Page 42 of Locked In Ice

She made herself back up a step.Free him.“The dead only wait so long.”

His eyes narrowed.“How the hell are you even going to get access to his body?”

“Don’t worry.I’ll figure something out.”She usually did.“Besides, I know a guy…” Ophelia turned away from him.Her fingers curled.I can still feel Lane.

***

It should have been harder to get access to a dead body.

Lane certainly didn’t expect Ophelia to just march up to the medical examiner on duty, flash a hundred-dollar bill at him, and then get instant access.But, turned out…

Ophelia truly knew the guy.

No wonder she seemed so certain that she’d figure something out.

“You can’t touch him,” the ME—Dr.Benedict Pearson—said as he pulled on his gloves and made his way to the body.Benedict was in his late twenties, with thick, brown hair and dark eyes.When Ophelia had knocked on his office door, the man had greeted her with a fierce hug.

A far too tight hug.

Lane didn’t think he’d growled but the temptation had certainly been there.He hadn’t liked the sight of the man’s hands on her.Not one bit.

Why the hell was he getting so territorial when it came to her?

She’s my alibi.The first one he’d ever had.Fuck.

“I know the drill.”Ophelia craned her head to peer around Benedict and look at the covered body.

“Wasn’t talking to you.Was talking to the glaring guywithyou.”Benedict pointed at Lane.“You can’t touch the body.You can’t contaminate evidence at all.Basically, you look and go, and you werenever here.Understand me?”

“Don’t worry.My partner is good,” Ophelia assured him without missing a beat.“So, you haven’t started your exam yet?”

“Ophelia, I got the body less than an hour ago.I’m fast, but not that fast.”He waved toward the lockers.“Besides, I’ve got others in front of him.Some bastard who got off on torturing and killing girls isn’t exactly high on my priority list.”He headed toward the nearby body bag.He pulled down the zipper, revealing Thomas’s face.

“Seriously, Benny?I’m going to need more.”Ophelia walked right up to the body and leaned over the dead man.Like it was something she did all the time.Her nose didn’t even twitch at the odor that filled that lab room.

“The man was suffocated,” Benedict told her.“The pillow was found over his face.There’s not going to be a whole lotmore.”

“Such a lie.You and I both know that there will be fibers in his lungs.Fibers you’ll need to match to the pillow that I am assuming was bagged and tagged.”She pointed to Thomas’s closed eyes.“I’m also assuming you at least checked them?”

Benedict huffed.“Of course, I did.”Then he pried open one of Thomas’s eyes with his gloved finger.

The brown eye stared sightlessly forward.

“Bloodshot,” Ophelia murmured.

Lane leaned forward to stare at that one eye.He did see a lot of red around the eye.Vessels appeared a lot darker than normal.

“It’s a sign of suffocation,” Benedict told him as Ophelia’s head turned toward the ME.“You look at the eyes.You check the lungs.When you first come across a suffocation victim, you could just think the person had suffered a heart attack or stroke.”

Lane actually already knew this.He’d known about the red splotches that would be present in the eyes with the bursting of blood vessels and he knew that when the lungs were checked, there should be signs of petechial hemorrhages.

He’dchosennot to become a doctor, but he’d fucking aced his med school classes.

“Those are the ways you can tell your vic was suffocated.Unless…” Benedict cleared his throat.“Unless the killer is ever so helpful—like the guy who offed Thomas—and justleavesthe murder weapon in place.Hard to take Thomas’s death for anything else with the pillow still on his face.”

“The killer wanted us to know exactly what he’d done,” Ophelia said.

Sure looked that way to Lane.“What about defensive wounds?”he asked.

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