Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Jesus. When he’d seen the “BB” on the top of the purple pills, he’d guessed at the concoction, but hearing it confirmed made his stomach roll. The additional LSD coating was unexpected, though, and he’d need to inquire about that. “And it was found in these victims’ systems too?” he asked.
Clyde nodded. “In high doses. They’d popped more than one. These people were certainly in la-la land. And this one”—he pulled the sheet back to reveal the young woman who’d been on the floor of the vacant motel the last time Ambrose had seen her—“was pregnant.”
Across from him, Lennon’s eyes flared subtly. “How far along?”
“About twelve weeks.”
“Long enough to know she was pregnant if she was at all in touch with her body,” Lennon murmured.
He had a feeling this woman on the slab in front of him was not even remotely “in touch” with her body. Thankfully, however, her face had been cleaned, eyes shut, and mouth closed. That awful scream he’d last seen on her face was now an expression of peaceful slumber. His gaze moved to the dead woman’s arm, where there were clear track marks at the crease, and then farther down where there was a line of pale red scars, each about the same width and length. “She was a cutter,” he noted.
“Most definitely. She has scars on her thighs, too, some years old, others more recent.”
“That one always gets me,” Lennon murmured. “Why hurt yourself more than you’re already hurting?”
“The pain is better than the numb,” Ambrose said. “Pain reminds you you’re alive.” Lennon’s eyes met his, and even in this cold, sad room, standing over the body of a young woman who’d suffered in—very likely—more ways than just one, or even two or three, he was struck by the inspector’s beauty. She was intriguing to him, too, and he’d have liked time to figure her out but knew that wasn’t going to be possible.
She looked away from him, back to Clyde. “The thing that keeps bothering me about this scene in particular is that I’ve never heard of hallucinogens being part of an orgy. I’d think that would make things . . . very bizarre.”
“Some people like bizarre,” Clyde said.
True enough. But the case already disturbed Ambrose, and this only added to it. The light-purple hallucinogens with the “BB” imprint . . . the teddy bear and the children’s toys. “No, you’re right,” he said to Lennon. “Hallucinogens are typically used for a mental or spiritual experience, not a physical one.”
“Right. Exactly,” she agreed.
“These people appeared to be drug users, however,” Ambrose said. “They might not have been very discerning if given free product.”
Lennon’s brow knitted. “Could you tell if she’d had sex?” she asked Clyde after a moment. “Willing or otherwise?”
“I’m going to get the second female up on the table this afternoon, but there was no semen in—or on—this one. As far as I can tell, she didn’t have sex recently.”
“And the shower didn’t appear to have been used,” Ambrose said, recalling the report they’d received that morning from the criminalists who’d worked the scene and sent the samples they’d gathered to the lab for testing. The water had still been on at the property, but the shower had been dry, and there weren’t any towels available to mop up the residual water.
“And no condom or fresh semen found either,” Lennon murmured. “So maybe it hadn’t gotten sexual yet.”
“The footage from the bank up the street showed all three of them headed in the direction of the motel at midnight, though,” Ambrose said, referring to the footage they’d received early that morning. “You estimated time of death to be about three a.m.?” he asked Clyde.
“Give or take an hour,” Clyde answered.
“Three hours would be a long time to sit around and chat,” he said. “So if they weren’t having sex, what were they doing for all that time?”
Lennon chewed at her lip for a second. “Yeah. It doesn’t fit.” She paused again. “What can you tell us about the wounds?”
“Well, the male has some defensive wounds on his hands, but they’re very light and shallow, practically scratches. Which aren’t congruent with the wounds on his chest, and especially the one to his heart that ultimately killed him. Those ones are deep slashes. Considerable strength was used for those.”
“And conviction,” Ambrose said. Whoever had stabbed him with enough strength to penetrate his heart muscle had gone all in. Literally.
“Yes,” the doctor agreed. “No hesitancy whatsoever. And from a visual aspect, there doesn’t appear to be blood spatter on either of the female victims—blood, yes, which I suspect is only their own. But there most certainly would have been spatter had they stabbed him with the force necessary to cause the weapon to go through his chest wall and into his heart.”
“Which means neither of the women killed him. So in this case, at least, there was a fourth person present who walked away from the scene,” Lennon said.