Introduction

Twelve years ago, forensic anthropologist Jamie Cash survived a brutal kidnapping, torture, and rape. After years of therapy, she has made a life for herself--though one that is haunted by memories of her terrifying past. She finally lets herself get close to a man, FBI agent Dakota Richards, when signs start appearing that point to one frightening fact--her attacker is back and ready to finish the job he started all those year ago. Can she escape his grasp a second time? And will she ever be able to let down her guard enough to find true love? Filled with heart-stopping suspense, gritty realism, and a touch of romance, Don't Look Back is the second book in the WOMEN OF JUSTICE series. Readers will be hooked from the beginning, finding that once you are in Lynette Eason's world, you're trapped until you turn the very last page.

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Excerpt

1
Tuesday Afternoon
FBI Special Agent Dakota Richards stared down at the pile of
bones unearthed by the backhoe. Jamie would have her hands
full with this one.
He looked up to see her coming toward him. She was dressed
in a Tyvek jumpsuit she’d donned to avoid contaminating the
scene. Underneath, he’d bet she had on her standard khaki capris
and a white long-sleeved T-shirt. In her right hand, she carried a
pair of blue booties she’d place over her red tennis shoes before
entering the area.
As always, Dakota’s heart gave that extra little beat in response
to her presence. And as always, she held herself at a distance
even as she came closer.
“Hey, Jamie.”
She offered him a small smile as her brown eyes locked on
his. “So you pulled this one?”
“I did.” He took in her presence. Petite yet wiry, she had her
long blonde curls pulled up into her customary ponytail. He
cleared his throat. “This is the third body found near this area.
Only this one’s a skeleton. Connor called me about an hour ago and said his boss wanted the FBI in on it, and that they might
need some of our resources. After looking at the situation, my
boss agreed. I knew Serena would request your services.” Serena
Hopkins, the pathologist and a woman Jamie enjoyed working
with. He smiled. “She said you were the perfect person for the
job. I agreed.”
Her chin rose at his compliment; appreciation shone in her
gaze along with a tinge of amusement. “Ha. I’m not sure that
means much. I’m the only person right now.” The other anthropologist
she worked with on occasion was on his honeymoon.
“You have a partner on this one?”
“Just Connor right now. I’m authorized to call for more help
if we need it.” Connor Wolfe, former state law enforcement
detective, now a detective with the city of Spartanburg, South
Carolina, was also Jamie’s brother-in-law. Her sister, Samantha,
and Connor had married a year and a half ago on Christmas Day,
shortly after Jamie’s graduation.
“What happened?”
“Two workers were digging a grave and came across a body
already buried. Fortunately, that guy over there,” he gestured to
the Hispanic-looking man sitting on the ground near the backhoe,
“saw the bones they’d unearthed and immediately stopped
his partner who was driving, so it looks like there won’t be any
damage to the rest of whatever you might find.”
“Bones in a cemetery.” She grinned. “Not really unusual, is
it?”
“Cute, Jamie.”
She turned serious. “Human?”
“You’ll have to make that final determination, of course, but
yeah, I can see the skull and the outline of what once was a
body.”
“So, it looks like we’ve got a homicide?”
“Looks like it. Connor should be back soon. He’s talking to the
director of the place, but he and I’ll be working on this if you concur
that it’s a homicide. For some reason, they think they’ll link the first two they found here to this one. Guess we’ll find out.” The
first two bodies had been found approximately three years ago
very close to this spot. “Anyway, we’ve got a skeleton in a shallow
grave. Usually not a good case for death by natural causes.”
“Usually not. Are we thinking serial killer?”
“Maybe. I wasn’t working here when the other two bodies
were found, and the detective that did work them is now in
another state.”
“So you rushed right over. Didn’t have anything better to do,
huh?” She teased him and he smiled back.
“Naw.” They both knew he had an overflowing desk full of
cases he was working on.
As Jamie slipped on a pair of gloves, then tugged the sleeves
back down to the edge of her palms, Dakota couldn’t help notice
the brief flash of scars around her wrists. She always wore long
sleeves no matter the weather.
But she’d never told him why.
And he’d never told her he’d fallen in love with her practically
from the moment they’d met a little less than two years
ago when he’d been helping her sister and Connor with the case
of missing and murdered teenagers.
Since then he’d been trying to win this lady’s heart. Thus
far, he’d failed miserably and didn’t have a clue what he was
doing wrong.
“All right,” she turned toward the grave, “let’s see what we’ve
got.”
E
Jamie ignored the thumping of her heart that Dakota’s presence
always seemed to incite and turned her attention to her
job. His dark curly hair, keen blue eyes, Stetson, cowboy boots,
and Texas drawl combined to make him one attractive man. The
problem was, she didn’t know what to do with her reaction to
him, so she pretended it wasn’t there.
They were working in an open field, property that belonged
to the mortuary but hadn’t been used as graves yet.
Part of the excavation team Jamie worked with on a regular
basis had already dug down around the skeleton so that they
could stand upright in the grave next to the bones that now lay
on a dirt platform.
