Page 14 of Justice for Francesca

Panic! The smell of tar, blood, and fear. FLEUR! Where is she? Sounds. Running feet. Voices shouting. Someone turning him over. Vomiting. A bright light in his eyes. Sirens in the distance.

“Bullshit.” The curse word brought Tripoli back to the present. “Check on her, sure, I get that. But you don’t stay with her overnight for a week, especially with the club in ruins the way it was and you partial owner.”

“Look. No matter what I felt or what I may feel now, she is an FBI agent investigating a murder in our club. When you’re a suspect, or soon will be, it’s not exactly conducive to a relationship.”

Another knock came at the door. This time, it was Michael. “Sorry to interrupt, Trip, but umm… we may have another problem.”

Tripoli resisted the urge to groan aloud. “What’s going on?”

“One of the agents. I swear to God, I didn’t know. I knew she worked in Dallas-Fort Worth. I never thought…”

Tripoli felt recognition set in. “I knew there was something I recognized in her face, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. Francesca McCabe is your sister.”

“Yeah, and she doesn’t know I’m here.” He swung his gaze around the room. “I haven’t seen my sister in fourteen years. She’s… let’s just say, she willnotbe pleased to see me.”

6

A PRINCIPESSA, A CORONER, AND THE FBI WALK INTO A BAR

Francesca

Triumph wasn’t wrong. It was gruesome. She’d seen the initial photos Calder had sent Cruz, and she’d seen her fair share of dead bodies as NYPD and now an FBI agent, but even that didn’t prepare her for the in-person sight. She could only imagine how devastated Tilly had been.

Mila Sequeira, mafia principessa, was unrecognizable now. Her face was so beaten, all features were gone. One eye was missing completely, and the other was covered by the swollen skin surrounding it.

The body was stripped of all clothing. The arms were wrapped around the ropes of the trapeze just above the bar, allowing the body to hang free without being lashed with additional ropes.

“Hey, Frankie.” The muffled voice came from Calder, who was currently doing something at the victim’s back. He had amask on to protect him from any contaminants the body might have.

Resisting the urge to snarl at the unwanted shortening of her name, she took a deep breath and counted to three. “Dr. Stonewall,” she returned.

“Frankie,” Cruz said in exasperation. “We’ve worked together before. How many times do we have to tell you? Cruz. Calder. We’re not going to answer to the formal anymore.”

She bristled a bit at his gentle rebuke. Like using the club names of her “friends” from The Library, the first names of her co-workers meant familiarity, and Francesca worked even harder to keep her distance from her colleagues. She made a promise to herself to try and work around using names at all and took out her notepad. “What have we got?”

Calder came around from the back side of the body, a swab in his hand that he sealed in an evidence bag and labeled. “What I can tell you is that she suffered multiple thin, surface slashes to her arms, front and back, in the form of hash marks grouped in counts of five. From her shoulders to her heels, she’s marked the same way. The front of her legs have what look to be deeper cuts, again in groups of five. There’s one puncture wound directly to the heart, but barely any blood.”

“The beating of the face?” she asked.

“Don’t know yet. I’ll know more when I get the body back to the lab.”

Both Cruz and Francesca gave a soundless huff response at the standard television coroner comment. While what happened to Mila was horrific, sometimes humor still invaded as a means to cope. It was never at the victim’s expense though.

“Do you mind if I take a closer look?” she asked.

Calder shook his head. “I was just finishing up. Knew you’d want to see her before we took her. Photographs help, but they’re never the same as in-person views.”

Francesca grabbed a pair of gloves and a mask from Calder. As he began packing up his gear and unfolding the body bag, Francesca did a slow circle of the body, making sure to stay outside of the oddly small circle of blood. She began to frown when she came full circle, and she stopped directly in front of the victim, her head tilted to the left.

“What do you see, Frankie?” Cruz asked.

“Some sort of residue. It has a slight sheen from certain angles.”

She grabbed two swabs and an evidence bag from Calder’s kit. Crouching in front of the body, her eyes were level with the victim’s hips. She used one of the swabs to push the flesh away from the girl’s outer labia and ran the second tip gently along the inner labia. She bagged the swab, sealed the bag, and filled out the seal.

“Know what it is?” Calder asked.

“I hate to guess, but based on the slight scent in the air layering over the blood? I’d say CBD-laced lubricant.” She looked at Calder. “You’ll probably find trace elements of THC in her body. Levels will be very, very small. I’ll write down some possible brand names when I take my gloves off, and I’ll put my best guess up at the top of the list. I’m pretty sure which one it is based on the smell.”

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