Unforgivable Read Online Free PDF

through the glass and elongated her shadow on the pale marble floor. Everything was quiet, not many people around. Those who were spoke in hushed tones, as if in church. To many of them, this place was a church, a sacred cathedral dedicated to science and technology, where the guiding idea wasn’t salvation but justice. Or salvation through justice, however you chose to look at it. Mia chose the latter, and she happened to know that some of her colleagues did, too. She didn’t know about everyone, of course. Some people probably just came here to earn a paycheck.
    Mia postponed a much-needed stop at the lobby coffee shop to swing into HR and have a word with the director of personnel. Then she purchased her sixteen ounces of caffeine and rode the elevator up to the sixth floor. The Delphi Center was an ivory tower, and DNA tracers worked at the top.
    Mia strode down the glass hallway, flanked on either side by impressive views—the rolling Texas Hill Country on one side, one of the world’s top DNA laboratories on the other. The short walk smoothed her nerves and made her feel right again. She could do this. She shouldbe here. The Delphi Center had chosen her, and she had chosen it right back.
    Inside her office, she slipped on her lab coat and felt instantly comforted. She booted up the laptop computer on her slate-topped worktable and reviewed the notes she’d been making yesterday afternoon when her boss had summoned her down the hall for an Important Discussion.
    Case number 56–6229–12–16. Submitting officer Detective Jim Kubcek, Houston PD. The Delphi Center had been receiving a steady flow of evidence from Houston ever since its DNA lab had been shut down for grossly improper evidence handling. The scandal, uncovered by a TV reporter, had affected thousands of cases and resulted in a man being released from prison after serving years for a rape he didn’t commit. Mia saw the scandal as a tragedy not only for the wrongly convicted man and the rape victim but also for the entire criminal justice system in Houston. Once a community’s confidence in the system was shattered, it could take years or even decades to repair.
    Mia focused her attention on the case before her. Case 56–6229–12–16 was a sexual homicide, ligature strangulation. And it had been lurking in the back of her mind during the wee hours of this morning as her restless brain played out all the might-have-been scenarios.
    She picked up the phone and dialed Kubcek.
    “I’ve run the fingernail clippings,” she said, not bothering with pleasantries. Kubcek had left her daily voice mails for three weeks. The victim in this case was nineteen, and the detective had a district attorney breathing down his neck.
    “Any hits?”
    She heard the hope in his voice, that fervent wish that she’d called to deliver some glimmering bit of good news.
    “Unfortunately, no. All of the skin cells we recovered belonged to the victim.”
    A pause. He didn’t want to believe it. The killer had used a condom, and Kubcek had been counting on the nail clippings.
    “What about the blood?”
    “That was hers, too.” Mia scrolled through her typewritten notes, including those from the phone call she’d made to the evidence clerk downstairs. “You didn’t send me the ligature, though. I was hoping to examine that extension cord.”
    Kubcek sighed heavily. “It’s a dead end.” Another pause as they both ignored his choice of words. He cleared his throat. “The security camera at her apartment shows him wearing gloves going in and going out. We examined the hell out of that cord for prints in case he took the gloves off to, I don’t know, take a leak or something while he was in there with her. Came up with nothing.”
    “I’d still like to see it,” Mia said. “Any chance you could have it shipped up, say, by tomorrow?”
    “You got it already.”
    “I do?”
    “One of you does. I sent it up to that ligature guy. Clover?”
    “Don