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"Hopefully, the killer left a bit of himself behind so you can get a better sense of him and what driveshim."
"What should I lookfor?"
"Anything," he says, shrugging. "Could be a cigarette butt, a coffee cup. Who can tell? They often leave some trace. Trick is findingit."
"Do I touch thebody?"
Ed shakes his head. "You're there to look for physical evidence before Crime Scene Unit messes things up. Besides, dead bodies don't hold memories for very long due to decay. As soon as a person dies, their cells start to die and the neurons lose their structure at a quantum level. Solid objects retain theirs and so they're more useful to a telepath. In general, the lack of forensic evidence at the dump sites indicates that the victims were killed elsewhere and their bodies decapitated before being transported but even an extremely well-disciplined killer will touch objects and often leave something behind. As long as the kill was recent, anything a killer touches will hold traces of their memories ofit."
We drive along the streets to the docks. The floodlights of the forensic unit are visible from a block away and my pulse increases at the prospect of a real crime scene. Ed parks the sedan and the four of us walk the rest of the way. We stand on the periphery while Ed ducks under the police tape that cordons off the crime scene. He shows the detective in charge his credentials and speaks to the man in hushed voices, gesturing towardsus.
Mist rises off the Charles River, blocking the view of the Charlestown Bridge. The late May night is unusually cold. I shiver and it isn't just the fact that a real vampire stands beside me – one who shared a very intimate, almost sexual experience with me not so longago.
I try to block the memory from mymind.
The waterfront bordering the dock area has become an industrial graveyard. In the harsh floodlights surrounding the dump site, the moss-covered ruins of the old piers rot in the tides and old float barges and crumbling docks decay along theshore.
Michel stands beside me, his long hair tucked behind his ears as he reads messages on hisBlackberry.
I pull my collar up against the breeze off the water. "God, it's socold."
"Really?" he says without looking up. "I wouldn'tknow."
I glance at him and he turns to me. Sure enough, there's that lopsided smile on his lips. I can't help but smile back. He looks at me and makes that throat sound, his smile fading, his eyes on my cheeks and I know he's doing it – making me smile on purpose so he can indulge himself and it sends a little jolt of something throughme.
He turns back to hisphone.
What is this? Torture? I thought he was going to be completelyprofessional.
As I gaze across the river, I try to imagine what it would be like to work with him on a daily basis and not go there – to 'us'. I can't imagine it. It will behell.
"I don't know if I can do this," I say softly. "Staying justprofessionals."
He stops typing for amoment.
"There are many things we don't choose in life," he says and glances at me, his bright blue eyes intense under the floodlights from the forensic unit. "The thing is, we need you. Personal desires must bedenied."
I say nothing in reply for what he said makes sense, as much as I hate it. I'm numb, uncertain how to feel. Instead, I watch the detectives from Homicide examine thebody.
While we're waiting, I see another figure arrive on scene. Another detective? Then I see his skin and I know it's Julien. He's wearing the same leather trench with a scarf tied around his neck and fadedjeans.
"Julien," Michel says. "What are you doing here?" Michel glances at me as if he alreadyknows.
"Ed called me. Said another Adept had been killed. I thought I'd drop by, see what you're up to." Julien turns to me and stuffs his hands in his pockets, giving me that lopsided grin. "Of course, I already know what you're upto."
"Leave Eve alone," Michel says, his voicedark.
"I'll do what I want. If Eve wants to talk to me, that's up to her. Eve has a lot of questions about her mother. It looks as if you're not much into answeringthem."
"You won't be answering them either," Michel says, putting his phone away. "Eve only has to know so much. To tell her more would put her indanger."
Julien laughs at that. "You mean put your little suicide mission indanger."
Michel takes my arm and pulls me towards Ed, who's waiting at theshore.
"Ignore him," Michel says. "He just likes to stir thingsup."
We join Ed and stare down at the corpse, which has been photographed and removed from the water. Julien joins us as well and stands off to the side. The body's laid out on a plastic sheet in wait for the coroner to come and do his work, the severed head at an odd angle to theneck.
