The Circle of Blood

Chapter One

CAMERYN MAHONEY WAS surprised to see the blood on her hand.

She’d always been careful to tug on a pair of latex gloves, the whisper-thin barrier she wore every time she processed a body. Today’s accident had been worse than anything she’d experienced thus far as assistant to the coroner. The decedent had been a young man-one Benjamin Baker, organ donor. Sixteen and dead, with Christmas only weeks away. In a bizarre twist, the car’s crumpled radio had played on, some country version of “Jingle Bells.” She’d listened to it as she picked through the wreckage, trying not to step in the blood that seeped from his gaping neck into an ever-widening arc across the snow.

Now, sitting in her driveway outside her own home, her car in neutral, Cameryn stared at the red mark on her hand. There must have been a tiny tear in her glove that had allowed the fluid to seep in. With the lightest touch of her fingertip, she traced the silver dollar-sized stain, a scarlet web whose threads disappeared into her finger line. Her own coroner stigmata.

“Cammie-come into the kitchen. You’re going to catch your death from the cold! Do you hear me, girl? Come inside where it’s warm.”

Startled, Cameryn looked up to see her Irish grandmother standing less than ten feet away on their back porch, the door held ajar by her hip. Stout and whitehaired, she scooped the air with a thick arm. Her mammaw’s lips were pressed into a frown, and her pale eyes, set deep into her face, were lit with worry.

Cameryn rolled down the window. “In a minute, Mammaw,” she said. “I just need a little time to myself right now. I’m… thinking.”

“But it’s almost noon,” her grandmother protested. “Since the crack of dawn you’ve been out looking at Lord-knows-what. Gruesome, horrible things. A dead body before the day’s even begun. It’s wrong, is what it is.”

“Mammaw, it was just a car accident.”

Where some older women had skin that wrinkled like parchment, her mammaw’s thick skin sagged into deep grooves, especially on the sides of her mouth, suggesting a perpetual frown. “Come inside. Have some lunch. Or breakfast, if you’d prefer. I’ll make you whatever you want. Food heals the soul.”

“Thanks, Mammaw. It’s just, right now, I want to be alone. I’ll be there soon, though, okay? I promise.”

Her grandmother shook her head and closed the door so that the plastic Christmas wreath swayed against the glass until it lost momentum and stopped. Pressing a button, Cameryn put the window up, and she returned to her own personal cocoon. She sat, staring, her mind drifting once again to the mangled wreckage she’d discovered on the road.

Blood. There had been so very much blood. She pressed her fingertips into her closed eyes, but the images still played behind her lids.

The gaping hole of Benjamin’s neck, the bulb of his vertebrae gleaming white, the feathers of steam from where the still-warm liquid met cold asphalt, the geometry book peppered with blood. Centrifugal force had caused Benjamin’s decapitation. Patrick Mahoney, Cameryn’s father and Silverton’s coroner, had explained this as they’d studied the remains. The car’s door had sheered off, and the body lay half in, half out of the mangled vehicle. Benjamin’s fingers curled against the snow, as if he were playing a keyboard.

“This young man didn’t wear his seat belt. A car protects the body in a crash, and without a restraint- well, you see what can happen,” her father told her.

Cameryn nodded. She’d already taken her first sweep of pictures. Propping the camera on her hip, she said, “At least it was quick.”

“He never knew what hit him.” Her father sighed as he surveyed the body, jotting notes in his red plastic binder. “We’d better get a sheet.”

“I’ll do it. I packed one in the car.”

She turned to go but found she suddenly couldn’t move. Patrick had drawn her into a tight embrace, so close she could smell the wood smoke embedded in his black regulation parka. The edge of the binder bit into her back.

She felt swallowed up, suffocated by her father’s sheer physical size. A tall man with a barrel chest and heavy brows, he had both a build and coloring so different from her own. The once-red hair was still dense as grass, but age was turning it a snowy white. His ruddy complexion made his blue eyes seem glacial. She, on the other hand, had inherited her mother’s dark curly hair, warm, golden skin, and brown eyes, as well as her mother’s diminutive height.

“Dad,” she said into his parka, “I can’t breathe. And we need to start looking.”

“Sorry.” He released her with a rough kiss to the top of her head. “You’re right, there’s still a job to do. I need to find the rest of this guy.” Squinting, he scanned the army of trees. “It is not going to be easy.”

“I know.”

The car had crashed on the Million Dollar Highway, a narrow, twisting two-lane road that folded back on itself like tossed-away ribbon. To the west, Colorado ’s San Juan Mountains loomed above them, while to the east, the ground cut away into a deep valley riddled with spruce. “The problem is,” her father murmured, “that head could be anywhere. I’ve seen them sail a quarter mile or more, which means it could have gone down the mountainside. If it did, we’re screwed.”

