CHAPTER 10

IS THIS DEATH?

Wren is smothered by a darkness that is so thick she feels like she could chew it. An overwhelming heat consumes her in the dark. Her heart starts to race and the blackness glows red. She wills her mouth open as a trapped sob lies caught in her throat. Her chest aches, and she struggles to yell for help, but nothing comes out.

Then, without warning, the darkness dissolves, and she sees her parents before her. They stand together in a stark-white room, her mother clutching her father’s arm. Their faces twist with devastation. She throws her arms around them both at once. She can smell her mother’s homey apple scent and her father’s safe aroma, clean and warm. She stays glued to them for a moment, letting the relief fill the air.

But it’s cold now.

There are no arms embracing her back. She pulls her head back to look up at their faces. When she studies their tear-stained eyes, they just see through her.

“Mom, Dad!” she pleads, placing her hands on their cheeks.

They stay clinging to each other but remain distant from her. She feels hot again. It’s a deep, pulsating wave of heat mixed with nausea. She tries again to call for her parents, this time yelling above the white noise now hurting her ears.

“Mom! Where are we? Please help me!” she begs, receiving nothing in return.

Her mother’s eyes are worn and red from crying. She looks hopeless and doesn’t respond to Wren’s wails. Then a sound echoes throughout the static, white environment. It’s familiar, but it’s neither her parents’ voices nor her own.

“You’re dying, Wren,” a man’s voice says casually.

Her blood turns to ice water. She stares into her parents’ faces, still clinging to them and not wanting to look behind her. Like smoke, they fade until there is nothing left. She falls forward onto her knees as they disappear in front of her eyes. Another choked sob escapes her, followed by a shiver when he speaks again.

“What’s wrong with your legs, Wren?” he asks.

She looks down at the tops of her thighs and stands up from her kneeling position. As she puts her feet on the ground, it’s like stepping in water. Her weight shifts, and she wobbles. He’s laughing now. A low, cutting sneer escapes from his lips, and as she stumbles back to her knees, he begins to cackle.

“My legs,” she whispers.

There isn’t any feeling left in them, like dead limbs on an ancient tree. Finally, she turns to look at him as he crosses the space toward her. He’s clean, almost sterile, wearing a white T-shirt and jeans without a speck of dirt on them. His face is blurry. As he walks, she feels the air rush out of her lungs. She frantically coughs and gags, feeling like a hot poker has been jammed down her throat.

“Shhhh,” he coos softly, squatting next to her and placing one finger to his lips.

Even though she can’t make out his face, she can tell that he is smiling. Instinctively she uses her arms to pull herself away from him. She drags her heavy legs and palms the slick surface beneath her, desperately trying to place some distance between them.

“Run,” he says quietly behind her.

She tries to sob, but nothing can form in her mouth, not even a breath. The room bends and bobs, and the heat begins overwhelming her.

“Run!” he says louder now, laughing as she visibly shudders.

She shakes her head, using one hand to pull herself away. Everything is hazy now, the white room turning into a heavy curtain before her eyes. As blackness begins to close around her field of vision like a camera lens, she hears one final, terrifying sound.

“Run!” he screams.

Wren sits up in bed as light pours into her room. Her breaths come out as ragged gasps, and she is covered in a layer of slick sweat. For a moment, she can’t tell if she is awake and safe from the horrific nightmare. She squints her eyes as she gazes around, trying to force her mind to acclimate. She feels her heart pounding in her chest and takes a moment to catch her breath.

“My god. That was the worst dream I have ever had,” she chokes the words out to the empty bedroom, swinging her legs over the side of her bed.

She has unintentionally preempted her alarm, and notices that the window on her side of the room is allowing sunlight to pour in. The shade is askew, snagged on the slightly peeling paint. Although it shouldn’t ring as significantly out of the ordinary, she can’t help the paranoia she feels in the back of her mind. These Jane Does follow her home, and she is always afraid their killers will too. She shakes her head, trying to fling the intrusive thoughts from her mind. It’s too early. She pulls the shade to its normal position and makes her way to the shower.

She brushes her teeth as the shower heats up, her mind wandering again. As she moves through each step of her routine, she keeps thinking about her next day off. She could really use some time away from this crop of connected bodies, discovered on every corner of her city. An entire twenty-four-hour period in which she wouldn’t have to peer inside a thoracic cavity is almost a fantasy at this point. She relishes the idea of just sitting somewhere with her husband and relaxing. Hell, Richard has made that “you look a lot like my wife” joke so many times this month that she has actually started finding it kind of funny again. She blinks herself back to reality and ends her shower with a squeak of the faucet. The spa treatment is over, and it’s time to get dressed for reality.

Wren waves her identification card at the sensor and pushes the heavy steel door open. A wall of slightly stale air hits her almost immediately, and she makes her way to her office.

She throws her keys down on the desk and notices the fresh stack of files taking up space in her “New Cases” bin. Sighing, she shakes her head. Typically, a heavy caseload doesn’t shake her. But with news of another body found in the area and the media starting to panic the community, she is already feeling the pressure. A stack of new cases was just short of worst-case scenario.

“Can you both pop in here really quick?” Wren calls out, plopping herself into her seat. Two reliable pathology assistants come jogging into the office almost immediately. One is still in the process of tying his shoes and almost trips headfirst into a bookshelf full of anatomy atlases. He catches himself at the last moment, and Wren can see the flush of crimson flash across his cheeks. He is always so nervous.

