Rogue Oracle by Alayna Williams Read Free Book Online Page A

secretary to a spook … and Tara would be curious to see what her relationship with Carl was, what had caused Lena to keep the only sentimental artifact in the whole room.
    A wheeled cart dragged through the carpet, towed by a forensic technician. The tech was a young woman with her blonde hair tied back in a French braid, swimming in a too-large windbreaker with the name ANDERSON embroidered on the front. “Agent Li said there was some blood stain evidence here?”
    “I think it might be blood, but that’s your call.” Tara showed her the spot on the pillow. The tech photographed the location from several angles, then unfolded a large paper bag from her cart to hold the pillow. She handled the evidence with exceptional care, sealing the bag with tape and filling out the evidence tag.
    “This may be a good lead,” Anderson said. “We weren’t able to isolate much unique DNA in the last case.”
    “What do you mean?” Tara leaned against the dresser.
    The tech’s mouth turned downward. “Our lab took DNA swabs in the Carl Starkweather disappearance. Unfortunately, the DNA was contaminated.”
    Tara’s brows tugged together. “Was there a chain of custody issue?”
    Anderson shook her head. “Not that we were able to determine. All the slides that the lab prepared showed multiple DNA markers.”
    “That’s good, right? More suspects?” Tara’s thoughts raced around the possibility that there might be a group behind the disappearances. Her gut told her that wasn’t the case, but if the evidence pointed there …
    “Not what we ended up with. We got garbage … It was like somebody put samples from a roomful of people in a blender.” Anderson shook her head. “We’re still trying to straighten it out. But it’ll be useless in court. The guy who collected the samples got suspended.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    Anderson shrugged. “Aquila has been breathing down our necks on this, and it sucks not to have any answers.” She finished filling out the evidence tag, scanned the room. “And this scene looks like it’s gonna be a bust, too.”
    “Yeah. I hear the maid got a bit overzealous.”
    Anderson shook her head. “Not really her fault. She was just doing her job. But this … this may just be one of those unlucky investigations that’s one clusterfuck after another.”
    H E WASN’T ALONE, NOT ANYMORE .
    Galen lay curled up on his side in the bed of his rented room, listening to Lena’s voice in his head. Wrapped up in a sheet, he scribbled through notebook after notebook, committing Lena’s voice to paper. Her secrets and memories flowed across the page, interspersed with sketches of people and places, maps, bits of remembered passwords and codes. As he filled each notebook by the meager light from the bedside lamp, he cast them aside to a heap with hundreds of other notebooks beside the radiator. Those were Carl’s memories. And Carrie’s and Gerald’s.
    Galen flexed his fingers, feeling his hand cramp. Like a molting snake, his skin flaked away, and he absently scratched at it. His attention was seized by a lump on his left ring finger, and he dug more deeply at it. The skin sloughed away, revealing Lena’s ring, embedded in his finger, just below the last knuckle. He gave it an experimental tug, but it would not pull free. Not yet.
    Galen padded, naked, to the bathroom. He stretched, and a few extra vertebrae in his back popped. He knew this stage was temporary. After he’d consumed Lena, it would take some time to finish digesting her. His fingers roved over the planes of his face, grown a bit lopsided in the mirror, like wax too close to a flame. He was reminded of the Dali painting of the melting watches, running out of time.
    He ran his hands over his scalp. A few strands of Lena’s long hair clung to it. It smelled like jasmine. He pulled it across his nose to enjoy the fragrance before reaching for the electric clippers. The buzz of the blades against his skull scythed through the bits