Not What it Seems by Nicky James

Five

CYRUS

I couldn’t escape the facility fast enough. When I slid the key card across the administration desk, Andy wasn’t prepared to catch it. The card clattered to the floor as I darted away without apology. Andy cursed and grunted, then I was too far away to hear any more. I didn’t stop to speak with the director or touch base with Dr. Kline about River. I bolted out of New Horizon like my ass was on fire.

River’s searing touch still burned through my shirt, setting my skin aflame and scrambling my brain. The soft caress of his thumb on my inner elbow tingled with residual heat. His words echoed like a mantra, bouncing around on the inside of my skull.

“The sex was hot. You were a firecracker between the sheets. If it means anything, I’m sorry I hurt you.”

In my car, I took a minute to calm down.

What the hell had that been about?

The patient realizes he’s losing ground and sees an opportunity to seduce his doctor? Did he mean what he’d said, or was it all bullshit lies?

I scrubbed my face, tearing fingers through my hair as I growled. “This is all my fault. I should have walked out the second I saw it was him. I’m such an idiot.”

If I had exhibited even an ounce of self-control, this wouldn’t have happened. River knew how I felt toward him. He knew he’d hurt me. Now he was trying to control me using the one and only weapon at his disposal. I couldn’t let him gain the upper hand.

I closed my eyes, still feeling the ghosting impression of his hot breath against my earlobe. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

What the hell was wrong with me?

Was I that weak-willed? Was I that starved for affection that I was ready to crumble at the first hint of attention? And from a man who’d fucked and forgotten about me two months ago? A man who was now my patient and who’d been charged with three counts of murder?

Go on. Analyze that, hotshot. Pick it all apart. You know you want to.

I started the car and drove toward my hotel, white-knuckling the steering wheel the whole way, my head spinning over our conversation. At a red light, an explosion of laughter caught me unaware when I remembered River’s assumption that I’d simply break him out of a secured psychiatric hospital like it was no big deal. Like it didn’t go against every moral and ethical code I’d sworn to uphold.

And goddamn the momentary fantasy that had gripped me after I’d let that suggestion sink in. I could almost envision us on the run, seeking refuge in shoddy motels across the country as we spent every night wrapped in passion, fucking each other raw, and every day fleeing the police.

“Wow. Pathetic. You’re so goddamn pathetic. Stupid and pathetic. That’s what you are. Stupid and pathetic. He’s a con, not the future love of your life and father of your children. You met him in a bar for fuck’s sake. Get a grip.”

How lonely and desperate did I have to be to entertain such ridiculous, wholly unrealistic fantasies?

The answer: extremely.

As I drove, I drifted, feeling his touch, his hands on my naked flesh, fingers holding tight as he sank into my willing body. His breath fanned the back of my neck. Then it was his eyes. The iridescent glimmer and mischievous smirk he’d worn as I’d tried and failed at playing video games. I heard the thud of his heart under my ear as we’d lain watching movies. Smelled the bacon sizzling in the frying pan as he’d made us breakfast one morning, announcing he never cooked for company, so I’d better be impressed.

I had been, stupidly so.

Rattling those thoughts away, I growled and gunned the engine, sending the car lurching forward, tires squealing when I took a turn too sharp.

At the hotel, I gathered my files and notes off the front seat and stormed to my room, taking the stairs since I needed to expel energy. Locked inside, I paced, ripping my tie over my head and chucking it on the bed. Still strangled, I undid several buttons of my shirt, giving myself room to breathe. My insides were an inferno, pouring so much heat into my bloodstream I was cooking from the inside out. Sweat dampened my temples and the middle of my back.

I cranked the air conditioner and stood in front of it for a long time, letting it lick a cool path over my overheated flesh.

When I managed to steady my racing pulse, I sat on the edge of the bed and considered my next move.

Was there irrefutable evidence that suggested this patient was mentally ill?

I furrowed my brow. Deep inside, the nondoctor part of me, the one that didn’t require irrefutable evidence, told me River was not mentally ill. He was cunning, sly, confrontational, and perhaps slightly manipulative, but he wasn’t schizophrenic. I’d bet my license on it.

Was he a sociopath?

That was more likely, but again, my gut said no.

Which left me exactly where I didn’t want to be—with a man who had potentially been framed for murder and who’d jumped on the bandwagon when first impressions leaned toward a diagnosis. Why not take that route? It would be a cushier deal than prison. The suspicions were there, so why not play the game?

“Now what?”

