by Jenny Allen
“Arrangements have been made and Malachi will be taken care of. The…coincidence is unmistakable. Did Miriah know he was here in New York City?”
Lilith cursed under her breath. She should have called Gregor and updated him after they heard from Spencer, but she’d been distracted. “Miriah… is missing as well. A lot has happened and I’m following every lead I can.”
There was silence on the line and Lilith winced. “Are you okay, Lilith?” Gregor’s voice was firm and commanding even without using her full first name, which he rarely did.
She hesitated and that was enough. She knew that if she said she was fine now he wouldn’t believe her. Best to bite the bullet now. “There was an attack last night when we were investigating the Madisonville house. Chance saved my life.” The smile in her voice couldn’t be missed. “I’m feeling much better now. There’s no need to worry.”
They pulled up to another red light and Chance looked over at her with a faint trace of panic in his face. “I’m glad I sent him with you, then. As for worrying, my nephew’s body is lying on a slab, so I think we are well beyond worrying. What leads do you have?” This was the straightforward business voice that Lilith rarely experienced, and it rubbed her the wrong way.
“Duncan had a lot of notes, I’m still going through them, but I found a few encrypted notes that mentioned someone named Mary. He sounded desperate and hopeless in his notes. He mentioned something about the past coming back for the two of you. Apparently Miriah was helping Duncan with his research recently. I didn’t find anything at her apartment so I’m heading to her office with Chance while Spencer searches Malachi’s real estate office.”
Another long silence stretched across the phone line. She thought the call dropped and was about to check the phone when Gregor finally spoke up. “What did it say about Mary?” His voice was quiet and small.
“Just that she was your daughter and that something really horrible happened to her. There weren’t any specifics. Is there something I should know?”
“Nothing specific. At least not anything that could possibly affect your investigation. I do think you two should come home right now.” His voice sounded casual but there was an undercurrent that was adamant.
“I can’t do that, Dad.” Her jaw set into a firm line and her whole body stiffened in the seat. There was no way she could leave with Duncan and Miriah possibly alive out there somewhere. She couldn’t leave Spencer to unravel and fall into madness trying to find them. Gregor sent her here with a job to do and she was going to do. “I know you are feeling protective because Malachi is dead, but that’s all the more reason for me to keep digging. Miriah and Duncan are in danger.”
His voice was like a smoldering iron, burning hot but calm. “Lilith Marie Adams, you and Chance get on the next plane out of Knoxville right now or I will send someone to get you. This is not a negotiation. It is a direct order.”
Maybe it was all the things about Gregor being revealed everywhere she went. Maybe it was the illicit kiss that she would never take back. Maybe it was all the perfectly good reasons why she had to stay and finish this. Whatever the reason, rebellion roared through her. “No.” Surprisingly her voice didn’t shake once, even though her entire body trembled. She never talked back to her Dad. They’d always been close, or so she thought. “I’m not going anywhere. I am not leaving Tennessee when Miriah and Duncan are out there, possibly alive. I have a job to do here. Send someone if you want but I’m not leaving. Now tell me what this has to do with Mary?”
There wasn’t a single pause in her father’s voice, but the anger was definitely something new. “This has nothing to do with Mary. Duncan has been losing his mind, Lilith. Malachi is dead. I want you here. I can’t protect you from whatever is going on from here.” There was a pleading that edged into his voice. Her father, her perfect father was scared. That alone made her hesitate.
“No. I’m finishing what I came here to do.” She hung up the phone before her nerve gave out. Chance was staring at her like he’d never seen her before. Her phone rang and she turned it off. The car behind them honked and Chance snapped forward moving through the intersection.
“I can’t believe I just did that.” She wasn’t really talking to Chance, her hands were shaking and she flexed them, willing them to stop. She took in a steadying breath and her confidence returned, along with the anger. “I’m right and he is wrong this time. The over protectiveness has to stop. He sent me here to do a job and I’m doing it.” She looked over at Chance who was silently staring forward. “He isn’t always right, Chance, and he was wrong to threaten you.” She let out an aggravated growl and slumped back in her seat.
