Read Deadly Affair: SCVC Taskforce World Novella (SCVC Taskforce Romantic Suspense Series Book 5) for Free Online

I’m guessing that without actually examining the bones themselves, there’s not much she can tell us. Ronni will get back to us as soon as she can.”
    Ronni Punto was Celina’s former partner and closest friend, and the newest addition to Cooper’s taskforce. To the outside world Ronni was a tough-ass agent who, even after taking a knife in the back from a ruthless psychopath and spending months in physical therapy recuperating, had bounced back on her feet and come back for more. Celina knew better. The anguish her friend had suffered both mentally and physically had taken awhile for her to overcome and Celina wasn’t entirely certain Ronni ever would fully recover from the trauma. Celina still felt the guilt over what had happened since the reason Petero Valquis had come after Ronni in the first place was because of her.
    Good thing Ronni had Thomas Mann, one of Cooper’s trusted taskforce agents, to help her heal. The two of them were complete opposites, yet their love was a thing of beauty.
    Shaking away the cobwebs clouding her brain, Celina gestured towards the crime scene. “What are your thoughts?”
    “Until forensics comes back?” Cooper shrugged. “Hard to say. It definitely appears to be human remains.”
    “Wow, thank you, Captain Obvious.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she arched an eyebrow. “I meant what’s your impression?”
    “My first impression?” He rubbed at the stubble grazing his jaw. “Someone was where they shouldn’t have been and ended up as plant fertilizer.”
    Celina eyed the bones again, speculative. “What makes you think that?” Not that she was arguing the point. She had a funny feeling about the entire situation herself.
    “You think someone simply dropped dead here and no one noticed? Oh, and they ended up buried by squirrels?”
    Smartass. “You’re quick to jump to the conclusion the person didn’t die of natural causes and who knows? Maybe they were buried by a mudslide. There’s no flesh on the bones, so it could have happened a long time ago.”
    The face he made at her suggested she needed to go back to the Academy.
    “We deal in too much shit, you know that?” She shook her head. “It’s not out of the realm of possibility that it was a hiker who got lost or hurt and died of natural causes. And, by the way, you’re the one who taught me to consider every scenario, or don’t you remember that?”
    He tipped his head in acknowledgement, then swept a finger around at the scene before them. “The area is fairly secluded, nothing but woods and hills. The odds of someone hearing a cry for help from all the way back at the Abbey are miniscule.”
    Hadn’t they already proved that by their hot sex session against the tree?
    Crouching low to the ground, Cooper pointed to the outstretched hand. “You see the angle of the arm, how it’s reaching upwards like that? And the tech’s are digging down into the ground, rather than in an oval around the body. It’s appears the person was dumped into the hole standing upright. They were trying to reach the ground’s surface, suggesting…”
    His voice trailed off, but she got the picture loud and clear.
    “They were buried alive and trying to dig their way out.” Celina swallowed, bile rising in the back of her throat. She’d seen some horrible things in her line of work, but trying to picture the torture that person must have suffered, knowing they were trapped and unable to get free, was too awful to imagine.
    Cooper nodded, eyes solemn. “That’s my best guess. I’ve seen it before, which is why I recognized the pattern. But how, or why , they ended up here is anybody’s guess.”
    The murmur of the crowd behind them grew in her ears, and Celina turned to see Father Bailey making his way to the front of the onlookers, pausing at the perimeter of the tape. When he tried to duck under the yellow tape, a uniformed officer stopped him. “I’m sorry, Father, but you can’t pass this