They both looked at him. He shrugged. “Just can’t ignore the obvious.”

Tanner leaned toward Reed. “Has it occurred to you that since she arrived, there’s been some severely weird shit going on? Weird shit she’s well versed in.”

“Yeah, it has.”

“And with this animal, the happenings physically connect to her.”

“Suggestions?”

“Stay close. Be suspicious. If she’s responsible she might be crazy enough to be dangerous, and not just to small animals. And if she’s a target-”

“She may be in danger,” he finished.

They both turned their full attention back to the autopsy, and for the next thirty minutes, Reed struggled to keep focus. The secateur had sliced open Schwann’s throat and the carotid artery and he bled out. It would’ve happened fast: with that injury in that location, about two to three minutes.

“No surprises with this,” Tanner said a short while later as they crossed the parking area. “Poor bastard.”

They reached her vehicle. She unlocked the door and climbed in. “Let me know what the Sommer brothers have to say.”

“Will do. See you back at the Barn.”

Reed crossed to his own vehicle, slid inside and started it up. But instead of heading out, he sat, turning his and Tanner’s conversation over in his head.

Could Alex have killed the lamb and left it for him to find? If she had, she was one seriously twisted chick. One for whom the lines between reality and fantasy had become blurred.

He didn’t peg her that way. She seemed relatively grounded. Like she was rolling with the punches pretty well, considering.

Still, she’d lived through an awful trauma. A brother disappearing. Her life upended. The bizarre excision of that brother from her memory. Her mother’s suicide.

Enough to psychologically tweak even the most stable individual.

His cell phone sounded. “Reed,” he answered.

“Investigator Hwang, SFME. I’ve been meaning to call, about the Owens autopsy. The findings were consistent with suicide. Seroquel in her system. No outward signs of a struggle.”

“Thanks for letting me know.”

“No problem. There was one odd thing, though.”

Reed shifted into drive and eased out of the parking spot. “What’s that?”

“Her right pinkie finger was broken.”

“I’m sorry, did you say her pinkie finger was broken?”

“I did.”

“Could it have happened when she was being transported?”

“Pathologist didn’t think so because of bruising to the area.” He cleared his throat. “From the chaotic state of her home and paintings, she experienced a violent manic state prior to ingesting the Seroquel. Our theory is she broke it then.”

Reed nodded, shifted into drive and headed out of the lot. “Nothing else that might indicate a struggle with an assailant?”

“Nothing.”

Reed thanked the man, hung up and turned his thoughts to Harlan and Treven Sommer waiting for him at HQ.

Tuesday, March 9

11:30 A.M.

Fifteen minutes later, Reed crossed the large lobby to where the brothers stood. Rachel, he saw, had joined them.

“I appreciate you waiting,” Reed said as he reached them. “How can I help you?”

“Is there somewhere more private?” Treven asked tersely.

“Of course. Follow me.”

Reed led them upstairs to one of the interview rooms. He closed the door behind them as they sat. No one spoke.

Harlan broke the heavy silence. “I want to see him,” he said, voice shaking. “The baby.”

“The remains,” Treven corrected.

Reed moved his gaze between the two men, then shifted his attention to Rachel. She looked at her father, her expression naked with pain. In that moment she looked like the teenager whose life had been shattered. Truth be told, she may have been the one hurt most by Dylan’s abduction.

“I can’t bear not knowing.” Harlan’s voice thickened and both his brother and daughter laid a comforting hand on his. “Finding that baby… Seeing Alexandra… it’s brought it all back to me. I can’t stop thinking about him… I can’t stop wondering…”

He lifted his stricken face to Reed’s. “I can’t sleep. I have no appetite. I have to know. Please… I have to.”

Reed cleared his throat. “I understand, Harlan. And I have no problem with you viewing the remains; however, they’ve transferred them to the lab at Sonoma State and I’m not certain where in the process the forensic anthropologist is. In addition, I’m worried you’re expecting more from what we have than you’ll get.”

“I don’t care, I have to see them.”

“I have photos,” Reed said. “If that will do, I’ll arrange it.”

“Harlan,” Treven said, turning toward his brother, “I beg you to reconsider. Don’t put yourself through this. You won’t be able to tell if it’s Dylan, so what’s the point?”

“I agree, Dad,” Rachel said. “You’re upset enough already.”

Harlan didn’t waver. “And do you think burying my head in the sand will change that?”

Treven looked at Reed. “Don’t let him do this, please.”

Reed was torn between sympathy and duty. Times like these, he hated being a cop. “It’s his decision. I’m sorry.” He turned to Harlan. “I want you to be prepared. The remains aren’t pretty. In fact, they’re shocking.”

“I have to do it.”

Treven snorted, obviously frustrated. Harlan laid a hand on his brother’s arm. Interestingly, when he spoke his voice no longer shook. “I know you’re trying to protect me, but nothing I could see with my eyes could match the horror of my nightmares.”

He shifted his gaze to Rachel. “Are you with me on this, honey?” She nodded and Harlan turned back to Reed, suddenly appearing the strong, confident man he had been all those years ago. “Let’s do this.”

“All right. It’ll take me a few minutes to assemble the photographs. Drink machine and restrooms are down the hall.”

He slipped out of the room. Rachel followed. “Dan, wait!”

He stopped and she caught up with him. “Question?” he asked.

“I wanted to… I just-” She looked away, then back. “It feels like the world’s splitting apart at the seams. Same as it felt back then, after Dylan disappeared.”

“Your dad’s been through a lot, Rachel. He’ll get through this.”

“It’s not just Dad. I heard about that altar, off Castle Road in Bartholomew Park. And about the doll in Hilldale’s vineyard.” She lowered her voice. “And I heard about that animal… how somebody planted it at Alex’s. What the hell’s going on?”

“How did you hear?”

“We hear everything that goes on in the valley, Dan, you know that.”

He understood the first two, because the wine community was as close knit as it was competitive. Information, especially juicy rumors, spread faster than a wildfire in the High Sierras.

But Alex was most certainly not hooked into the local grapevine.

“But who’d you hear it from?” he pressed.

“Clark.” She searched his gaze. “Why?”

“How news spreads interests me, that’s all.”

She didn’t believe him. He saw it by the speculative gleam in her eyes. He also knew her well enough to know that she wouldn’t hesitate to throw her cousin under a bus if the opportunity presented itself.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” he said, answering her original question. “But I will. I promise you that.”

He watched her as she walked back to the interview room, thinking of his promise, wondering if he would be able to keep it.

Reed gathered together the photographs. He instructed Harlan to take a seat, then laid them out.

Harlan stared at them, throat working. He grasped the arms of his chair so tightly his knuckles were white. Seconds ticked past. No one spoke. Harlan seemed not to even breathe as he gazed at the images, his expression twisted with pain.