“Is it fair to bring them into…whatever this is?” Kelsey asked.

“It’s up to them. If the team works out, they’ll wind up with training, and you’ll both have to take a few courses, too, for the proper certifications in weapons and such.”

Kelsey wondered about the documentary. Would Sean still be working on it? He was no slouch. Besides being multitalented, he was what you’d consider a “man’s man.” Football, kickboxing and mixed martial arts were hobbies for him, and he’d turned down a chance to be college all-pro because he loved film and computers more.

“He’s got what we need,” Logan said, looking at her curiously.

“Does he know about this?” she murmured.

“We’ve communicated,” Jackson told her.

“And he’s a—” Logan began.

“Texan,” Kelsey finished for him. Logan raised his eyebrows and smiled at her. He was smiling far more easily. She wished she wasn’t so glad of that.

“When are they meeting us at the morgue?” he asked.

“In twenty minutes. At nine,” Jackson said.

“What’s the first order of business?”

“We’ll start with Kat,” Jackson said. “Most of the bodies are so decomposed that the best medical examiner in the world would have difficulty telling us much more than Gaylord did. But she has the ability to go a step further, especially now, as a member of this team.”

Logan wasn’t surprised by that, Kelsey realized. Of course, he knew Kat Sokolov because he’d worked with her before.

“She…speaks with corpses?” she ventured.

Logan turned to her. If he guessed she’d been talking about him earlier and felt angry about it, he didn’t indicate that in any way. “I think Jackson means that she not only has a special ability, but she’s got the money behind her now to do the kind of testing they wouldn’t normally have done for unidentified corpses with apparent causes of death. Doing the appropriate tests, Kat can learn a great deal more. She’ll be able to give us information that could lead us in the right direction.”

Jackson spoke up. “Kat is excellent, and she’ll be dedicated to this case.”

He looked at them both. “We’ve already got our first report from her. We didn’t need an exceptionally talented M.E. to find out about the DNA in that finger, but as we all suspected, it was Vanessa Johnston’s.”

“The killer seems to be speeding up,” Logan said.

They were all quiet for a minute. Yes, they’d suspected that the finger had been the missing woman’s. Now they knew it. Yes, any adept technician could have gotten them that information. But Kelsey had the feeling that things were just beginning, that Jackson Crow knew exactly what he was doing, and Kat Sokolov was going to be an important addition to their, as yet, uncertain unit. But although Kelsey hadn’t made a formal decision, and neither had Logan, she felt as if they belonged. As if they were part of the Krewe of Hunters.

“We should’ve been able to help her,” she murmured. Tears stung her eyes; she hadn’t known Vanessa Johnston or the others, and she’d mastered some hard lessons in law enforcement, but the human element was always there. So was the hopeless, impotent feeling that came with learning another victim was past saving.

“We just figured this out,” Jackson reminded her. “Now it’s up to us.”

“She’s probably beyond help, but not beyond justice,” Logan said. “Let’s head out. The longer it takes us to discover the truth, the more opportunity there’ll be for this killer to find his next victim.”

* * *

Kat wore a white lab jacket and her hands were gloved as she worked over the body of Tara Grissom, taking blood and tissue samples.

Logan watched her, again studying what remained of Tara’s face. He felt anger roiling inside him—a good anger, not a destructive one. It was the kind of anger that made him want to track down the killer. A completely controlled emotion. They needed to be methodical while they worked with all possible haste. He glanced over at Jackson Crow and thought about the power the man had and what they were being offered.

Certain tests were automatically done on corpses brought in for autopsy. In cases where cause of death seemed clear, some tests usually wouldn’t be done. They were just too expensive, especially when X-rays or physical trauma pointed to the means of death—such as broken hyoid bones or the evidence of stab wounds.

However, in this case, they desperately needed more clues. That meant more time and money.

Jackson had the federal funds necessary to pitch in when the local budget was used up. And, Logan knew, if he joined Crow’s unit, he’d have that same backing.

He saw that Jackson was staring at him, and he wondered if the other man suspected what was going on in his mind.

“I doubt I’ll be able to find needle marks if the women were injected with any substance,” Kat said apologetically. “In some of these instances we’re down to almost no soft tissue. We could find metal poisoning in the hair or bones, but…we do have a few victims who may be able to tell us something.”

