by Kelly Goode
Carter waited a split-second before complying.
‘Unless you’re going to arrest me, I demand to be released,’ Ember said, squaring back her shoulders. Even against men, stronger and meaner than her, she wasn’t going to back down.
Myles turned to Carter.
‘You haven’t even told her why she’s here yet, have you?’
Carter shook his head. ‘You arrived before I could explain about the third victim.’
‘I suggest we bring Ms Lane up to date,’ Myles said with a sombre expression on his face. ‘She deserves to hear the whole story before she decides if she wants to leave or not.’
Harvey took Ember’s hand in his without even thinking. She looked at him, a sudden bout of uncertainty playing across her beautiful face.
‘Do you know what he’s talking about, Harvey?’ she asked.
‘Not entirely, but I think it’s always safer working with the First and Only team than against it.’
Ember swallowed deeply and pushed her long, red hair away from her face. An acute desire to protect this woman hit Harvey hard in the chest, and his heart gave another solitary thump. The sensation was unexpected and unwanted.
It hadn’t happened in all the time he’d been away from Ember, and he sure as hell didn’t want it to become a regular occurrence now.
His heart was rotten.
As rotten as he was.
9
‘So what do three dead brides have to do with me?’ I asked.
‘I’ll show you,’ Agent Myles said, gesturing towards the door. ‘The third victim’s body should be here by now.’
All the men in the room seemed to be waiting for my answer, so I nodded my agreement.
‘I’ll call S.P.T.F. animal control department to detain Perry until he changes back to his human form,’ Myles said. ‘A few hours in isolation will give him time to consider the consequences of his actions.’
Harvey still held onto my hand, and it was with reluctance that I pulled away. He was already starting to wear me down, but he couldn’t just waltz back into my life and expect everything to be ok between us. I’d watched him die once. I couldn’t go through the agony of caring about him, only for him to disappear again.
‘Follow me to the mortuary,’ Carter said, gesturing towards the door.
‘You have a mortuary here?’ I replied; shuddering at the thought of being in a room piled high with dead bodies.
‘We have most things here, Ember. You barely saw half of the facilities the last time you were here. We have a laboratory, training yard, and a control room to name a few.’
Our small group made their way out of the briefing room and through the maze of corridors, led by Carter. Ghent slowed his pace when I started to fall back slightly.
‘Is there a problem?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Really? It looked as if you were thinking of making a run for it.’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘If you run, I’ll have to catch you.’
‘I’d like to see you try.’
Ghent’s lips curled into a smile as he studied me. His brown eyes seemingly accepted the challenge.
‘I may look cumbersome, but I’m fast,’ he said. ‘Believe me, I’d catch you.’
‘Can you run through fire?’ I retorted, once again allowing a series of flames to flicker across my fingers.
‘For you, I’d consider running through just about anything.’
‘Are you flirting with me?’
Ghent shook his head and this time he conjured a rose from his hand.
‘Nah, I wouldn’t know where to start.’
He handed the flower to me, but it disappeared as soon as I touched it. We fell silent as Carter stopped outside a door and pressed his palm against a scanner. The door opened and he stepped aside so everyone could enter ahead of him. As I reached the door, he pulled me back.
‘I’m sorry you have to see this again, Ember,’ he said. ‘If at any point, it gets too much just give me a signal and I’ll get you out of there.’
Carter reached out and gently brushed his fingertips over my cheek, before tucking a loose strand of my hair behind my ear.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
Ghent cleared his throat causing Carter to pull his hand back as if he’d been caught touching something he shouldn’t. He scowled at the man before joining the others.
‘I think it’s safe to say he’s flirting with you,’ Ghent remarked, and I childishly stuck my tongue out at him.
My mood plummeted even further when I stepped into the mortuary. My eyes instantly homed in on the familiar shape resting on a metal gurney in the centre of the room. A familiar shape covered with a grey plastic sheet.
The corpse-bride.
A woman stood beside the body. She wore a faded white lab coat over a pair of green surgical scrubs. The pockets of her coat bulged with pens, and her thick auburn hair was secured haphazardly in a top knot by two pencils.
‘Would you look at that,’ JC said to Harvey, as he nudged him in the ribs. ‘Another redhead. Think we can have one each?’
Harvey’s dark gaze met mine, but to his credit, he didn’t react to his friend’s goading.
‘This is Doctor Porter,’ Agent Myles said, and the woman smiled politely at us. ‘Naomi Porter.’
‘The team already has a doctor,’ I replied, gesturing to John Alvis who was standing at the back of the room with his arms folded across his chest.
Considering Alvis was a vampire and they were usually good at keeping their emotions well hidden, it wasn’t hard to tell that he was pissed off that another doctor was replacing him.
‘A doctor that is also under investigation, I’m afraid,’ Myles explained.
‘I’ve been with this unit since before you were born, son,’ Alvis replied, his voice colder than I’d ever heard it before. ‘I’ve never once hurt a member of this team, nor will I in the future.’
‘Save the speech for the inquiry,’ Myles replied, apparently not fazed at having a vampire as an enemy. ‘I’ve been asked to close this case quickly and without any further loss of life. Doctor Porter comes highly recommended in the supernatural forensic and medical fields. She’ll be an asset to the team while you’re investigated.’
