leaning against the hood of their cars while other vehicles sat empty.

No doubt they were waiting for her and John.

As they traveled to where the crime scene unit was planting flags, Whit Jackson, the lead detective on the case, met them. From the ease with which they talked, John knew him quite well.

Kerry surveyed the area. Too many small flags stabbed the ground, each signifying a bone or a piece of evidence, and her gut churned.

God, she hated this job some days. Child deaths hit her the hardest. Kids shouldn’t die, and parents shouldn’t have to experience such loss. She never could erase her mother’s wails when her older brother had vanished.

She gloved her hands, squatted, and picked up one of the bones. A wave of hurt assaulted her. “Human all right.” Damn it.

From the chew marks, it looked as if the child had been dug up by an enthusiastic animal who’d deposited the remains everywhere.

A shadow loomed over her. Kerry looked up and squinted into the hot sun. Whit Jackson looked down at her.

His shoulders slumped. “Tell me what you need us to do.”

“Find the head.” The holy grail of body parts.

Without saying a word, he spun around and began directing his men and women in a militant manner to spread out—to search more.

Fifteen minutes later, a shout came from the far end of the field. “Over here. We found it!”

Kerry trudged to where several officers had gathered beneath a shaded tree. The front part of the cranium was intact but little else. Usually animals leave the skull alone because their teeth can’t grasp the unwieldy bone, but a child’s head was a different matter.

Kerry studied the skull. Once the CSU team triangulated its position, she bagged the head for further study.

“Can you tell the child’s sex?” Whit asked.

“Not yet. I need more bones, but with a child this young, it’ll be very difficult. The hipbones haven’t developed yet.” She noted the lack of teeth. “This is an infant.” Kerry had a hard time swallowing. “I’d say between six months and a year old.”

Her heart nearly broke when she thought about the pain the child’s mother must have experienced not knowing if her baby was alive or dead.

“Thank you. That will help.”

“Have any idea on the PMI?” John asked, sneaking up behind her.

The postmortem interval told her the time of death. “From the color of the bones, a year or more would be my guess. I’ll have to do tests back at the lab to get a more precise estimate.”

Kerry went from site to site, bagging the evidence as the CSU team drew careful diagrams and took photographs of the area.

“Hey, Doc,” Whit called. He trudged up the path, wiping his brow with a handkerchief. From his red face, and overweight condition, she hoped he wouldn’t suffer from heat exhaustion. It had to be close to ninety-five degrees with one hundred percent humidity. Even her limbs were growing weak with each passing hour.

When Whit reached her, his sagging cheeks told her they’d found something. “We located the grave, or least what’s left of it. Um...part of the lower body is still there. It’s a girl.”

Oh God. Her insides turned to liquid. When Kerry had miscarried, she’d been carrying a girl. An intense pain squeezed her heart, almost causing her to miss a step.

Whit pointed up the path, and she followed him to the burial pit.

Flies had found the exposed flesh and were buzzing around the grave. The moment she neared the area, the smell of putrefaction assaulted her, which meant soft tissue, but soft tissue meant John could do an autopsy. This find might move them one step closer to finding out what had happened to this child. For a sliver of a moment, her heart stopped aching.

The lower half of the body was still in a body bag. Someone had cared enough to place the child in what he or she thought was a safe place. Little did the person realize the land sloped at such a pitch that when it rained, deep crevices formed, slowly washing away the soil, eventually exposing the bag.

For the next few hours, Kerry directed the team to gather bones. By four p.m., the sheriff’s department decided to call it a day, having bagged and labeled all of the bones–or so they’d believed. No one had found any other evidence in the last hour. If any crucial bones were missing, they promised they’d come out tomorrow and search again.

Back in the SUV, John broke the news. “I think we need to concentrate on identifying the four women, Kerry. I’m sorry. I know you want to work on the child.”

He was the boss and she’d do what he said, but she’d find a way to help Baby Doe. “Once you autopsy the infant, do you mind if I photograph and X-ray the body before investigating the others? I can do it after hours.”

He nodded solemnly. “No problema.”

If she found some spare time—ha, ha—she wanted to try a facial reconstruction of the child. If that proved impossible, she’d try her hand with one of the skeletons she’d found yesterday. She’d read about a new technique to recreate faces with more accuracy and wanted to see if her skill could be improved. However, the chances of matching a face to her clay model would be slim given she wasn’t a forensic artist by trade.

John eased into the morgue parking lot. “Was this your first time finding a child?”

“Yes.”

“They’re the toughest.”

If only he knew. While she never knew her unborn little girl, she never stopped grieving.

John honked, signaling he needed help with the body bag. The autopsy technician grab one end of the bag and slip it onto the gurney.

“Kerry,” John said. “This is Steven, my top autopsy technician.”

The young man’s gaze hugged the ground. “Thanks, Dr. A.”

“He wants to be a pathologist. He’s even going to school at night.”

“Fantastic.” She guessed the cheery conversation was an attempt to block the gruesome scene that swirled around them.

“Nice meeting you.” Steven finally looked up.

“You too.”

Kerry wiped a sweaty brow, collected her gear and trudged inside. She ignored the lingering odor of death surrounding her and enjoyed the cool morgue air.

John went one way down the hall, she the other. Since Kerry had to wait for the autopsy results on Baby Doe, she pulled her attention back to the Jane Doe cases. Something about these women had tickled the back of her brain all day. Snippets of a connection flitted in and out, but she couldn’t connect the dots. Yet.