Jack bit his cheek as he watched the woman actually stomp her foot in impatience.

“You need to see this. Steven just found it beneath the last of the bones. You also need to talk to Dr. Campbell. She’s ID’d the victim.”

Dr. Campbell? She’d ID’d the vic? Jack shook his head. Ten minutes ago in the tent, he’d grabbed the blonde woman as her knees buckled, and he’d lowered her to a chair. In his arms all he’d noticed was her incredibly small size and her scent. She’d smelled like cinnamon, or vanilla, or something from a bakery. Totally out of place in the death tent. Dr. Peres had shoved the woman’s head down between her knees and ordered him and Terry out of the tent. He’d hesitated to leave, but Dr. Peres was adamant and obviously more than capable. As they’d left, he’d caught the blonde woman’s name but not the “doctor” part.

Now the detectives stared at Dr. Peres, speechless. Jack reached over and snagged the woman’s wrist to pull the baggie toward him. He focused on the oval piece of shiny metal. It was a police badge. He glanced at Terry, whose gaze was glued to the bag, and watched comprehension sweep over his face.

It was a Lakefield police badge.

Jack squinted at the numbers on the badge. He made out the first four digits and his heart plummeted to his frozen toes.

The snow had stopped falling for a few minutes and Oregon State Detective Mason Callahan glanced at the gray sky. It looked ready to dump the white stuff for several hours. Six more inches by evening? Now he believed the forecasters. They claimed it was shaping up to be the worst Oregon winter in decades. Amen for four-wheel drive.

He glanced at the apartment building, noting that Dr. Peres and her techs were still inside the tent. What other goodies would they find?

A cop’s badge stashed with a mysterious skeleton.

Mason didn’t like that one bit.

The Lakefield police badge number was being called in to trace its owner. Jack Harper had sworn he recognized the number and had given the cop’s name, but the detectives wanted official word. Harper hadn’t worked for Lakefield PD for over five years; he could be wrong.

But until that was cleared up, Mason and Ray were interviewing the little dentist. Dr. Campbell perched on the tailgate of an old Chevy pickup truck in the freezing parking lot that was serving as their preliminary interview room.

The detectives exchanged silent looks over her head. Wrapped up in her jacket and a borrowed yellow parka, Dr. Campbell looked like a teenager. A shiver rattled her every thirty seconds, nearly making her coffee spill each time. She hadn’t taken a sip.

She didn’t seem old enough to be a forensic specialist, let alone an instructor of dentistry at the prestigious dental school up on Pill Hill in Portland. But the forensic anthropologist had vouched for her, and that lady didn’t seem to like anyone, so Mason was taking her reference seriously. Mason had expected days, maybe weeks of searching and following leads to identify the old skeleton. Instead the dentist had presented them with a solid lead right off the bat.

It was too convenient.

Mason rested a boot on the truck’s bumper, laid his forearm across his thigh, and leaned in to continue the odd interview.

“So from her teeth and a necklace, you’re convinced this is a college friend.”

“Yes. For the fifth time.” Dr. Campbell spoke like she was instructing five-year-olds with a double dose of ADD. She set down her coffee.

“Suzanne was kidnapped by the Co-Ed Slayer in Corvallis eleven years ago. After he was caught, he confessed to her murder but wouldn’t say where he’d left her body.” She turned impatient brown eyes on Mason and ticked off the facts on her fingers. “Suzanne had a necklace just like that one. She wore it constantly. There are strands of blonde hair with the bones, the same color as hers. And I know those ridiculous gold bridges. I had to hold them once for her at a gymnastics meet, because she forgot a baggie for them.” Her hand movements paused. “Don’t you remember the Co-Ed Slayer?” Her voice cracked on the name.

“I’m familiar with the case.” Mason was more than familiar. He’d served on the task force to find the killer, and the facts had been forever broiled onto his brain. His gut suddenly rocked. His stomach had been working overtime on acid production since the minute he’d understood this skeleton might be linked to that sick fuck, Co-Ed Slayer Dave DeCosta.

It’d been a big deal a decade ago. A really big deal.

Mason remembered the women who’d vanished from the college campus. Tortured bodies had turned up in dark corners of town. Rumors of the Green River Killer moving south from Seattle. Parents had yanked their daughters out of Oregon State University as school officials tried hopelessly to quash the stampede from campus. Other gossip of witchcraft and white slave trade had flown around the state.

It had been every parent’s nightmare.

It had been every cop’s goal to solve.

At first, the police hadn’t included Suzanne Mills with the victims. Unlike the other women, she hadn’t vanished directly from the OSU campus. She’d been kidnapped in the business district, outside the campus, and her body never recovered. The other victims’ bodies had turned up within two or three weeks of their disappearance. After his capture, Dave DeCosta had admitted he’d taken Suzanne, and she’d been officially listed as the ninth victim, but DeCosta had refused to tell police where to find her body.

Every cop had blown out an exhausted breath when the killer was caught. Mason had gone home and slept for twenty-four hours, relieved the nightmare was over.