Got the Look Read Online Free PDF Page B

Miami, a city with enough real-life hostage-barricade incidents to keep a negotiator's skills sharp for life. Miami held the added attraction of being two thousand miles away from her ex-fiancE. But that was another story.
    Bright lights glistened off the white sterile walls and buff tile floors. The unclothed, grayish purple cadavar lay faceup on the stainless steel table in the center of the room. Two deep incisions ran laterally from shoulder to shoulder, across the breasts at a downward angle meeting at the sternum. A long, deeper cut ran from the breastbone to the groin, forming the stem in the coroner's classic Y incision. The liver, spleen, kidneys, and intestines were laid out neatly beside a slab of ribs on the large dissection table. The cadaver was literally a shell of a human being, strangely reminiscent of the hollowed-out half of a watermelon on a table of hors d'oeuvres.
    Andie smeared another dab of Vicks VapoRub beneath her nostrils to cut the odor. A trip to the medical examiner's office wasn't exactly a daily occurrence for an FBI agent. The vast majority of homicides were strictly state and local matters. Kidnapping, however, was a federal offense, and unfortunately Andie's increasing specialization in negotiation had earned her more trips to the medical examiner's office than desired.
    Very interesting, said Dr. Feinstein.
    The doctor was still examining the right lung, working at a small and brightly lit dissection table on the other side of the cadaver. His powers of concentration were such that his bushy gray eyebrows had pinched together and formed one continuous caterpillar that stretched across his brow. He laid his scalpel aside and snapped a digital photograph, which gave Andie a moment of uneasiness. Not that it was the examiner's fault, but it seemed that humiliation of the victim continued even in death.
    What do you see? asked Andie.
    The doctor took a step back and almost smiled. Andie felt a digression coming on.
    The first thing you have to understand, said Feinstein, is that drowning cannot be proven by autopsy. It is a diagnosis of exclusion, based on the circumstances of death.
    Ashley Thornton's case presents some rather grim circumstances.
    Yes, it does. But a dead body underwater does not always mean a drowning. I've seen victims strangled and then thrown into swimming pools. I've seen victims hit over the head with a hammer and then tossed into the lake.
    Are you suggesting that's what happened here?
    Quite to the contrary. Yes, she has some scrapes, and a simple fracture where her tibia locked up with that steel grate inside the cave. The aquifer is moving water, so you can't expect to recover a body in perfect condition. The significant point is that I see no signs of life-threatening trauma.
    So, in your process of diagnosis by exclusion, what does that tell you, Doctor?
    Not as much as this, he said, returning to the dissection tray. He grabbed a penlight and motioned Andie toward him. The focused beam of light was shining through the dissected wall of the right lung.
    Do you see that? asked Feinstein.
    Looks like dirt.
    Sand. In a drowning case, that, my friend, is about as close to a home run as you can get.
    She has sand in her lungs? asked Andie.
    Yes. Now, that's a critically important fact if you think about what happens when you drown. Your normal reaction when the head goes underwater is to hold your breath. Eventually, you can't do it any longer, and your body is forced to gasp for air. That presents a major problem if you can't reach the surface.
    Or if you're trapped inside an underwater cave.
    Exactly. So the victim starts gulping water into the mouth and throat, literally inhaling water into the lungs. This, of course, sends the victim into an even more frenzied panic, and the struggle becomes more desperate. If she doesn't break the surface, her lungs continue to fill, and she struggles and gasps in a vicious cycle that can last several minutes, until breathing