Chance pulled the car into a parking space in front of a small little unit in a nice strip mall. He sat very still in his seat, obviously torn between saying something and saying absolutely nothing. “Don’t pick a fight with Gregor because of me. At the end of the day he is still my boss and more than that. If it wasn’t for him I’d probably be dead right now. If he managed to cut me off from any assistance it’d be very hard for me to survive.” His soft brown eyes, with their green flecks, turned to her and there was sadness in them. “I carry a torch for you, Lily, and I probably always will. That kiss…”His voice trailed off as the corners of his mouth lifted into a grin. “It was amazing, life-alteringly amazing, but Gregor is pretty serious.”
Lilith frowned at him and grabbed the door handle. His hand on hers stopped her and she turned back to face him. “No. I am not 16 years old. I’m not going to be ordered around like some mindless debutant by you or Gregor. It is not about you, Chance. He’s dead wrong to order me to leave when his own brother and niece are still out there. He’s acting out of fear and so are you.”
She wrenched her hand away from him and his face looked wounded, which only made her angrier. “If you want to hide behind Gregor’s threats because it’s safer, then fine. Don’t go lecturing me about my life choices when you hide in isolation and let your boss determine every aspect of your life and then call it noble. Call a spade a spade. You can keep your damn torch.” She swung the car door open before Chance could respond and slammed it on the sound of his voice.
She closed her eyes and took a steadying breath, willing the trembles and anger to stop. She needed to think clearly and nothing was helping. Chance finally dragged himself out of the tiny car and Lilith turned away to stare across the parking lot. She didn’t want to see the pain or the anger in his face right now. She just couldn’t deal with it. She felt his eyes on her back though. She felt bad for snapping at him like that, but nothing she said was a lie. It was all truth. Brutal truth maybe, but truth nonetheless.
Anger still burned through her veins, anger and hurt. He opened this flood gate because he couldn’t hold it all in, but he didn’t want to actually do anything about it. How was she supposed to just walk calmly away knowing what she did now? How could he just resign to some fate determined by someone else? Oh, she was worth pinning over but not worth fighting for?
It was selfish. He couldn’t hold things in so he had to unload on her, tell her everything. She was sure he felt a hell of a lot better, but now she had to deal with his baggage. Dammit. She needed to focus on the case, not all this emotional drama. Gregor should have sent Timothy or Gary, anyone less distracting. This was precisely why she didn’t seriously date anyone. It was all just fickle emotions that peter out into ashes leaving her to clean up the mess. Men like to complain that women are nothing but drama, but truth be told, men were the complicated emotional wrecks more often than not.
A few agonizing minutes later, she heard Chance walking toward the office door and turned to follow him. He stopped in front of the door, staring at it and for a moment her heart thudded in her chest thinking he was going to snap on her. She couldn’t handle another word from him right now. All her nerves were raw and she felt rejected in some way and impossibly angry. Must be that sensitive ego of hers. In one fluid motion, Chance reached under the back of his sh
irt and pulled his gun from the holster.
She moved to the side to take a look at the door as the whole world seemed to tilt. She’d been so buried in her inner turmoil that being brought back to reality seemed like a harsh change of perspective.
The wooden door frame was splintered into pieces. As for the door itself, it just hung open ominously. Chance motioned her back away from the door and he moved to the hinged side. She caught his eyes and mouthed “Don’t touch anything.” He shot a harsh glare that cut right to the bone and made her stomach churn all over again. Oh yeah. He was definitely pissed. There was something kinda terrifying of having a six foot three Cajun pissed off at you. Of course she was slightly more terrified of what might be waiting for them inside.