“GC-MS?” Logan asked.

She nodded, looking at Jackson. “Yes.”

To detect many of the possible substances that might’ve been used to subdue the women before they disappeared, GC-MS, or gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy, would be needed. The state of decay meant that no other approach was likely to yield results.

It seemed logical that the women had been influenced in some way to leave the Alamo—or wherever their location—without putting up any kind of fight or making a scene. They might’ve been persuaded to come and see something or invited to do something. What that something was Logan and the others had no clue—except for the phone call recorded between Chelsea Martin and her friend Nancy. The call was abruptly cut off. Someone had interrupted Chelsea, and she hadn’t been seen or heard from again…until her corpse was discovered. Another possibility, as Kat had mentioned, was some form of sedative.

“I’m going to do more testing, a lot more testing,” Kat told them. “As of now, I don’t have much to give you, but I’ll look for drugs, and I’ll study the stomach contents—those tests were done, but not really followed up. I’ll do whatever I can.” She offered them a weak smile. “It’s going to be nice to have first call on all the lab techs out there, and free rein for any test I need.”

Logan glanced across the corpse at Kelsey, who was gazing down at Tara’s face. He liked the quiet way she’d stood listening, and the empathy in her eyes. He looked at the corpse himself and wondered whether he’d lost his “talent” after Alana’s death.

Had it diminished because he’d refused to make use of it? After all, what good was a “talent” that had failed him when he’d needed it most?

But he still had it. He knew he did. Something was eluding him, though. He could reach out, and he could see, but he couldn’t see enough. He’d reached the young woman, but he’d felt blinded.

He walked over to Kelsey, who started, her attention drawn from the corpse. He took her hand; she scowled at him, taut and resistant, when he urged her toward the corpse.

“You need to see,” he told her.

“Just like you do,” she shot back.

He bent his head slightly, a bitter smile curving his lips. “But we’re a team, right? And your eyes might be better on this one. You have to feel the hurt, don’t you?”

She didn’t allow him to force her hand onto the putrefying corpse, but she didn’t make a show of fighting him in front of Kat and Jackson, either. She did let him guide her, though, and he felt some emotion rip through her as she touched Tara Grissom’s arm. Her eyes flashed to his in green fury but she didn’t get a chance to speak; the door opened and they were joined by a tall, slim brunette wearing a lab coat and carrying a camera.

“Jane,” Jackson said warmly. “Thank you for coming.”

Logan released Kelsey’s arm.

But he met her eyes again and shrugged grimly. She’d gotten something, made some kind of connection. And while he was glad to welcome Jane Everett to the investigation, he was also anxious to get back on the streets with Kelsey.

She had what he’d lost.

Maybe it was simply the ability to give, and to love. To touch, in a way he no longer could.

Chapter Seven

Kelsey tried to greet Jane Everett cordially, with professional courtesy, but she felt as if she were burning inside. Watching as Kat worked with the corpse had become painful. She kept wondering if Vanessa Johnston had been alive when she’d reached Texas, and though she knew the loss of a finger didn’t guarantee death, she also knew they wouldn’t find her alive. And as she’d listened to Katya Sokolov, she’d felt an almost overwhelming sadness for the young woman on the table.

Touching her had made it worse; it was as though she’d felt her own life ebbing through her fingers as the corpse’s one good eye stared at her. Deep in her mind, she’d heard a silent cry for help.

Where were you? Kelsey asked. What were you doing? How were you so quickly and easily taken? And why?

“Kelsey O’Brien, Jane Everett,” Jackson said, introducing them.

They shook gloved hands, and Kelsey tried to smile as Jackson continued. “Logan, Kat, Jane, you three know one another and you’ve worked together, so I’m actually the odd man out here, along with Kelsey, of course.”

Jane Everett had warm amber eyes and she seemed pleased to meet Kelsey. They didn’t exchange small talk over the corpse; Jane went right to the heart of her expertise. “This isn’t going to be easy,” she said. “I can do better images when we’re working with skulls,” she told Kat.

“Tara’s face we know.” Kat spoke gently and respectfully of the dead. “On some of the others, most of the tissue is already lost, so we can take a look and then decide on an approach.”