What Lies Behind (31 page)

Acknowledgments

I owe a debt of gratitude to so many people for their
kind help, expertise, good humor and support during the writing of this
book:

Acclaimed virologist Eric Mossel, Ph.D., who was instrumental
in helping me develop the story, lent authenticity to a variety of situations,
and helped me find the right path between fiction and reality. He’s a mean copy
editor, to boot.

Lee Mossel, for hooking me up with his son, and laughs on the
golf course.

Sherrie Saint, who did a load of legwork tracking down just the
right way to kill a bunch of people.

David Achord, for clarifying the finer legal points for
Xander’s little situation.

Randy Ellison, for all the on-point articles, talking points
and napkin sessions over margaritas. And calming the hysterics...

Catherine Coulter, for helping me see the original story wasn’t
personal enough.

Anton Pogany, for even more medical expertise.

Karen Evans, for
all
the things.

Laura Benedict, for countless phone calls and machinations and
treats in the mail.

As always, all mistakes, exaggerations or pure literary license
are mine, and mine alone.

Several wonderful people bid on character names for charity
(the Brenda Novak Diabetes Auction) and on my Facebook fan page. Robin
Souleyret, Thomas Cattafi and Maureen Heedles, you are all fabulous. So are you,
fellow Langley-ite Emma Cattafi, for getting this for your BIL. It was my honor
to capture your names for this work. Thank you!

Thanks to the usual suspects, without whom I’d never get
anything accomplished: my lovely agent, Scott Miller; my wonderful editor,
Nicole Brebner (thank you twice); everyone at Trident Media Group and MIRA Books
who work tirelessly behind the scenes to get these books into readers’ hands; my
hoodoo guru Paige Crutcher; my soul sister Ariel Lawhon; my sister from another
mister Jennifer Brooks; my wine and chat for five (uh—fifty) Erica Spindler; the
indomitable Alex Kava; Deb Carlin, for so much; my dear productivity buddy Jeff
Abbott; the ever-fabulous and funny Andy Levy; the one and only Joan Huston,
grammar goddess extraordinaire; Blake Leyers, for edits and manis and pedis and
lunches and being a fellow tall chick! The Wild Women—River Jordan, Susan Gregg
Gilmore, Kerry Madden, Lisa Patton—for a weekend to remember forever; Sheldon,
my UPS guy, and Chris, my postman, who are bloody patient with all the packages;
Anna Benjamin, for the best care package evah!; my incredible friends on
Facebook and Twitter, who laugh at my jokes even when they aren’t funny; the
indie booksellers and librarians who’ve been working so hard to get me into
readers’ hands—couldn’t do it without you!; and Writerspace.com—Cissy, Susan, Celeste and Dee—ladies, you’re the bees
knees!

Special thanks as always to my awesome parents, for whom there
are never enough adjectives, and my bros.

No book is ever truly finished without thanking (yes, again!)
my Randy.
Je t’aime, je t’adore, et je vous aime aussi
. Thanks for
Paris, bunny.

Finally, this book is dedicated to the memory of a dear friend
who passed away this year. John Seigenthaler was an extraordinary man who gave
so much to this world, to the Nashville literary community and, of course, to me
personally. He is dreadfully missed.

“Shocking suspense, compelling characters and fascinating forensic details.”
—Lisa Gardner, #1
New York Times
bestselling author

If you loved
What Lies Behind
by
New York Times
bestselling author
J.T. Ellison, don’t miss a thrilling moment in the Samantha Owens series.

A Deeper Darkness
(#1)
Into the flood again…

Edge of Black
(#2)
The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides.

When Shadows Fall
(#3)
If you are reading this letter, I am dead, and I would be most grateful if you could solve my murder…

Complete your collection today!

And be sure to catch all the riveting action in J.T. Ellison’s Lt. Taylor Jackson series, available now in ebook format:

Judas Kiss
The Cold Room
The Immortals
So Close the Hand of Death
Where All the Dead Lie

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Chapter 1

Georgetown University School of
Medicine
Washington, D.C.

D
r. Samantha Owens stared out the window of her office, admiring the view she’d be enjoying for the next several years. Trees. Lots and lots of trees. The Georgetown University campus was landscaped to perfection, bringing the joys of wildlife and green space to their urban oasis. Maples and willow oaks, zelkovas and ginkgo, viburnum and holly, and more she had no names for. In truth, this deep into the warm, wet D.C. summer, everything was so green it made her eyes hurt. It was all so bloody alive.