“Hey, Dr. Muller. What can we do for you?”

“Hey. I’m going to need you to fully prep a couple of cases for me this morning,” she instructs, opening the first two case files in her inbox. “It looks like we have a suspected overdose—twenty-three-year-old female found behind Tap Out. Let’s make sure we get as many samples as we can from her. There are some fresh tubes with anticoagulants on the left side of the hallway closet.”

The young assistant takes the file and nods. “You got it. Do you want the full organ block out?” He is already walking toward the door.

“Yes, have it prepped and out, please. I didn’t notice any outward signs of trauma, but if you come across any, call me in.”

Wren opens a second file and turns to the remaining pathology assistant at her door.

“For you, I have a fifty-six-year-old male. Looks like a straightforward suicide. Found in his home, gunshot wound to the roof of his mouth. No note, but you get the picture. A lefty, so make sure to test for GSR on that hand.”

After delegating her less-pressing cases, Wren rises from her seat and heads into the autopsy suite.

“I’m going to catch you today,” she declares out loud.

The hours in the lab fly by in a blink, and Wren is called to accompany Leroux back to the crime scene. Now she’s watching him walk along the curb. They have both absorbed the profoundly negative energy surrounding this place, determined to uncover some piece of revelatory evidence in the alley next to the bar. Wren’s second bachelor’s degree in criminology make her an asset to these kinds of cases, both inside and outside of the autopsy suite.

Wren thinks about how frequently traveled this area is. It is hard to imagine how the killer pulled it off without being seen. It’s an alley used by hundreds of people a night. It is both a quick shortcut to the streets behind the bar and a place to hide drug deals away from the bustle of the main road. But then again, no stumbling barfly with half a gallon of bourbon in their belly is going to truly take notice of their surroundings, especially when fighting their way through an alley en route to a bed. Perhaps the killer saw how simple this dump could be if he played it cool, and he did just that. Wren wants to understand the mind of mayhem. But she can see that Leroux doesn’t necessarily want to understand anymore. He just wants a name.

The ground where the victim had once lain is still stained like old coffee straight from the pot. It looks as if the earth below is trying to push answers to the surface. It isn’t often that Wren herself feels so helpless yet so captivated by a crime scene.

“He chose such hotel-art humans,” Leroux says this without looking up.

Wren raises an eyebrow, wanting to ask him what he means. Before she can, he continues.

“Forgettable, but not invisible. Fine, but not amazing or impressive,” he clarifies.

He is right. These victims were not particularly notable. They weren’t highly respected members of the community, but they also weren’t totally relegated to the margins of society either. No, he wasn’t taking the lives of drifters or sex workers, as serial murderers of the past may have. He knows that play is almost always met with a social justice response. By the same virtue, choosing high-profile humans would fix the spotlight on him from the first drip of swamp water. So, he brilliantly chooses people who are neither princes nor paupers.

Wren pulls her hair into a bun on top of her head, twisting a hair tie tightly and smoothing out the hairs that spring free.

“They are like trees falling in the forest. They fall. Some people will genuinely care, but most will just want to collect the free firewood and move on.” Leroux looks up at her. He takes a moment, pacing a little bit across the curb. He crouches down, staring at the stain on the ground before standing again.

“That would make him pretty intelligent. Malice aforethought on a whole other level,” Wren responds.

Leroux nods. “Exactly. And I think it only gets worse from here.”

Wren silently agrees. It’s clear to them both that the killer’s actions thus far are no accident. The scene in front of them is the product of careful research, planning, and complex abstract thought.

As they turn to leave, empty-handed and enveloped in the heaviness of the crime scene, something catches Leroux’s eye. It’s wedged between a deep crack in the curb, where the sidewalk meets the street. He crouches down and pulls a handkerchief from his back pocket. Using it as a makeshift glove, he carefully picks a bright white business card from its place in the cement. As he lifts it to look at the front, Wren notices his face go pale. The business card is from the front desk of the medical examiner’s office. Under the official seal is Wren’s full name and title. Her professional contact information is across the bottom.

Wren takes a step forward, reaching a gloved hand out to hold the card herself. Leroux hands it over, a look of confusion painted across his face. She smooths her fingers over the raised OFFICE OF THE MEDICAL EXAMINER seal in the right corner. This is an old card design—Wren had painstakingly redesigned them herself about six months ago—but it’s definitely hers. This card is clean, so clean that it was likely placed here recently, and intentionally. Whoever left it here did so after the victim’s body was removed, and the crime scene tape was hauled away. It wasn’t there when they initially arrived at the scene. They’d have noticed. Someone did this to send a message.

Wren shakes her head. “I don’t like this, John. I mean it. This makes me want to run for the hills.”

“Trust me, Muller, you don’t have to dive off the grid just yet. We will make sure you get a security detail since it’s your name is on here, but, honestly, it may just be that he thinks it’s clever to show us he knows how our investigations work,” he reassures her, taking out an evidence bag from his pocket. He removes the card from her fingers. “And it’s pretty clear he likes to scare people, specifically women.”

“Ugh, John. Catch this guy so I can stop feeling so paranoid, please.”

Leroux smooths out his pants and grips Wren’s upper arm.

“I promise I will,” he says confidently.

“I think I actually believe you.”

“I’m flattered.” He winks and brushes past her toward the waiting car. “Let’s get this back into evidence and get away from this shit.”

She nods, squeezing her eyes shut and sucking in a deep breath, just to let it out slowly before turning around to face him. “Right behind you.”