Stranded

noticed and set her trowel aside, too. She watched Maggie slowly unearth what appeared to be another plastic bag. This one was smaller. Through the smears of mud Maggie recognized the major retail store’s logo. Janet helped her uncover it but both of them stopped, sitting back on their haunches when they were finished. There was definitely something inside. The bag bulged like the black garbage bag beneath it. This one was sitting upright with the top handles tied haphazardly in a loose knot. And it also smelled like rotten meat.
    “We found something else,” Maggie yelled to the men below, and immediately her eyes searched for Tully.

CHAPTER 13

    QUANTICO, VIRGINIA
    It didn’t seem like that long ago that Dr. Gwen Patterson had been to the FBI facility at Quantico. Her boyfriend and best friend worked there, so she heard about the place on a weekly basis. But when the guard at the security hut scrutinized her driver’s license—eyes darting from her face to the plastic ID card—she realized it had actually been several years. The guards used to hear her name and wave her through. A few of them would recognize her and lift the gate before she’d had a chance to roll down her car window.
    She was no longer a recognizable figure. And for a good reason. Gwen had purposely tried to distance herself from the place. The last time she had worked as a consultant on an FBI case, a psychotic young cult member had attempted to stab a sharp pencil into her throat.
    The scrutiny started all over again at the front desk.
    “I don’t have a name badge for you,” the receptionist said, making it sound like it was Gwen’s fault. “Who are you here to see?”
    “Assistant Director Raymond Kunze. In the Behavorial Science Unit.”
    “And what is the nature of your business?” the woman asked, holding on to Gwen’s driver’s license while giving her a full body search with her eyes. This was worse than the guard at the hut, and Gwen wondered how the woman thought she had made it this far if she was a threat.
    She needed to calm down. She had been through tougher interrogations. This was simply more annoying than intimidating. She kept still, containing a sigh and resisting the urge to shift her weight and cross her arms. Gwen had spent most of her career compensating for her petite frame by wearing three-inch heels and fine tailored power suits—skirts, never trousers, and dark or bold colors, never pastels. She had refined her Brooklyn roots to create a classy, don’t-screw-with-me attitude. She believed confidence and poise more than made up for her lack in stature. But being back at Quantico reminded her only of vulnerability and of that split second of mind-numbing fear.
    The receptionist continued to stare at her, and Gwen fought the unexpected flicker of nausea in the pit of her stomach.
    “It’s okay, Stacy, I’ll vouch for Dr. Patterson.”
    Gwen turned to find Detective Julia Racine coming in through the front doors.
    “She’s on the Highway Serial Killings Task Force,” Racine told the receptionist, who was already pulling out a different stack of folders.
    “I wish people would tell me these things ahead of time.” The woman now seemed irritated by both Gwen and Racine as she riffled through one folder and then another.
    Racine positioned her back to Stacy and rolled her eyes for Gwen to see. Gwen smiled but tried not to show the young detective how terribly relieved she was. Julia Racine was cocky enoughwithout knowing that she had just saved the District’s number-one psychologist to the politicos from launching into a panic attack over a misplaced name badge. And Gwen suddenly realized—and did not like it—how much she had changed since her last visit. What had become of her lately?
    Turning fifty had sent her into a tailspin. Instead of focusing on her accomplishments, all she could think about were her physical challenges: tired, moody, uncharacteristically second-guessing herself. Not just herself, but second-guessing her choices, her career, her relationship, her life.
    Focus on the here and now, damn it!
    “So you’re on the task force, too,” Gwen said after she and Racine signed in and pinned on their badges.
    She let Racine lead the way, though it hadn’t been so long ago that Gwen would have forgotten how to get to the BSU conference room.
    “The homicide that tipped off this investigation is my case. Remember those arsons back in February? Three warehouses and a church in