And so different from her anonymous, stainless-steel office in Nashville. A welcome change. A change she’d openly pursued, sure to the core she no longer wanted to work in law enforcement. The idea of keeping herself separate from the hurt and fear and messiness of the real world appealed to her.

Her new reality: she was the head of the bourgeoning forensic pathology department at Georgetown University Medical School. Her first classes would start the following week, though students were already on campus doing their orientations. And now that she was here, the sense of adventure and excitement were gone.

Looking out at the tree-lined campus, she couldn’t help wondering, yet again, if she’d made a mistake. The freedom she’d hoped for, planned on, felt like a noose around her neck. Even though she was calling the shots, she was increasingly feeling trapped. So many people were counting on her. She’d developed the forensic program, made a commitment to the university, even signed a contract. She was stuck.

No longer a medical examiner, no longer a part of organized law enforcement. She was a teacher, with two class sections of doctors who wanted to help solve crimes. Students who seemed so young, teenagers, almost, though many were in their twenties, and even thirties. Untouched by tragedy; unknowing of the world’s painful embrace.

They’d learn soon enough, especially with her at the helm. She’d seen more than most in her career, especially during her tenure as the Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Tennessee. Her job was to teach them everything she knew so they could stride out into the world in pursuit of justice.

The way she used to do.

Sam turned from the window to her desk, a thick slab of oak polished to a high gleam, and casually straightened the stack of papers in her out-box. Her OCD was under strict rein, especially in front of all these new people, but there was no need for things to be messy.

She should be eager for this new life to begin. She honestly had been, until a few weeks ago, when her friend John Baldwin, from the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, sat her down and threw a bomb into her world. Sent her spinning, unsure of all the choices she’d made over the past few months.

He’d come to town for a case two weeks earlier, taken her out for lunch and, before the food arrived, got straight to business.

“I wish you’d talked to me before you made this drastic change.”

“It’s the best thing for me. I don’t want to be out there anymore, Baldwin. I paid my dues, with more than I care to remember.”

“Which is why I’m here. We want you to join the FBI.”

She choked on the water the server had set down. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. We need your mind.”

She laughed. “I’m a medical examiner, Baldwin, or I was. Not a field agent. For starters, I hate guns.”

“I know. That’s not a problem. You’d be an official consultant, mostly with me and my team, but with other parts of the Bureau, too, depending on the cases. You’d need to go through some training at the Academy in Quantico, to make it all official, but you’ll be able to work on cases again. Sam, you can’t tell me you don’t miss it.”

“I don’t. Not at all.”

“You’re lying to yourself.”

Watching the students wander the campus, Sam wondered if he was right. Did she belong here? Innocent faces glued to smartphones, earbuds firmly embedded in ears, an insouciant walk; these kids didn’t seem to have a care in the world. What if she wasn’t cool enough for them?

“Right. There’s the thing to worry about. Being cool.”

She settled at the desk and opened her laptop. Debated putting in her own earbuds; decided she was being silly. She knew her lesson plan cold, but giving it one more look wouldn’t hurt; she hated using notes. Regardless of the doubt she was feeling, she was here to engage these young doctors, intrigue them, but also allow them a glimpse into the real world of forensic pathology. Not the exciting, tumultuous world they saw on television, but the bloody, messy, heart-wrenching process of dissection, both of bodies and of lives. To show them the hardest truth of all: the dead have no secrets.

But the living do.

Forget the notes. Maybe she’d just read for a bit, settle into her office. Adjust to the sights and sounds of her new life.

She was deep into an article on forensic ballistics when a soft knock pulled her from her review. She looked up to see Xander in her doorway, a grin on his face.

“Hey,” he said.

Her stomach flipped, as it always did when he caught her unawares. A biological response to an emotion none truly understood. An emotion she was grateful for, because she knew the depth of it had saved her from sinking into the deepest abyss.

Alexander Whitfield. Known to his parents and family as Moonbeam, or Xander Moon. A true misnomer for a tough former army ranger. And Xander was still a ranger through and through: intense, alert, always combing the background for unseen threats. Romantic, and a fatalist. Just like her.

He was a different man now than the one she’d met several months before. More open, more forgiving. Happier. They’d settled into a version of domestic bliss, splitting their time between her Georgetown town house and his cabin in the backwoods of the Savage River Forest.

He’d separated from the army the previous year after the terrible cover-up of a friendly fire incident that had killed one of his best friends. He’d run to the woods, disengaged from the world and would have stayed there, lost and alone, if it weren’t for Sam. Two broken souls, made whole by their joining.

