Locked In Temptation. Brenda Jackson

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      JOY SAT AT her desk and stared at the documents she’d taken out of the folder, determined to go over everything again. It was a homicide that had happened during the time she’d been working the Erickson case. The detective originally assigned to the case had transferred to another city, and the unfinished investigation had been reassigned to her.

      She had enough cases to work not to get hung up on just one, but there was something about this particular case that kept pulling at her. “There has to be something that’s been overlooked,” she muttered under her breath. Unfortunately, it would be headed to the cold case files if she didn’t get a break soon.

      According to her boss, Police Chief Hal Harkins, it would be a waste of the taxpayers’ money to continue to pursue any case without strong leads, and there didn’t seem to be a single one for this particular homicide. All she had was a Jane Doe, white female, approximate age of twenty-three, found five months ago, frozen to death on the outskirts of town in a rural area known as Sofia Valley. It had been one of the coldest nights in Charlottesville, with temperatures dipping to a record low. The woman had been in her bare feet, wearing a thin dress and no undergarments. And according to the medical examiner, she’d given birth three months prior.

      Who are you? Where did you come from? And more important, where is your baby?

      The investigative team had ruled out the possibility that she’d been murdered elsewhere and then transported to the area. Although there was a chance she’d been alive and deliberately left there to freeze to death. The autopsy report didn’t indicate any trauma or sexual assault. However, there had been old bruises on her back. Could they be linked to some sort of domestic violence? Was there a husband or boyfriend somewhere who’d left her in the woods to die?