“Okay, hon. Of course. What’s your cousin’s name?”

“Tara Anne Hutchins.” The middle name had been easy enough to come by online. The woman’s face grew wary. Tara Hutchins had been in the news. She was a homicide victim, the kind that could draw crazies. “Detective Turner sent me here.”

Moira’s expression was still cautious. He was the lead detective on the case and his name had most likely been in the media.

“You can have a seat while I try to reach him,” said Moira. Alex held up her phone. “He gave me his information.” She sent another quick text: Pick up NOW, Turner. Then she slid to the call screen and dialed on speaker. “Here,” she said, holding out her cell.

Moira sputtered, “I can’t …” But the faint sound of the phone ringing and Alex’s expectant expression did the trick. Moira pressed her lips together and took the cell from Alex.

The call went to Turner’s voicemail, just as Alex had known it would. Detective Abel Turner would pick up when he damn well felt like it, not when some pissy undergrad told him to, especially not when she demanded it.

Alex hoped Moira would just hang up, but instead she cleared her throat and said, “Detective Turner, this is Moira Adams, public outreach at OCME. If you could give us a call back …” She gave the number. All Alex could hope was that Turner wouldn’t check a voicemail from her number anytime too soon. Maybe he’d be really petty and delete it.

“Tara was a good girl, y’know?” she said when Moira handed her phone back. “She didn’t deserve any of this.”

Moira made sympathetic sounds. “I’m so sorry for your loss.” Like she was reading from a script.

“I just need to pray over her, say my goodbyes.”

Moira’s fingers touched her cross. “Of course.”

“She had a lot of problems, but who doesn’t? We got her going to church every weekend. You can bet that boyfriend of hers didn’t like it.” At this Moira gave a little huff of agreement. “You think Detective Turner’ll call back soon?”

“As soon as he can. He may be tied up.”

“But you guys close in an hour, right?”

“To the public, yes. But you can come back on Mon—”

“I can’t, though.” Alex’s eyes scanned the photos taped below the ledge of Moira’s desk and spotted a woman in Winnie-the-Pooh scrubs. “I’m in nursing school.”

“At Albertus Magnus?”

“Yeah!”

“My niece is there. Alison Adams?”

“Real pretty girl with red hair?”

“That’s her,” Moira said with a smile.

“I can’t miss class. They’re so tough. I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired.”

“I know,” Moira said ruefully. “They’re running Allie ragged.” “I just … I need to be able to tell my mama I said goodbye to her. Tara’s mom and dad were … They all weren’t close.” Alex was flat out guessing now, but she suspected Moira Adams had her own story about girls like Tara Hutchins. “If I could just see her face, say goodbye.”

Moira hesitated, then reached forward and gave her hand a squeeze. “I can have someone take you down to see her. Just have your ID ready and … It can be hard, but prayer helps.”

“It always does,” said Alex fervently.

Moira pressed a button, and a few minutes later an exhausted-looking coroner in blue scrubs appeared and waved Alex through.

It was cold on the other side of the double doors, the floors tiled in heathered gray, the walls a melted cream. “Sign in here,” he said, gesturing to the clipboard on the wall. “I’ll need photo ID. Cell phones, cameras, and all recording devices in the bin. You can retrieve them when you return.”

“Sure,” said Alex. Then she held out her hand, gold glinting beneath the fluorescents. “I think you dropped this.”

The room was larger than she’d expected and ice-cold. It was also unexpectedly noisy—the dripping of a faucet, the hum of the freezers, the rush of the air conditioner—though it was silent in another way. This was the last place Grays would come. To hell with Belbalm. She should intern at the morgue this summer.

The tables were metal, as were the basins and the hoses coiled above them, and the drawers—flat squares slotted into two of the walls like filing cabinets. Had Hellie been cut up in a place like this? It wasn’t like the cause of death had been a mystery.

Alex wished she had her coat. Or Dawes’s parka. Or a shot of vodka.

She needed to work fast. The compulsion would give her about thirty minutes to get her work done and get out. But it didn’t take her long to find Tara, and though the drawer was heavier than she’d expected, it slid out smoothly.

There was something worse about seeing her like this a second time, as if they knew each other. Looking at Tara now, Alex could see it had only been the blond hair that made her think of Hellie. Hellie had been strong. Her body remembered the soccer and softball she’d played in high school, and she could surf and skateboard like a girl out of Seventeen magazine. This girl was built like Alex, ropy, but weak.

Tara’s knees looked brownish gray. There was stubble near her bikini area, red razor bumps like a rash. She had a tattoo of a parrot at her hip and below it was written Key West in looping scrawl. Her right arm had an ugly realistic portrait of a young girl on it. A daughter? A niece? Her own face as a child? There was a pirate flag and a ship on cresting waves, a Bettie Page zombie girl in heels and black lingerie. The cameo on Tara’s inner arm looked newer, the ink fresh and dark, though the text was nearly illegible in that tired Gothic font: Rather die than doubt. Song lyrics, but Alex couldn’t remember what they were from.

She wondered if her own tattoos would reappear if she died or if the art would live inside the address moths forever.

Enough stalling. Alex took out her notes. The first part of the ritual was easy, a chant. Sanguis saltido—but you couldn’t just say the words; you had to sing them. It felt utterly obscene to do in that empty, echoing room, but she made herself sing the chant: Sanguis saltido! Salire! Saltare! No tune was specified, only allegro. It was on her second round through that she realized she was singing the words to the tune of the Twizzlers jingle. So chewy. So fruity. So happy and oh so juicy. But if that’s what it took to make the blood dance … She knew it was working when Tara’s lips began to pink.

Now things were going to get worse. The blood chant was only intended to start Tara’s circulation and loosen rigor so that Alex could get her mouth open. Alex took hold of Tara’s chin, trying to ignore the newly warm, pliant feel of her skin, and wiggled the girl’s jaw open.

She took the scarab from the plastic bag in her back pocket and placed it gently on Tara’s tongue. Then she took the tin from her other pocket and began to trace waxy patterns over Tara’s body with the balm inside, trying to think about anything but the dead skin beneath her fingertips. Feet, shins, thighs, stomach, breasts, collarbone, down Tara’s arms to her wrists and middle fingers. Finally, starting at the navel, she drew a line bisecting Tara’s torso up to her throat, her chin, and to the crown of her head.

Alex realized she’d forgotten to bring a lighter. She needed fire. There was a desk next to the door, beneath a messy whiteboard. The big drawers were locked, but the narrow top drawer slid open. A pink plastic lighter lay beside a pack of Marlboros.

Alex took the lighter and held the flame just above the places she’d applied the balm, retracing her path up Tara’s body. As she did, a faint haze appeared over the skin, like heat rising off blacktop, the air seeming to wave and shimmer. The effect was denser in certain spots, so thick it blurred and vibrated as if seen through the spinning spokes of a wheel.

Alex put the lighter back in the drawer. She reached out to the blur above Tara’s elbow, ran her hand through the shimmer. In a rush, she was racing down the street on a bicycle. In front of her, a car door flew open in her path. She hit the brakes, failed to stop, struck the door at an angle, clipping her arm. Pain shot through her. Alex hissed and drew back her hand, cradling her arm as if the broken bone had been hers and not Tara’s.