Snagging my laptop, I kicked off my shoes and sat cross-legged on the bed. I signed into the hotel’s Wi-Fi and searched for the three murdered women from the London area who had been found in one of the Destination Hotels located in Masonville.

I opened the first article and read it. Before long, I snagged my notepad and jotted down important information as I came across it.

Twenty-one-year-old Janet Welsh.

Nineteen-year-old Penny Gearhart.

Twenty-three-year-old Stephanie Lockwood.

All blonde. All young. All relatively petite based on the pictures in the article.

All three women had secured dates with River using an app called Secret Admirer. Like I’d read in the police report, it was similar to a hookup app but with a vastly different purpose. The people using this app were exchanging sex for money, although the surface details of the app claimed differently, making it sound like an escort service. It seemed to be a widely known fact that this was commonly used as a higher-end, online form of prostitution. In the article, the police warned young men and women about the dangers of such arrangements.

I tapped my pencil on the pad of paper and scowled at the computer screen.

If River was gay, why would he seek women?

The police report claimed they were unable to determine if sexual assault was a factor. I supposed if River had a beef with women—due to unresolved mother issues, my brain supplied—it would make sense for him to use the app to lure women to a discreet location. Was he bisexual, or was this something else? Why not use a regular dating app? Why use one specifically tailored to a clandestine form of prostitution?

I wrote, Mother emotionally unavailable. Resentment? Toxic environment in foster care?

I dropped my pencil and leafed through the brown folder until I located the police report. Skimming, I found the section that talked about the method used to kill. All three women had been drowned in a tub of bleach.

Bleach.

Why bleach?

Because the killer thought they were dirty?

I jotted that down. River had claimed his mother was a prostitute. I studied the computer screen. Okay, so Secret Admirer made sense. Were these women any different? Not really. They’d been more discreet, but in essence, they were having sex with men for money. Was drowning them in bleach the killer’s way of cleansing them?

I opened a new window and searched for Camilla Jenkins. A few social media hits led me to dead ends, but otherwise, nothing immediately came up about River’s mother. I hadn’t expected anything.

I leaned back against the headboard with a heavy sigh.

“I’m not a detective. This isn’t my job.”

I stared at what I’d written and put myself back in doctor mode.

Could the patient be a sociopath? Was I dismissing the idea too fast because of an attraction and history? From a psychological standpoint, it made sense. Unstable living environment all his life. Feelings of abandonment. Possible suppressed anger at his mother’s choice of profession—if you could call prostitution a profession.

The fact was, River fit the profile.

Was the killer still out on the street, or was he playing games with my head from inside an institution?

“It’s like Lay’s potato chips. ‘Bet you can’t eat just one’ or whatever their motto is. Same shit. Don’t you ever watch crime shows? They’re compelled to kill. They might stop for a time, but they won’t be able to help it. Don’t you know anything about these kinds of people?”

If the killer was at large, then had they stopped? Was River right? Would the compulsion make it impossible? Were there other dead prostitutes out there that hadn’t been discovered who were somehow tied to these three women at the hotel?

Something tickled in the back of my brain. Something else River had said. I frowned, trying to draw up our conversation and find the missing thread.

The thought lingered just out of reach. I could taste it on the tip of my tongue. We’d been talking about his mother. He hadn’t sounded like he resented her. Perhaps as a teenager, but what teenager didn’t resent their parents to some degree?

I jolted upright. “Homeless people die all the time, and no one cares.”

Homeless people.

“Shit.”

The minute River’s words sank in, I jumped off the bed and scrambled to find my shoes and keys. I took the stairs again and raced to the main floor, bursting out the front doors in a run toward my car. I’d tossed it onto the backseat without a second thought that morning. I’d skimmed it absentmindedly while enjoying my coffee and a breakfast sandwich.

It was where I’d left it. The London Free Press I’d found on a vacant table at the coffee shop. Locking my car again, I unfolded the newspaper as I returned to my room, scanning through the random articles I’d read that morning, looking for one in particular. I’d read it and dismissed it. London wasn’t my hometown anymore, so I’d only half paid attention to the local news. My mind had been elsewhere, on River and what the day would bring.

I found what I was looking for as I reached the door to my room. I keyed inside, launched my shoes toward the corner, and flopped onto the bed as I read the article with a sharper mind. It was short, and there weren’t a whole lot of details, but something told me it was important.

* * *

It was a half-hour drive to London. I’d made a few calls on the way, locating the morgue holding the two Jane Does who had been recovered off the street in the last two weeks in the area of Masonville. According to the woman at reception, the medical examiner, Dr. Cole Brady, was on-site until four o’clock.

