Page 11 of Sinful Seduction
I catch movement in the area outside my autopsy suite, the shuffle of footsteps and the quick pace of a man heading for the kitchen—more specifically, the coffee machine. It’s still too early for the dayshift staff to arrive, but I draw my gaze around and stop on Archer’s hard stare.
He stands on the other side of the glass wall, his hands on his hips, and with someone else’s blood on his shoes. Lines of exhaustion mark his face, aging him more than a single day should have.
Or maybe that’s just my brain playing tricks on me, comparing him to the teen youthfulness I’ve been studying ad nauseam.
Swallowing, I peel my plastic shield up and off, setting it on the counter by my samples, then I lift my chin. That’s it. Just a single movement. It’s enough to release Archer from his steely stance and bring him to the door. He pushes it open, marking the clear glass with a smudge thecleaners will erase before the end of today, then the scent of hospital halls and pine cleaner replaces that of death.
“Hey.” I drag my bottom lip between my teeth and try—and fail—to not appear as tired as I feel. But my eyes are hooded, I know it. And my vision is spotty. My arms dangle, too heavy to do much more than let them. “Catch a killer, yet?”
He exhales a soft laugh, releasing the door so it closes at his back with a soft, almost silent whoosh. “Not yet.”
“Female vic still breathing?”
He scratches his jaw, nodding with a jerky up-down. “Barely. She coded twice while we were there. Stressing me the fuck out.” He exhales again, noisy and breathy. “For reasons I’m not sure I understand, it kinda matters to me that she cuts the shit and stabilizes.”
“Because you wanna talk to your witness?”
He steps away from the door, a bravery Doctor Chase never attempted, and stops with only half an inch between us. He towers over me, his chest encroaching on my space, and his aftershave filling my lungs.
I lick my lips and remain still. Breathing him in and holding space for him to decompress after a long night.
“Archer?”
“I’d like for her not to die,” he grunts. “We’ve identified her as Molly Freemon. Seventeen years old, Copeland High School senior. She has parents, both of them, still married, still together, still seemingly happy. She’s the oldest of three and has a sister and a brother. She’s missed the deadline for one assignment ever in her life—AP calculus—and it really upset her that she couldn’t finish what she’d started.”
“You caught all that at the hospital?”
He nods, his jaw flexing in my peripherals. “And him—” He tilts his head toward my John Doe. “Benjamin Saxon. They’ve been dating since her junior year. Same school. Same friend group. He only just graduated, but now he…” He sighs. “Didn’t get to use that diploma for much.”
“Benjamin Saxon.” I try his name out, rolling each sound over my tongue. Each syllable. Each vibration in pitch. And then I look over at him again and try to applyBenjaminwhere I’ve thoughtJohnfor six hours already. “So, he’s eighteen?”
“Nineteen, actually. Barely. He lost a year back in elementary school. Quiet guy, according to the information we’ve collected so far. Gruff. He was the dark horse to her sweet innocence. They were star-crossed, theprotected princess and the boy from the wrong side of the tracks. But he took art classes he had no interest in, just so they could share a class. And she took computer programming, so she could be with him.”
“Sounds like they were in love.” I bring my eyes back to my husband, the man hurting for a couple of kids we don’t know. And because of his stance, crowding me against the table, his broad body blocking me from the view of the rest of my staff, I trail my fingertips across the back of his hand and earn his hard stare. But it softens. His long lashes flicker down, kissing his cheeks, and with every brush of his eyelids, his glare turns to a gaze. His glower turns to soft exhaustion. “Doctor Chase’s tests have come back.” I sniffle again. Damn stupid nose. “He got the official all-clear.”
“Yeah?” His voice cracks on that one word. His lips curling into a sweet smile. “Bet that feels good.”
“Feels like I’m gonna lose my shit and look like an idiot in front of my team.”
He twists his hand, gripping my fingers and chuckling under his breath. And when I bring my dumb, itching eyes up to his, he grins. “God forbid you show any emotion on the job, Chief. Bet you told him to get back to work and to be more careful next time, because the paperwork is annoying.”
“Well…” Close enough. “I didn’t mention paperwork. But I told him to close the door on the way out.”
He snorts. “When what you meant was,I’m so fucking thankful you’re okay, dude. I wanna hug you, but physical touch icks me out, so I won’t. But I’m thinking it, so… same.”
I snicker. “Shut up.”
“Want me to order flowers or something? Send them to his house as a kind ofcongrats on not dyingthing?”
“Absolutely not.” I drag my fingers from his grasp and turn to my John D—Benjamin Saxon. He has a name now. I head around the other side of the table, kick the brakes on his waiting gurney—also known as a cadaver stretcher—and line it up to prepare for transfer. “I’m taking him to the fridges on the second floor, since I’m finished with his autopsy.” Leaning closer, I grab onto the sheet laid out beneath his body and tug Benjamin’s hundred and sixty pounds across easily, surprising a crooked brow from Archer. “I’ve written my preliminary report, and I’ll formalize it over the next day or two before signing off, but in my authority as Chief Medical Examiner, I feel confident I can inform you, the primary detective, thatyour victim died from a gunshot wound. I cannot comfortably say at what range the bullets were fired from—could’ve been six feet, could’ve been thirty—you’ll need ballistics testing for that.”
“Minka—”
I drag Benjamin to the middle of his stretcher and strap him in for the ride from here to the freezers, and fixing his sheet, I make sure he’s covered from top to toe. Dignity, after death, is one of the few things they have left. “I’ve concluded the shots arrived one,” I point to my heart, “and two,” I drop my hand and point toward my stomach. “The first would have killed him, and the second was unnecessary. I pulled a single slug out for evidence and logged it in for case files. The second is somewhere on your crime scene. Also, sending my employee a ‘glad you didn’t get HIV’ card is hardly appropriate.” I snag a toe tag from the pile we keep for exactly this—ominous, really—and write Benjamin’s name and age in each section allowing for such information. I add my name where it asks for the medical examiner, then my signature right under. Time of death. Date of death.
I toss my pen and walk to the end of the stretcher. Then whipping the sheet up to reveal his feet, I wrap the thin cord around Benjamin’s biggest toe, a small sense of relief warming my stomach as I tear the old, all but empty tag away and set it on the counter at my back.
Benjamin Saxon is better than John Doe.
