Page 49 of The Turning of the Tables

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I hate you, Mays,” she said, also teasing.

My eyes scanned over the grass, searching, assessing.

There. A depression at the corner of the lawn where the walk leading up to the door intersected with the public sidewalk. I crouched down beside it, wincing behind my disposable mask—we used disposableeverythingin CSI to makesure there was exactly zero chance of our equipment introducing foreign particulates—as my knee protested at being forced into a deep squat.

Amid the pressed-down grass was just a hint of red clay—which most definitely was not from around here. There was clay further west, but here we were too close to the James, and our soils tended to be sandy loam where people hadn’t brought in their own dark topsoil, which was common in suburban neighborhoods like this one.

I’d run the sample against the USDA’s soil typology database to get a list of actual potential matches, but it was definitely something. Continued searching found another smudge of clay on the sidewalk, although not enough to actually get a sense of the size or type of shoe or boot in question. But it was still a little wet, which told me that it was recent—not from a day or two ago, but this morning. I’d also check the neighbor’s shoes, but because her track was clear and didn’t intersect with this one, I very much doubted she’d have the same clay on her shoes.

I kept looking, my eyes sweeping grass and sidewalks and streets, slowly pacing my way back and forth so I didn’t miss anything.

That little bit of clay was, unfortunately, it—at least in terms of evidence that would help Maza to find the killer. From there, I moved on to the tiny spatters of blood on the doorframe, the stoop, and the door itself.

As usual, when Tierney was done, I helped him load the body, lifting the bag onto the gurney, then pushing it down the sidewalk to load the body into the van.

Another day, another death.

“Mays, my throat hurts.”

I rubbed sleep from my eyes, then fumbled for my glasses so that I could look blearily at the clock on the nightstand. Five-oh-three a.m. I was about to ask Quincy why the hell she felt like she had to report that to me—but then my brain dragged itself out of sleep enough for me to remember the fact that we’d all been sent home mid-afternoon yesterday because our newest victim, Jennifer Moynihan, had tested positive for active Arcana.

“Shit,” is what I said out loud, my heart pounding in my throat. I forced myself to stop being selfish. “Quincy, are you okay?”

“No,” she warbled.

“Is—” I was going to ask her about Aaron, her boyfriend, but she cut me off.

“I’m locked in the bedroom,” she said softly, her voice still shaking. “Because I made him keep me isolated after we got sent home.”

“Have you told him your throat hurts?” I asked her softly.

“N-not yet.”

“You should wake him up.” Not because I begrudged her this phone call, but so that he could take care of her—and be prepared to call an ambulance if one was needed.

“I—what if he doesn’t?—”

“He loves you, Quince,” I reminded her gently, trying to get my own heart to stop racing and the air to come more completely into my lungs. Because even while I was talking to Quincy, trying to keep her calm, my whole being was tense with fear. Because I’d been around her for the three-ish hours between when we’d gotten back from the scene and when we’d gotten the trace from Tierney.

Sure, we’d been in and out of each other’s workspaces,so it wasn’t like we’d been constantly breathing the same air. But still.

It was a quarter to six by the time I convinced her to wake up Aaron, that he wasn’t going to leave her—although I didn’tknowthat—and that she’d be okay—although I didn’t know that, either. I was scared for her, and scared for myself. For Tierney, who was old enough to retire, which made him more vulnerable to infection. For Maza. For the cops and the other techs at the lab…

I started down at my phone, quashing the impulse to text Elliot. He was an hour earlier and not a morning person. And it wasn’t like he could do anything about it, anyway.

So I texted my brother, who was sleeping at Lulu’s.

Nono—I got contact traced again. I feel fine but Quincy’s sick.

He would read it when he woke up. And, other than being terrified, I did feel fine. Not sick, at any rate.

I forced myself to take a deep breath and got up to take a shower, because God knew I wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep anytime soon.

I had twenty-eight hours before the mandatory test. Twenty-eight hours during which I was going to second guess every tickle in my throat, every sniffle, every borborygmic gurgle of my stomach. Anything that could be a sign of illness.

Twenty-eight hours of anxiety and stress—and worry about Quincy, although that was going to last longer than twenty-eight hours. Hopefully not too much longer, but…