‘Is she human?’
JC asked the question that everyone in the room was probably wondering - I know I was – and Doctor Porter stepped forward to address us.
‘I’m sorry to disappoint you all,’ she said. ‘I’m uninterestingly human. The only superpower I wield is a flair for stitches.’
Her frankness made me smile, and I decided that I liked her. She deserved a chance. It wasn’t her fault that she’d been brought in over Alvis’ head. I glanced over at Carter, wondering how he was dealing with the sudden changes. He caught my eye and shrugged his shoulders, as if telling me there was nothing he could do about it.
‘We’re all happy to have you on-board, Naomi,’ Myles said. ‘Now let’s talk about what you found on the victim.’
10
Doctor Porter pulled back the plastic sheet, giving Carter his first glimpse of the victim’s face. The smell hit him immediately. Decomposing flesh, mixed with the mortuary’s harsh chemical odour was enough to turn even the seasoned agent’s stomach. This time, it was not nausea that had him clenching his teeth together, but an overwhelming sense of sadness at the loss of another young woman to a supernatural murderer.
Just like his sister, Beth.
Carter pushed those dark memories deep down where they belonged and tried to concentrate on what Doctor Porter was saying.
‘The victim is a twenty-eight year old female,’ she said, reading the information from a clipboard she’d taken from beneath the gurney. ‘Her fingerprints have been matched to a recent missing person’s report. Her name is Colleen Chambers.’
‘Wait!’
The alarm in Ember’s voice caught everyone’s attention.
‘Did you say Colleen Chambers?�
� she asked, and Carter noticed that her green eyes had widened and her face had paled.
‘Yes. Is there a problem?’
‘I don’t remember the other victims, but I know her. Or knew her, at least.’
Ember moved closer to the body as if in some sort of trance. The doctor raised her eyebrows at Carter as if asking him what she should do. Carter gave a small nod of his head indicating she should continue, and it only mildly concerned him that he was thinking what pretty blue eyes the new doctor had.
Guess he really was a sucker for redheads.
‘The coroner requested a swift autopsy, so I assisted the pathologist earlier but until we receive his full report, everything we discuss is hypothetical.’
Ember’s hand hovered above the sutures than ran across the dead girl’s shoulders. Carter had only witnessed one autopsy and it had been early on in his career. He could clearly picture in his mind what the rest of the Y-shaped incision would look like beneath the sheet. He could almost hear the sound the bones would have made as they were cut with saws, and smell the organs as they were removed and weighed.
‘I’m sorry you had to see her like this,’ Doctor Porter said to Ember. ‘An autopsy is an invasive procedure, but necessary. Collen can’t tell us what happened to her, but her body will do the talking instead. We’ll catch the monster that did this. I promise.’
Carter recognised the look of solidarity that passed between the two women. Maybe having another female on the team would be a good thing for Ember. Although the odds weren’t stacked in Doctor Porter’s favour, as all the other women who’d joined the team had died.
‘Do you need some air?’ he asked Ember, but she shook her head.
‘No, it’s fine. Let’s get this over with.’
‘Doctor Porter-’ Carter started, but she cut him off.
‘Please call me Naomi.’
‘Doctor Porter,’ he repeated. ‘I’d like you to talk us through the victim’s injuries.’
The doctor narrowed her blue eyes at his rebuff. Carter knew he’d offended her, but he didn’t call Doctor Alvis by his first name, so why should he make an exception just because she filled out a lab coat better than his vampire-friend did.
‘Of course, Agent Carter.’
She emphasised his name as she moved the sheet further aside.
‘I’ve photographed the wounds, but this one is of particular interest,’ she said, lifting the arm. ‘It seems self-inflicted. Does anyone have any idea what it means?’
Carter heard Ember’s gasp as she finally registered what the series of cuts were. He was about to reach for her, but Harvey beat him to it.
11
Harvey’s hand settled in the small of my back, giving me the support I needed to remain on my feet and not crumple into a heap on the floor.
‘What is my name doing on her arm?’
Doctor Porter looked up sharply.
‘Your name is Ember?’
‘Yes.’
‘No one told me that. Damn, I was hoping it might refer to a location. We’ve already ruled out Hampstead Heath as the primary murder scene.’
‘How…how did she do it?’
‘She used something sharp, but rusty. There were traces of metal buried in the scabs so we should be able to identify the exact type after further analysis.’
‘What other injuries can you show us?’ Carter asked.
Doctor Porter removed the sheet fully, and I looked away from the Y-shaped autopsy wound that ran across Colleen’s bruised body.
‘Can you help me roll her over, please?’
Carter reluctantly assisted the doctor to position Colleen on her front.
‘These abrasions are unusual,’ she said, pointing to a series of scrape marks across the thighs and buttocks.
‘What’s unusual about them?’ I asked.
My voice was not quite as controlled as I would’ve liked it to be. Examining a dead body in this much detail was causing my stomach to undulate and I sucked in a deep breath, the smell forcing me to gag. I put my hand over my mouth, as I suddenly dry-heaved.
