Rose of Jericho (Lilith Adams Series Book 2) (12 page)

“Make no mistake.” Her blue-green eyes held a firm warning as she spoke. “If you run, they find you, killing anyone in their path. Your best chance is to work with me. If you find what the council needs, I will do my best to get you home. I cannot make promises. This is best I can do.”

Lilith let the weight of her thick, Romanian-accented words really sink in. She knew they couldn’t run. It would only get more people killed. She’d known that after five seconds in the same room with Farren.

This seemed like a classic bad cop, good cop scheme. First Farren scares the crap out of them and then a friendly face puts them at ease. She shouldn’t trust it at all, but she desperately needed the modicum of hope that Luminita was providing. In the end, she hadn’t given Lilith any reason to believe she wasn’t completely sincere. All the micro expressions echoed her distaste for Gregor’s treatment and her disapproval of Farren in general.

This woman genuinely cared for Cohen as if he was her favorite nephew. Obviously Cohen felt the same way about her. From what Lilith had seen, Cohen never truly trusted anyone, ever, but he trusted Luminita. That said volumes about a long personal history that she knew neither of them would share.

“How do I figure into all this?” Chance had a very valid question. He might have a license to carry in all 50 states and most countries, but that didn’t make him a cop.

“You are here because you were involved in the…incident in Tennessee. You are allowed to travel because Cohen has been quite clear that you have the ability to keep Lilith safe. Also that her…cooperation would not happen if you were harmed. After meeting you both, I can see that his information was…true.”

An amused smile crossed her petite lips as she looked at Chance, Lilith and then their clasped hands. “Farren also decided you are a…pressure point we could use if Lilith becomes…uncooperative. You do not want that to happen. Cohen suggested that I name you as an…” Another of her pauses as she tried to pull the exact words out of the air. This time she turned back to Cohen with a questioning look. He leaned over, whispered and returned to his bored inspection of the front door. “Ah, yes… an ‘independent security expert’. He informed me you have much experience in this field, yes?”

Chance glanced over at Cohen with a surprised look. “Seriously?” The last thing Chance ever expected was to hear Cohen standing up for him. Lilith wasn’t exactly thrilled that Cohen’s glowing recommendation had inadvertently made Chance a target, but she seemed to be the only one focusing on that angle.

Cohen bristled a bit and leaned against the arm of the couch, away from Chance. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t wrong. You’re the muscle. This isn’t the start of a bro-mance or something. It’s business. We need Lilith’s expertise and like it or not, you’re apparently a package deal.” By the look on Cohen’s face, he definitely firmly fell in the category of not.

Thankfully, Chance seemed to realize that he hadn’t exactly answered Luminita’s question yet. “Yes. I do have plenty of experience…I was head of the security team for Gregor and his company. I am also familiar with various alarm systems and security measures.”

Lilith frowned over at Chance with a genuine look of surprise. “Gregor had state of the art security systems?”

Chance nervously licked his lips before meeting her eyes. “Not all of them were his, but yes. He took his business very serious. I was part of the team that put together the security upgrades for the labs.”

Lilith just blinked. “How did you not have security clearance if you were part of that team? You acted genuinely surprised when I gave my universal security code.” She was very careful not to use specific names. No need to advertise where their secret labs were.

Chance raised one eyebrow in a look that was part James Bond and part Cheshire cat. “Being on that team is a highly classified secret. Gregor knew that if we ever went public, they would be targeted by radical groups and industrial espionage. No one on the refit team has clearance because Gregor didn’t want someone with knowledge of the entire system to be manipulated or used to bring it down. It’s a safety measure. In fact, it was one that I recommended.”

There was a dark look in his eyes that shielded most of his grief. She knew his mind was looping over the fact that Gregor was dead, but he was trying to focus. “Keeping that secret is part of the job, so a little acting is required from time to time.”

