With Deadly Intent Read Online Free Page B

perimeter, or who bent
     over the microscopes crowding the long table where she sat, qualified as an expert in
     his or her field. Chemical, drug, evidence, and body-fluid analysts—all worked in this
     room or one of the other eight rooms that made up the Western Washington State Crime
     Laboratory on the second floor of Seattle's Public Safety Building.
    Since starting work here, she'd learned to dread the beginning of the week. The mass of
     material gathered over the weekend by the lab's mobile unit and the fire department's
     arson squad wrecked everyone's schedule.
    She bowed her head over the stereomicroscope once more and peered through the lens. As
     she tried to center her attention on the wool fragment under the objective, the three
     dimensional image blurred. In its place, she saw the knife she'd found in the ravine on
     Saturday. A knife she'd given Oren on his seventeenth birthday. Now the gift had become
     damning, irrefutable evidence.
    She sighed wearily. So much had gone on during the weekend she hadn't even gotten a
     chance to visit her Aunt Helen. Saturday night she'd scarcely slept. On Sunday, a gang
     of men had fanned out in a long line and searched the headlands for Elise's body.
     Meanwhile, Amy and her father had rowed out to the Sea King in a borrowed skiff to see
     if anyone had been aboard—no one had.
    At mid-morning, the sheriff took them to Orca Narrows in his motor launch. No one
     discovered any new evidence so they loaded battered old Rosinante aboard and the sheriff
     headed for Faircliff. The dinghy would have to be cut into bits so the boards could be
     analyzed.
    She pressed her fingers against the ache in her forehead. What rotten, rotten luck. With
     all her expertise, she had only helped to further incriminate Oren.
    Taking a tissue from the pocket of her lab coat, she cleaned her glasses, and focused on
     the scrap of yarn under the microscope. If she expected to live up to the lab's credo of
     maximum production and maximum accuracy, she'd have to keep her mind on her work.
    â€œPsst.” Her friend and fellow employee, Gail Wong, swiveled her lab stool farther to the
     right and cupped a hand around her mouth. Her eyes glinted with humor and a dimple
     appeared in one cheek as she grinned. “Who's the enticing VEEP?”
    Amy glanced over her shoulder. At a far door, their white jacketed director stood talking
     to a man who looked to be in his early thirties. Amy shrugged. “Must have pull to wangle
     his way past our tight security.” She went back to her microscope.
    â€œGeez, Amy. Have you gone blind?”
    Amy turned slowly. “Not that I'm aware of. Why?”
    Gail flipped her short, wavy bob and frowned. “When are you going to wake up and rejoin
     the living? That is one beautiful hunk of man and you didn't even give him a second
     glance.”
    Amy smiled, swung around on her stool, and started going through the basics of a police
     description. “The subject is approximately six-feet tall with medium build. Ruddy
     complexion, thick, auburn-colored hair, with eyebrows to match. Nose—straight, but a
     trifle large. Wide mouth with a genial upturn at the corners.”
    She paused to seriously scrutinize the man for the first time, and something fluttered in
     her chest. Such a gentle looking mouth. She filed the errant thought under “N”
     for nonsense and faced Gail. “I suppose he'll do.”
    The young woman shook her head. “You're hopeless.”
    â€œYep, I guess I am.” But not completely. She'd felt a flicker of interest, hadn't
     she? For her, that in itself signified progress. Dismissing the man from her thoughts,
     she concentrated on the material she'd been trying to study before Gail's interruption.
    After noting her findings, she mounted two strands of hair on a slide and moved to a
     comparison microscope. Soon she became totally absorbed and started when she heard the
     director's