I’d arranged to meet with him while avoiding giving the woman on the phone a reason but claiming it was important. I didn’t know what I was doing. Looking for proof that River was right? Searching like an idiot for any indication he was innocent?

The morgue in question was located in the Masonville area. My GPS took me in the right direction until I ended up at a one-story, brown brick building with small, tinted windows along the front. It was an unremarkable, unobtrusive structure that seemed to make every effort to go unnoticed. It looked like a government building. Only the decal on the front door gave a person any indication of where they were. Small blocky letters indicated I’d arrived at the Western Region Coroner’s Office. Dr. Cole Brady and Dr. Mikella Reed were listed under the title.

I let myself in, scanning. Brilliant, white tiled flooring, white walls, and dark wood trim touched every surface. It was clean and clinical. Nothing about it shouted, This is where you can end up when you die. It could have been any old office building. A touch of floor polish tickled my nose. The reception area was uninviting, nothing more than a high counter that hid a small work area where a lone person usually took care of the few strangers who might walk through the doors. The desk was vacant.

There were a few tropical potted plants scattered about, watercolor art in dark frames on the walls, and soft classical music playing from overhead speakers. A failed attempt at lifting the mood, perhaps? Despite the bland atmosphere, something heavy and oppressive lingered in the air. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

I approached the desk, glancing down the few hallways that veered in both directions. No one was around. Apart from the soft music, it was quiet. There was a domed bell sitting next to two cardholders with business cards for both doctors. I tapped my finger on the top a few times, the sharp ring slashing through the tranquility.

“Hello?” I called. “Anyone here?”

The fast click of heels moving down a hall on my left alerted me to someone’s arrival.

“I’m so sorry,” a short, stout woman said as she raced behind the desk. She wore her hair in a severe bob that framed a round face. It was more silver than brown. Her makeup tried to hide her age but failed. She was past fifty but determined to hold onto forty for as long as she could. Several necklaces hung around her neck, and they jangled and clinked together as she shuffled to sit. “I spend all day alone up here. The second I walk away from the desk, someone comes in the door. Never fails.” Her smile was kind if tired. “How can I help you?”

“I called a short while ago and arranged to meet with Dr. Brady.” I plucked his card from one of the holders, waving it in the air before tucking it in the front pocket of my shirt.

“Ah, yes. Give me one second.” She snagged the phone from its cradle, punched a few buttons, and waited. After a moment, she said, “Hey, Cole. The man who called is here. Can I send him in?”

She hung up and waved to the hallway from where she’d emerged a moment ago. “He’ll see you. His office is down at the end of that hall. Turn right, and it’s the first door on your left. You can’t miss it.”

“Thank you.”

Dr. Cole Brady’s door sat open, and he waved me in the minute he saw me. He was an older man with sagging jowls, a round belly, and a ring of gray hair circling a shiny, balding head. His eyes were small and dark, sitting above a bulbous nose, and he breathed through his mouth like I’d caught him after he’d just finished a 5k run. By the look of him, I doubted he’d set foot on a treadmill in decades, if ever.

During my drive, I’d contemplated my approach. For a fraction of a second, I’d considered lying, telling Dr. Cole Brady I wanted to view the unclaimed bodies because I had a sister who’d gone missing. But I was not a man made for deception. Not only did the idea of dishonesty fester in my gut, but I doubted I could pull it off. My guilt would shine on my face like a neon sign.

“Good afternoon, Doctor.” I held out a hand to shake. Brady didn’t bother standing, but he reached across the desk and slapped his sweaty, meaty palm in mine. “I’m Cyrus.” That was enough information for now.

“How can I help you?” He waved at a chair off to the side of the room. “Pull up a seat.”

I accepted the offer, dragging the chair closer to the desk and sitting on its edge, smoothing a palm down the front of my tie. Smartly dressed people earned more respect. I hoped to gain Dr. Brady’s trust and find out a thing or two without breaking too many rules.

“I understand two young women were brought in recently who no one has been able to identify. Found on the street? Is that correct?”

Brady’s tiny eyes grew smaller as they narrowed. “It is. Homeless gals. Happens all the time, unfortunately. Not as much in the summer months, but it’s hell when we get a bad winter.” He huffed and puffed and had to pause before continuing. “Why? Are you hoping to identify one? I’ll be honest, it would be nice.”

