Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
“Yeah. All clear.”
“This one looks similar to the others?” she asked.
“At first glance? Yeah.”
“How far out are the criminalists?”
Sullivan glanced at his watch. “Ten minutes, give or take. I heard on the radio that there was a mass shooting in Bayview right before this was called in, so a few probably headed there first.”
Lennon gave a succinct nod and stepped inside the room. During normal hours, it was more common that she arrived after the forensic team was already working on the scene, stepping into the hustle and bustle of coworkers collecting evidence and tagging items. As if murder kept to “normal hours.”
She walked past the open closet near the door, one lone wire hanger dangling on the broken rod, and approached the bed. The scent of death and bodily fluids was far stronger inside the room. A minor wave of nausea came over her, and she took a moment to breathe through it. Beyond the unpleasant sensory experience, and even with the door open, the room felt stuffy, and eerily—unnaturally—still. It made the hairs on the nape of her neck stand up.
The skirt of the woman on the floor at the end of the bed had ridden up and was showing half her backside. It almost felt like Lennon’s presence here was inappropriate, that she should look away and give these people the dignity they hadn’t received in their final moments.
But her job was not to deliver dignity to the dead. Her job was to deliver justice. And to do so, she had to look and to probe and to consider these bodies from every angle. She had to try her best to ignore that they’d once been people with their own busy lives and consider them as simply victims. Part of the scene. At least initially, on first sighting.
She squatted down and leaned to the side to better see the woman on the floor. Her light-brown hair was matted with blood, and Lennon used one gloved finger to lift some of it off her face and hold it aside. Lennon drew back slightly when she saw the expression on the woman’s face—eyes wide and mouth open as if frozen in a never-ending scream. There were tear tracks through the heavy makeup on her pale skin. God. Sadness dropped over Lennon like an invisible net, and she did her best not to get tangled in it. It helped no one. What living nightmare would cause an expression like that? She looked away for a moment. She hated this. She really did. Nine years on the force, and she was still so damn affected.
Breathe out. Assess. Do your damn job. She looked back at the dead woman. Young. Late teens or early twenties.
“Sores that indicate drug use,” she said aloud, breaking the quiet of the room, a verbal clinical assessment calming the nerves and the unwanted emotion that always transpired when standing amid a crime scene. The smell of urine was stronger near the body. “Victim urinated either in death or in fear.” She’d wait for the criminalists to arrive to turn the young woman over fully and determine cause of death. But whatever it was, it’d been very bloody. Lennon’s stomach churned. The pool from the woman’s injuries had spread several inches beyond her body. Lennon used her gloved index finger to touch the pool. It was dry and cracked around the edges with a gelatinous center. It appeared this woman, at least, had been here for several hours.
Lennon’s gaze moved downward to where the woman was clutching something, the item mostly underneath her, arm still wrapped around it. Is that . . . ? Lennon gently lifted the woman’s stiff arm. Yes, just as she’d thought. It was a teddy bear, its beady eyes staring at her. She lowered the woman’s arm again and covered the black, soulless eyes of the stuffed animal. “That’s creepy as hell,” she murmured.
She stood and walked around to the other side of the bed before leaning over to get a look at the man and the other female victim. The woman appeared older, perhaps in her fifties, and she estimated the man to be in his late twenties, his arms heavily tattooed.
At least these two didn’t have expressions frozen in horror, though they also didn’t appear to be sleeping, the way some DOAs did. Their faces were contorted, as if in pain, and this woman, too, had tear tracks through her makeup. And because of their positions, the cause of death was clear. They’d been stabbed, the blood pool indicative of the same timeline as the woman on the floor.
Lennon stood straight, glancing around the room, her gaze lingering on the array of sex toys on the bedside table that had been blocked by the bodies while she’d been standing in the doorway. Okay, that’s different. A purple dildo, a studded dog collar, a few butt plugs. Huh. So whatever this had turned into, it’d started out as a sexcapade—whether purchased or otherwise—in an abandoned motel? Pretty seedy all around. But honestly? This job ensured she was well acquainted with seedy.