Page 93 of Forged in Steele

“We didn’t,” he said.

“You don’t know that.”

“You’re right. I don’t.” He rocked on his heels. “You should follow your gut.”

He didn’t hide the fact that he didn’t believe her idea held any value, but she didn’t care. She would borrow a car from her family and head to Reya’s place. Taking action of any kind was better than sitting and doing nothing.

Bristol broke the seal on Reya’s door and inserted the key she’d gotten from evidence. She pushed open the door, and a waft of death enveloped her. Not the stench of a body left for a long period of time, but a stale earthy odor mixed with the metallic blood smell. A deep breath would fortify her to enter, but she wouldn’t fill her lungs with the smell.

She closed the door behind her. Silently. Why? She didn’t know. There was no one in the house to disturb.

What would become of this house that Reya had lived in with her husband and baby, albeit only for a short while? A place where the photos on the walls and table spoke of love and happiness for the few days they’d had Darcy in their lives.

How fast a life could be destroyed. Bristol had seen that all too many times on the job. Life changed in literally the blink of an eye. Sometimes in a good way, like a woman giving birth on her drive to the hospital, but more times than not, Bristol had witnessed the worst days of people’s lives.

She flicked on an overhead light. The bare bulb left dark shadows in the empty corners. Bristol aimed her phone’s flashlight around the room. Searching, hunting.

What for? Why was she even here?

Because she couldn’t stop moving. She had to keep looking for a lead. She couldn’t admit they were failing—big time.

“No,” she whispered. “Don’t think that way.”

She took in the pictures on the wall. Family gatherings, many with Reya robust and pregnant. All before the baby was born. Before she went missing. Before she’d died. Before the family had been destroyed.

Had Reya believed in God? If so, how did she reconcile her losses? Did she feel like Job, tempted by the devil to curse God? Or had she already done so?

The closest Bristol could come to understanding was Thomas’s brutal death. But losing a child? How horrific to experience such a loss. How must Sonya Pratt be feeling right now?

Tears bit at the back of Bristol’s eyes, but she willed them away and moved on. She looked in the end table drawers. Rummaged through shelves and drawers of a TV stand. Finding nothing. She got down on the floor. Looked under the sofa. Dust bunnies lingered around the legs and nothing else. She lifted cushions. Shoved her hand into the creases.

All tasks Sierra and her team had performed.

“What are you doing in my house?” a female voice came from the doorway.

Bristol froze and flashed her gaze to the door. A woman pointed a handgun in Bristol’s direction.

Bristol reached for her sidearm.

“Don’t even think about it,” the woman said.

Bristol’s hand stilled over her weapon, and she gaped up at the woman, blinking and looking again. Carefully.

How could what she was seeing be possible?

The woman staring wild-eyed at Bristol was none other than Reya Isaacs come back from the dead.

19

Jared stood with his supervisor in the conference room, their update meeting coming to a close. What a waste of time. He could’ve been doing something active instead of recapping their failure. He could’ve at least helped Bristol search Reya’s house. Not that he thought they or Sierra had missed anything. They’d turned that place upside down. But sometimes it helped to return to a crime scene to jog something in your mind. To find new avenues to pursue.

He hoped Bristol came back with investigative ideas and plenty of them.

His phone rang, the call from Sierra Rice. He stepped to the corner of the room and answered.

“Glad I caught you,” she said. “I just finished processing the prints from Reya Isaacs’s house, and there’s an anomaly.”

“Anomaly?” he asked, hoping this anomaly was in their favor. “What did you find?”

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