by Ким Харрисон
The room was long, having four rows of drawers on either side of the wide middle space. It was storage and self-repair only, no autopsies, necropsies, or assisted tissue repair. Humans on one side, Inderlanders on the other, though Ivy had told me they all had pull tabs inside in case of accidental misfiling.
I followed Glenn to midway down the Inderland side, watching him double-check the card against a slip of paper before unlocking the door and yanking it open. "Came in Monday," he said over the sound of sliding metal as the tray slid out. "Iceman didn't like the attention given to her, so he gave me a call."
Monday. As in yesterday? "The full moon isn't until next week," I said, avoiding the sheet-draped body. "Isn't that early for a Were suicide?"
I met his deep brown eyes, reading a sad understanding. "That's what I thought, too."
Not knowing what I would see, I looked down as Glenn folded the sheet back.
"Holy crap!" Jenks exclaimed. "Mr. Ray's secretary?"
A sour expression fixed on me. When had being a secretary become a high-risk position? No way had Vanessa committed suicide. She wasn't an alpha, but she was pretty damn close.
Glenn's surprise turned to understanding. "That's right," his low voice rumbled. "You stole that fish from Mr. Ray's office."
Irritation flickered through me. "I thought I was rescuing it. And it wasn't his fish. David said Mr. Ray stole it first."
Eyebrows bunched, Glenn seemed to think it made no difference. "She came in as a wolf," he was saying, his manner professional as his eyes lit on only the bruised and torn parts of her naked body. A small but gorgeous koi tattoo swam in orange and black across a high patch of her upper chest, a permanent sign of her inclusion into the Ray pack. "Standard procedure is to turn them back after the first look. It's easier to find the cause of death on a person than on a wolf."
The smell of dead things in a pine forest was getting to me. It didn't help that I was running on empty. The coffee wasn't sitting well anymore. And I'd known the SOP, having briefly dated a guy who made the charms to force a shift back to human. He was a geek, but he had lots of money—it wasn't an easy job, and no one wanted it.
Jenks was making a cold spot on my neck, and not seeing anything out of the ordinary—other than her being dead and her arm torn to the bone—I murmured, "What am I looking at?"
Nodding, Glenn went to a low drawer at the end of the room and, after checking the tag, pulled it open. "This is a Were suicide that came in last month," he said. "You can see the differences. She would have been cremated by now, but we don't know who she is. Two additional Jane Wolfs came in on the same night, and they're giving them a little extra time."
"They all came in together?" I asked, going over to look.
"No," he said softly, gazing down at her in pity. "There's no connection other than the timing and that none of them can be found in the computer. No one's claimed them, and they don't match any missing-persons report—U.S.-wide."
From my shoulder came Jenks's muffled voice saying, "She don't smell like a Were. She smells like perfume."
I winced when Glenn unzipped the bag to show that the woman's entire side had been ravaged. "Self-inflicted," he said. "They found tissue between her teeth. It's not uncommon, though they're usually a lot less brutal than this and simply open a vein and bleed out. A jogger found her in an alley in Cincinnati. He called the pound." The faint wrinkles around Glenn's eyes deepened with anger. He didn't have to say that the jogger had been human.
Jenks was quiet, and I searched for cool detachment as I examined her. She was tall for a Were, but not overly so. Big up top, with shoulder-length hair that curled gently where it wasn't matted. Pretty. No tattoos that I could see. Mid-thirties? She took care of herself, given the definition. I wondered what had been so bad that she thought the answer was to end it.
Seeing me satisfied, Glenn opened a third drawer. "This one was hit by a car," he said as he unzipped the sturdy bag. "The officer recognized her as being a Were, and she made it to the hospital. They actually had her turned back to treat her, but she died." Creases appeared in his brow as he looked at her damaged body. "Her heart gave out. Right on the table."
I forced my gaze down, flinching at the bruises and skin split by the accident. IV tips were still in her, evidence of the efforts to save her life. Jane Wolf number two had brown hair as well, longer this time, but it curled the same way. She looked the same age and had the same narrow chin. Apart from a scrape on her cheekbone, her face was untouched, and she seemed professional and collected.
