Dark Matter

“Aren’t you going to answer?” Zag asked from the door.

She glanced down at the street below. “Isn’t it funny how, here in Vegas, it doesn’t matter if it’s day or night? The lights are always on.”

Of course, Zag would recognize the ring tone.

She was trying to decide if she should take the call here with Zag listening in or risk his censure by asking for privacy.

“Let him leave a message then,” Zag said, his voice in dulcet tones as he lay back on the Dream Bed. “Come back to bed, cherie.”

Only, they both knew she wouldn’t.

Evie flipped open the phone. She whispered into the cell, “Hello, lover. How’s our boy doing?”

4

Detective Stephen “Seven” Bushard stared at the body lying in the mud. The girl appeared nestled in the cordgrass, her legs and arms disappearing into the knee-high vegetation. She wore jeans and a Roxy T-shirt, the surfing brand, a favorite with young girls here at the beach.

The officer on the scene, one of Huntington Beach’s finest, had told Seven’s partner some Iron Man stud training for his next triathlon had found the body. This section of the wetlands, the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve, featured a one-and-a-half mile loop around a water inlet, the walking trail was part of a three-hundred-acre coastal sanctuary for wildlife and migratory birds. After thirty years of litigation, the restoration project had been the compromise between environmentalists and developers. Already minimansions with multimillion-dollar views had sprouted where Shoshone Indians had once hunted on the mesa. People still found cogged stones in the area, artifacts from an eight-thousand-year-old burial site soon to be paved over. Progress, Seven thought. Go figure.

Seven crouched down for a closer look. He had almost sixteen years on the force, eight of them in homicide, but he would never get used to this.

The way the girl was curled up in her bed of grass, she appeared to be sleeping. Her head was turned toward him, but three-quarters of her face was buried in the mud. Still, he could make out her youthful features.

Jesus, she’s just a kid.

He had to give the cop in him a mental kickstart. The wetlands might not be his jurisdiction, but if someone thought it was important for him to be here, he’d damn sure get the job done.

He took off his sunglasses to better examine the body. Most likely, the tide had dragged the victim here via the channel that cut through the Pacific Coast Highway. The waterway refreshed the wetlands with ocean water. To the tide, she’d be so much trash floating like the detritus left behind by the beachgoers every summer.

Seven took out his pen from inside his jacket and used it to gently push aside the cordgrass, exposing the girl’s left hand. There was obvious bruising around the wrist.

She’d been tied up.

He tried not to imagine the worst. Rape. Torture.

He pocketed his pen, searching for that objective observer inside. He’d given himself the pep talk on the ride over; he’d get it back, that ability to compartmentalize. The last year hadn’t tainted him forever. Any second now, he’d be able to hover over the dead girl’s body and search for clues like a good cop.

Only, the details that popped for him had nothing to do with murder. The glitter nail polish…her thick blond hair coiled in ringlets. When she was alive, those curls would circle her face like a crown.

He turned away, acting as if he was giving the crime scene investigator free rein to snap more stills. He stared up, focusing on the cloud cover overhead. The haze made for a steely morning sky. The same dull color reflected off the water trapped in the low marsh. The tide differentials would be at their highest this time of year—probably why the body was beached here.

Just last week, Seven had brought his eleven-year-old nephew to the Bolsa Chica. They’d been fishing down by Warner and the PCH. Posted signs told visitors of the Belding’s Savannah Sparrow, an endangered species that bred and nested here. Shore crabs grazed on algae and snowy egret high-stepped through the pickleweed. But Nick, he’d been all about the brown pelicans, watching them dive-bombing into the water for fish.

Really, the place was idyllic…if you didn’t count the dead body.

His partner, Erika Cabral, came to stand next to him. Her sunglasses looked huge on her face—designer, no doubt, the kind celebrities wore. Erika always said there wasn’t much she couldn’t fix with a little retail therapy.

“So why’d we get the call?” he asked. “Last time I checked, this is some sort of jurisdictional no-man’s land for the sheriff and Huntington Beach PD to sift through.”

She nodded. “An interesting question, no doubt.”

He gave it a minute. It was never good when Erika tried to hide something from him.

“That’s all you got?” he asked. “An interesting question?”

“A woman of mystery, that’s me.”

The Latina had always been a girly girl, one who regularly kicked his butt on the firing range. She was all of five feet two inches tall and had the classic good looks of a Penelope Cruz—dark hair, dark eyes, and lots of curves.

Only lately, Seven noticed she’d stepped it up a bit. Nice sweaters worn under fitted jackets, lip gloss that made her mouth look shiny and wet…as if the sexiest detective in Orange County needed any help in that area. The other day, she’d even mentioned that four letter word: diet.

And her hair. No more messy French twists or ponytails. Last week, he’d made the mistake of lobbing some weak compliment. The next thing he knew, he was listening to how she’d straightened her hair then used some big-barreled curling iron to get just the right wave, like she’d been possessed by the spirit of Revlon.

He figured there was a man involved. He hoped to hell it wasn’t that dick of a reporter he’d punched out last year. But then, Erika did like a challenge.

“So now we’re playing twenty questions?” he asked, still wondering what business two detectives from Westminster had in the Bolsa Chica.

“You say it like it’s a bad thing. Look, don’t stress, Seven. Why don’t you try taking a couple of breaths? Like this.” She demonstrated. “In through the nose, out through the mouth. It’s yoga. Good for whatever ails you.”

He gave her a look from beneath his aviator glasses. “You do yoga?”

“You think I keep this figure sitting behind a desk?”

He was thinking more like Krav Maga. Despite her petite size, his partner could kick some serious ass.

“You should come to a class with me sometimes.” She made an elaborate gesture with her hands around his head and shoulders. “Your aura. It could use some work.”

He didn’t let her see him smile. If there was anyone on this planet who didn’t believe in auras, it was his partner. Her Cuban mother had seen to that, spending a small fortune on espiritistas and santeros who promised cures…for the right price.

She nodded toward the body. “What do you see?”

“Ligature marks on the wrists.”

“The ankles, too.” She took a minute. “She hasn’t spent too much time in the water.”

He nodded. “Maybe she was dumped. She’s not a floater.”

A submerged body, a floater, decomposed at an accelerated rate. Within a day, or even hours depending on the temperature, anaerobic bacteria trapped in the intestines produced gases that distended the stomach cavity and bloated the body beyond recognition. Other than a little mud, the victim before him looked pristine.

“Not a drowning?” Erika ventured.

“Or a crime of passion.” He indicated the ligature marks. “Whoever killed her took his time.”

“Poor baby.” She seemed to be talking to the girl as if she could hear her. “We’re going to find the piece of shit that did this to you.”

Watching Erika there beside the girl, Seven got a flash of a different, even more disturbing image. His nephew, Nick, lying there in the mud.

Jesus, the girl was only a few years older than Nick.