The Kept Woman (Will Trent 8) by Karin Slaughter Read Free Book Online Page A

show signs of conjunctival erythema. I’m guessing he has an enlarged heart, hypertension. There are needle marks on his abdomen and thighs that indicate he’s an insulin-dependent diabetic. His diet was fast food and Skittles. He wasn’t managing his condition.’
    Collier looked skeptical. ‘So Harding conveniently slipped into a diabetic coma during the middle of a death match?’
    ‘It’s more complicated than that.’ Sara indicated the area around her own mouth. ‘Harding’s face. You thought it was mold, but mold usually grows in a colony or clump. Think about bread when it goes bad. My first guess was seborrheic dermatitis, but now I’m fairly certain it’s uremic frost.’
    Will said, ‘I thought I smelled urine.’
    ‘Good catch.’ Sara handed Collier a bag for his gloves and shoe protectors. ‘Urea is one of the toxins that’s supposed to be filtered out through the kidneys. If the kidneys don’t work for some reason—diabetes and hypertension are good reasons—then the body tries to excrete the urea through sweat. The sweat evaporates, the urea crystalizes, and that leads to uremic frost.’
    Collier nodded like he understood. ‘How long does that take?’
    ‘Not long. He’s been living with chronic end-stage renal disease. He was getting treatment at some point. He has a graft for vascular access in his arm. Uremic frost is very rare, but it tells us that for whatever reason, he stopped getting dialysis, probably within the last week to ten days.’
    ‘Jesus,’ Faith said. ‘So is this a murder or not?’
    Amanda said, ‘It seems they both tried to kill each other and both likely succeeded.’ She told Sara, ‘Let’s focus on the missing woman. You said there was a violent struggle in this room that Harding obviously lost, but not before he managed to do quite a bit of damage to his opponent, as evidenced by the blood. Given her wounds, could the woman walk out of here and drive herself away?’ She amended, ‘No maybes or possiblies. You’re not speaking to the court, Dr Linton.’
    Sara still hedged. ‘Let’s start with the impact on the stairs. If it’s from the missing woman’s head, then she took a pretty hard blow. Her skull was probably fractured. At the very least, she’s concussed.’ Sara looked back over the kill room. ‘The volume of blood loss is the real danger. I’d estimate this is just over two liters, maybe a thirty to thirty-five percent loss. That’s a borderline Class III hemorrhage. In addition to stopping the bleed, she’d need fluids, probably a transfusion.’
    ‘She could use the tarp,’ Will said. ‘To stop the bleeding. The tarp is missing. There was a roll of duct tape found in the parking lot.’
    ‘Possible,’ Sara agreed. ‘But let’s talk about the nature of the injury. If the blood came from the chest or neck, she would be dead. It can’t be from the belly because the blood would stay in the belly. So that leaves the limbs. A good gash in the groin could do this. She would likely be able to walk, but not withoutdifficulty. Same with the medial malleolus, the inside of the ankle. She could still drag or crawl her way out. There’s also this—’ Sara held up her arms as if to protect her face, palms out. ‘A horizontal cut to the radial or ulnar arteries, then the arms flail and blood sprays around the room like a garden hose, which is basically what the artery would be at that point.’ She looked back at Harding. ‘I’d expect him to have more blood on him if that was the case.’
    Amanda said, ‘Thank you, Doctor, for that litany of multiple choices. How much time do we have to find this woman?’
    Sara took the dig in stride. ‘None of those injuries are the type that can go untreated, even if she manages to stop the bleeding. Given the four-to-five-hour window on time of death and the volume of blood loss, I’d say that without medical intervention she might have two to three more hours before her organs start shutting