Running in front of a car wasn't uncommon, the Were equivalent of a human jumper. Most times they weren't successful, landing under a doctor's care, where they should have been in the first place.
I followed Glenn to a fourth drawer, finding out why Jenks was being so quiet when he gagged and flew to the trash can. "Train," Glenn said simply, his voice soft with regret.
Coffee and lack of sleep were warring in me, but I'd seen a demon slaughter, and this was like dying in your sleep compared to that. I think I was earning points with Glenn as I looked her over, trying not to breathe in the scent of decay the chill of the room couldn't stop. It appeared as if Jane Wolf number three was as tall as the first woman and possessed the same athletic body build. Brown hair to her shoulders. I couldn't tell if she had been pretty or not.
Seeing me nod, Glenn zipped up the bag and shut the drawer, closing all of them on his way back to Vanessa. Not entirely sure why he had wanted me to see this, I trailed behind him.
Jenks's wings were silent as he returned, and I gave him a sympathetic smile. "Don't tell Ivy I lost it," he asked, and I nodded. "They all smell the same," he said, and I felt him hold on to my ear for balance as he stood as close as he could to my perfumed neck.
"Jeez, Jenks, they all look the same to me." But I don't think he appreciated my attempt at humor.
Glenn's steps slowed to a halt, and we gazed at Mr. Ray's secretary.
"Those three women were suicides," he said, "the first one dying by self-mutilation, as Mr. Ray's secretary appears to have died. I think she was murdered, then doctored up to mimic suicide."
I glanced at him, wondering if he was looking for ghosts in the fog. Seeing my doubt, he ran a hand over his short, curly hair. "Look at this," he said, leaning over Vanessa and picking up a limp hand. "See?" he said, his dark fingers circling her thin wrist in sharp contrast to her pale skin. "That looks like a bruise caused by restraints. Soft restraints, but restraints. They aren't on the woman who made it to the hospital, and I know they had to tie her down."
Okay. Now I was interested. Maybe Vanessa had been into sex games and it went too far? Leaning forward, I agreed that the soft red ring could have resulted from a restraint, but it was her nails that caught my attention. They had been professionally manicured, but the tips were split and ragged. A woman considering suicide doesn't pay beaucoup bucks to get her nails done, then tear them up before she can end her life properly. "Where was she found?" I asked softly.
Glenn heard my interest and flicked me a grin that quickly sobered. "Under a dock in the Hollows. A tour group spotted her before she could get cold."
Not wanting to be left out, Jenks flew from my shoulder to hover over her. "She smells like a Were," he proclaimed. "And fish. And rubbing alcohol."
Glenn twitched the sheet with which she'd been covered in lieu of a bag all the way off. "Her ankles have pressure marks, too."
My brow furrowed. "So someone held her against her will and then killed her?"
Jenks's wings clattered. "There's a strand of medical tape caught in her teeth."
The breath Glenn had taken to answer me exploded out of him. "You're kidding."
Adrenaline pinged, and feeling woozy, I looked to see. "I'm not trained for this," I said when Glenn took a penlight from his pocket and motioned for me to hold her mouth open. Gingerly I took her jaw in my hands. "I'm not going to take a knife to her and poke around."
"Good." He trained the
light on her teeth. "I don't have authorization for that."
The squeak of the double doors pulled my head up. Jenks swore as I let go of Vanessa's jaw, my swinging hand almost smacking him. Tension flashed to fear for an instant as I saw Denon, my old boss from the I.S., standing in the middle of the floor like the king of the dead.
"This is an Inderland matter. You don't have clearance to even look at her," he said, his honey-smooth voice rippling over my spine like water over rocks.
Damn it all to hell, I thought, jerking my fear back. He wasn't my boss anymore. He wasn't anything. But I was too deep underground to tap a line, and I didn't like it.
The low-blood living vampire smiled to show his human teeth, a startling white beside his oh-so-beautiful mahogany skin. Iceman was behind him along with a second living vampire, high-blood this time by his small but sharp canines. The scent of burgers and fries had come in with them, and it looked like Glenn's fifty dollars had bought less time than he'd hoped.
Jenks rose in a hum of wings. "Look what the cat dragged in and puked up," he snarled. "It smells like it used to be something, but I can't tell what, Rache. Fuzzy rat balls, maybe?"
