Page 85 of Taken Away

“Because the autopsy found things nobody could see at the scene.”

Bennett went still.

“What things?”

“Petechial hemorrhaging,” Burke said. “Bruising on one wrist. And synthetic fibers embedded in her airway.”

The office went quiet.

Aubrey’s throat felt dry.

“What does that mean?” Her voice sounded thin to her own ears.

Burke focused on her, his tone softening.

“The Medical Examiner reviewed the photographs, microscopy, and tissue samples herself,” he said. “She concluded someone held fabric over Mabel’s face and kept it there until she couldn’t breathe anymore.”

For a moment, the room seemed to tilt.

Aubrey hadn’t known Mabel well, but she’d known the file folder: the will, the numbers, the promise of a different life. All of it twisted now into something sharp.

“Wait.”

Her voice cracked. She shook her head.

“Wait… let me try to make sense of what you’re saying.”

Nobody spoke.

Aubrey looked directly at Burke.

“You’re saying my aunt was murdered?”

Burke nodded once. Slowly.

“I’m sorry, Aubrey,” he said. “But yes. That’s what the report says.”

“Oh my God.”

Her knees went unsteady, as if the floor beneath the office carpet had shifted.

“Oh my God...”

She pressed a hand over her mouth and took a step backward, bumping lightly into the edge of the desk.

Bennett took an instinctive step toward her, stopping only when she steadied herself against the edge of the desk.

Some irrational part of her wanted him to ignore the distance and pull her into his arms; the rest of her bristled at needing anyone at all.

“I barely knew her,” she whispered.

Not really.

A few childhood visits.

Scattered memories of a sharp-eyed woman who always seemed larger than life.

Most of what she knew about Mabel had come from her mother. And none of it had been good.