It was unclear whether the CSO was being flippant or serious.

Jeff checked inside the room that it was safe to return and ushered them all back inside. "There are other variables to consider. Fetal bones are far less resilient. They're relatively low in calcium so dissolve quite rapidly, particularly if there's lime in the soil. The most anyone would find is a couple of small bones they might assume are bird remains."

"Any specific reason you're doing the X-rays?" Zimmer checked his watch as if he had to be somewhere else.

"Routine. The bones are so fragile, fractures don't necessarily suggest trauma, but if they're intact, it helps exclude significant blunt-force injury."

"Is there any way of proving if the child ever took a breath outside the womb?"

Zimmer was asking if they could prove that the child have ever been legally alive. If it had, homicide could not be excluded, homicide had no statute of limitations. Their job would be a lot simpler if the child could be proven to have been stillborn. And Anya could let Brody know there would be no further investigation.

"I won't know until I examine the internal organs, which could be in any condition. If there's a chance, I'll test the stomach contents for milk. But after who knows how long, I won't lift your hopes. You can take the box with you, to examine it for blood, perhaps date it. Anything that can help with an approximate time frame."

The female CSO had noticed it on the bench. "Do you mean the chocolate box?"

Zimmer looked surprised by his new recruit.

"How do you know what it is?"

Milo stood, hands behind her back again. "My father collects boxes, among other things. This one would have originally had sweets inside. It should still smell like chocolate caramel."

She took a long sniff. "But it doesn't. It was a limited edition put out by an English company named Molly's Originals. My father will have the year recorded in his catalog. From memory, it was late 1960s. He makes records of everything he owns."

A limited edition box could pin down a possible year the baby was placed there.

"How sure are you that it's exactly the same?" Anya asked.

Milo replied, matter-of-fact, "I have a photographic memory and an IQ of one hundred and forty-five."

The comment was met with silence. Obviously, the CSO was capable of dropping more than just keys at an accident scene. The monotone speech pattern and lack of eye contact made Anya wonder whether she had a mild case of autism, perhaps Asperger's syndrome. It would explain the computer-like approach to facts, limited social skills and completely absent sense of humor. Then again, she was similar to any number of university professors or MENSA members who chose not to bother with "trivialities" like interpersonal skills. Obsessive-compulsive behaviors like box collecting could even run in her family.

Anya excused herself before Jeff Sales began the internal examination. Once she could have performed the procedure herself, but since becoming a mother she had found child cases especially difficult. Not having to stay made it easier. John Zimmer instructed Milo to observe while he headed upstairs.

"Milo takes a bit of getting used to," he said as they left the suite. "She's like an encyclopedia but you need more than that if you're going to last in this game. Put it this way, you'd never accuse her of being too sensitive."

Anya almost laughed. John Zimmer was complaining about someone being insensitive. She would never have thought it possible. "Give her a chance. I agree that she's unusual, but you took some getting used to as well." At the elevator, Anya pressed the up button.

"I always thought women were more aware of people's emotions. I can't risk taking her upstairs for the interview. You're sitting in?"

Anya had intended to check on Sophie Goodwin but hadn't heard about any interview. "You've lost me."

"I assumed you knew. Sophie's defied all the odds and woken up. The detectives are on their way to get a statement."

13.

Kate Farrer and Hayden Richards were outside the ICU, along with a uniformed officer who stood guard.

"The father's asked for you. I was about to call," Kate said. "I didn't want to waste your time if she was drifting in and out of consciousness."

Anya wondered why Mr. Goodwin had asked for her when they had never even met. It gave her the opportunity to make sure that, if awake, Sophie was well enough to be interviewed. If not, she wouldn't hesitate to tell the detectives to come back when the teenager was more coherent and up to being questioned.

With Sophie's physically and emotionally frail state, she couldn't afford a setback like being upset by a grilling. She had also been hypotensive for a prolonged period due to blood loss, and the long-term effects on her brain still hadn't been determined.

