Suite 606 Read Online Free PDF Page B

know if anyone has a sheet. I want to know if anyone’s family pet has a sheet.”
    “They’ve been screened,” Roarke told her. “Caro can forward you all the data.”
    Eve had no doubt his efficient admin could gather and transmit data in record time. “We need to confirm, and confirm through official channels.”
    When he said nothing, she took out her own PPC, copied all data to Dr. Mira’s office unit. She wanted the department’s top profiler and psychiatrist to review and analyze. Added to it, Eve thought, one of Mira’s daughters was Wiccan. Maybe, just maybe, they’d tap that source.
    The cold white tiles of the morgue echoed with their footsteps. Eve scented coffee—or what passed for it here—as they strode past Vending. She scented death long before they pushed through the double doors of the autopsy room.
    Ava lay naked on a slab with Chief Medical Examiner Morris working on her. His delicate and precise Y-cut opened her, exposed her. Eve heard Peabody swallow hard behind her.
    Morris straightened as they came in. The protective gown covered his silver-edged blue suit. He wore his dark hair pulled back in a long, sleek tail. “Company,” he said, and the faintest of smiles moved across his exotically sexy face. “And so early in the morning. Roarke, this is unexpected.” But his eyes tracked over to Peabody. “There’s water in the friggie, Detective.”
    “Thanks.” Her face glowed with sweat as she hurried over for a bottle.
    “What can you tell me?” Eve asked him.
    “We haven’t gotten very far. You flagged her for me specifically, and I’ve only been in about an hour. And that’s because the ME on duty was pissy that he couldn’t get his hands in.”
    “I didn’t want anyone but you on her. I’d rather wait. I have a pretty good idea how it went anyway. Can you tell me if she was raped?”
    “I can tell you she had rough sex—very rough—multiple times. As to whether it was consensual or not? She can’t tell us. But from the tearing, I’d say rape. Gang rape.”
    “Sperm?”
    “They doused her—vaginally, anally, orally to remove. I’ve already sent samples to the lab, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for DNA. I’d say multiple partners. She was brutally used, pre-and postmortem.” He looked down at the body. “There are so many levels of cruelty, aren’t there? And they all walk in our doors.”
    “What about the tat? It looked fresh and real.”
    “It’s both. Inked within the last twelve to fifteen hours.”
    “They wanted her marked,” Eve mused. “The throat wound came first. Death blow. Right-handed assailant, facing.”
    “If I were a teacher, you’d be my pet. There are sixty-eight other wounds, several of which would have been mortal on their own, some of which are relatively superficial. I want to run a closer analysis, but on a first pass, at least a dozen different blades were used on her. The bruising, from finger grips, hands, fists, feet. Some premortem. And yet—”
    “Not one defensive wound,” Eve finished. “No sign she was restrained. She took it. I need to know what she took or what they gave her.”
    “I’ve flagged the tox screen priority. I can tell you she wasn’t a user, unless it was very rare, very casual. This was a very healthy woman, one who tended to her body, inside and out. There’ll be a rape drug in her, something potent enough to cause her to tolerate this kind of abuse without a struggle.”
    “I’ve got somebody in the tank. He was loaded. I sent a sample to the lab. Her parents and her brother are coming in from Indiana.”
    “God pity them.” Morris touched one sealed and bloodied hand to Ava’s arm. “I’ll see she’s cleaned up before they view her.” Morris glanced over at Roarke, with understanding in his dark eyes. “We’ll take care of her,” he said. “And them. You can be sure of it.”
    As they walked down the white-tiled tunnel, Roarke spoke for the first time. “It’s a hard life