“I wish I could. Actually, I have a few questions regarding how they died.”

Brady shook his head, his sagging cheeks jiggling with the action. “Won’t be much help to you in that case. Doubtful it’s the elements. Best guess is overdose. Too many homeless addicts out there. It’s a shame. These two were young, real young, but there was clear evidence they were using. Unfortunately, I can’t conclusively say, but that’s my best guess.”

“Why is that?”

Brady sucked his teeth and adjusted his mass in his desk chair, leaning hard enough against the arm it creaked under his weight. “Who’d you say you worked for again?” He scanned me up and down.

“I didn’t. Let’s just call me a curious party.”

“You a detective?”

I didn’t respond and held Brady’s beady eyes.

I didn’t figure he would care too much about two Jane Does. From what I’d learned in a quick search and from River, if the bodies went unclaimed for too long, the city buried them in a communal grave.

Brady shrugged when I refused to elaborate. “No autopsy, no answers. Simple as that. I can speculate, but that’s all.”

“No autopsy? Isn’t that standard?”

Another loud suck on his teeth, and Brady shook his head. “Not always. Not when there isn’t a reason. The city won’t pay unless they suspect foul play. If we did autopsies on every homeless person they pulled dead off the street, we’d drain the city bank in half a year. With these two, the police tagged their deaths as drug related. I don’t argue. I store their bodies in my fridge until I need the space. If no one claims them, they get shipped off to Hewitt Memorial. The city has a plot they use for situations like this.”

“Makes sense.” I shifted, studying Dr. Brady and hoping the man clung to his nonchalant view of the unnamed bodies taking up space in his fridge. I also hoped he didn’t adhere to his moral code as stringently as I usually did. If he didn’t care, he might be more willing to go along with a simple request. “May I see them?”

The teeth sucking stopped. The only sound in the room was his heavy mouth-breathing. His wide chest rose and fell as he frowned and glared.

“Why would you want to do that?”

“I’m curious about something?”

More prolonged mouth breathing. “You a reporter?”

“No.”

“Detective?”

“No, sir.”

“Then why?”

“I’m curious about something that might have been missed. I’m a doctor.” Not a lie. “I have a personal interest in what happened.” Also true. “I understand your reticence, but—”

“Then you understand I have regulations to follow. Even people without a name have rights, you know.”

Hope drained from my body, and I sagged, ducking my chin, nodding. “I understand.”

A pause. “Unless… you think you might be family. Then I could let you have a look. Might identify someone, right?”

Our eyes clashed, and Brady shrugged. His chest continued to heave.

Like I’d suspected, he didn’t care—at least not enough to ask too many questions. He just needed a good enough reason to cover his ass.

“You never know.”

He sniffed a phlegmy snort and dragged himself upright, the small movement making him practically wheeze. “Come on then. I want to get home sometime today.”

Dr. Brady lumbered out of the room, his legs bowing under his weight as he shuffled down the hall at a slow pace. His feet barely left the floor. It was more of a waddle.

“Mikella, she’s the other pathologist in the building. Young thing. She’s on maternity leave. Had a baby a few months ago. They didn’t give me a temp, so I’ve been holding down the fort myself.” His words came out broken and panting as he ambled ahead of me. Twice he wiped his sleeve across his forehead where he poured sweat. “Can’t wait until she’s back, let me tell you. Too much work for one person.”

I didn’t respond.

We entered a different section of the building, and Brady approached a double set of steel doors. Inside was another hallway that stretched in both directions. He waved a hand, going left. “This way. They’re all alone in the back quadrant. Didn’t think I’d have to traipse my ass back and forth too much, so I keep the Jane and John Does out of the way.”

We found the right room, and Brady let me in. It was chilly, and goose bumps prickled along my arms under my shirt. There were a few steel tables, metal shelving attached to the wall holding sterile equipment, large basins and hoses, scales hanging near the exam table, and bright overhead lights. The room was sterile, but a faint odor lingered in the air. I couldn’t identify it, but my brain immediately associated it with death and corpses, whether that was a correct assumption or not. A chemical odor battled for dominance, but it was the stench underneath that turned my belly upside down.

The floor was smooth with drains set at intervals, and I grew queasy at the thought of what happened in a place like this.

This was Cole Brady’s everyday work, so he remained aloof and unaffected by the room. He shuffled to a pair of steel doors and opened one. It was a walk-in refrigerator. Chatting the whole time, he disappeared inside and dragged out a gurney, one of the Jane Does on top, covered in an opaque plastic sheet.

