Drained (Edgars Family #6) - Suzanne Ferrell Page 0,21

landing he set the terrier on the ground to see which way he wanted to go. Stanley pulled on the leash to head through the second-floor door and not further up the stairs.

“Apparently, we’re going in here.”

With Brianna just off his left shoulder, Aaron gave Stanley his lead and they entered the large, open room. Given the vastness of it, he’d guess it had originally been some sort of factory back in the early to mid-twentieth century—long stripped of any manufacturing equipment or furniture, the windows broken or missing, and gang graffiti tags marking the brick walls in various spots.

Brianna flashed the light ahead of them illuminating a room at the far end of the floor with two large glass windows looking out into the room from two directions. “What do you think that room was?”

“The manager or supervisor’s office?” he said, following Stanley in that direction. “Whatever it was, that’s where the little guy wants us to go.”

As they approached, Stanley started to slow down, growling low and menacing, zigzagging his path as if something was wrong. Aaron followed the anxious pup inside the small room. The dog started barking and trying to break free of the leash. Brianna scanned the light across the floor and stopping at the body seated up against the far wall.

Shit. Art.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, the light shifting as she put both hands to her mouth.

Aaron turned to find Brianna almost as pale as Art’s dead body. Last thing either of them wanted right now was her fainting in this place. “Here, take Stanley,” he said thrusting the dog into her arms then pulling out his own phone and hitting the flashlight app. “You two go out into the other room and I’ll go check on him.”

As he moved closer, he shone the light around Art. Rodents who’d been nibbling on various spots of the corpse, paused as if frozen on film.

“Stanley!” Brianna yelled just as the dog suddenly dashed past Aaron, scattering the rats away from his master’s lifeless body.

“Did you check his pulse?” she asked right beside him.

So much for her being scared, ready to faint or leaving the room.

“Don’t need to. He’s not breathing and as pale as a statue.”

Slowly, he scanned his flashlight from Art’s face down to his toes then back up again. The strange pallor of Art’s skin. The way he seemed to be just sitting at rest. His clothes. He’d been dressed in an Army dress uniform, pressed to perfection.

The whole scene was off.

“Do all dead bodies smell like…” Brianna asked leaning in closer. “Disinfectant?”

And that’s what was bothering him. Art didn’t just sit down and die here. He’d been outfitted.

Cleaned.

Posed.

Staged like a scene from a play or film.

“Step back very carefully and don’t touch anything,” he said, taking her by the arm, then pulling on Stanley’s chain to move him from the spot.

“Why?” Brianna asked, but for once doing exactly as he’d instructed.

“Because we’re standing in a crime scene,” he said, handing her the handle of the dog leash as he pushed buttons on his phone. “Keep the flashlight on him. I don’t want the rats scurrying a back in.” He paused as the phone was answered. “Hey Jaylon, I’m gonna need the M.E. and the crime scene people at the abandoned building on Carnegie between Fifty-fifth and Sixty-first. Second floor. I’ll tell you more when you get here.”

“You think someone murdered Art, don’t you?” Brianna asked, squatting down to stroke Stanley in a soothing manner, her flashlight still shining in Art’s direction.

“I do.”

“Why?”

“First there’s the position of his body,” Aaron said, shining his light to match hers. “No one dies sitting that straight. They slump forward or to the side.”

“So, someone positioned him like that for us to find him?”

“Possibly. Then there’s the disinfectant smell.”

“Dead bodies don’t smell like that.”

It was a statement, not a question. In her past, he knew men liked to think of her as dimwitted, an image she’d gone out of her way to reinforce, but from the minute he’d pulled her battered body from that mansion where the slave auction took place he hadn’t mistaken her for anything other than courageous, and smart, quite possibly a genius. More importantly, she was a critical thinker and that was something he appreciated. Especially now.

“No, they are usually much more…earthy. And then there’s the uniform.” He moved his light to slowly highlight Art from his toes up to his face.

“It’s clean and pressed to military perfection.” Brianna mirrored his own earlier assessment. “Someone