people will be in the morgue, right? Or do you have the power to close the morgue?”
“The autopsy has been completed. Right before I called you.”
“Did the autopsy help identify her?”
Axel shook his head. “No. Another clerk at the dress shop remembered who’d tried on the dress last. She helped with a description for our sketch artist. It showed on the news last night at eleven. The woman’s name was Jennifer Lowry. She frequently worked up in Orlando and that’s why there weren’t any missing-persons reports that could help identify her.”
“Oh!”
She fell silent, staring out the front window.
“Are you all right?”
“How did you explain how you came to find the dress shop?”
“I report to Jackson Crow. I didn’t have to explain anything to anyone. Nigel Ferrer is the lead detective on the case locally. When someone questions me on that, I say I received an anonymous tip.”
“But the cops know I called in the body. They brought me in for questioning.”
“We’ll work through that when the time comes. Sometimes, when you get started in the right direction, events and evidence along the way provide what you need.”
She shook her head. “I still don’t see how you manage all this. When the police were questioning me, I was getting a little crazed, but I really couldn’t blame them.”
“We’ll just see how it all goes, hmm?”
Raina nodded.
“You can back out at any time.”
“I don’t back out when I’ve committed,” she said quietly.
“That’s admirable, but you can.”
They arrived at the morgue near Jackson Memorial Hospital, and he quickly found parking. He’d arranged to bring Raina before he’d picked her up. It wasn’t a place where visitors were expected or wanted. There were thirteen medical examiners and dozens of various forensic technicians and experts working at the morgue where nearly three thousand people a year were met with an autopsy to determine the causes of their deaths. Pictures were usually shown to loved ones.
There was an information desk complete with a panic button. A grieving family member had once leaped the desk and threatened a worker, so now they took precautions.
Grief could prompt all manner of unlikely behavior.
There were thirteen stations for the medical examiners and their crews. Room for the dead was finite. Miami-Dade was a big county.
Axel signed them in and, before he had completed his name, Dr. Warner arrived to greet them. He offered his hand and a warm smile as Axel introduced Raina; she seemed to feel better meeting him.
She glanced at Axel as if wondering if the medical examiner also saw the dead as they appeared in their spectral form.
He said simply, “Dr. Warner has sadly become accustomed to many a bizarre and sad circumstance. Shall we?”
They moved through the morgue. Raina looked straight ahead as they walked and focused on reaching the gurney where the body of Jennifer Lowry waited.
The autopsy had been completed just thirty minutes or so before they arrived. The Y incision had been sewn and a sheet had been drawn up respectfully to her shoulders.
She might have been asleep. Her body had been bathed at the morgue; all signs of her blood were gone. Most of the damage done to her remains on the embankment in the Everglades had been covered up.
Even along the line of her throat, the necklace of blood was down to just a line. Her lids now covered empty eye sockets.
All this, and yet Axel knew when she was touched her body would be cold. Ice cold. And even a brief touch would prove to the living she was gone. The body that remained had lost all essence and vitality—all that might be termed a soul.
Axel watched Raina as she gave her attention to the body on the gurney. Her eyes showed tremendous sadness, but not the fear or trepidation he had expected.
She glanced at him and he nodded slightly.
She set her hand lightly on the young woman’s shoulder. He watched her intently.
Dr. Warner did the same.
When she touched the cold body, she did not recoil. She stood there silent and still for a long moment.
Then at last, she let her fingers fall from the dead woman’s shoulders and she turned to him and Dr. Warner.
“Dr. Warner, thank you,” she said. “Axel, I think we can go.”
Warner nodded. “I believe she has friends making arrangements for her now,” he said. “Sadly, no family. But good friends. All we take with us, really, is the love of those we leave behind.”
Axel thanked him, as well, and quickly led Raina out. She