“We can at least figure out the trajectory.”

“How’s that?”

She told him the amount of blood contained in a skull and how, once it became airborne, blood trailed from the base of the neck like paint until the head landed back on the ground. Find the blood and track it to the end, following the splatter like a trail of crumbs. Her father seemed impressed, asking if she’d learned that from her forensic books. Unlike her grandmother, he approved of her dream of becoming a medical examiner.

“That’s good, Cammie, but reality is harder than theory. I’ll do the search while you stay with the decedent until the sheriff arrives.” He looked at his watch, tapping its face with his fingertip. “Something must have happened to hold up Jacobs. He should’ve been here by now.”

It took a moment for her to process what her father was saying. A chill crept through the soles of her cowboy boots and up past her faded jeans until it spread all the way into her chest. Once again, he was shutting her out. Before, they’d worked their cases as a team, but lately he’d been finding excuses to leave her at home. If she hadn’t taken the call about this morning’s crash, she suspected she would have been left behind on this one, too. “Wait,” she protested. “I don’t want to stay here with the body-I want to go with you.”

“And I want you to stay here. Do the inventory, okay?”

At that moment a semi appeared, blowing black smoke from an upright exhaust pipe. She heard a squeal as the driver engaged the brakes. The man, riding high in his cab, goggled the wreckage. Her father’s disgust deepened when the man honked his horn. “Keep moving! ” Patrick yelled, his arm circling like the blades on a windmill. “Go on!” Black smoke belched from the truck’s exhaust pipe as it strained to regain momentum up the steep hill. “People always want a bloody show. Cammie, get that sheet. This fellow shouldn’t be gawked at. I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

“We’ll go twice as fast with me searching.”

“I’ll take it from here,” he said pleasantly.

Although lately he’d taken to wearing turtlenecks instead of his usual T-shirts, today he was dressed as he used to be: workmen’s boots and his frayed coroner’s cap with a star stitched in golden thread. But despite his familiar touches, there was something new in his demeanor. He, who had often pried into his daughter’s inner life, had himself become evasive. She could sense it.

“Do you think I’ve lost my forensic touch?” she asked.

“Hardly.” Opening the binder, he clicked his pen, signaling they were done. “Everyone knows you’re a prodigy.” He peered at the form, muttering, “Cameryn Mahoney, Angel of Death. You’ve got quite a reputation around town.” After scribbling a few lines, he held out the binder. “Okay, you’re up.”

But she refused to extend her hand. Crossing her arms, she hugged her sides. Her father’s exasperation was etched in every line on his face. “Take it,” he commanded.

“If you’re going to shut me out, you can at least tell me why.”

“For Pete’s sake, you don’t need to see a severed head.” Jabbing the folder toward her, he said, “The face holds the soul, Cammie. Just-do the inventory.”

“What’s the real reason?”

Her father sighed. Slowly, the folder dropped to his side. Another truck crept by, its engine clattering like an old sewing machine, but this time they ignored the rubberneckers. “For one thing,” he finally said, “I promised your grandmother.”

This didn’t surprise her. Her mammaw was convinced that cutting into the dead was the devil’s business. Her father, though, had always been on her side. “Why did you make that promise?”

“Because the last case we worked on put you in danger. For now, at least, she wants you to stop.” He grinned, trying to soften her up. “You know how she can be when her Irish dander’s up. Just humor her, all right? Humor me.”

Inside, Cameryn groaned. This again.

“But this job,” she argued, “is the reason I’m being courted by a top forensic school. Besides, this case is not a homicide-it’s a car wreck. Please, both of you, quit worrying about me. You said ‘for one thing.’ So, what’s the other thing?”

He took a step closer, his eyes full of appeal. “You’re struggling. There’ve been so many changes in your life that I want to keep anything that can hurt you as far away as I can. You can tell me anything, Cammie, and I’ll help. No matter what it is. Or who.”

At that moment, she became aware of a bird cawing overhead and the whisper of wind through the pines and the way her father’s feet had planted in the snow like pylons. For some reason she registered these things-the mountain sounds and Patrick’s stolid legs, the blinding whiteness of the snow, the coldness of the air in her lungs, mingled with the pungent smell of truck exhaust. It was then that she understood: this was not a conversation about something, this was about someone. Her father had been talking about Hannah, the mother Cameryn had never known, the woman who had unexpectedly been resurrected in their lives only weeks before.

“You’re worried about Hannah,” she answered. “That’s what this is all about.”

Patrick’s silence told her all she needed to know.

“Dad, she’s- I just want to spend time with her. You said you’d let me figure things out on my own, and that’s what I’m doing. She’s my mom.”

