“So what’s the story?”
“He collapsed in his office on the Hill about two hours ago. They said he was having trouble breathing. He was dead on the scene but they transported him anyway. Called it at GW half an hour ago.”
“And I’m racing with you where, why?”
“Morgue. Nocek wants you to help post him.”
“Why me?”
He glanced at her again. “I may have asked if he’d be cool with having you come in.”
“I’m flattered. Again, why me?”
“Because something isn’t right with the congressman’s death. I want to move fast, and I trust you to take an unbiased look. That’s all I’m going to say.”
“Cloak-and-dagger doesn’t suit you, Fletch.”
“Just trust me, okay?”
“Was he on the Metro this morning?”
“Undetermined.”
“God, you sound just like Xander when he doesn’t want to give up information. One word grunts. Come on, Fletch. I can’t do my job if you don’t give me the facts.”
He sighed. “They’re still running air-quality tests in the Metro. Nothing is registering. It’s not ricin, sarin or anthrax. It made over two hundred people really sick, but only two are confirmed dead. They were on the Metro early this morning, so the thinking is they were exposed directly, soon after the toxin was released. More could die—there are a few in medically induced comas and a couple in critical. We need to find out what the cause was, and fast, so the injured can get proper treatment.”
“Shouldn’t I be posting the two who died then?”
“Nocek is on it. He and his team finished the two from earlier and have run all the samples to the labs. But Leighton is different.”
“Different how?”
“Just...trust me.”
They were screaming up Constitution now, heading toward the Capitol. Even in a disaster, the view was stunning. The lights of the city shone brightly on the eerily empty sidewalks. The corners were manned by police in full armor, weapons at the ready. No one was on the streets, an unnerving sight. She’d never been able to travel so quickly through the city before—Fletcher had his mounted light going, was blowing through the stoplights like they didn’t exist. Sam was getting the sense that something much, much bigger was going on than just the death of a congressman.
*
The morgue was as depressingly bland and old as it had been the last time she’d been forced to visit—to do a secondary autopsy on her former boyfriend, Edward Donovan. Donovan’s murder had led her directly to Xander, who had been, at the moment she met him, the police’s prime suspect. Things worked out for the best, but she hadn’t held a scalpel over dead flesh for three months.
Would she be rusty? Would she be compelled to wash? Would the stillness overwhelm her and make her run away?
She didn’t like not knowing how she was going to react. It made her anxious. And her anxiety triggered all kinds of demoralizing, embarrassing tics.
She hadn’t been like this before the flood. She had never considered herself a strong woman, that was Taylor’s job. But Sam was steady. Reliable. Rational. She saw herself as a skilled forensic pathologist, nothing less, nothing more. She wasn’t a people person to start with, had few friends she truly trusted, but now she got to add in a dead husband and a lost family. She’d been systematically pushing people away for two years, and at the moment, their invisible absence stung.
Jesus, Sam. Way to go, feeling sorry for yourself in the middle of someone else’s crisis.
She shook her head slightly to dispel the melancholy, and followed Fletcher into the morgue.
A small, young woman with lively green eyes was waiting for them.
“Detective Fletcher? Dr. Owens? I’m Leslie Murphy, death investigator. Dr. Nocek is waiting for you. The press hasn’t arrived yet, but it’s only a matter of time.”
Sam turned to Fletcher in surprise. “You’ve managed to keep this quiet?”
He gave her a smug grimace. “I told you it was classified.”
Sam shook Leslie’s hand. “Let’s get me suited up then.”
“Right away, ma’am. Follow me.”
“Please don’t call me ma’am. Sam is fine.”
The girl looked back over her shoulder. “I’m Murphy then. My mom’s the only one who calls me Leslie.”
“Gotcha,” Sam said.
The doors opened into the antechamber that led to the autopsy suite, and Sam was pleased by her reaction. She felt relaxed, comfortable. The tension bled from her shoulders.
Home. You’re home.
Moments later, gloved and prepped, she entered the nave of her own personal church.
The smells were right. The air, cold and dead, whispering from the vents. The warm musk of blood, the slight meaty scent of open bodies. Metallic notes from the stainless tables and scales, overlaid with the squeaky markers used on the whiteboards. Thin scents of bleach and formalin, worn linoleum, and sweat.