His right hand kept the gun trained on the opening between the door and the frame and his foot slowly pushed the door open. His hard eyes scanned the room, he motioned again for her to stay put and slipped into the room. Lilith peeked around the edge of the door frame and her eyes went wide. The place reeked of blood. Even a human would smell it. She looked around the parking lot behind her, suddenly feeling a million different eyes watching her. She couldn’t stay out here in the open like this. Something was dead inside that office and it was bad enough that their car was parked out front. She needed to get her case and get out of sight as fast as possible.
Lilith ran back to the car, grabbed her kit from the back seat and slid into the office, standing with her back against the wall and waited for Chance to emerge from one of the back rooms. She was very careful not to touch the wall or anything else. Her heart raced while her eyes searched the dark room. Finally they focused on the door to an office as if she could magically make Chance appear. Every muscle in her body stung with tension, making her hands shake. She pulled the aluminum case up and wrapped her arms around it so she wouldn’t drop it. It gave her something solid to hold on to, to focus on.
She was never this nervous at crime scenes. Of course there was an inherent anonymity to crime scenes. She didn’t know them, they didn’t know her. If there was a body here it was probably a family member, and the attacker not only knew her but he could still be lurking here. At least in New York the scene was cleared before she got there. Here he could be hiding anywhere. He’d almost killed her once already. She was really hoping to avoid a repeat performance.
Her mind started running through the crime scene checklist automatically. Organizing her thoughts helped keep her calm. Neither of them were wearing gloves, but as long as they didn’t touch anything they were okay. If the cops became involved it would be especially important that they leave no trace behind. She could only hope that Chance would be careful not to disturb anything.
The weather was still dry so footprints shouldn’t really be an issue. She hadn’t seen any lights on in the buildings around, so maybe they would get lucky. The last thing they needed was an eyewitness placing them at a crime scene. There was no doubt left in her mind that this was a crime scene. The smell was overwhelming even standing right near the door. It was more complex than just blood. She could smell urine, sweat, feces. Whatever happened, it hadn’t been quick.
Suddenly, Chance peeked out of the door she was staring holes into. He put his gun back in his holster and dragged a hand through his hair. “It’s all clear. You better get in here with that kit.” His eyes looked haunted. “I think it might be Miriah.”
Chapter 8
Chance looked sick as he leaned against the wall in the main office. The door to the back office stood open, ominously. It didn’t look like the anonymous prefab door of a strip mall office. It closer resembled the gateway to hell from Dante’s Inferno. Her mind replayed what he said. It might be Miriah. Not it is Miriah, it might be her. From the pale hue of Chance’s skin, she knew it had to be beyond bad. This was her job, what she did for a living. She could do this, she had to do this. Chance didn’t process crime scenes on a daily basis. He wasn’t used to dealing with dead bodies. Maybe it wasn’t all that bad. Technically, bad for most people was mild for her. Besides, if it really was Miriah, Duncan was still out there. He needed her.
She stopped in the doorway, preparing herself. She looked up at Chance and knew he was struggling. “Can you stay out here? I’d feel safer with you watching the door.” His face flooded with relief and when he nodded, she knew it was a silent thank you for not making him stand in that room. “And put these on.” She handed him a pair of purple neoprene gloves. “We can’t leave any trace evidence behind.”
Chance stared at them for a moment, and then pulled them on. He didn’t make a wise crack about the color, just looked like he was trying to keep from throwing up. She noticed the tension in his throat and grabbed his arm.
“Chance.” She held his wavering gaze. “If you need to puke, find a trash can small enough to take with us. You can extract DNA from the saliva and stomach acids. We can’t have yours all over the floor okay.” She saw the way he bristled and she cut him short. “Look, no macho pretenses. I’m just saying. In case. Okay? You can’t protect me if the cops arrest you for murder with concrete DNA evidence.” He nodded silently but still looked vaguely offended.
With a deep breath she stepped into the room and the smell doubled her over. As bad as it’d been at the door, it was a hundred times worse in the room. She choked on the air as she dropped her case by the door and dug out a little jar of Vicks vapor rub. It was her secret weapon for really bad cases and autopsies. It blocked all the other smells when you dabbed it under your nose. It’s funny how they never show that on crime dramas. Perhaps, it detracts from the sex appeal of the characters to see them dabbing goop on their lip. As if the dead body in the room wasn’t enough of a turn off.