‘Objects and surfaces leave a certain pattern on the skin depending on how or what was dragged across it,’ Doctor Porter continued, either not noticing my discomfort or choosing to ignore it. ‘When I looked at these, I found small amounts of gravel and stone.’
‘So she was dragged across concrete,’ Harvey said, his hand moving in a comforting circular motion at the base of my spine. I wanted to lean into him, but stubbornly held back.
Doctor Porter nodded. ‘The marks are consistent with “road rash” so it’s a safe assumption.’
‘Was she was hit by a car?’
‘Maybe, but not hard enough to break any bones or cause internal bleeding. There would have been just enough force to send her flying across the ground.’
‘Can you tell when this accident might have occurred?’ Carter asked.
Doctor Porter lifted Colleen’s arm.
‘These smaller grazes along her fingers and hand are post-mortem injuries. That means after death.’
‘I know what that means,’ Carter said abruptly.
Doctor Porter wasn’t intimidated by his hostility and I wondered why Carter was being so snappy.
‘I’m glad you’re not a dumb as you look,’ she retorted, causing a few sniggers to echo around the room. ‘The marks on her left hand are a different colour. That’s due to the fact blood does not circulate once the heart stops. Her arm probably looked like a tasty meal to a hungry animal up on the Heath, until they realised it was attached to one-hundred-and-twenty pound body and stopped trying to yank it free.’
‘And the other marks?’
‘Are bright red and scabby.’
‘But you don’t scab, if you’re already dead,’ JC concluded. ‘I’m loving the science lesson, doc. If you’d been my teacher, I might not have ended up in a supernatural detainment unit.’
Doctor Porter continued without reacting to his flattery.
‘Cell regeneration doesn’t start until at least thirty-six hours after the injury,’ she said, ‘and in the first six hours, the wounds would have oozed. That means she was killed six to thirty-six hours after those first abrasions occurred.’
As everyone digested this piece of evidence, something niggled at the back of my mind. Harvey was studying me intently and must’ve seen the look of confusion on my face.
‘What are you thinking, Red?’
‘Why would Colleen carve my name into her arm before she died? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Maybe she wanted to warn you.’
‘Maybe she was being followed. It seems too much of a coincidence that she was involved in a car accident just before she was killed.’
‘Not all coincidences are conspiracies,’ Harvey said. ‘Some people just have bad luck.’
‘She was certainly alive for a number of hours after the accident, long enough for her injuries to scab over.’ Doctor Porter added. ‘I also have another piece of news.’
‘Go ahead,’ Carter said.
The doctor rearranged her notes, which I recognised as a delaying tactic. She was obviously gearing herself up to deliver some bad news.
‘I don’t know any way to sugar-coat it so I’ll just say it. Colleen was pregnant.’
I felt a sharp cramp in my stomach and the doctor’s eyes mirrored my pain. Woman to woman we digested the loss.
‘Do you think the killer knew?’ I asked.
‘I doubt it, the embryo was small. Colleen may not have even known.’
The room was silent until Agent Myles stepped forward.
‘Ember, we called you in on this because you’re in a unique position to help us. You have a connection to the coven where all three victims practiced, and if you agree to help us, we’ll help you.’
‘I don’t need your help.’
‘Your mother’s casefile suggests otherwise.’
My hands curled into fists. ‘Don’t bring my mother into this.’
/>
‘What would you say if I told you I had a piece of evidence that could overthrow your mother’s conviction?’
‘I’d say you were lying.’
Myles shook his head. ‘I never lie. Something recently came into my possession. Something linked to the murder of Roger Lane.’
‘What?’
‘I have the real murder weapon.’
12
My vision blurred, as Agent Myles’s words hit me like a physical blow.
‘No, that can’t be right. S.P.T.F. already entered the murder weapon as evidence. They found my mother beside Roger’s body. She was holding the knife.’
‘A knife,’ Myles confirmed, ‘but not the knife.’
I tried to recollect the details of my mother’s arrest, but it was difficult. I’d purposely repressed so much of my childhood that large chunks of my memories were lost inside a big black hole in my head.
Had S.P.T.F. ever tested the knife against Roger’s wounds?
The fact his blood had been all over my mother, had been good enough for her detainment. Supernatural law was questionable at best so this could be the breakthrough I’d been waiting for.
‘They said the knife she killed him with came from our kitchen,’ I said.
Myles nodded. ‘Yes, I read the report. There was a set of four carving knives in the kitchen, but with your mother’s confession, S.P.T.F. had no reason to check the others.’
The enormity of what Myles was saying enveloped me, making it difficult to breathe. Thankfully, Harvey was still beside me, and I was sure his solid form was the only thing keeping me upright.
‘Why would your mother confess if she’s innocent?’ Harvey whispered.
‘I don’t know,’ I replied, but that was a lie.
She’d lied to protect me.
‘Ember, listen, I know you were manipulated during your time here at the First and Only team,’ Agent Myles said. ‘Chief Andrews made false promises for freedom and immunity, but I assure you this is not a false promise. If you do this, if you work for us again, I’ll push for your mother’s appeal based on this new evidence.’