Denon ignored him, as he ignored everyone he thought beneath his notice, but I caught a twitch of an eye as he kept smiling, trying to impress me with his mere presence.
Glenn clicked off his penlight and tucked it away, his jaw tensed, unrepentant. Denon wasn't anything to be afraid of. Not that he ever had been, and especially not now. He was probably the reason I had lost my license, though, and that ticked me off.
With a practiced swagger, the large muscular man came forward on cat-light feet. He was technically a ghoul, a rude term for a human bitten by an undead and intentionally infected with enough of the vamp virus to partially turn him. And whereas living high-blood vampires like Ivy were born to their status and envied for having a portion of the undead's strengths without the drawbacks, a low-blood vampire was little more than a source of blood as they tried to curry the favor of the one who had promised them immortality.
Denon clearly worked hard to build up his human strength, and though his biceps strained his polo shirt and his thighs were heavy with iron-pumping muscle, he still fell short of his brethren and would until he died and became a true undead. And that was contingent upon his "sponsor" remembering and/or bothering to finish the job. With Denon taking the blame for Ivy's leaving the I.S. with me, that likelihood was looking slim. His master had turned a blind eye, and Denon knew it. It made him unpredictable and dangerous, since he was trying to ingratiate himself back into his master's good graces. The fact that he was working the morning shift spoke volumes.
Though still beautiful, he had lost the ageless look of one who feeds upon the undead. It was likely they were still feeding on him, though. He had once overseen an entire floor of runners, but this was the second time I'd seen him working the streets since leaving.
"How's your car, Morgan?" his beautiful voice taunted, and I bristled.
"Fine." Anger overpowered my fatigue to make me stupid. The two techs slipped quietly out, and I heard a soft conversation and the metallic clinks of a gurney being set up.
Denon's pupil-black eyes rose from the dead secretary. "Come to see your handiwork?" he mocked, and Jenks lit us with a burst of light.
"Move off the corpse, Jenks," I muttered, coming out from behind the drawer to give myself room to move. "You're getting dust all over it."
Denon smirked, hiding his human-size teeth like the joke they were. I put my hands on my hips and tossed my hair. "Are you saying this isn't a suicide?" I taunted, seeing a chance to irritate him. " 'Cause if you say I'm responsible for her murder, I'm going to sue your little brown candy ass from here to the next Turn."
In a smooth motion, Glenn yanked the sheet over Vanessa. He hadn't said anything yet, which I thought was remarkable since it had been only a year ago that he thought he didn't owe vampires any respect at all. Leave the needling to those who might survive it.
"The evidence speaks for itself." Denon moved forward to force Glenn and Jenks back. "I'm releasing her to her next of kin for cremation. Move."
Damn it back to the Turn, in a few hours everything would be gone. Even the paper and computer files. That's why he was doing this at such an insane hour. By the time everyone was at work, it'd be too late. Eyes narrowing, I forced a laugh. It was bitter, and I didn't like the sound of it. "Is that what you're doing now?" I mocked. "You been bumped to clerk?"
Denon's eyes tried to go black. It was stupid pushing him like this, but I felt the lack of sleep keenly, and I did have Glenn beside me. What was Denon going to do?
The rattle of the gurney intruded, and Denon swaggered forward, trying to shove Glenn away with his presence. Glenn wasn't moving. "You can't take her," the FIB detective said, putting a possessive hand on the top of the door. "This has become a murder investigation."
Denon laughed, but the two guys with the gurney hesitated and exchanged knowing looks. "It's been ruled a suicide. You have no jurisdiction. The body is mine."
Crap. We didn't have anything yet, and if we didn't find it, we'd look like fools.
"Until it's been ruled a human didn't murder her, I have all the jurisdiction I need," Glenn said. "She has pressure marks on her wrists. She was held against her will."
"Circumstantial." Denon's brown fingers reached for the drawer handle. Glenn didn't back down, and the tension rose until Jenks's wings were making a high whine.
I shuffled around in my bag and brought out my cell phone. Not that I could actually reach a tower down here. "We can have a court order in four hours. Your enthusiasm to destroy the evidence will be on it. Still want to release her?"
