Page 2 of Sinful Fantasy

“Excuse you, Doctor Emeri!” Fletcher’s eyes pop wide in stunned shock. “You don’t think the dude deserves a little modesty?”

Humored, she releases the waistband of the man’s pants and puts it back in place. “I think he wants us to solve his murder, Detective. As do you. Sometimes, that means we must look at his private regions. Hypostasis,” she glances across at me. “Blood is pooling in his buttocks and…” She pulls up the legs of his pants to reveal not only bloodied and torn ankles, but the same pooling there.

Gravity did her thing.

“Did he die in this chair, Doctor?”

“Yes, he did.” She pushes up with a gentle grunt and wipes her hands on her pants—though she hasn’t picked up any grime to clear away. “He was tortured in this chair. Left to die in this chair. And approximately thirty-six hours after that death, he was scheduled for a trip to the bottom of the river… in this chair.”

“It’s a nice chair, too.” Fletch leans around my colleague and looks closer at the ornate woodwork, with scrolling etchings and delicate patterns. The seat is cushioned—small luxury for a dying man, I suppose—and the legs are clawfoot-esque. “This can’t be a common design.”

“We’ll chase it up.” Archer makes a note in his little book.

For all the technology available to us these days, for all thesmartdevices and pocket personal assistants, it always makes me smile to see my team come back to pen and paper.

“Four fingers have been removed,” Aubree reports. “Three on his left hand, including the pinkie, ring finger, and pointer. One on his right: ring.”

Archer’s jaw grits with sympathy. “Ouch.”

“Three missing teeth.” Aubree glimpses inside the victim’s mouth and counts the damage. “He was missing two already, removed professionally and long ago healed. But three are fresh, and if I had to guess, removed with a common garage tool. His tongue was sliced, too.”

“Off?” Curious, I come up on the vic’s other side and look inside his open mouth.

“Nuh-uh.” She flashes a penlight inside to study the bloodied, butchered mess. “In half. Forked. Kinda like how some of the hipsters do these days. He could probably still talk.”

“Would’ve stung, though.” Fletch rolls his own tongue inside his mouth as though to make sure it’s still there and safe. “ID?”

“None so far.” Aubree reaches between the man’s backside and his padded seat, searching for a back pocket, but shakes her head quickly. “No wallet. No jewelry. No visible tattoos.”

While she runs through her checklist, I crouch on the vic’s left and lift his remaining fingers to study the underside.

“No prints,” I murmur, frowning.

While the rest of my colleagues fall silent and watch me, I lean closer and use my bad arm to lift a penlight.

The movement makes my stomach roll. Pain, slicing through my blood. But I clamp it down and do the job.

“It’s interesting, don’t you think?” I release the man’s hand so it rests back on the arm of the chair, then I push up to stand and offer a small smile to Archer when he sets his palm beneath my good arm and helps me up.

“A man has been tortured,” I tell them all, finding balance and dragging my eyes away from my husband. While we’re working, he’s a cop and I’m an M.E. That’s our role. “Tongue. And fingers,” I summarize.

“Uh… and eyes,” Aubree adds, lifting an eyelid and revealing the empty, mutilated socket beneath. She draws a deep breath and fills her cheeks with the excess. “Took them both.”

“Eyes,” I repeat with a shake of my head and a slash of nerves beating through my stomach. “Lacerations all over. He was beaten before he was sliced up, and sliced up before he was amputated.”

“Those are solid steps up,” Fletch rumbles. “A beating. Then little cuts. Then worse.”

“Then a bath in the river,” Aubree finishes.

“So,why?” I ask. “What did his captors want to know? Why didn’t he give up the info after the first beating? And why would they dump him in the river, where there were witnesses, when they could have been far more discreet and kept the crime less obvious?”

“Those are good questions.” Archer folds his arms and studies our victim. “We need to know who he is. Hopefully, we can fill in the rest from there.”

“Then I guess we know what you’re doing for the rest of today.” I flash a playful grin when he looks my way. “Doctor Emeri and I will transport the body back to the George Stanley for an official autopsy. We’ll find COD and a more exact time of death. We’ll turn his insides out and find everything there is to know.” I look to Aubree, but already, she has her gloves off and her phone in her hand.

Transport.

She knows this job just as well as I do. And she knows me, perhaps even better.

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