Chapter 3

The fifth victim was brought in on a dreary, rainy day. Raindrops pounded against the morgue's glass windows, filling the room with a dull, nerve-wracking noise. The damp air mixed with the sharp scent of blood, making my stomach twist in disgust.

Eliot Maxim, captain of the city's criminal investigation unit, stepped in. He was a veteran cop, pushing fifty, with deep-set, bloodshot eyes. He took off his rain-soaked cap and let out a weary sigh.

"Ms. Dawson, sorry to bother you again," Eliot rasped. "This is the fifth one. The killer's slippery, barely left us anything at the scene. So, please... take another careful look."

I nodded and pulled open the zipper on the body bag.

The victim was young, barely in her early twenties. Her pretty face had turned an unnatural shade of purple from suffocation, pupils blown wide, lips parted, like the terror of her last moments was frozen right there.

According to her file, she was a dancer with long legs and graceful curves. But now, all that beauty was ruined by the vicious ligature marks around her neck.

I pulled on sterile gloves, fighting the urge to gag, and got to work. This was my job, and rule number one was to keep my feelings out of it.

I noticed her nails. Her hands were clenched tightly, as if she had grabbed onto something right before her death. Several nails were broken, exposing the bright red nail beds beneath. This meant she had put up an extremely violent struggle.

I picked up my tools and prepared to carefully clean under her nails with tweezers and cotton swabs, just as I always did. Any tiny traces the killer might have left behind, skin flakes, fibers, could be the key to solving the case.

Just then, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

I paused, set down the tweezers, and pulled out my phone. It was a text from Cameron. In this cold, lifeless morgue, those words felt like a ray of sunshine to me.

[Babe, you got this today. You're the best "Terminator" ever.]

A rush of warmth filled me, melting away the morgue's chill. I could almost see Cameron in his studio, colorful paint all over him, smiling as he texted me. I took a deep breath, held onto that feeling, and grabbed the tweezers again.

I bent down and, under the harsh glow of the surgical lamp, gently pried open the girl's curled fingers one by one. Every movement had to be extremely delicate to avoid damaging any potential evidence.

I gently slipped the tweezers under the broken nail on her index finger and carefully cleaned out the grime beneath.

There were cotton fibers, skin flakes, and a bit of dirt.

All of this was perfectly ordinary. I probed further inward with my tweezers, then a faint, hard resistance registered at my fingertips.

Before the warmth from Cameron's text had even faded, the tip of my tweezers caught onto something.

It was tiny, like a grain of sand. Under the harsh light, it gleamed with a deep, almost black shade of purple.

It wasn't dirt, and it wasn't sand either.

I placed it on a piece of white gauze and leaned close to examine it with a magnifying glass. It was a tiny wood splinter, its edges bearing clear marks left by a sharp cutting tool. More importantly, its smooth surface held a fine, unique carved pattern.

It looked like an ornate, floral vine motif.

My blood ran cold in that instant. The nausea I'd just managed to suppress came crashing back, tenfold. My throat dried up, my heart felt trapped in an invisible grip, and I could barely breathe.