“Yes. Agent Sharp said you’d be here.”
Dr. Kincaid was tall and lean and in her midthirties. Under a white lab coat she wore simple khaki pants and a navy-blue blouse. Long dark hair feathered into lighter ends and curled around her angled face. A honey-olive skin tone accentuated her perceptive green eyes. Other than a trace of gloss on her lips and shadowing around her eyes, she wore little makeup. A gold chain looped through a gold ring, encircling her neck. The ring was wide, like a man’s, and Riley bet it was a wedding band.
Dr. Kincaid regarded her closely. “We haven’t worked together before.”
“That would be correct. I’m a trooper, so I don’t usually follow a case this far.”
“Well, welcome.”
The doors opened to Sharp, who looked tense and annoyed. Notebook in hand, he strode toward them. “Tatum.”
“Agent,” Dr. Kincaid said. “I’m running a little behind. Let me change into scrubs and we can get started.”
“Sure.”
The doctor vanished through a side door as a lab assistant pushed through another door. “Agent Sharp I know, but you, I don’t. I’m Ken Matthews.”
“Nice to meet you, Ken,” Riley said, taking his hand.
He eyed her closely. “You have a slight pasty look. You a virgin?”
“Excuse me?” Riley asked.
Sharp lifted a brow, grinned, but had the good sense not to comment.
Matthews chuckled. “First time to the show?”
“Yep.” Don’t deny or apologize for the obvious. Acknowledge it and move on.
“I bet you do fine.”
“There’re gowns in the locker over there,” Ken said. “It’s a good idea if you put one on. You can also stow your purse and grab a barf bag if you need one.”
Sharp moved toward the lockers and shrugged off his jacket. Without a word, he reached for a gown and slid his arms into it.
“Right. Sure.” Riley turned from the table, glad to have it out of her line of sight. As she crossed to the locker and removed her jacket and slipped on a gown, a saw buzzed behind her. She flinched and glanced at the paper barf bags.
“Breathe,” Sharp said. “Ken’s trying to rattle you.”
“Right.” Her stomach turned at the thought of the saw cutting into flesh, but she left the bag behind.
She and Sharp were in gowns by the time Dr. Kincaid emerged, dressed in scrubs, her dark hair pinned under a surgical cap. At the instrument table, she unwrapped a pair of latex gloves and snapped them on over her slender fingers with practiced ease.
Turning, she moved toward the table with a steady, determined gait. “If you have questions, ask. We’re gathering evidence.”
“Sure.” Questions were sometimes tricky. The benefit of an answer didn’t always outweigh telegraphing the questioner’s ignorance.
Dr. Kincaid removed the sheet and held up a pale hand. “She has a fresh manicure and pedicure.”
The victim’s hands were long, slim, and graceful. They were suited for playing a piano. Instead, Riley pictured those fingers picking through trash like many runaways did.
Sharp pulled on latex gloves, knitting his fingers together and working the slack from his gloves. He glared at Riley, studying her closely. “You good with this?”
“Never better.”
Riley, drawn by curiosity, moved closer, inspecting the victim’s now-cleaned face. Without makeup, the victim looked years younger. Eighteen, tops. Pierced ears, twice on the left. A small mole on her right cheek. A thin, inch-long white scar crossed the upper-left side of her forehead.
“Just a kid,” Sharp said.
“No missing persons report on her yet?” Riley asked.
“None,” he said.
“I stopped at the youth shelter this morning,” Riley said. “No one knew her, but I’ll keep trying.”
“I’ve requested Jax Carter’s phone records. Assuming she worked for him, we should find a connection.”
Dr. Kincaid said her name into the microphone and stated the date and time along with the list of the four people in attendance for the autopsy. She leaned toward the body, studying the slim rings of bruises around the girl’s neck. “Exterior exam suggests strangulation. Ken, do you have X-rays for me?”
“Sure do, doc.” He turned and pushed two X-ray slides up onto a light box and switched it on.
The doctor turned, and as she examined the image, traced a horseshoe-shaped bone in the center of the victim’s neck. “Broken hyoid bone.” Returning to the table, she said, “There’re two rings of bruises on her neck.”
Riley studied the bands of purple marks. “He wrapped a rope around her neck, squeezed, and then stopped?”
“Stopped, screwed up his courage, and started again,” Sharp said. “Not all killers do clean work. Strangulation takes time and steady pressure. It’s a very personal way of killing.”
Dr. Kincaid pulled the sheet back farther and revealed the girl’s too-thin nude body. In the twenty-four hours since the body was found, the chemicals triggering rigor mortis had eased. She now lay flat.
Lifting the right arm, Dr. Kincaid inspected it. “I don’t see needle marks, but there’s some bruising by the upper-right forearm.” Moving to the other side, she noted a heart-shaped tattoo on the girl’s right thigh and the crudely written letters JC on the back of her neck.
With slow precision the doctor moved up the left side of the body, indicating the presence of more bruises on the left hip and left arm, along with a fresh needle mark in the central vein at the elbow.
“There are no signs of scarring from old puncture wounds. However, there is faint scarring on her wrist. Crisscross pattern. None of the marks were enough to kill. It could have been a suicide attempt or she might have been cutting herself.”
“The physical pain distracts from the mental turmoil,” Riley said.
“So I’ve heard,” Dr. Kincaid said.
“You’ll run a toxicological screen?” Riley asked, inspecting the mark. “She could have been drugged.”
Sharp shifted a curious gaze to Riley.
“Yes,” Dr. Kincaid said. “Results could take a week or two.”
Sharp frowned but didn’t comment as Dr. Kincaid continued her exterior examination, noting three more tattoos on the body: a heart below her belly button, a rose and vine at the base of her spine, and a star at her ankle.
When Dr. Kincaid moved to the top of the body, she reached toward an instrument table for a scalpel. The polished metal glistened in the light as the doctor, with little fanfare or warning, pressed the tip of the blade to the spot between the breasts and sliced downward over the belly and to the pubic bone.
Riley’s mouth watered as the doctor pulled back the flesh from the bone and inspected the tissue and internal organs. Nausea curled in the pit of her stomach, but she held her ground. Cops could be ruthless when they saw weakness, and the last damn thing she needed was to have it get around she’d lost her breakfast at her first autopsy in front of Dakota Sharp.
“You okay, Trooper?” Sharp asked.