Nameless by Debra Webb Read Free Book Online Page B

the door. The shouting that abruptly accompanied the barking sent adrenaline blazing through her veins.
    Her cell phone shook in its holster. She reached for it, her gaze searching the grounds, attempting to locate the activity generating the ruckus. “Grace.” Pratt was on the line; needed them at his location ASAP. One of the dogs had latched on to something. “We’re on our way.”
    Vivian looked to McBride as she put her phone away. “Pratt may have found something.”
    “The girl?”
    “Don’t know.” Her pulse was tripping at the idea that the handlers had been provided with the pajamas Alyssa had slept in the night before she disappeared, which meant the animals could be on to her scent.
    As they started across the cemetery, McBride called back to the caretaker, “Double-check your records on the sealing of the tombs. We’ll get back to that.”
    Holcomb looked a little flustered or perplexed but Vivian didn’t have time to analyze his problem since McBride had taken hold of her arm and was tugging her along with him. She had to practically run to keep up with his long strides.
    He jerked his head toward the street. “Looks like word’s out that we’re here.”
    Vivian glanced in that direction. The news vans and reporters had gathered in force. Birmingham PD was keeping them outside the cemetery gate, but that wouldn’t stop their intruding zoom lenses. She understood that the media was part of this business but she didn’t have to like it. The call letters of one station in particular, WKRT, caught her eye, which meant that Nadine Goodman was on the scene already. There wasn’t an agent or a cop in Birmingham who liked the lady. She had earned her reputation of cutthroat reporting by stepping on and over anyone necessary.
    She and McBride pushed through the crowd of cops when they reached Pratt’s location.
    “In here,” Pratt said. He gestured to the open mausoleum.
    “Was it unlocked when you got here?” McBride assessed the rusty iron door that stood partially open.
    Pratt nodded. “The dog nudged the door open a little farther but it was already unlocked and ajar. The handler had to restrain the animal.”
    The dog had settled down but he was still visibly agitated.
    “We’ll check it out,” McBride told him. “You and the handler stay put, but get the rest of these folks back to the search. It’s getting dark fast.”
    Vivian looked up at the sky; he was right about that. She reached into her jacket pocket and passed McBride a pair of gloves and shoe covers. When she’d tugged her own into place, she unholstered her weapon and followed him into the mausoleum.
    She grimaced at the pungent odor. Blood … decomp. The deeper they moved inside, the more the foul smell worsened. This mausoleum was larger than the last. Two tombs stood on raised stone platforms. The floor was clean, as if someone had swept it. The cobwebs and dust on the walls and every other surface indicated the floor shouldn’t have been so clean. Their unsub wasn’t leaving anything to chance, not even his shoeprints in the dust.
    “He’s been here,” McBride muttered.
    With no immediate threat visible, she reholstered her weapon. “Looks that way.” As convinced as she had been that this was too easy … that there had to be a mistake, looking around now she admitted that McBride was right … he had been here.
    “Oh God.” She pointed to the corner on her right. She had to lean slightly in that direction to see it, but there was no mistaking what it was. “A burlap bag,” she said aloud. Pain snarled deep in her chest. “Possibly bloodstained.”
    McBride eased between the two tombs, headed for that corner. She took care to follow his exact path to avoid disturbing any evidence that might be invisible to the naked eye on the cleanly swept floor.
    “Should we get a forensics team in here first?” All the rules of procedure she had learned were suddenly missing from her readily accessible gray matter. God