“Genetically. A womb doesn’t make a mother. And since we’re opening this box, how long is Hannah going to stay in Silverton? Doesn’t she have a life in New York? She was supposed to come and go, but she’s still here.”

“I-I don’t know.” It was the truth. Her mother had returned, but she was elusive, as vague about her plans as she was her thoughts. “Hannah told me she’s just taking it a day at a time. She doesn’t tell me a lot. She… paints.”

“She paints.” Patrick scoffed. “Hannah doesn’t talk, she paints. Do you have any idea how crazy that sounds?”

“Don’t say that!”

The words echoed against the granite mountainside. That, that, that, rang through the air and her father stared, as though if he tried hard enough, he might somehow burn Hannah from his daughter’s mind. When she could no longer return his gaze, she watched the victim’s math book as it lay there on the road, splattered with blood, its pages turning gently in the winter wind.

“Be careful,” Patrick told her, his voice low. Placing a finger beneath her chin, he raised her face until she was forced to look into his eyes, which had become once again warm, fatherly. “I loved her once, too. But there are reasons you need to be cautious. Has she told you the story of how Jayne died?”

Shaking her head, she mouthed the word no. Of course she had asked. Countless times she’d tried to fathom details from the depths of her mysterious mother, but whenever she’d pressed, Hannah had turned away. In this delicate chase of daughter courting mother, Cameryn felt as though she’d lose if she pushed too hard.

“Before you give up your heart, find out what happened that day. I think it’s important.”

“Why can’t you tell me?”

“A long time ago, Hannah promised to stay away and I promised to stay quiet. Secrets were put in place to protect you. But you tell her for me that if she breaks the deal, I will, too. You’re slipping away from me, Cammie. She’s giving me no choice.”

“Dad.” She stopped there, because the words she wanted to say were jammed in her throat. Eyes brimming with tears, she asked, “Why does it have to be this hard?”

“Oh, baby. Sweetheart, I’m sorry.” Pulling a blowing strand of hair away from her face, he hooked it gently behind her ear. With the edge of his thumb he wiped a tear that rolled down the side of her cheek. “Cammie, it’s just… when I saw that dead kid, I kept thinking about you and me and how time runs out. I- This is not the time or the place.”

Before he could finish, lights flashed from the top of a white Durango, Silverton’s four-wheel-drive police car. The blue and red dazzled like bottled rockets.

“Well,” he sighed, “here they come.” Patrick’s brows knit together and he closed his eyes. When he opened them he’d become, once again, Silverton’s coroner. “We’ve got a job to do. No matter what, we have to do it.”

Blood had pooled against the side of Patrick’s boot; his heel cleaved a print of red as he stepped toward the approaching car.

“Dad,” she’d cried. “Wait! ”

At that moment car doors slammed as Sheriff Jacobs, along with Deputy Justin Crowley, made his way toward the crumpled car.

“Sorry we’re late. We had a snafu at the office,” Jacobs declared as he approached the mangled car. He balled his hands on his hips as he surveyed the scene. “My God, Pat, what a mess.”

“Oh, man, look at that,” Justin said as he caught sight of the corpse. “Where’s the head?”

“Haven’t found it yet,” Patrick replied. “I checked out the wallet-the kid’s name is Benjamin Baker, resident of Durango. Cammie’s done the first sweep of photos. She’s going to stay back and do inventory while we search.”

Sheriff Jacobs made a sound in the back of his throat. His features were sharp. His gray, thinning hair was hidden beneath a sheriff’s hat that had actual earflaps. Small in stature, Jacobs was the kind of man whose motions were quick, impatient. Ever since Cameryn’s father had hired her, the sheriff had radiated disapproval whenever Cameryn was on the scene. This time, though, he barely seemed to notice her. His already small eyes seemed to disappear as he squinted. “Guess we can skip calling the EMTs. Don’t need an emergency team to check for a heartbeat if he don’t got a head.”

“That’s what I thought,” her father said. “I already declared time of death at five minutes before we received the first call. That makes it oh-six-hundred hours.”

Sheriff Jacobs scribbled the number on his own notepad.

Rubbing his hands together, Justin blew on his fingers, his eyes surveying the scene until they rested on Cameryn’s, lingering.

Are you okay? Justin mouthed. Cameryn nodded in reply. Justin’s dark hair, too long for regulation, hung into his eyes; there was a slight shadow of stubble across his chin. Although he’d come from New York only five months earlier, Justin had already embraced Silverton’s casual style. His brown leather bomber jacket had been broken in along with his jeans; the only thing that marked him as police was the badge he wore on a cord around his neck.

“Get out the cones, Deputy,” said Jacobs.