“Who knew you were so handy and secretive.” Lilith cracked a smile at him, lightening the suddenly dark feeling in the room.  Somewhere in the darkest corner of her mind, it unsettled her that his acting skills were so polished.

“Are you disappointed to learn that I’m not all brawn?” If he was offended at all by her implication, he was doing an excellent job of hiding it. Chance simply flashed an impish grin that told her a volume of things that neither Luminita nor Cohen needed to know.

“Good. It is all set, then.” Luminita ignored the banter and rose from her chair with the same fluidity Lilith had noticed in all of their kind. “It has been a pleasure to meet you both, but I must go. I wish you safe journeys and good luck on your task.” Her smiling eyes looked over them and rested on Cohen. “Do not forget to limit use of the device. Too much time and someone will notice. That would be …unfortunate.”

Cohen nodded absently, deep in thought. “Thank you, Luminita.”

Her lips curled into a smile that was openly friendly. She was not at all what Lilith had expected, a friendly demon. Stranger things had happened, but not many. Luminita Dragomir strolled out to the hall in her ultra-high fashion outfit leaving the room in a somewhat uncomfortable silence. Apparently none of them were in a hurry to break it. Cohen snatched up his device, silently turning it off and stuffing it back in his jacket pocket just before the food arrived.

The room service cart held a variety of different foods from fresh fruits to miniature gourmet burgers. The three of them had been running on fumes and adrenaline, so the smell alone made them all ravenous. Once they devoured every scrap of food on the cart, Cohen grabbed his suitcase to paw through it, while Chance and Lilith repacked their luggage.

Then all they could do was wait. The room was still, silent with a million thoughts making the air heavy. No one dared to voice any of them since someone, somewhere would be listening. It would be too easy to say something damning that would cost their lives. They only had to hold out a little longer. Soon they’d be flying to Connecticut and more dead bodies. She could handle that as long as it got her away from this building and the one dead body she couldn’t forget.

Chapter 9

N
ew Haven was not what Lilith would call a large city, even if it was the second largest one in Connecticut. Growing up in New York City may have skewed her opinion, but New Haven was only 125,000 people strong. The place was a mixture of colonial architecture, gleaming modern buildings, opulent homes and shady docks. It was the same contradictions one could find in about any city on the east coast, just concentrated and more drastic. Here the rich were definitely rich and the poor were desperate. According to Cohen, New Haven had one of the highest crime rates in the New England area. Comforting. The perfect place for an Ivy League University.

The morgue was actually located in the Yale Medical Center which meant getting directions while trying to pick their way through first year medical students. It wasn’t exactly Lilith’s idea of a good time, but anything was better than staying anywhere near Farren for even a minute longer.

After making their way through squeaky clean, gleaming hallways with monstrous modern art windows, they finally hit the basement. The place was brightly lit by fluorescent lights but the lack of windows gave it a darker, more comfortable feel, at least to Lilith. Bodies made sense to her. They were a clear, logical puzzle with right answers and wrong answers. She definitely preferred cold, hard science to the political Russian roulette she had to play with Cohen’s family. Besides, a dead body couldn’t kill anyone, threaten her life or hurl insults.

Inside the Medical Examiner’s office waited a plain clothes detective and a couple uniformed officers. None of them looked too thrilled to be there and with Luminita’s ominous yet vague description of the bodies, Lilith could hardly blame them. Most cops were not used to extremely violent crimes. Most of them dealt with bullet wounds, rapes, and stabbings not whatever happened to the men waiting for her in the next room.

The plain clothes detective was in his mid-forties, not handsome, but not hideous. He was just somewhat ordinary. Short clipped brown hair, a rounded face, muddy brown eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, and deep wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. His voice was nasally when he introduced himself as Detective Blaire. The uniformed officers didn’t feel the need to follow his lead. They just watched Lilith, Chance and Cohen with that distant, assessing glare that all cops seem to perfect by the time they graduate the academy.

