Free The Body in the Woods by April Henry

area just off SW Jefferson Street, west of the Vista Bridge. Police said an autopsy showed that the cause of death was strangulation. They also released a description of the woman. They said she was African American, 5'3 " tall, 100 pounds, with black short hair worn unstraightened. She had no scars, marks, or tattoos. She was wearing a sweatshirt like the one pictured in the photo at left. Investigators said no recent missing persons cases match the woman’s description. They believe she may have been homeless.
    Ruby zoomed in on the sweatshirt until it filled up the screen of her laptop. Nobody she knew would have called it a sweatshirt. Instead, it was a hoodie. Black, it had white angel wings drawn on the back, overlaid with pink sparkly curlicues that spelled out the brand name of a manufacturer of skateboard clothing.
    She had seen girls at her school wear that brand of hoodie before. Not because they were skaters, but because their boyfriends were. Sometimes Ruby observed what the other girls wore, trying to make sense of their choices. Like magpies, they collected shiny, eye-catching things. They wore clothes that showed dirt, that were see-through, that wouldn’t keep you warm, that had to be hand washed or dry-cleaned, that had flounces and beading and other useless decoration. Sometimes they boasted to each other about the brand, or how much something cost, or dressed in clothes that had huge logos that did their talking for them.
    Ruby could have happily worn the same thing every day as long as it didn’t itch and was more or less clean.
    Reading the article, she was certain of one thing. The person who had worn that sweatshirt hadn’t been a grown woman, no matter what the police thought. Not a real adult. She knew that determining the age of a body wasn’t an exact science. One way was to use X-rays to look at the teeth. If the dead girl had gotten her wisdom teeth in early, they might have decided that she was older than she was.
    But while the medical examiner might have made his best guess, he didn’t know anything about teenage fashion. Because the person who had worn that sweatshirt probably wasn’t any older than twenty.
    So the victim was more than likely a teenage girl who had been strangled to death in the woods.
    Just like the girl they had found.

CHAPTER 15
    WEDNESDAY
    ANYTHING GOD DIDN’T PUT THERE
    â€œFeeling okay today?” Alexis asked Nick as they all set down their SAR backpacks a hundred yards from where they had found the girl’s body.
    Nick felt his face get hot. “My mom’s been sick with the stomach flu all week. I must have caught it from her.” One minute he had been talking to that counselor girl, Kelsey, the one with teeth like a rabbit, and then suddenly he had been doubled over.
    But Nick didn’t need trauma counseling, not even from a girl who could be kind of cute if she just closed her mouth. He wasn’t some little kid who was going to get all weepy or jump at shadows. So yeah, they had seen a dead body. But there hadn’t been any blood.
    â€œYou looked pretty upset.” Alexis didn’t sound like she believed him.
    â€œI’m fine. My dad was in Iraq. He’s told me some stuff.” Now, where had that come from? Although it wasn’t exactly a lie. His dad had been in Iraq, and he would have told Nick stuff if he had lived. Instead Nick had to read about Iraq on the Internet when his mom wasn’t home.
    â€œOkay, you two lovebirds,” Dimitri called out in his accented English. He was eighteen and one of the certifieds, which meant he had completed the nearly three hundred hours of training. “Please to knock off all those whisperings and get over here for the briefing.”
    Nick felt his face get hot. Did everyone think there was something going on between him and Alexis? He snuck a quick glance at her, but her face was impassive. Was something going on? Maybe she was interested in