Lilith grabbed a dull probe, a thermometer and a few other supplies, tucked them in her pockets and closed her case. She straightened and slowly walked toward the desk while pulling on her neoprene gloves. Her eyes couldn’t make sense of the mess lying across the oak desk. They refused to think of it as a person, vainly trying to protect her from what she was actually seeing. She kept glancing away subconsciously. Golden blonde hair flowed over the end of the desk which seemed oddly untouched compared to the rest of the body. The body. Suddenly her mind clicked into painful clarity and the mess began to resemble the body it had once been. Her world spun and for a moment she thought she was going to collapse. She squeezed her eyes closed, focused on Gregor, Duncan, Chance, Spencer, all the people that depended on her to solve this thing.
Lilith stepped right up to the desk and forced herself to look at this as another job, some nameless person. It wasn’t a very hard thing to do, considering the face was not recognizable at all. She dug her phone out of her pocket, set up the voice recorder and set it on the little cart holding the fax machine. It may not be an official case, but the process would keep her calm and the notes might come in handy later. It also helped her think, talking through things out loud.
“Female body, possibly Miriah Sanders. Found at… 10:14 pm at the accounting office of Miriah Sanders. Victim was laid out on the office table, as if displaying his work. The body was placed here after the fact as a warning…maybe as a dare.”
Lilith pulled the thermometer out of her pocket and automatically plunged it through the skin, into the liver. “Liver temperature is 89.6 degrees, nine lower than normal…” She pushed up one shoulder and the backside of the body was a dark purple and perfectly smooth. “Lividity is set, which together puts the time of death about 6-8 hours ago. The body was either moved here within an hour of death or was kept in a similar position.”
The legs, or what was left of them, dangled off the edge of the desk, but the dark purple marks on the back of the legs definitely told her something. “The victim was laid out flat for a long time after death and it definitely wasn’t on this desk. It must have been moved here recently. Most likely in the last hour or so.”
She moved back to the top of the desk and pulled the dull pointer out of her pocket. “Victims hair is ap
proximately two and a half feet long, blonde…” Something bothered her about it and she moved the probe through the bright golden strands. The hair underneath, pushed against the desk, was damp. “The hair is still damp in spots. There’s no real way to determine the cause. However, the lack of blood in or on the hair seems to indicate that it might have been cleaned post mortem. It must have some significance, but I don’t see what it could be.” Lilith choked on the mixture of the clean, soapy smell of the hair contrasted by the overwhelming smell of blood, urine, and feces that was overpowering the Vick’s vapor rub that coated her nose. “I’ll have to look into the…uh…possible significance of cleaning the hair. Perhaps a cultural ritual or it may be some sort of signature.”
She took a deep breath to steady herself. Her eyes were avoiding what was left of the face, but there was no putting it off. She stared down at it and tried to find some place to start. “The eye lids have been sliced off as if the victim was meant to see something, or perhaps as a message meant for someone else who needs to “see” something important. The nose was carefully removed with very clean and precise cuts indicating some personal connection of contempt. It was strong enough to want to destroy the centerpiece of the face, but restrained and cold enough to be precise.”
“The severity of the bruises covering the face indicates multiple fractures, but they are partially healed, inflicted as much as a day before death. There are visible fractures to the Nasal and Vomer bones, indicating that the victim’s nose was severely broken around the same time. The skin is swollen, bloated with dark purples and yellows. The bruising makes the face impossible to accurately identify. The extensive beating seems completely out of character from the cold precision of the cuts. It seems more like pure, uncontrolled rage. Since the bruising was inflicted at least a day apart from the rest of the trauma so far, it could be one assailant on two very different occasions with different motivations, or it could possibly be two different assailants.”