Free Valley of the Lost by Vicki Delany

stack of boxes containing papers from some long-forgotten case. José, eh? Most of those male models were as gay as the balloons at a seven-year-old girl’s birthday party, but it never hurt to be on guard.
    Nine would be a good time to arrive. Let José have a drink, or two, and be feeling comfortable but not too smashed to make trouble.
    Before going to dinner, he wanted to make some sense of this Ashley girl. He’d contacted his former colleagues in Vancouver. But with no last name, and a description that would fit a good number of the young white women in Canada, they couldn’t do much to help. Her fingerprints weren’t on record. Which either meant she was a clean, responsible citizen, or had never been caught.
    Maybe someone in town would recognize the photo they had of her. Taken in the morgue, it was impossible to hide the fact that she, poor thing, was dead. He’d sent the photograph to the RCMP, and all the towns in the area. He’d also sent feelers across the country and down into the States looking for info about a newborn white boy who’d disappeared a couple of months ago.
    It wasn’t just that if he was to find out who killed Ashley, or cold-heartedly watched while she died, he had to know more about her. If Miller was to be returned to what relatives he might have, they needed to find out about Ashley’s background.
    Ashley Doe had to have some family. Somewhere.
    His phone rang again. “Winters.”
    “Good news, we’re ready to go.” It was Paul Keller, the Chief Constable, calling from his home.
    For a moment Winters thought the boss had found something out about Ashley. But then he remembered that she wasn’t their only problem.
    “When?”
    “Tomorrow afternoon. A nice quiet Sunday in suburbia. The yellow stripes,” Keller used the not always polite nickname for the RCMP, “will be joining you, but it’s your show. They’ll be in position at sixteen hundred hours. They’ll have the dog and I’ve told Al Peterson’ll you’ll need to take two of his constables to watch the street.”
    “I’ll handle it.”
    “I know you will. Good luck.” Keller hung up.

Chapter Seven
    The morning fog was so thick, she couldn’t see the building across the street. Still, Rachel Ferguson thought, it was a better view than what she saw in the small mirror she kept in her desk drawer. With a light hand, she ran a stick of pale pink color across her lips and tucked a strand of loose hair behind her right ear. The caramel highlights in her brown hair were beginning to fade and the neat bob was looking a bit ragged. And was that a coffee stain beside the top button of her white shirt? She’d been roused out of bed at three a.m. and had pulled on the blouse she’d worn the day before, not realizing that she’d still be working fourteen hours later. The three a.m. had been easy enough: responding to a call to 911, uniforms had found the ex-boyfriend sitting in the middle of the living room, the gun tossed in a corner, sobbing over the body and saying he was sorry but she’d forced him to do it. There wasn’t much for Ferguson and her partner, Al Jacobi, to do but supervise the gathering of evidence. They’d been about to pack it in, and go home to grab a bit more sleep, when another call came in. A drive-by. One dead, a known gang member. And more suspects than would fit into a city bus. That one had kept her on the move most of the day. Then back to the office to finish up some paperwork. She’d been about to pack it in for the day with enough time for a quick nap before meeting her sister for dinner when the phone rang. The boss, wanting an update on the Allenhart case.
    Her heart sunk. There was no update to give him. Which meant that he’d have nothing for his superiors.
    For which he, political to his core, would blame Rachel Ferguson.
    She’d worked long and hard to be assigned to homicide. Be careful of what you wish for , wasn’t that the old saying? Rachel Ferguson had joined the