Normally, they would place the bones on a gurney and transport
it to the morgue; however, in this case, the body hadn’t been
lying down when it had been buried, it had been dropped into
a hole sitting up. The bones rested on top of each other, looking
like one big lump. And Jamie could see what others couldn’t.
Her crew knew the bones were not to be disturbed until
she had a chance to see them exactly as they were found. And
looking down into the grave, she could see the spine lying
facedown. The skull lay just in front of the spine like it had
dropped off the end. All of this lay on top of what had probably
once been thighs. The ribs were perfectly proportioned,
still attached to the spine by some desiccated tissue. The right
arm, which included the humerus, radius, and ulna, lay across
the back of the spine.
The left arm was missing—the bones that the Bobcat had
clipped and pulled out of the grave, to the horror of the workers.
It was amazing the machine hadn’t disturbed the rest of the
skeleton—or completely destroyed it.
Jamie felt someone approaching and stepped to the opposite
side of the grave. She liked her space. She shot a smile at the
curly-headed crime scene photographer who stood at the edge.
“Hey, Chase, have you gotten all the pictures?”
A shock of red hair covered his left eye as he nodded. “I got
them.”
“Great. Now, I guess it’s my turn.”
Looking down into the hole was one thing; getting into it was
another. She started her anxiety-calming exercises. Abdominal
breaths, not chest breathing. One, two, three. Okay.
It had been a long time since the last panic attack and she wasn’t about give in now. Time to see what she was made of.
Jamie dropped down into the grave. Stood there for a number
of seconds, smelling the dampness of the earth, feeling the darkness
surround her. Remembered the pain, the mind-numbing
fear . . .
Shut it out. Let it go. It doesn’t control you anymore. You control it.
She shuddered, then focused on the one thing that would
take her mind off her fear.
The bones.
Two hours later, she had her documentation on paper, and
with her help, the team brought up what looked to be an entire
skeleton jigsaw puzzle. As Jamie supervised the transfer of the
bones to various boxes, the rest of the team returned to the grave
and continued to sift through the debris looking for any more
small fragments or missing pieces.
Jamie picked up a large bone and, using a soft brush, swished it
over the piece. “It’s a left femur.” The largest bone in the body.
“Any clothing found with it?” Dakota said, walking up beside
her. She gave a small jump at his sudden appearance, then went
back to her bone. He looked over her shoulder.
“A polyester shirt. Remnants of a pair of pants and some other
things that will have to be examined back at the lab.”
She set the bone back into the box that would go back to her
lab for her to unpack. Then she’d work on putting this person
back together to see if they could come up with an identity.
“We’re checking the area to see if anything else turns up.”
“You don’t think this is an isolated incident?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Since this is the third body to
be found under suspicious circumstances, I just want to see if
anything unusual catches my eye. I always tend to scout farther
than just where the body is found.”
Settling a hand on her hip, she scanned the area and said,
“Ok, I’ll come with you.”
They walked the perimeter of the cemetery first, then made
their way through it, walking a grid pattern.
“You see anything out of place?” she asked him.
“No.”
“Just from my initial observation I can tell those bones have
been there awhile.”
“That was my impression.”
“So you have learned something from me in the last year and
a half or so, huh?”
“I try.” He pretended modesty.
She flashed him a grin, then turned to scan the gently sloping
grass that stretched out before them. Land that would one day
be used to bury the deceased—the way they were supposed to
be buried, not someone digging a hole in the ground and trying
to hide his crime.
“Any other observations? Anything else that could indicate
murder?” He wanted to hear what she thought. Listening to someone
else sometimes helped him organize thoughts in his mind.
“Besides the fact that a body’s buried in a place it shouldn’t
be and without a coffin?”
He grinned at her teasing.
She turned serious. “The way the bones were situated says
a lot.” She described them to him. “The body was dropped into
that hole, hands bound behind her.”
“Her?”
“The first thing I looked for. The shape of the pelvis and a
few other things.”
“Right. And the hands were bound behind her?”
Jamie nodded. “I could tell because the right arm bones were
lying across the back of the spine and not under it. At least that’s
my theory until further examination.”
She paused and Dakota watched her gaze land on a spot near
the edge of the trees. Dread twisted her features as she headed
to the area. “Uh-oh. I was wondering if I would see an area like
that but hoped I wouldn’t.”
He followed her and stopped when she held a hand out in
front of him.
“What is it?”
She pointed to the ground. “You know as well as I do that
statistics show that if a killer kills more than once, he buries the
bodies in the same general location. Sometimes, not always. But
because the possibility exists, it’s always smart to cover your
bases.”
“Exactly. And?”
“And I bet there’s another body buried right here.”
“Huh? How do you figure that? Did you go psychic on me
now?” In confusion, he stared at the ground. In his many years
as an investigator, he’d learned a lot about dead bodies and forensics
but hadn’t developed the skill of locating graves just by
looking at the ground.
When he said he wanted to take a look around, he’d just
meant he was looking for a disturbed area, anything that might
indicate someone had been doing something they shouldn’t, a
clue that might lead him to the reason someone buried a body
here. Not that he’d really expected to find anything. It was obvious
a lot of time had passed since the person in the grave had
been put there, but . . .