Dutifully, Justin went to the back of the car and popped the trunk. A stack of orange cones appeared in his arms, which he then set up around the perimeter of the wreckage like dominoes.

Patrick said, “All right, then. Are you men ready for the hunt?”

Sheriff Jacobs gave a terse nod. “We don’t want critters dragging that head away into the underbrush. If that happens, we might never find it. One thing, though, Pat, before we go.” He and Patrick leaned close, murmuring something Cameryn could not hear. She stood, watching, unsure of her next move, unaware Justin had come to her side. “What’s up?” he asked softly. “You seem pretty… intense.”

“Nothing.”

“I know that look, Cameryn. I had it myself when I was your age.”

In spite of herself, she felt a smile tug at the corner of her mouth. “You aren’t that much older than me. You’re twenty-one and I’m almost eighteen. Do the math.”

“Ah, but I remember the good old days of teen angst. Come on, you seem upset. And by the way, where have you been? It’s like you vanished from Silverton. Although it seems impossible that anyone could disappear in a town of seven hundred.”

She shrugged. “I’ve been spending a lot of time with my mom. Plus getting ready for college and schoolwork and my other job and-”

“You don’t need to explain,” he told her. “I just wanted to make sure you’re all right.” His eyes had narrowed. “Are you?”

“ Crowley!” the sheriff barked. “You coming or what?”

Justin looked over the top of Cameryn’s head as the sun lit a tiny scar, like a silver thread, on his chin. “On my way, sir.” Then, to Cameryn, “I’ve got to go.”

She gave his retreating figure a halfhearted wave as the three men disappeared into the woods. Alone with the wreckage, she tried not to listen to the garbled holiday tunes that thrummed from the radio. As quickly as she could, she turned it off, gingerly reaching past Benjamin’s blood-soaked chest.

But she wasn’t able to concentrate. Her motions, done by rote, couldn’t silence the words that played through her in an endless loop. Hannah promised to stay away and I promised to stay quiet. What had her father meant? The question spun through her mind as she photographed, bagged, sealed, and signed, collecting bits of life, bits of death. Another car, this one with a woman behind the wheel, slowed on the Million Dollar Highway. Cameryn, in a perfect reflection of her father, waved the woman on with her own gloved hand, glad she’d already draped Benjamin’s body, propping the cloth as much as she could to keep the blood from seeping through.

She was just finishing up when she heard her father’s cry, less than a hundred yards away.

“I got it. Good Lord, I almost stepped on the thing. John, Justin, over here!”

Sheriff Jacobs darted through the trees with Justin close behind, the branches snapping underfoot. Straining to see, Cameryn stood on her toes, but the limbs were too thick. She heard the sheriff say, “You got the bag, Deputy?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

Her father replied, “Let’s do this right.”

Cautious, she crept between the pines, careful to keep her body low. No one looked her way. She watched as her father gently lifted Benjamin’s severed head by the ears to place it inside a garbage bag Sheriff Jacobs held taut between his hands. Benjamin’s skin was milk-white and the mouth gaped, and even from her distance she could make out the eyes, wide and scared. A ring of snow, soaked with blood and tissue, encircled the base of his neck like a red chain.

“Careful, Pat,” the sheriff warned. “We don’t want to lose anything.”

“Don’t worry, I got it,” he replied. “The trick is to ease it in.”

After tying the plastic yellow handles into a bow, Patrick placed the head in a green athletic bag and zipped it shut. For a moment no one said a word. Then, as if by silent agreement, the three men kicked at the bloody snow with their boots until the red lay buried beneath a mound of white.

Unseen, she slipped back to her post and her clipboard, dutifully inventorying the rest of Benjamin’s items until her father returned to announce that she should go home-he had to take the body to Durango and make a call to the victim’s family, and he wanted to do it alone. She didn’t argue.

Glad she’d driven her own Jeep to the scene, she’d climbed in and left. In her rearview mirror she’d watched her father, Justin, and the sheriff as they strapped the remains to the gurney.

Now, sitting in the driveway of her own home, Cameryn once again touched the smudge on her palm. Threads led from the center all the way to the edge of her hand, the blood like tiny filaments connecting her to the dead. She saw a truth in that stain. If the face indeed revealed the soul, then Benjamin’s spirit had not been ready to leave its body. In that last split second-had she imagined it?-his face had contorted in shock at his own demise. Whatever he had left undone on earth would stay undone, with no do-overs, no reprieves. Unanswered questions would stay that way forever.

She looked at her green-shingled house, lit from within. Her mammaw was inside, waiting, but it took only a moment for Cameryn to decide. She put her car into reverse and pulled out into her street, her tires slipping in snow as she shifted into drive.

It was time to see her mother.