Jackson 07 - Where All the Dead Lie Read Online Free PDF Page A

stripped off her gloves, pushed through the door to the changing area, and sat at the desk in silence, her breath a background noise to the snapping, sawing and clanking behind her.
    This had to stop. Her work was her sanity. She’d always had a comfortable level of detachment from her cases. The precision of the human body was fascinating, and she was damn good at her job. She was helping, she knew that. Giving answers. Putting minds at rest. Solving cases. But being lost entirely outside the room while she was cutting wasn’t fair to the bodies she worked on. They deserved better.
    But damn, would she ever be able to look at her work the same way again?
    When Barclay Iles had finessed his way into her life, she hadn’t even seen him coming. She’d laughed with him, trained him, worked alongside him, shared meals, late nights, even gave her blessing to his union with her receptionist. When that same man dropped the pretenses and alias, kidnapped her, tied her to a chair, revealed himself as the Pretender and divested her core of the small, innocent life within, she thought she might go insane. It was one thing to miscarry, to have your body make the decision for you. But to lose a child by force, before it was even born, that was too much for her to handle.
    The moment replayed itself over and over and over. She could swear she felt the child tear away from the wall of her uterus; the ripping sensation found her in her dreams. The knife wound had been nothing compared to the massive cramp that had seized her midsection. She’d simply wanted to roll into a ball and cry, but with her arms handcuffed behind her, she was forced to make do with a slight bending at the waist. She didn’t want him to see her pain, which was a mistake. He liked pain. He liked to inflict it, and loved to see the effects his actions had on her frailty. When she finally admitted to it by crying out, he had stopped.
    But the damage was done. Sam was alive. But her child was lost.
    My God. If Taylor had just arrived sooner. If she and Baldwin had figured out who Barclay was earlier. If Taylor had only…
    If Sam hadn’t trusted him like a fool.
    If, if, if.
    She wanted to blame Taylor. Wanted to lay the blame at her feet like a dog drops a rolled-up newspaper. Here, you take it. It’s your responsibility. Now I’m going back to my life.
    Her rational brain repeated, over and over, that it didn’t work that way. That she was wrong to blame Taylor because a serial killer decided to target her. That it was inevitable that Sam would be caught in the cross fire. That Sam was the one who’d opened their doors to the Pretender instead of helping to catch him.
    Sam had sat back and watched her best friend take ever-increasing risks. She should have known better. Taylor had a breaking point, just like all people. She wasn’t a superhero, she was just a woman, who’d been pushed too far.
    Sam could have done something. She could have seen the madman for who he was, instead of being charmed by him. She could have looked more closely at her friend, paid attention to the cracks in her ever-present armor.
    But Taylor didn’t have to take things into her own hands, either. If she’d just told someone of her hunch—that she suspected the Pretender had returned to his former lair—someone could have gotten to Sam in time. If Taylor had just let her team in, let them know what she was planning, maybe Sam wouldn’t have lost the baby. Maybe Taylor wouldn’t have been shot.
    Instead, they’d all sat back and let Taylor run off the reservation. Sam thought she was the only one who knew that Taylor wanted to be the one to annihilate the threat. Baldwin had been distracted, worried about his son, and hadn’t realized what Taylor planned to do. Had he? Surely he hadn’t. He’d never condone murder.
    Then again, Sam knew Taylor better than she knew herself. And Sam was the one who was there, locked in that attic, when Taylor had come through the door.