Jenks landed on my shoulder. "You can't get a court order that fast," he whispered, and sweat broke out on me. Yeah, I knew it would take a day, if I could get one at all, but I couldn't just let Denon walk out of here with the body.
Denon's jaw was gritted. "Pressure marks don't mean shit."
Jenks flew from me to hover over Vanessa. "How about needle marks?" he said.
"Where?" I blurted, crossing the room to look. "I don't see them."
The small pixy was smug. " 'Cause they're small. Pixy-size needles. Like fiber-optics. You can see the welt on the torn skin. Whoever drugged her tried to cover it up by tearing her arm as if it was a suicide. But they're there. You'll need a microscope to see them."
A grim smile twitched Glenn's lips, and together we turned to Denon. The word of a pixy didn't mean squat in court, but knowingly destroying evidence did. The vampire looked ticked. Good. I'd hate to think I was the only one having a bad morning.
"Get her arm looked at," he said brusquely, muscles hard with tension. "I want the report before the ink dries."
Oh, God, I thought, rolling my eyes. Could he have picked a more trite analogy?
Glenn shoved the drawer closed, locking it before handing the key to Iceman. Jenks was hovering beside me, and I said nothing, smiling because I knew we were right and Denon was wrong, and the I.S. was going to come out looking like idiots.
But Denon chuckled, surprising me. "You keep pissing people off, Morgan, and before long the only people who will want to hire you are those homeless bridge trolls and miscreants dealing in black magic. It's your fault she died. No one else's."
The blood drained from my face, and Jenks snapped his wings aggressively. Not only did Denon know she had been murdered and was trying to cover it up, but he was blaming me for it. "You son of a bitch," Jenks seethed, and I moved my fingers to tell him to stay out of it. I couldn't catch a pixy, but maybe a ticked vampire could.
Giving me a beautiful smile, Denon turned, as confident and power-hungry as when he had come in. Jenks was a blur of wings and anger. "Don't listen to him, Rachel. This wasn't your fault. It couldn't have been."
I looked at the covered corpse. Please, God. Let it have nothing to do with me. "Yeah, I know," I said, hoping he was right. There was no way. My only connection
to her was that fish, and that had been settled. She had been Mr. Ray's secretary, not responsible for it at all. And besides, the fish hadn't been Mr. Ray's to begin with.
Glenn put a comforting hand on my shoulder, and we walked slowly to the double doors to allow Denon time to leave. The reception room held only Iceman and a fading conversation filtering in from the hall. I waited while Glenn exchanged a few words with the orderly, promising to come back for the paperwork after escorting me home. Vanessa's body wouldn't be released now until murder had been ruled out, but I wasn't finding any satisfaction in it. The I.S. was going to be really ticked if I blew one of their cover-ups. Goody, goody.
Tugging my bag back up my shoulder, I waved to the edgy Iceman and headed out with Glenn. Jenks was silent. Glenn had my coffee in one hand, my elbow in the other. My thoughts were on Vanessa while he guided me unseeing through the upper levels of the building and back into the sun. I didn't say a word all the way home, and the conversation between Jenks and Glenn lagged. In their silence I thought I heard agreement that I might have been responsible in some way for the woman's death. But I couldn't. I just couldn't have been.
I didn't look up from the dash until I felt the soothing shade of my street. Jenks muttered something and slipped out the open window before Glenn brought the car to a stop. I glanced up then, finding the hazy morning slipping into the time of day I was usually just waking.
"Thanks for coming out with me," Glenn said, and I turned to him, surprised at the honest relief in his eyes. "Officer Denon gives me the creeps," he added, and I managed a smile.
"He's a pushover," I said, gathering my bag onto my lap.
Glenn pulled his eyebrows up. "If you say so. At least Vanessa's body won't be destroyed. And now I'll have access to any record I want until human involvement is ruled out. I think I can take it from here."
I huffed. "Then why did you have me come out, Mr. FIB Agent?"
He grinned to show his teeth. "Jenks found the needle marks, and you distracted Denon and got him to back down. A court order?" he said, chuckling. I shrugged, and Glenn added, "He's afraid of you, you know."
