Today's Reading
CHAPTER ONE
RIDDLES. THOSE ARE MY SPECIALTY. THAT IS, WHEN I AM not studying patterns. Or decoding enigmas. Some might say that solving puzzles is all I'm good for. That leaving my desk in the Jacksonville office of the FBI to interact with real people is not the best use of my time or talent. And I would agree with them.
I stood beside my rented Toyota Avalon and stared at the yellow one-story ranch home.
"Hella impossible," a voice came from over my shoulder.
I glanced at my partner.
Cassie Pardo is a petite five foot three but has the propulsive energy of a thousand suns. She also uses the slang of a nineteen-year-old.
"Nothing's impossible," I said.
Cassie closed the manila folder that her head had been buried in since we left DFW Airport. As we drove here, she had been handicapping the odds on what we were about to see. One in a million...one in two million.
A deputy walked over. He was fortyish with a comb-over the color of wheat and an Adam's apple that protruded fourteen millimeters from his larynx.
"Ryan Hollings." He reached out his hand.
I stared at it. Over two hundred bacteria thrive on each square inch of our palms. "Gardner Camden," I said, shaking. I'm not OCD. I just know things like this.
I pointed at the yellow house. "Your victim," I said. "How exactly was he found?"
"An employee from Ashland Gas was checking the meter," Hollings said. "Glanced through the slider and saw blood. Called us."
Cassie popped a piece of chewing gum in her mouth. She was twenty-nine and wore a tailored black jacket over gray slacks. "And you ran the man's prints," she said. "Saw Agent Camden's name?"
Hollings nodded, and we followed him across the lawn. "I googled you two as I waited," he said. "Saw you were the ones who found that six-year-old in those caves down in Sonora. That was big news here in Texas."
The case he referred to had been solved thirteen months ago, with Cassie and me at the helm.
"Not sure if you remember how crazy that was," Hollings kept up. "Folks were setting up phone banks and doing grid searches. You two came along and bam—"
"There were traces of an anhydrous carbonate on his father's shoe," I said.
Hollings scrunched up his face.
"The kid rescued from those caves," Cassie clarified.
"There are only nine places in the U.S. where that mineral has been mined," I said. "Only one in Texas."
"Well God damn, man." Hollings shook his head. "That's what I'm talking about."
The deputy had a deep voice, and I pictured a book. A Study of Laryngeal Prominence. Page 52. Right side. An illustration of an Adam's apple, along with a statistic about baritones.
We got to the front door, and Cassie took out two sets of purple nitrile gloves. She snapped a pair over her olive skin and retied her brown hair into a tight ponytail.
"No one's been inside?" she asked, handing me the other set of gloves.
"Just me and medical," Hollings said.
He pushed the screen door open with the steel toe of his boot, and I studied him. Two inches shorter than me and stocky. I have more of an athletic build. Six foot one with curly brown hair and blue eyes.
Cassie pointed at the open door, her lips forming a smile. "Age before beauty."
...