"We've got a video camera on standby and a room to view from down the corridor. Just let us know when we're ready to start the interview."

"Wait," Anya said. "If she's only just woken up, she could be disoriented and confused. Add to that, she might have just remembered what happened and may be too upset to-"

"We understand that," Kate interjected. "But she needs to help us catch whoever did this as soon as possible. If she can just give us an ID, that's all we need for an arrest warrant. Then we'll be happy to back off until we get the okay."

Anya appreciated the urgency, especially given the brutality and violence involved in the attacks, but Sophie's wellbeing was the priority. Causing distress and setting back her recovery wouldn't bring her sister back. As with the doctors treating Sophie, having examined the young woman Anya had taken on a role as her advocate. That was her duty of care. The doctor-patient relationship always took precedence over any duty she had to the police. Even if the detectives didn't like it, they had to abide by any medical decision for now. She decided to see how Sophie was for herself.

Inside the specialized unit, Anya scrubbed her hands at a sink by the door and pulled on a white gown. Sixteen curtained cubicles contained patients. Three private rooms existed for patients requiring isolation.

Sucking noises from breathing ventilators filled the communal area around the central nurses' station. Occasional alarms beeped and nurses calmly checked the monitors before resetting the offending machines. A glance at the whiteboard on the wall told Anya which bed Sophie was in.

Usually reserved to quarantine infectious patients, room eighteen kept the teenager safe from prying eyes and opportunistic photographers.

A male nurse greeted her. "Can I help you?"

"I'm Doctor Crichton. Anya. Apparently Mr. Goodwin asked me to see him."

"He did. He wants to thank you for the holy medal you gave his daughter-he's convinced it saved her life. Frankly, to have survived those injuries, something bigger than medicine had to be on her side."

He gestured toward a single room close to the nurses' desk. Through the open door she could see the figure of a man sitting, face hunched over the bed as if in prayer.

"She's still ventilated but has woken for a few minutes at a time."

"Does she know where she is?"

"She's not panicking or trying to fight the ventilator and seems to recognize her father. We're keeping the analgesia up because of her wounds and that'll make her drowsy. Endotracheal tube will stay until that neck wound heals, so long conversations might have to wait."

Anya took a breath and entered the room.

Mr. Goodwin sat in the same clothes he had been wearing the morning his daughter had been brought in. Wrapped around his shoulders was a blue hospital-issue cotton rug.

An air-conditioning duct pulsed cold air right on to the bed and Anya felt the chill in the room. The father stood but didn't let go of his daughter's hand.

A nurse sat at a mobile desk covered in a broadsheet filled with details about oxygen levels, urine output, fluid intake and blood test results.

"Mr. Goodwin, I'm Anya Crichton, the forensic physician."

The man let go of his daughter and wrapped both hands around Anya's.

"Please call me Ned. Thank you for coming to see Sophie. I heard you've been checking on her but were respectful of our privacy."

Anya didn't have the heart to explain that she hadn't known how to face him, and with his surviving daughter unlikely to live, she had simply avoided any meeting as long as she could.

"How's she doing?"

Sophie lay semi-upright in the bed, covers pulled up to her armpits. The blood pressure and heart rate monitors showed stable signs, as did the pulse oximeter on her finger. Anya noticed the girl's petite hands and realized how hard she had fought to stave off her attacker. Every nail had been broken, but someone, probably one of the nurses, had filed them as a less obvious reminder. Defense injuries on her arms were covered with bandages, but she seemed even smaller and more fragile than the morning in emergency.

The medal and chain were wrapped around one wrist, placed carefully so as not to disturb intravenous equipment. Not exactly protocol for a unit obsessed with infection control and sterility, but the staff had made an exception for Sophie.

On the mobile drawers sat a photo of the sisters, presumably with their late mother. The life in each one sparkled in the image.

"She woke up and squeezed my hand a while ago, then went back to sleep. Every now and then she looks up to make sure I'm still here." Ned reached over and stroked his daughter's forehead. She opened her eyes and he beamed.

