Athena Force 8: Contact Read Online Free PDF Page B

who murdered her.”
    He knew better than to commit himself. “Just to humor me—the body’s still there?”
    As in many cities, the crime-scene investigators were not part of the police department, so they didn’t have offices at the police station. Neither was this unit part of the parish—Louisiana talk for a county. As soon as the city coroner finished with the corpse, it would be released to the funeral parlor or moved back to the parish morgue. But as long as it remained evidence to be examined…
    “The body’s still here.” Faith’s fingers darted across her keyboard to access the proper file and confirm that. Looking only. No interference. “Why do you need to know? Do you need to see it for…something?”
    “Unless the M.E. has something pertinent to the case, I’m just as happy leaving that part to you folks. Hell. Maybe I do need to talk to Boulanger.”
    “Hold a moment, and I’ll put you through.” Never had she felt more like a glorified secretary. But at least her job kept her near law enforcement. She’d dropped out of college the previous year when she was questioning everything, including why she’d thought she would even want to be a lawyer. But in the meantime, she had to pay the rent. This job felt…right.
    Greg’s voice mail clicked on, and Chopin swore again.
    “Would you like to leave a message?” Faith asked.
    “No. I’d like you to find him. I need to see if anything got—” Did he start to form the T from taken, or was Faith imagining it? “Hunt Boulanger down and have him call me. Got it?”
    “Yes sir, detective sir,” said Faith.
    “You’re cute when you’re a smart-ass,” said Chopin, as if he could see her, and hung up.
    Faith let the phone roll off her shoulder into her waiting palm. Her neck felt cricked already. But once she had the receiver in her hand, she held it for a long moment, as if she’d be able to sense anything of importance off of it.
    Other than the fact that Officer Leone had used her line recently, she sensed nothing. Not off the telephone, anyway.
    Roy Chopin had called her cute. Actually, at the start of the conversation, he’d called her fine, too. Then he’d gotten self-conscious.
    He’d called to talk to her? Using her friend’s corpse as an excuse? Surely not.
    She’d thought she was socially inept.
    Since she’d been sitting too long anyway, Faith decided to head down to the autopsy room where the medical examiner would be working his magic. If Greg wasn’t with him, she could work her way back from there, but there was no reason to waste time checking the nooks and crannies if she’d only find him where he usually was—with the evidence.
    The frigid autopsy chamber was large for a room, but small for a morgue. Only a dozen stainless steel drawers fronted one wall, with three slabs—two regular steel tables, one with a trough underneath it—positioned down the room’s center. Two of the tables had a sheet-draped body on them. It seemed sad, them left out like this, but Faith supposed bodies were too heavy to put away every time someone ran out for coffee or a bathroom break.
    Either way, nobody was here. Nobody living, anyway.
    She glanced toward the sheet that she thought hid Krystal’s corpse. This time, she couldn’t smell her friend’s presence because she was breathing shallow, through her mouth. Although everything here had been made for easy cleaning—the floor, the tiled walls like a bathroom’s, lots of metal—even the reek of disinfectant couldn’t mask the odor of death.
    “Tell me,” she whispered, keeping her distance as she’d promised Greg she would. Never had she more fervently wished that she really was psychic. “Tell me who did this to you.”
    Then her head—Faith’s head, of course—came up. She heard something in the hallway, male footsteps. Someone was coming.
    Someone who didn’t belong here. In fact…
    She didn’t know those boots. So why did they concern her?
    She concentrated,