Page 89 of Tough as Steele

Yost shook his head. “Guy was on his daily jog before his shift at work and stepped off the trail to relieve himself. He saw the woman being dragged, but whoever was doing the dragging was out of view. The witness was too afraid to approach the killer. He hunkered down behind a tree until the killer left. The runner eventually got up enough courage to call 911.”

“Could’ve been a long time before she was found if this guy hadn’t been jogging,” Nate said.

“If there’s nothing else, I need to get going,” Dr. Albertson said. “The sooner I get out of here, the sooner I can help you figure out if your murders are connected.”

Londyn had been to the morgue many times, but the visits hadn’t become routine, and she knew they never would. Her dad had told her the day she accepted going there as normal was the day she needed to leave policing because she would no longer have the compassion needed to be a good officer.

Her granddad seconded that, but used a fishing story, of course. He reminded her about how she’d once been afraid to remove a hook from a fish’s mouth and how she’d so tenderly removed it, not thinking that they were going to have that same fish for dinner. But Thomas wasn’t as gentle, and Granddad lectured him on the blessings God had given them, and that they had to respect them. He’d told them both that compassion should be shown no matter the setting, and if they couldn’t be compassionate, they needed to remove themselves from the situation before they did any damage.

Then he went on to remind her, as he’d done many times, to show compassion to whoever she interacted with, even if that person had committed a heinous crime like murder. She’d had to work hard many times in her career to do as he instructed her or walk away to calm down and return. Especially when she saw Thomas’s killer. And she’d also walked away from God then. She was hopefully inching her way back to God, but the return trip was fraught with potholes, and she didn’t know if she’d overcome the rough road ahead and get all the way back.

“You seem deep in thought.” Nate slid one of his long legs into a white protective suit.

She ripped open the packaging on hers. “Just thinking about my grandad and my faith life. Or lack thereof.”

“Here, at the morgue?”

“He and my dad taught us all a lot about policing, including what to do at an autopsy.”

“Anything I can help with on the faith issue?”

She shook out the white suit and looked at him. “Do you really believe what you said about God earlier? About God giving us what we need, which is not necessarily what we want?”

“Yeah.” His eyes lit with a happiness she hadn’t seen before. “After moving in with Charles and Clarice, I reached the end of my ability to cope, and that’s when I turned to God. I asked him to show me His power and His plan for my life.”

“And did He?”

Nate nodded. “He reminded me of what my sorrow had taught me and how the struggle made me stronger. He gave me a testimony that I can share with hurting people.”

She tossed the wrapper in the trash can. “That sounds so simple.”

“It is. In our jobs, we can always share a message of hope.” His earnest tone bolstered her mood. “Messages of love. Of support and second chances. Third and fourth and unlimited chances, like I’ve had.”

He paused and tugged up the zipper on his suit while keeping eye contact. “God doesn’t walk away from us. We do the walking. He’s always there.Always.Unchanging. Unfailing. Unmoved. That’s our God. Nothing is bigger than He is. Stronger than He is. More powerful than He is. And that brings me such comfort and joy, I can’t begin to describe it.”

“Wow,” she said. “You really mean it.”

“I do, and I hope I can share what I’ve gone through with others for a long time.”

“But you won’t talk about your SEAL days.”

His joy evaporated, and his lips formed a hard line. “That’s another situation entirely.”

“Would you tell me about it sometime?” she pressed, as she really wanted to know.

He watched her for a long moment as if considering. “Yes.”

She touched his arm. “Thank you. I know it’s hard to talk about, but maybe I can learn something from that too.”

“Not likely, but we can talk sometime.” He grabbed the remaining personal protective equipment and stepped into the morgue.

She couldn’t possibly imagine what had happened in his deployments to take away his joy so quickly. He’d been through the loss of his parents, and he could talk about them. So why the issue with the SEALs?

A question she had to stow for now. She finished dressing and joined him, the ME, and Yost in the room, where Nate’s somber mood was appropriate. The room smelled of bleach and death, a mixture at odds with each other. Jessica lay under a sheet on a stainless steel table, and Dr. Albertson hovered over her.

The doctor looked up. “I’ve done my preliminary examination. Just like I thought, her time of death was around ten p.m. tonight. So far there are no surprises from what we saw at the scene.”

“She died after the ransom drop,” Londyn said. “I wonder if that’s significant.”

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