The week before, Livia Cutty stood over the autopsy table. The body that waited had been her 232nd autopsy. With two months left in her training, she’d easily make the magic number of 250 postmortem examinations the program promised. Her autopsy times had come down to fifty minutes, and the mistakes and worries from the early months of her fellowship could hardly be recalled. She considered herself, after ten months of training, a medical examiner.

She walked through the front door of the OCME on Monday morning and rode the elevator to the third floor. As comfortable as she had become with her position as a senior fellow, trepidation brewed about the week ahead. She was scheduled for her last stint of ride-alongs with Kent Chapple, who had recently separated from his wife. Kent had shown up at Livia’s the week before, drunk on whiskey like he’d been the last time. During an uncomfortable purging of emotions, he’d confessed his feelings for her. He liked her “more than a friend,” he had said—stealing a line Livia hadn’t heard since college—and asked her to dinner. Caught off guard, Livia politely rebuked his offer under the excuse that coworkers shouldn’t become romantically involved. She suggested they talk when he was less emotional, and when his words weren’t quite so slurred. Ten days had run past since that night, and the conversation had yet to take place. Their relationship, once easy and spirited, had grown awkward. A week together in the morgue van was sure to be what Jen Tilly would refer to as a hot mess.

But the angst about the coming week never settled in. There was no time. When the elevator doors opened, Kent stood in the hallway.

“We need to talk,” he said.

Livia nodded. “Listen, Kent. The other night, I wasn’t the most gracious—”

“Not about the other night,” he cut her off. “We’ve got a call. White female discovered in a shallow grave in Emerson Bay Forest.”

Kent walked into the elevator and handed Livia her OCME jacket. “You need anything else before we go?”

Livia shook her head. “How old?”

“Late teens, early twenties.”

The elevator doors opened on the ground floor and they hurried to the morgue van out back, where Sanj Rashi waited behind the wheel. Livia had barely slid the side door closed before the van pulled from the back lot. Silence sat with them for the ninety-minute drive to Emerson Bay, only interrupted by Sanj’s deep, New Jersey voice as he radioed their location to the officers cordoning the area. As they turned onto Highway 57, Livia spotted the squad cars parked at odd angles along the shoulder with lights flashing. Sanj pulled the van into the epicenter of the activity and, along with Kent, slipped latex gloves onto his hands.

The front doors opened as the MLIs climbed out. Livia stayed still in the backseat peripherally noticing the things around her—the squawk of police radios, the voices of the officers, the back door of the van opening as Kent pulled the gurney into the road, and the sound of Sanj prepping the scene investigation bag with everything they might need when they ventured into the woods.

“You okay?” Kent asked.

Livia blinked, noticing that he had slid open the side door. She nodded and climbed from the van.

“Morning, gentlemen,” a uniformed officer said. He nodded at Livia. “Dr. Cutty.”

Livia lifted her chin, tried to smile.

“My guys will take the gurney. It’s a good walk, half a mile, over some dense stuff.”

Sanj took the canvas bag from the gurney and draped it over his shoulder as he and Kent followed the officer into the woods. Livia stayed close behind, stepping over fallen logs and holding back branches for the officers who followed.

The moss-covered ground gave off a layer of fog as they got deeper into the woods, a faint odor of fall having been captured and preserved over the winter and now seeping from the floor of the forest. The sun was at a steep angle from the east and shone intermittently through the tall tree trunks, setting loose long shadows that crept through the forest. After a fifteen-minute trek, Livia saw officers in the distance standing around an area squared off by yellow crime-scene tape. As she approached, she noticed a white sheet lying over the body.

Sanj and Kent met with the officers and had a quick discussion to which Livia was deaf. Her concentration was on the snow-white blanket that had no place in this dark forest. Kent looked at her after a moment, raised his eyebrows.

Livia nodded. “I’m fine.”

She walked into the cordoned square of sun-colored tape. Kent crouched down into the fog and grabbed the edge of the sheet. He glanced one last time at Livia, who took in a long, deep breath that she silently exhaled. Livia nodded again.

“Let’s have a look.”