Page 4 of Sinful Sorrow

“Took them that long to realize this was real,” Aubree murmurs. “They’re in a haunted house and she screams. No one really thinks anything of it at first.”

“All just part of the show,” I mutter. “She was attacked, and no one tried to help her because they thought it was fake.”

“Two stab wounds,” Minka recites. “One to her left side, potentially puncturing her kidney. We’ll confirm that once she’s on our table at the George Stanley.”

“Second wound to the chest,” Aubree continues. “Straight through the heart.”

“We assume,” Minka interrupts. “Confirmation via autopsy. The killer?”

“In hysterics,” Fletch answers, “and sitting in a cruiser outside. Dude is seventeen and a complete mess. He’s puked in the car twice, messed up his Ghostface costume, and begged for his mom a few million times.”

“A kid?” Slowly, Minka turns the girl’s head to the side and studies her flawless, youthful skin. “A kid did this? And now he’s crying?”

“Seems this was just his job. He comes on shift when the sun is on the horizon. Steps out, terrifies whoever paid to be here, slashes at the air, then hides again for the next wave of people who come through. I haven’t taken a statement yet, but word’s getting around that he didn’t mean for this to happen. He was just working. Just doing his job. But this time, she fell and didn’t get up again.”

“So his knife was real?” I question. “Meant to be a prop, but was swapped out for the genuine thing?”

“Sounds about right.” Aubree turns her attention to the Buck hunting knife on the floor, smeared in blood and left behind by an—allegedly—terrified teenager who didn’t mean to hurt anyone. “You can buy these at costume stores all year long. But especially around Halloween. It’s reasonable that he thought it was a fake.”

“It would be heavier than the dupe,” I argue. “By a long shot. No way you can pick that up and not know it’s real.”

“Killer was a kid,” Fletch repeats. “Kids do impulsive, dumb shit all the time. Teenage boys, even more so. He’s working. It’s dark. Maybe he’s an athlete, so he’s stronger than your average seventeen-year-old. It’s not unreasonable to think he wasn’t paying complete attention to those details. Especially if he’s worked here awhile and the job had become monotonous.”

“So I guess we gotta figure out if he knew her and held a grudge, making his move in the dark and claiming innocence. Or if this was purely bad luck for them both. Vic and killer were almost the same age, so it’s highly possible they went to school together and knew each other.”

“Or,” Minka concludes, running her eyes along the girl’s torso and gently peeling the blood-soaked sweater back, “someone wanted her dead and didn’t wanna do it themselves, so they swapped the prop for a real hunting knife and destroyed two lives in one go.” Frowning, she tilts her head to the side, narrowing her eyes when a new reality wanders in and complicates our case. “Correction for the record: potentially three lives. Her womb is distended. Might indicate pregnancy.” She presses down on the very bottom of the girl’s stomach, measuring just using the length of her knuckles. “If so, I estimate her to be approximately four or five months along. Dammit.” Smoothing the sweater back down, she pushes up to stand and peels her gloves off, depositing them in the plastic baggie Aubree already knows to offer. “I need to bring her to the George Stanley to confirm. But I think this is a double homicide, Detectives.”

“For fuck’s sake.” Fletch drags his hands up through inch-long hair and groans. “She’s a baby, having a baby, and now they’re both dead.” He looks across to me. “We’ve gotta talk to the boyfriend. The best friends. The dude with the knife. The owner of this house. And everyone’s parents, too, now that we’re pretty fucking certain a baby was conceived while she was still in high school.”

“Go.” Accepting a fresh pair of gloves and opening the kit Aubree brought to the scene, Minka catches my eye from the corner of hers. “The sooner you talk to everyone, the more luck you’ll have of catching a liar out. Aubree and I will call for transport and move her back to the George Stanley within an hour or two.” She peruses the bag’s contents before selecting a thermometer and pulling it out. “And can someone get me her name? It shouldn’t be too difficult, considering you have all of her friends, and her killer, bundled up outside. I hate calling them Jane when I don’t have to.”

“We’ll get it.” I don’t reach out for her, though my hands itch to touch. I don’t tell her I love her, or drag her in to kiss her plump lips, though I really want to. We’re on the job, the recorder is going, and we have a brand-new dead body cooling at our feet. So I hold her gaze for a long beat, a million thoughts bouncing between two souls who know each other better than they know themselves, then I dip my chin. “Be safe. I’ll call you when we have answers.”

MINKA

“Time of death, approximately seven-forty to seven-fifty pm,” I recite for the recorder. “As an aside, dispatch’s timestamp shows emergency calls received at seven-forty-nine.”

“Can we confirm if she was already gone when they made the call?” Aubree leans over me and takes a dozen photos of the wound on the girl’s side. “It would’ve taken approximately three to five minutes for her to bleed out. By minute one, her friends probably realized she wasn’t part of the show and her blood was real. That makes me wonder if the call to 9-1-1 went out around minute two or three.”

“That’s probably a question for the detectives after they interview the witnesses.” I gently roll the girl so I can view her side. Black, sludgy blood pools on the carpet that the owners of the haunted house will need to replace. “I’ve noticed you’re asking these questions more, Doctor.” I carefully bounce on my legs to relieve the ache of crouching, but while I do that, I glance up and study my second’s bright blue eyes. “You looking to take the detectives’ jobs?”

She grins behind her camera, snap-snap-snapping evidence. “Just getting a fuller picture. The same way you do it. We can run the autopsy and collect the forensic data. But humans intrigue me too. I want to know how everyone acted, and reacted, during this crisis.”

“How would you have acted?” I carefully lay Jane flat again and look up. “You’re walking somewhere with your best friend. You’re?—”

“You’re my best friend.” Snap.

I roll my eyes, because now that information is on the recording that may someday be played in a courtroom, filled to the brim with jurors, a judge, a killer, and a distraught family. “I meant, hypothetically, Doctor Emeri. What would you have done?”

“Well…” She lowers her camera and rolls her lip between her teeth. “I doubt my answer would represent the actions of the majority, considering my very specific vocational experience. But I’d like to think I would act quickly, packing my best friend’s wound and remaining calm and composed until help arrived. I’d hope, even if the first stab wound had occurred, my actions would be fast enough to prevent the second. In Jane’s case, her friends and the killer were so surprised by what happened, no one stopped the second swing of the blade, which in this case, I believe was our kill shot.”

“A lacerated kidney wouldn’t have killed this hypothetical best friend?”

She stares directly into my eyes—because if I was that hypothetical friend, then yes, a sliced kidney would kill me. Very quickly. Irreversibly. But she doesn’t verbalize those thoughts. On this one point, she refrains from presenting my bleeding disorder to a future listening jury.

“If left untreated,” she answers instead, carefully, controlled. “Then sure, that would kill someone. But the vic has a little more time in that case. A knife to the heart, though, is goodnight and see ya later. If someone attacked me and my friend on a night out, I would hope to prevent the attack before the kill shot.”

“At your own risk? Perhaps you would be the one who is stabbed next.”

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