Xander wasn’t fully ready to reenter the world, but he was coming back, a bit at a time. Though he’d done his best to hide it, she knew he was happy she had turned down Baldwin’s job offer.

“Hey,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought I’d bring you lunch. I know how you can lose yourself in your work. What is it today? Blood spatter?”

“It’s eerie how you do that.” She turned the laptop around and showed him the article. “I was just starting the section on backspatter.”

He didn’t pale, but his lips tightened together in a grim line. He’d spent most of his life behind the trigger; he was more than familiar with the concept.

Sam glanced at the screen, saw the full-color image of a man at the wrong end of a shotgun and slammed the laptop closed. “Sorry. What’s this about lunch?”

Xander’s dark hair flopped onto his forehead. “You’re not one of those M.E.s who can eat a tuna sandwich standing over a corpse, are you?”

“Highly unethical behavior, tuna eating. I’d stick with cookies or crackers myself. The crumbs are easier to brush away.”

He laughed, deep from his belly, which made her smile. She loved his laugh.

“I wouldn’t kick you out of bed for eating crackers.” He glanced over his shoulder at the open office door. “Maybe we should inaugurate your office.”

He kissed her, long and lingering, and she was damn close to saying
lock the door
when another knock sounded, this one accompanied by a high-pitched throat clearing. They jumped apart like teenagers caught making out on a porch, and Sam smoothed her shirt down—good grief, one of her buttons was undone; how had he managed that?—before turning to see who’d so rudely interrupted them.

It was one of her new T.A.s, Stephanie Wilhelm, a slight blonde with a sharp sense of humor to match her highly unorthodox look—today a black Metallica concert T-shirt under a black men’s pin-striped jacket and dark jeans tucked into leather combat boots. Sam liked the girl. Her independence among the clones had landed her the coveted T.A. position in the first place.

“Forgive me, Dr. Owens, but this letter arrived for you. It’s marked urgent. I thought I should bring it to you right away.”

Her words were directed to Sam, but her eyes were locked on Xander, who was sitting on the edge of Sam’s desk, arms crossed on his broad chest, vibrating in amusement as he watched her fumble with her button.

“Thank you, Stephanie. I appreciate it.”

“If you need anything else...” She dropped off, winked lasciviously.

“Out,” Sam said, and Stephanie left with a grin.

“I’m hot for teacher,” Xander said, and Sam swatted him with the letter.

“Quit it. The last thing I need is a reputation for looseness among my students.” She sat on the desk next to him and opened the letter. Thick strokes of black ink, the words slanted to the right. A man’s handwriting.

She read the first line, felt the breath leave her body. “Uh-oh.”

Xander caught her tone. “What’s wrong?”

She scanned the rest of the letter. “You need to hear this.” She read it aloud, vaguely noticed her voice was shaking.

“Dear Dr. Owens,

If you are reading this letter, I am dead. I would be most grateful if you would solve my murder. I know how determined you are, and talented. If anyone can figure out this mess, it’s you.

I’ve compiled a list of suspects for you to look at, and set aside some money to cover your expenses. I fear your life may be in danger once they find I’ve contacted you, so I urge you to take every precaution.

Yours,

Timothy R. Savage”

“Let me see that.” Xander took the letter from her, barely touching the corner between his thumb and forefinger. Sam watched his face as he read it, saw the darkness draw over him like a shroud.

“Who the hell is Timothy Savage?”

“I have no idea. But it’s a pretty sick joke. Who would do such a thing?”

“I don’t know. John Baldwin, maybe? Trying to draw you into a case against your will?”

She opened her mouth to deny the possibility, but stopped herself. She’d known Baldwin for many years. He was engaged to her best friend. He was a good man, a no-nonsense cop in addition to being a talented profiler. He wouldn’t resort to manipulation. Would he?

“No. It’s not him.”

Xander shrugged. “Where’s the envelope?”

In her surprise, she’d dropped it on the floor. She pulled a tissue from the box on her desk and picked it up, careful not to directly touch any part of it. Ridiculous, she’d already gotten her prints all over it, so had Stephanie and countless others, but she had to treat it as evidence now.

“Return address is Lynchburg, Virginia,” she said. “Let me plug it into my laptop, see if it’s real.”

He read the information to her, and she entered it into Google. The name Timothy Savage popped up, along with a map of his address, and a death notice from the local Lynchburg paper.

“Oh, no. Xander, Timothy Savage really is dead.”

Xander breathed hard out his nose. “Then Sam, honey, you better call Fletcher. This might not be a joke, after all.”

Copyright © 2014 by J.T. Ellison