the wide hall. “This place has got to have eyes everywhere.”
“One less set than before,” Ransom pointed out.
Reed ignored him. Gallows humor. A necessity of the job that few understood unless they’d been there and done it. Sometimes it kept them sane in the face of evil—but he wasn’t going to extend it with a dead man lying at his feet. A man who could have a spouse and children unaware that their loved one had been murdered and mutilated. He was sure there was someone whose life was going to be shattered at some point today. And he was probably going to be the one to do it. He walked down the hall, getting a closer look at the camera. It appeared to be pointed in the direction of the dead body, but more toward the door to the left with the exit sign above it than the corner where the victim was located. They’d need to take possession of the footage and talk to staff to determine which cameras would have likely caught something they could use to identify the person who did this.
“Do you know anything about the two doctors who found him?” he called to Lewis and Seidler.
Lewis was bent over the body, putting something in a paper evidence bag. Seidler looked over her shoulder. “No. McDugal and Mallory were first on scene. We arrived after the docs were gone.”
Reed nodded, heading around the corner, Ransom on his heels. McDugal was sitting in a plastic chair near the door that led to the lobby. He stood when they approached. “The coroner transport is held up in downtown rush-hour traffic,” he said. He still seemed nervous, spooked. Reed understood why now that he’d seen the body. It was a hell of a first DOA experience.
“The criminalists will be a while anyway,” Reed said. And there’s no rush for the victim. “Where are the doctors who discovered him?”
He motioned toward the double doors leading to the lobby. “Actually, only one doctor found him. But there was another one with her when we arrived.” He reached into his pocket and unfolded a small piece of paper with jittery-looking writing on it. “Dr. Elizabeth Nolan, and Dr. Chad Headley. It was Dr. Nolan who discovered him. Dr. Headley heard her scream. She was pretty shaken up. Mallory took them to the staff lounge. They’re waiting there.”
“Okay, good.”
The elevator doors opened outside the door and Reed saw through the glass that a few more criminalists had arrived, along with another officer. He and Ransom waited to be buzzed through from the other side and then greeted them before asking the two employees at the reception desk for directions to the staff lounge.
“I’ll walk you there, Detectives,” the security guard said, standing. “You’ll need someone with a key card to let you through.”
They followed the guard down a series of halls, him buzzing them through two doors. “Is this a patient floor?” Ransom asked as they both glanced into a door with a glass window that appeared to be an office.
“No, mostly offices on this floor. A few group therapy rooms for the low-level patients.”
“So, no Hannibal?”
The man shot him a wry smile. “We don’t house Mr. Lecter here. But if we did, he’d be on the fifth floor. This is the staff lounge.” He indicated a door, pushing it open and holding it for them.
Reed walked through first. A man and a woman were sitting at the round table in the center of the room, the woman’s hands curled around a white mug, the man’s hand on her shoulder. She looked up and everything inside Reed came to a sudden, jarring halt.
CHAPTER FOUR
Dr. Elizabeth Nolan—Liza. Her gaze hit him like a million tiny bombs detonating in his cells. Their eyes locked. Time slowed. Ancient plates far beneath the earth shifted, and Reed felt the echo of the aftershocks thrumming through his body.
“Drs. Nolan and Headley, these are detectives with the Cincinnati Police,” the guard said.
Liza stared back, her expression a mixture of shock and confusion. Blue eyes wide. Pretty mouth slack. Color blooming in her cheeks the way it had when she’d come beneath him two weeks before.
The cop—Mallory—sitting in a chair near the door stood. “Detectives.”
Ransom greeted him. “Thanks for staying. We got it from here.” He turned to the guard at the door. “Will you escort Officer Mallory back to his partner?”
“Sure thing.”
The other doctor, a bookish-looking man in his thirties, wearing glasses and a severe side part stood,