Cold Jade by Dan Ames Page B

bodies.
    The coroner reached for the sheet covering the first body and Mack held his breath. The coroner’s assistant, a young man with a thick beard, stood nearby.
    The sheet was pulled away and the first thing Mack saw was the face of a young boy whose eyes were wide open, his skin and features badly decomposed.
    But still, Mack could tell the boy was very young and no matter how much death he had seen, Mack felt darkness cross his soul.
    The coroner began speaking, but Mack had trouble following what the man was saying. He felt sick to his stomach and had a moment of lightheadedness.
    “Are you all right, sir?” the coroner asked. He was a short, rotund man with a bald head and thick black glasses.
    “Yes, please go on,” Mack said, his voice unsteady.
    The coroner continued his report but Mack could barely hear him.
    The phrase “massive trauma” and “torture” were the only things that cut through. The coroner estimated the time of death to be between six to nine months earlier.
    He moved on to the other two bodies and Mack blocked everything from his mind.
    He realized why he had left the Bureau. He no longer had the courage to face what one human being could do to another. Mack tried to focus on the coroner’s face but he felt sweat break out along his forehead and his stomach was queasy. It reminded him of the first autopsy he ever attended, decades ago. Mack actually thought he had been stronger back then.
    Not like now.
    The mind was like a callus. The more pressure and abrasion, the tougher it became. Too long without it, and the callus grew soft.
    Mack was soft now, he knew that.
    “Do you have a written report?” Mack asked, interrupting the coroner. The man nodded to his assistant who gave Mack a thick folder.
    “Is there contact information for me to call you if I have any questions?” Mack asked.
    “It’s all in there,” the coroner said. Mack sensed irritation in the man’s voice.
    Mack followed the agent out the parking lot where they parted ways. He got into his rental car and headed for the general direction of his hotel.
    The fresh air had done him some good.
    And now, the feeling of sick helplessness was gone.
    It had been replaced with anger.

28
    F or the gazillionth time , Rebecca Spencer’s hand reached for the cell phone that she no longer had.
    “Stop doing that!” she yelled at herself. Her thin voice echoed in the empty room. Every time she did it, out of habit, it made her want to cry because it slammed home that her life as she had known it was being changed forever.
    She didn’t have her phone. She didn’t have her parents. And she had no real idea where she was. Or who had taken her.
    The urge to scream overcame her but she fought it down. She knew there was no one else out there. At least no one who would help her.
    It would be wasted effort.
    What she did have was a fairly good idea of why she’d been taken. Her Dad was a Senator, had a lot of money, and would pay anything to get his daughter back.
    For a brief moment, she considered the possibility that it was a political kidnapping. A terrorist act. Rebecca knew that America had a lot of homegrown terrorists and that most of them saw the government as the enemy. An evil empire that had grown too powerful and was going to take away everyone’s individual freedoms.
    But the more she thought about it, the more she discounted that fact.
    It just didn’t feel to her like she had been grabbed by some kind of crazy group of political fanatics.
    This felt like a very focused, motivated individual.
    And her guess was that it was all about money.
    So Rebecca had been kidnapped, and she was guessing that a ransom had been demanded.
    And she knew her Dad would pay.
    She also knew that her father would never rest until he caught the bastards who had taken her.
    Rebecca had read plenty of news stories about her Dad, and she knew that he had a reputation for ruthlessness, even among the cutthroat back stabbers of