Free Vanished - A Mystery (Dixon & Baudin Book 1) by Victor Methos

don’t wanna take up too much of your time, but I got a photo that needs to go out on the five o’clock and the ten o’clock.”
    “Both? Mm, this must be juicy.”
    “On the record, it’s a body that was found on Brett McCabe’s property that needs to be identified. We’re still determining cause of death and need help with identification.”
    “And off the record?” she said, leaning forward like a child listening to a bedtime story.
    “You sure love this gory shit, don’t you?”
    “I live for it. Now, what’s really going on?”
    “Murder vic. She was crucified, and her breasts and genitals were cut off. The guy pulled half her teeth out and cut off her fingertips, so we couldn’t identify her.”
    “Whoa.”
    “No shit. So can you run it?”
    “Of course. Gimme what you got.”
    “I’ll email you the photo. She was probably eighteen to twenty-one years old, found about two miles in on McCabe’s property, on the county border.”
    “You got anybody you’re lookin’ at?”
    He shook his head. “Not a one, except for McCabe himself. He looked old and feeble to me, though. It’s a completely cold case. We’ll probably just file it in the open-unsolved, but I wanna run with it a little first.”
    She nodded, staring at him a moment. “I’ll get it on air. In exchange for something, of course.”
    “Of course.”
    “I want first release of anything you guys make public. If you catch the prick, I want twenty minutes with him in the holding cell.”
    “No way.”
    “You just said you’re not gonna catch him, so what does it matter?”
    He grinned. “You shoulda been a lawyer. Always an angle, huh? All right, he’s yours if we get him.”
    She smiled and leaned back, taking her water and holding it up as if she were delivering a toast. “Well, here’s to catching him, then.”

14
     
     
     
    Baudin raced down to the middle school, parked out front, and rushed inside. Anger billowed out of him like clouds of frosty mist from dry ice. He didn’t know how he would react when he actually saw his daughter, but anger wasn’t the emotion he wanted to show.
    He stopped halfway down the hall and leaned back against the lockers, staring into a classroom down the hall. Some of the children were paying attention, but most were doodling, daydreaming, or—an option he hadn’t had in middle school—playing on their cell phones.
    Fury was like a drug and, like a drug, it dissipated over time. The body expelled it forcefully from the systems that saw it as poison. Within a minute, he was calm, and he continued down the hall to the principal’s office.
    Inside the school’s office, past the reception desk, he saw Heather sitting on a bench. He walked over to her and knelt down.
    “What happened?” he said.
    “It wasn’t my fault, Daddy.”
    “Heather, what happened?”
    The principal, a heavyset black man with a sweater vest, rose from the desk and came over. He held out his hand, and Baudin shook it.
    “You must be Detective Baudin. I’m Martin. I’m the principal here at Moss.”
    “I appreciate the call. I just asked Heather what happened.”
    “Why don’t you two step into my office?”
    The principal’s own office was covered in photos of him with people Baudin didn’t recognize, except for one with George W. Bush at some black-tie function. The chairs were uncomfortable, and Baudin was taken back to the hours he’d spent in principals’ offices, probably for offenses no different from Heather’s.
    “Detective, we take drug use very seriously. Normally, we would call the police and deal with it that way. But I knew who you were and thought I would do you the courtesy of giving you a call.”
    “I appreciate that.”
    “She was caught behind the school with a few other students, two boys and another girl, sharing a joint. I’ve spoken with all four, and Heather doesn’t seem to be the one who supplied the marijuana.”
    Baudin looked at her. He remembered her as the little