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Carefully setting Holly’s skull back on the table, she looks up with fire in her eyes. “This was homicide. I will continue my examination and collect as much information as I can to aid your investigation. You can expect my official report on your desk within twenty-four hours.”
“Thanks.”
Spinning out of the glass room and dragging Fletch along with me, I charge toward the elevator and slap the call button the second we’re within reach.
“We need to figure out who had reason to kill a pregnant woman,” I growl. “And we’re gonna have to finagle a confession out of them, considering just about every scrap of material evidence we possess is thirty-five years past expiration.”
MINKA
“Who do you think it could’ve been?” Packing Holly away at the end of our autopsy, Aubree switches off the recorder and dismantles the camera that filmed our every move. She unties her apron and tosses her protective glasses to the side. “And what did they give Chant to convince her to botch the autopsy?”
“We’re not the police.” I peel my gloves off and set them in an evidence bag, just in case they’re needed for trace samples at a later date. “It’s not our job to hypothesize, Doctor Emeri. It’s not our job to even consider who might’ve committed the crime.”
“We find the evidence,” she parrots my voice with a roll of her eyes. “We don’t judge, we don’t create bias in our minds.”
“We also don’t leave our desks unless we can do our jobs properly.” Shoving out of the room and turning to the right, I head through my office door and toward my desk in scrubs that feel coarse on my skin.
I’m used to wearing my own clothes. Blouses, nice pants, shoes that come with a slight heel but also with cushiony insoles so my feet don’t ache at the end of a long day.
But now I wear starchy scrubs that stand stiff and lift when my shoulders do.
“And if you roll your eyes at me again,” I add when Aubree follows me through my door, “I’ll keep you busy with so much paperwork, you won’t get to touch another body for six months.”
“While I apologize for the circular movement of my eyeballs,” she drops her ass on the corner of my desk, “I know for a fact you like having me on your cases. Youcouldplace me on desk duty, but it would last only a day before you called me off the bench because you got lonely without me.”
Stopping, she flashes a taunting grin. “I mean that with love and respect and cute littlebest friend forevernecklaces.”
“God. Please don’t buy us necklaces.” Sitting down and pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes, I block out the nighttime horizon outside my window and instead create my own stars from the pressure of my palms. “Why do women do that? Why do they think a cheap silver chain is some kind of token of loyalty and love?”
“Because they typically match,” she retorts playfully. “Everyone knows matchy-matchy equals bestie-bestie. It’s in the rules. And god forbid there be a third friend in your little group, because those necklaces typically only come in twos. That means Seraphina is out, by the way. No matter how close you get with your cute little assistant, she’ll never truly be one of us.”
“You’re overthinking the idea behind cheap silver.”
“Ineveroverthink. Also, if you and I did come into possession of best friend necklaces, and then you went and died, I don’t think I could be selfless enough to bury you with mine. I’d want to keep it so I can see it every day. Touch it. Remember you by.”
“Would you forget me so easily?” Dropping my hands, I sit back in my chair and wait for the stars to clear from my vision. “Are you telling me you’d need a piece of junk jewelry to keep my memory alive? And without said jewelry, I’d officially cease to exist for you? Like, my entire life and memory rests on a five-dollar necklace that was produced in a sweat shop somewhere, made in bulk, found its way into your possession, and was eventually given to me in the hope I would wear it too? My memory rests onallthat?”
“Well…” She scowls. “No. I’m sure the top I stole from you last December would jog my memory sometimes too.”
Finally, I smile and break away from the deep ache building in the center of my chest. A soft snicker slides along my throat and releases the tension I’ve been holding in my body from the moment I discovered, not only a fractured skull at the Copeland City Cemetery, but the remains of a fetus who was far too young to survive outside its mother’s body.
When Holly, the host, died, so did her child.
“You can buy me a cheap token of friendship if you want. In fact…” Pushing up to stand, I check the clock on my wall and swallow down a laugh that could border on hysterical. “Er, it’s two in the morning, Aubree.”
“Is it?” She follows my eyes and reads the clock like its brand-new to her. “Hmm. Guess it is.”
“I wanted to go to a jeweler. I had this brilliant idea about rocks and penguins and tokens of love, but now it’s two in the morning, so maybe—”
“I know a place.” Pushing off my desk and dropping to her feet, she looks down her body as though surprised she’s wearing scrubs and not neon glitter. Disappointed, she looks up again. “I hate wearing these.”
“Me too. They’re itchy.”
Stepping around my desk and snagging my outside coat from the rack, I slip it on and set my keys and phone in the pockets, then I push through my office door so Aubree has to run to keep up.
“Can we walk to the place?” I ask when she stops beside me at the elevator. “Or do we need a cab?”
“Cab.” Stepping inside the elevator and selecting the ground floor, she moves to the back of the cube and drops her hands in her pockets. “But it’ll totally be worth the ride, I swear.”
