i 13e44e81ff362920 by T L Read Free Book Online Page A

a loud click. Inside the suite, the temperature was even colder. The walk-in refrigeration unit at the back of the room was closed, and resembled nothing but a harmless freezer. Inside, the bodies were kept on ice, along with tissue samples that would be analyzed later by the histology lab. Scraps and pieces collected for thin-layer chromatog-raphy and microwave analysis, which might not even yield anything. Sometimes, death remained unintelligible, leaving no trace on the victim’s body.
    Tasha was leaning over the steel table with her back to me. I could see the shallow drain underneath the table, where murky water swirled and vanished.
    A box of latex gloves was sitting on the counter, and I pulled on a pair, grimacing slightly at the feel of the powder on my skin. I took one of the heavy black aprons hanging on the wall and tied it around my waist, then slipped on a pair of plastic shoe-covers. Even with all of that protection, I always managed to stain my clothes somehow, and the smell never came out. Demon blood wasn’t like red wine. It lasted forever.
    I cleared my throat to be polite. Tasha turned, and I got a partial glimpse of Luiz Ordeño’s body, which she was in the process of sewing up. Coarse thread dangled from the needle in her right hand.
    It looked like fishing twine.
    “Hey Tess. I’m just closing him up.”
    I could see the stitches from the Y-incision, which stretched from Ordeño’s sternum all the way down to the pubis. I tried to remind myself that it wasn’t Ordeño anymore; it was just a shell that couldn’t feel anything. But somewhere in the pit of my stomach, I could feel a sharp pricking, as if Tasha’s needle was threading its way through my insides.
    I swallowed. “He looks different without the armor.”
    “No kidding. It took four technicians over an hour just to undo all those tiny little straps and fasten-ers. Who knew that something from the Renaissance could be so well made?” Tasha laid the needle and thread on the instrument table. “Cindée’s looking at it now in the trace lab. She’s got a smile so big, it looks like she just won the lottery.”
    I chuckled. Then I looked at Ordeño’s body, and the pleasant feeling vanished, transforming into coldness.
    “What about him? Did you find anything interesting?”
    She shrugged. “Nothing probative. Liver temp and core temp suggest that he’d been dead anywhere from eight to twelve hours before we found him. The light marbling that I saw on his arms and chest was probably caused by the body lying in an awkward position on the hardwood floor. The breastplate left marks as well, but those are distinctive.”
    “Probably caused?”
    She gave me a slightly irritable look. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told Selena. Establishing time of death is an inexact science, and every decedent tells a different story. The only way I could give you an exact number is to travel back in time and record every physical phenomenon that may or may not have influenced the rate of decomposition. Even then, I could be wrong.”
    “Sorry, Tash. I didn’t mean to push you.”
    She smiled ruefully. “It’s fine. I’m just feeling a bit harried. Selena’s been calling me every hour, asking for updates. I told her that I’d be working on Ordeño for at least seven hours, but she seems to think that I’m not telling her something.”
    “She’s just under the gun. It’s a high-profile case.”
    “Aren’t they all?” Tasha made two swift, sharp movements, making the last stitch in Ordeño’s Y-incision. Then she cut off the excess thread, placing the scissors back on the steel-instrument tray. “In this case, the body pretty much speaks for itself. There isn’t much I can add to the report.”
    “You’re talking about the wound on his neck?”
    She nodded, placing a gloved finger lightly over the mess of sheared tissue and bone that was Or-deño’s neck.
    “There are eight separate, incised wounds to the neck and face. This