"Darling, I'm not going anywhere. You're safe and a lovely doctor's come to see you."

The girl's eyes moved to Anya. Her mouth moved and it looked like she was saying "Hello."

"The special Saint Jude medal came from one of the ambulance officers who saved your life. I just made sure it stayed with you, which I can see it has."

"And for that we're grateful. The priest gave the last rites and we were told to expect the worst, and now look at Sophie. She's a real fighter, this one."

His lower lip trembled. This was a man struggling to maintain any semblance of control.

"Thank you for what you did when she came in. I know you work with the police. The emergency doctors and surgeons told us how gentle you were with our Soph."

Suddenly, tears filled his eyes and the grief overcame him. Anya moved forward and he grabbed her tightly. Her body resonated with each heave and sob.

The nurse moved slowly toward them and put her arms around Ned's shoulders.

"Let it out, it's about time you did. You've been through hell, but Sophie's doing better, you can take a break now." She began to lead him toward the door, and turned back to Anya.

"Doctor will stay with Sophie while we have a five-minute break. We'll be right back if they need us."

Like a child, Ned Goodwin accepted being led away, too exhausted and wrung-out to argue.

Anya nodded and sat in the chair by the bed.

Sophie opened her eyes and focused on her visitor for a few seconds before closing them again.

"Can you hear me? Your dad's just gone outside for a couple of minutes. I'll stay with you for as long as you like. My name is Anya."

The girl licked her dry, cracked lips. A glass of water and straw sat on the bedside table. After checking the chart to make sure fluids were permitted, Anya offered Sophie a sip.

She responded by sucking up a small amount and letting it spill on her lips. Despite her youth, the girl had a strong face. Anya's mother would have called the square-shaped chin a sign of a stubborn child. Judging by Sophie's obvious determination to survive, the description would have been apt.

Anya offered some more water but her patient pulled a little to the side, opened her eyes and mouthed something. The first time it wasn't clear. Then it seemed obvious.

"Rachel."

Anya felt her stomach tighten. Was Sophie asking where her sister was? Did she have any memory of what had happened?

It was impossible to read in the girl's eyes.

The grip on her hand tightened and Anya sat forward.

"Sophie, do you remember what happened? Why you came to hospital?"

Her spare hand reached for the breathing tube inserted into her windpipe and groped the bandages covering her neck.

The tired eyes closed again but the grip on Anya's hand remained.

Part of Anya hoped Sophie would never remember the vicious rape and stabbings, or the sound of her sister's dying screams.

"If you're tired, we can talk later. You need to rest."

Sophie opened her eyes wide and the ventilator began to alarm. She seemed to be having trouble breathing. Anya cradled her forward while the male nurse hurried in. Snapping on gloves, he pulled out a sterile suction tube and inserted it through the tracheostomy opening.

Sophie coughed and wheezed as the nurse withdrew the tube. "Just a bit of mucus," he said. "It happens now and then. There you go." The suction tube came out. "You'll breathe easier now."

He smiled, collected the mess and left Anya still supporting the girl in bed. Sophie's hand pulled on Anya's shirt collar until they were face to face.

"What is it?" Anya almost whispered.

The young girl licked her cracked lips and whispered. "I remember."

14.

Outside ICU, Kate paced. Liz Gould stood texting on her phone while John Zimmer sat on one of the waiting room lounges, legs stretched in front and eyes closed.

"Sophie's awake," Anya said, "and she says that she remembers."

"So we can do the interview?"

Anya held up her hands. "She's barely conscious and keeps dozing off."

"But she does remember that night." Liz Gould clicked shut her phone and stood.

Zimmer opened his eyes.

"The breathing tube is in her neck and she can't speak properly. Her vocal cords are out of commission, but she is able to whisper. It just takes a bit more time and patience to understand. She'll tire very quickly."

Kate shoved her hands in her pockets. "We don't care if she blinks yes or no answers. We just want to find out what happened and whether she can ID whoever did this."