I winced, sure she’d about dislocated my already-bruised shoulder. “Ah—hi. Pleasure to meet you,” I said through gritted teeth.
Quinn watched the animated doctor with that telltale eyebrow raised. “Dr. Asquith, right?”
“That’s me,” she said without breaking eye contact. “Mr. Sebastian, you haveverysoft hands. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Uh… my fiancé. Sometimes. Usually to remind me that I’m not cut out for manual labor.”
She snickered and finally released me from a Guinness Record–breaking handshake. “He’s a smart man. And handsome. All that red hair.” She grabbed her chic pigtail braids and gave them a tug. “I wish I had red hair. I was thinking of dying it, but knowing my luck, it’d come out blood-colored, which around this place?” Her eyes grew, and she laughed like we’d missed the punch line of a really good joke. Also, I don’t think she’d taken a single breath since the elevator doors opened.
“You know my fiancé?” I asked curiously.
“Oh, sure. It’s hard to miss a guy who’s this tall,” Asquith answered as she raised her hand over her head, then jumped for good measure. “Did you know thatIwas the ME on your case at Snow’s Antique Emporium? In May. The dead boy in the dumpster. I love the name of your shop. It’s so… romantic.Sensational.”
I was hardly one to judge, considering most folks thought I was nuts to varying degrees, but umm…? The darling doc needed to see sunlight more often.
“We’re on a deadline,” Quinn said. “I believe Detective Millett informed you I was here for an in-person look at the wound patterns of Monday’s victim?”
“Sure, sure,” Asquith replied. She grabbed my arm, wound her own through it, and dragged me down the hall. “Although Mr. Sebastian isn’treallyhere to identify a body as suggested by the front desk, is he?” She looked up at me with another wide smile. “But I know when to be quiet.” She winked and made a button motion over her lips.
I craned my neck to look at Quinn, who was following with a very disgruntled, back-seat-driver-who’d-been-told-to-can-it expression.
“You’re not squeamish, are you?” Asquith asked me as we neared an open door at the end of the hall. She then playfully slapped my chest and answered her own question. “No, of course you aren’t.”
She led me, and by extension, Quinn, into a sparsely furnished room that had harsh overhead lighting and a nauseating chemical cleaner smell lingering in the air. She ushered me toward a bank of freezers, told me to stay, then snapped on a pair of latex gloves pulled from the pocket of her lab coat.
Asquith opened the locker marked 17, pulled out the retractable gurney, unzipped the bag, and displayed the skull from inside as if it were a trophy. “Ta-da!”
“Where’s his face?” I asked, acknowledging howwrongthat sounded.
“We had to strip the flesh. It was decomposing. Plus it’s the only way to inspect the bone for additional trauma.” She picked up an evidence baggie. “And here are the teeth that were collected from the Emporium yesterday—the central and lateral incisors, as well as one canine.”
Quinn approached the gurney. “So what kind of weapon was it that dug out the eye? Butter knife? Pocketknife? Machete?”
Asquith stared at Quinn for a long, borderline uncomfortable moment. Then she imitated a loud buzzer sound. “Wrong, wrong, and wrong. Would you like to phone a friend, Detective Lancaster?”
Quinn put her hands on her hips, I think purposefully showing off the shoulder holster as her unbuttoned coat opened with the motion. “Just tell us what the damn weapon was.”
I took out my phone and checked the newly adjusted timer app. Seven hours left.
Yes, please.
Asquith set the bag of teeth aside and then tossed me a pair of latex gloves. “If you don’t mind, Mr. Sebastian.”
“We don’t have time for games, doc,” Quinn said firmly.
“Oh,pffft,” Asquith declared. “Destress your chest, Detective.”
“Excuse me?” Quinn said in a dangerous voice, her face discoloring with what I figured was a pinkish red I’d been told was similar to and yet so different from a blush.
I hastily put the gloves on and grabbed what remained of poor Daniel the Intern. The kid had seen better days, that much was certain. “Walk it off, Quinn,” I said, knowing I’d be getting my own ass-kicking from her later.
Asquith leaned over the table to put her finger on the brow of the skull. “What do you see?”
“Not a whole hell of a lot in this lighting,” I replied.
“That’s right,” she said, almost cooing. “You have achromatopsia.” Asquith pattered across the room and flipped two of the three light switches. “How’s that, Mr. Sebastian?”
“Er—better, thanks.” I gave her a wary look as she returned to my side. “Sorry.Howdo you know about my vision condition?”
