Uncovered by Linda Winfree Page B

to Tick, dismissing Madeline as something beneath her notice. Madeline rolled her eyes. No surprise there. Allison’s voice took on the breathy quality that had half the senior boys panting after her when they’d been in high school. Even then, though, she’d been fixated on Tick Calvert. “There are bones and a pair of shoes, some fabric too.”
    Tick slanted a look at Madeline and shrugged. “Might be animal. A dog or raccoon or something that got under there and died.”
    Madeline nodded, examining the foundation. From this point, she didn’t see any holes for an animal to enter through, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one in the back.
    “Let’s check it out.” Tick lifted his gaze. “Can you show us, Allison?”
    “Of course.” She gestured toward the door and fell into step with Tick as they entered the house, gazing up at him while she led them through a small living room overflowing with kitschy home décor items and into the adjoined eat-in kitchen.
    The access panel to the crawlspace stood open, resting against the avocado refrigerator. Tick and Madeline knelt on either side and he shone the bright beam of his small Maglite down into the darkness. Allison leaned on the counter, arms crossed over her chest. Madeline sensed the waves of malevolence rolling off the woman.
    Tick might have forgiven, but Allison Barnett sure as hell hadn’t.
    “I don’t think you can see it from there,” Allison said. “It’s farther down, like where the sink and the stove meet. I could see the wiring for the stove when I was down there.”
    Nodding, Tick rested his hands on his knees. “We don’t both need to go. If it’s human and there’s forensics of any kind—”
    “We don’t want to further contaminate it,” Madeline finished for him. Excitement spiked along her nerve endings once more. “I’ll go. I’m smaller.”
    She pulled her own flashlight free and slid awkwardly into the short, narrow space. Spider webs hung in long strings from the joists and a damp, moldy smell lingered in the air. Holding the light between her teeth and using Tick’s bouncing beam as added illumination, she crawled forward. Water dripped from a gray pipe to her right. There was the heavy electrical wiring for a big appliance.
    The remnants of a shoe lay before her. Extending from the ground next to it was a long, yellowish bone. It disappeared under the dusty soil. But above that, protruding from the dirt was a small, distinctive bone fragment. A metacarpal.
    A human finger.
    “Calvert,” she called over her shoulder and began the painstaking process of backing up the way she’d come, trying not to further disturb the scene.
    “Yeah?”
    “Call the coroner and the crime scene unit.”
    While they waited for the forensics team to arrive from the GBI office in Moultrie, Madeline examined the outside of the house. Allison seemed distraught that there’d been an actual dead body under the house she’d lived in for all of six days, and Tick’s focus ended up being directed at calming her down and helping her make arrangements for somewhere else to stay. Allison was eating up being reconnected with him, and her pleasure at the turn of events made Madeline sick.
    If she’d ever forgotten why she disliked Allison Barnett so much, here it was in all its clarity—the girl had always been a tad off, a tad obsessive, when it came to Tick, almost as if she lost some part of herself in his presence.
    Madeline had to give him this, though, as she rounded the corner of the house and walked to where the pair stood talking at the porch—he was nothing more than consummately professional with Allison. As Madeline joined them, he snapped his cell shut and returned it to the clip on his belt. “Tori will be here shortly. She’ll help you get settled somewhere tonight. I’m afraid until the initial scene investigation at least is finished, you can’t stay here.”
    “Thank you so much, for everything.” Allison touched his