“The examiner is waiting on you. He has a fairly tight schedule so you might want to get in there.” If it hadn’t been for his facial expressions and his flat tone, Lilith would have thought he was less than thrilled that they were here. In actuality, he was relieved. The Detective simply didn’t have the social skills to prolong polite conversation. He was just stating emotionless fact, which was refreshing and horrifying at the same time. On one hand, it made things infinitely easier that the cops actually wanted their help. However, she definitely couldn’t picture this awkward man interrogating witnesses or suspects. It’s all a political game of skill and confidence, both of which this man seemed to lack.

“I’m sure Detective Cohen and Mr. Deveraux have some questions about the case while I’m busy. Thank you again for your cooperation.” Lilith’s lips pulled into a well-practiced smile that obviously made Detective Blaire quite nervous. Huh. Maybe he was just socially awkward around tall, curvy redheads, even ones without a stitch of makeup. Apparently, whoever packed their suitcases had decided that real investigators don’t wear foundation, eye shadow and eyeliner. They probably hated CSI for all the model-esque cops, too.

“We’ll be right here.” Chance’s smooth voice actually pulled a genuine smile to her lips. He didn’t need to say anything at all, she knew where he’d be, but it was habit for him. His bodyguard code for “if you start screaming, I’ll be right there.” It was a small gesture and shouldn’t have meant much but it did make her feel safer for some reason.

Lilith nodded softly and pushed her way through the double doors into the exam room. There were two covered bodies out on the main tables with laboratory lights hovering bright above them.

“Ms. Adams I presume? I’m Dr. Winslow.” The man in the white lab coat shuffled awkwardly toward her, offering his hand. Lilith flashed a smile and quickly stepped forward to shake it. He was in his early fifties possibly sixties, vastly receding hair line with the remaining greying hair cut to stubble.

The skin of his snubbed nose was red and the color was echoed in his cheeks, rosacea. By the look of his finely broken capillaries he wasn’t too far from full blown rhinophyma, the famous bulbous purplish red nose. The good doctor definitely had more than a slight affection for the bottle. It wasn’t uncommon in his line of work. If you spent too many years seeing rape victims that didn’t survive or children that were lethally abused, you eventually need a crutch and alcohol was more socially acceptable than a lot of the alternatives.

“That’s correct. Pleasure to meet you.”

Dr. Winslow nodded gruffly and turned toward one of the work stations behind him. “You might not be so quick to thank me after seeing our two John Does here.” He grabbed a couple pairs of gloves and tossed a pair to Lilith. “There’s a lab coat and an autopsy apron in the corner there. Wouldn’t want you getting your clothes dirty or contaminating our bodies.” There were definitely tugs at his lips which indicated contempt. Apparently, he wasn’t as thrilled at her arrival as the cops were.

She couldn’t really blame him. Nothing rubbed a medical examiner the wrong way like asking for a second opinion. They were used to being the last expert opinion on a person’s life. Bringing in an outsider, especially a young woman, was bound to rattle someone.

“Of course. Thank you.” There was no need to poke at the grumpy bear, not until she had what she wanted anyway. Once she had on all the proper attire and snapped on her gloves, Lilith made her way around to the first table.

The doctor looked over the covered body and then up at her. “You aren’t squeamish are you?”

It was hard for Lilith not to laugh at that question after all she’d seen in the past two weeks alone, not to mention five years on Major Crimes. “No, I’m sure I can handle it.” He huffed, definitely looking skeptical. Lilith was starting to think that she was right about his obvious bias. It was either because she was a woman or because she looked even younger than her actual age of 27, or perhaps both.

Her visual age would be part Gregor’s fault for the good genes and part Cohen’s fault for the demon blood that kept her skin looking flawless. At least it was one good side effect. It’d save her a fortune on beauty products. Normally she’d cringe about going into public with zero makeup on. Investigating a scene was one thing. Dead bodies never told you how rough you look.