Jamie gave a small, sad laugh and said, “No, not psychic, just
more observant than the average person. I need another grid set
up, marked off in twenty-foot sections with string and wooden
stakes. We need some more of those workhorses and plywood,
too, to set up tables with sifting screens for going through the
debris. I’ll need my camera guys over here and—”
Dakota held up a hand. “Hang on there. What makes you
think there’s another body here?”
“The ground.”
“Could you explain?”
“It’s sunken in right here.” She walked the perimeter of the
area she was talking about, then pointed to the center. “Then
there’s another small depression in the middle.”
“Uh-huh. And how does that add up to a dead body?”
“Okay,” her voice took on the tone of teacher, “say a guy
kills someone and he wants to get rid of the body by burying
it. He comes out here, sees an open field, digs a grave as fast as
he can, then sticks the body in it. It’s going to be rather shallow
because he’s in a hurry.”
“Wouldn’t someone see that the ground’s been disturbed and
wonder why?”
Jamie looked around. “We’re in a pretty secluded area. Far
enough away from the mortuary building that anyone happening
to look out a window wouldn’t see anything. The perimeter
of the entire backside of this cemetery is surrounded by trees
so no one driving by can see what’s going on.” She shrugged.
“Who’s going to notice? And besides, maybe our killer didn’t care
if he—or she—was found, although burying the body suggests
he didn’t want it found immediately.” She threw her hands up.
“Who knows?”
Dakota nodded. “Okay, but you still haven’t answered my
question.”
“Right. So, our victim is buried and the ground covered back
up. What happens to the body over time?”
“It decomposes.”
“Right again. As the body decomposes, the ground sinks.”
Realization dawned in his eyes. “So, what’s up with the second
indentation?”
“The body cavity. When all the gases are gone, the ground
sinks one more time.”
Dakota sighed and stared at the innocent-looking patch of
grass. “If there’s one body buried around here, I suppose it’s
possible there’s another.”
“Hey, guys,” the call came from the grave behind them, then
a head popped up above the edge, “check this out.”
Jamie looked over to see Roxanne, criminalist and grave digger
extraordinaire, hold up a plastic bag containing a pair of
dirt-encrusted handcuffs.
A chill shot through her as the memory flashed to the forefront
of her mind. He yanked her arms behind her; the cold steel
snapped closed over her wrists. His masked faced shoved against hers
as he whispered vile things in her ear. A swish to the side, she spun her
head. Nothing. No one. Just the man behind her. The brush of rose
petals against her cheek, falling to the pillow, the floor. Low, taunting
laughter. The whisper, “She loves me, she loves me not . . .”
Breathlessness came over her as her chest closed in on her lungs.
Her heart hammered against her breastbone and the blue sky spun
above. She jammed a hand into her pocket and closed her fingers
around the small metal object she always kept with her.
A hand on her arm made her jump and it was all she could
do to hold in the scream clawing at her throat.
“Jamie!”
She gasped and looked into Dakota’s worried eyes. Blinking,
she stumbled back and sat on the cool ground. Someone’s grave. A
grave that could have been hers. She buried her head in her hands
and fumbled for an explanation that wouldn’t have him calling the
men in the white coats to come lock her up in the loony bin.
Sucking in a deep breath, she looked up. “Sorry, I just felt
really dizzy there for a minute.”
“You looked terrified.”
A half-laugh croaked from her. “Sorry. I’m sorry.” She couldn’t
seem to stop apologizing. “I don’t know what happened.” Yes,
she did but wasn’t about to explain it. Not now. Maybe not ever.
She pulled in a lungful of oxygen and shoved herself up into a
standing position. She had a job to do. “I’m all right now.”
Uncertainty flickered on Dakota’s face as he stepped back
without protest.
He now held the bag containing the handcuffs and Jamie
shuddered.
She hated handcuffs.
The Hero, as he’d come to think of himself, gave a victorious
smile and lowered the high-powered binoculars to his lap. She
still thought of him. Her reaction to the handcuffs proved it.
Only now, he was tired of watching. He’d been watching her
ever since he’d come across the article in the newspaper a little
over nine months ago. It had been almost nine months old. A
paper saved to line the bottom of the bird cage or start a fire in
the fireplace.
Jamie had gotten her doctorate and she’d been in the paper
holding her diploma.
Jamie. The one who’d gotten away.
Anger tightened his gut. He couldn’t believe she’d had the
nerve to survive, the strength to thwart him. But no matter. He
reined in the anger.
He could hear the voice in his head, chanting. “Stop the
pain, stop the pain. Only you can stop the pain.” He shook his
head.
It was time.
Time for the fun to begin.
Time to let Jamie Cash know her hero had returned and he
was ready to renew their relationship.
He put the binoculars away and cranked the car.
The clock on the dash glared at him, reminding him he had
an appointment in fifteen minutes. He’d have to hurry. After all,
it wouldn’t do for someone known for his punctuality to show
up late. But after that . . .
He had a stop to make before Jamie got home.
... view entire excerpt...

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