I held a steel grip on my nerves and buried my apprehension as he dragged the body to the middle of the room and under a light that was attached to a swinging arm so it could be maneuvered wherever needed. It took swallowing several times to ensure my lunch wasn’t planning to revisit.

“What are you looking for exactly?” Brady asked as he pulled the plastic cover down like he was unveiling a pair of shoes and not a dead person.

Jane Doe One’s skin was gray, almost colorless. Otherwise, the description from the newspaper was accurate. Blonde, slender, and late teens or early twenties. They’d written as much, hoping someone might come forth and identify the body.

Two girls. Same description.

I fisted my hands and stepped forward to have a better look. “I’m not sure yet,” I said with regards to Brady’s question.

The young woman wasn’t just skin and bone. She was emaciated. Sickly.

Dr. Brady indicated the inner arms without touching. “Drugs. See the track marks? Clearly a heavy addict. No question.”

I did see. There were dozens of them. Most were scars, but a few were fresh enough they hadn’t healed before she’d died. I circled around the doctor to get closer to Jane Doe’s face. Her eyes were closed. Her lips were blue and touching, sitting in a flat line. The woman was naked, but Brady had only drawn the sheet to her waist. I studied her face, her features, unsure what I was looking for.

“What’s the discoloration around her mouth and on her chin? Is that normal?”

Brady went back to sucking his teeth as he tipped his head side to side. “Can’t say for sure. My best guess is it’s the beginning of a rash. Not uncommon with drug users. Meth in particular.”

I frowned and nodded. This was hopeless. I didn’t know what I was looking for. Without an autopsy, there was no way to determine if these girls had died any other way. Whatever I’d expected to find wasn’t here. The surge of adrenaline I’d felt when I’d read the article faded. I was grasping at straws. Just because they matched the description of the three women found in the hotel didn’t make them connected. This was stupid.

You think you’re so brilliant all the time. You think you’re smarter than everyone else, but the truth is, you’re dumb as an ox, Cyrus.

My ex’s harsh words haunted me on occasion. I shook them away and focused on the young woman. Grant always had a habit of getting inside my head at times when I encountered failure. Grant had thrived on my failure and had loved every second of watching it happen when it did. All these years later, I still let him get to me.

“Where are her clothes?”

Brady perched his hands on his hips. Beads of sweat marked his brow and glistened on his shiny head. “Clothes? Why?”

“Did you keep them?”

He grumbled something inaudible and trudged to the other side of the room. From a drawer in the shelving unit, he pulled out a clear plastic bag and tossed it on one of the stainless-steel examination tables. “What the hell are you looking for? You’re not going to get my ass in trouble for doing this, are you?”

“No. I appreciate the favor. I don’t know what I’m looking for yet.”

I picked up the bag, but when I went to open it, I realized it was sealed.

Brady shook his head, so I left the bag intact.

There was enough room in the bag I could shift the clothing around to get a better look. One item looked like a jean mini skirt, the other was a sheer black blouse of some type, see-through and revealing. On the blouse were what appeared to be white speckles in all different shapes, a pattern of fine polka dots. Not all of them were circular, and a few of them ran together in a way that messed with the symmetry.

The gears in my brain whirred and spun as I studied them. The speckles weren’t all white. Some held a washed-out tinge of color to them. Purple or indigo blue.

“Bleach,” I whispered. “It’s bleach.”

“What was that?”

I turned the bag around and showed Dr. Brady. “What does that look like to you?”

Brady frowned, and his beady eyes squinted at the material. He shook his head. “Like a homeless girl salvaged clothes from somewhere, and they weren’t in great shape. I don’t know. Why?”

“Does it look like her shirt was splashed with bleach?”

Brady tipped his head to the side, mouth gaping as he breathed. “Sure. Could be. Why not?”

I put the bag down and stared at the woman on the table. Three women in a hotel room drowned in a tub of bleach. Approaching Jane Doe, I focused on the faint rash around her mouth. It was barely visible, but it was there. “Could that be a chemical burn?”

“What do you mean?”

“If her face was exposed to a high concentration of bleach before she died, could it have left her burned?”

Brady joined me at the table. He got a lot closer than I was willing to get as he examined the corpse’s face. “I suppose it’s possible. No way to tell unless I took samples, and I don’t—”

“I know. You don’t have the approval for an autopsy. Hypothetically, could it be?”

“Sure. Could be. If she died soon after exposure, that would account for why it isn’t worse.”

