Page 62 of The Turning of the Tables

Except that he didn’t look like he’d been out here for a while. His skin looked almost chill, clammy, as though it were sweaty, but dead men didn’t sweat. I frowned.

“Let’s have a look, then, shall we?” came Tierney’s familiar, grandfatherly voice.

I stepped out of the way to let him approach the victim, then took a few more forward, curious about what Tierney was going to say.

His brow furrowed immediately. “This man has been moved,” he announced.

“How do you know that?” Maza asked.

Tierney waved a hand. “He’s condensating.”

“He’swhat?” Maza replied.

“Condensating,” Tierney repeated.

“Like a glass?” Maza said, incredulously.

“Exactly,” Tierney confirmed. “This body was cooled, then brought out here, where it’s much warmer.” He touched a gloved finger to the skin of the victim’s cheek, lifting it and showing us the wetness there.

“So how long has he been dead?” Maza asked.

Tierney shrugged. “It becomes very hard to tell when refrigeration has been used. I’ll be able to give you a window after the postmortem, but it’s going to be wider than either of us is going to like.”

Maza sighed, a long-suffering sound. “Great.” It was clearly sarcasm.

“We work with what we have, detective,” Tierney told him sagely.

I was about to turn to ask Aimes if she had a preference for fingerprinting or marking off possible evidence, when an oddgurglecame from near the body. Under it, maybe? Or…insideit?

“What was that?” I asked Tierney, who was looking down at the victim with some alarm.

“I honestly have no idea,” the usually unflappable ME replied, the furrow in his brow deepening as he leaned closer. I took a step forward?—

And was thrown backward as a blast of copper-smelling heat hit me in the face, soaking through my mask. My ears began to ring as the back of my skull hit the pavement, sending stars cascading through my vision.

Some part of my brain was screaming—maybe I was, too—and some other part had, very clinically, informed the rest of me that something had exploded. No, not something—the victim. The victim must have been concealing a bomb or other explosive device.

And the thick coppery wetness on my face was blood.

Mine or the victim’s or someone else’s—Tierney’s? Maza’s?—I didn’t know.

There must have been screaming. Shouts. People calling for backup or ambulances over the radios. Noises other than the long steady ringing note that was all I could hear. My head hurt. My eyes hurt. It was hard to breathe.

Don’t take off the mask.

I was supposed to wear it. I needed to wear it. But now it was covered in blood. Inhaling blood—especially if it wasn’t mine—was a bad thing.

I tried to fumble in my pocket for a clean one.

My arms weren’t working very well, my fingers feeling like thick sausages that couldn’t quite manage to grasp things. My one arm ached fiercely. My back stung. My headthrobbed.

I choked, the blood saturating my mask making it hard to suck in air.

I couldn’t figure out how to find my own pocket.

Someone else ripped the mask off my face, their own still hidden behind RPD-issue navy blue fabric. The eyes over the mask wide with fear? Pain? Confusion? Concern? I couldn’t tell. They were a light grey-green, the skin around them pale with a few freckles and dotted with blood. Schitikova.

His mask was moving. He was talking, but I couldn’t hear him.