“Can you…” I cringed, a shiver working its way up my spine. The scent in the room was getting to me, and my stomach soured. Dr. Brady didn’t seem to notice. “Can you open her mouth?”

Dr. Cole Brady was no longer staring at the body. All his attention was on me. And he didn’t look amused. “What kind of doctor are you anyway?”

“Is it relevant?”

Brady took a long minute to decide. I hoped he was more concerned with getting home at a reasonable hour than interrogating me. Without answering, he mumbled curses and found a pair of gloves and scissors. I didn’t understand at first until he donned the gloves and gently folded back Jane Doe’s lips. Her mouth had been sewn closed, and he had to snip the sutures before he was able to open her mouth for me.

I didn’t ask questions. While he worked, I looked everywhere else instead, my nausea mounting.

“There you go,” Dr. Brady said when he finished.

It was too dark inside her mouth to see anything, so I took out my phone and turned on the flashlight. I didn’t have to be a pathologist and skilled in dead bodies to know things weren’t right.

Brady saw it too and swatted my hand away before reaching up and turning on the large light above us. He adjusted the swinging arm until it was angled just so, lighting up the inside of her mouth.

He harrumphed. “Well, I’ll be damned. That ain’t right. This girl’s got some nasty burns. There’s even some blistering in a few places.”

The inside of Jane Doe’s mouth and as far down her throat as we could see was inflamed and irritated.

“In your opinion,” I said, tucking my phone away, “could bleach do that?”

“Absolutely, but without—”

“I know.”

“Now, why would she ingest bleach?”

“Can I see the other woman?” I asked instead, avoiding Brady’s question.

Dr. Brady muttered under his breath as he covered the first Jane Doe and rolled her back inside the fridge. I realized I was making more work for him, but I couldn’t curb my curiosity now that things were starting to add up.

The second Jane Doe was also young and blonde with track marks and a slender, almost skeletal frame. Her face did not show signs of a rash, but upon further inspection, her mouth and throat showed the beginning signs of chemical burns. They were of a lesser degree than the first woman but present nonetheless.

“This one took a knock to her head,” Brady said, hands on his wide hips, mouth tugged in a frown. “I figured she was too strung out, fell, smacked her noggin, passed out, then died.”

He sounded less sure of himself now that we’d confirmed both girls had rashes inside their mouths.

A small cut showed near Jane Doe Two’s temple. Braised skin that had been cleaned. There was a slightly raised lump but no dark bruising. It was almost hidden in her hair.

“Who came in first?”

“That one there,” Brady said, thumbing back to the fridge and the first woman we’d viewed. “About two and a half weeks ago. This one came in two days ago.”

I nodded as a hurricane of thoughts whipped around my head. Not conclusively bleach, but I’d have bet if Cole Brady ran a simple test, the results would prove I was right. Three women who’d been drowned in a tub of bleach. Two more, strikingly similar in appearance, who’d either been made to drink it or…

I considered the abrasion on the side of the dead girl’s head. Or, when that proved too difficult, when Jane Doe One had put up a fight, the attacker had knocked out Jane Doe Two and had managed to drown her in bleach by dumping it down her throat when she was unconscious. She’d have inhaled it without knowing what was happening.

Were there more out there yet undiscovered?

The link was undeniable. What were the chances?

“What was the suspected time of death before they were discovered and brought in?”

“No more than a day or two.”

Dr. Brady watched me closely. He had questions I didn’t know how to answer.

Before he could speak, I thrust out a hand. “I appreciate all your help, Doctor.”

Hesitating, he shook, his face contorted in confusion. “I’m not going to have to do autopsies now, am I? Who are you reporting to? Are you going to get me in shit for letting you in here?”

“No. But I can’t promise the authorities won’t eventually look into this.” I glanced at the woman on the second table who was still exposed. If River was right, if there was a killer out there, these two Jane Does may not be the last. Eventually, the police would see the pattern on their own.

I hoped.

I didn’t want to say as much. Mostly because I didn’t want anyone else to die like this.

But where did I go from here?

How did I help River and find out the truth?

Would the police listen to me?

If I told them what I’d found here at the coroner’s office, I would get myself and Dr. Brady in trouble. Even so, how likely was it the police would take action? According to them, these girls were runaways, addicts, homeless. Prostitutes? I’d have bet on it. There was no cause to investigate their deaths. The ones from the hotel? They had their killer as far as the police were concerned. Why keep looking?

But I had to do something. River would rot in a prison cell otherwise, and more innocent lives would be lost.