Dr. Winslow grabbed the edge of the sheet and pulled it back, exposing the head, torso, thighs and knees as Lilith’s eyes widened. She took a breath and decided to start at the top while the Doctor just watched her with a calculated stare. He was probably placing mental bets on when she’d puke. Sadly, she was gonna have to disappoint him. “Do you have a recorder?”

He raised a thick, greying eyebrow but didn’t comment on her lack of equipment. He simply pulled a digital recorder off his exam tray and pressed the button.

“Thank you.” Lilith flashed a brief smile and grabbed a probe off a smaller tray. Unlike most of the bodies that Lilith examined, this one was completely cleaned, leaving all the wounds and marks clearly visible, and there were plenty of them. That was going to make her job a whole lot easier.

“Lilith Adams at the New Haven, Connecticut city morgue. Examining  John Doe 389 on October 28
th
, 2014. Victim appears to be in his late twenties, early thirties. Caucasian. Ear-length, brown hair. Left ear is pierced and gauged…” Lilith tilted the head toward her gingerly. “…and right ear is the same.” She used one gloved thumb to lift his eyelid. The eyes were already glazed and milky but she could still distinguish some color. “Eyes appear to be dark brown in color. There is a contusion under his left eye, along the infraorbital margin and lateral orbital wall of the zygomatic bone, most likely from a blow to the face.”

Lilith rotated the dead man’s face away from her with a skillfully light touch and used the probe to move through his thick hair, taking a closer look at his scalp. Usually a force from the front, like a blow to the face, increases the likelihood of trauma to the back of the head. “There are abrasions above and below the external occipital protuberance. Possibly from a fall or scraping the back of his head against something.” She glanced up at the Doctor whose sour look seemed slightly less skeptical. “Did you retrieve any trace from the abrasions?”

He nodded solemnly, obviously not as ready to hand over information as the cops outside. She could find out the trace details later in the detailed report. She needed to focus on the body first. Lilith gently repositioned the dead man’s head and continued her examination.

Her deft fingers moved along the massive bruising covering his entire neck. “The larynx, trachea…and cricoid cartilage have been completely crushed…” She paused as her mind tried to work through everything. “Do you have the x-rays for this area?”

“Yes. They are on the light box behind you. Just flip the switch.”

Lilith stepped away from the table and clicked the light on. With a whir and a pop the light blinked to life. The x-ray was a tight shot starting at the bottom of the mandible and extending to the clavicles. “There are severe stress fractures on the C5, C6 and C7 vertebrae and the hyoid bone is completely obliterated.” She just stood there for a minute. The extent of the damage to his spine was highly unusual to say the least. Even with a strong blow to the throat it wouldn’t have caused damage like this. The amount of force required would be tremendous, mechanical or superhuman.

“A weapon must have been used. There is far too much damage for a simple blow from a fist.” Lilith flicked off the light box and stepped back over to the table.

As she was looking over the damage to the throat for any sort of impression or tool mark, she noticed something odd about the victim’s jawline. There was bruising around the victim’s mouth that she originally thought might be linked to the massive black eye. She ran her fingers over the zygomatic processes on both sides, closing her eyes and feeling for the joint. Her eyes opened when her fingers hit ridges that shouldn’t be there. “The mandible has been dislocated on both sides. The bones are intact but separated.”

Lilith heard a slight huff of approval from the other side of the table. Ignoring it, she picked up a small pen light from her instrument tray and pried the mouth open.  She used her probe to push back the bruised lips but found nothing but inflamed gums. There were tiny flecks of something caught in between his incisors.

“I assume you ran trace on this as well?” The Doctor merely nodded silently. Lilith tried not to sigh. She felt like she was performing a final exam in med school instead of collaborating on forensic evidence. She could have just read the reports but Luminita was quite clear on her physically inspecting the bodies. Besides, she may just catch something that the good Doctor missed.

Lilith circled to the extremities. “There are deep bruises on the victim’s upper arms on both sides… and thighs on both sides. If he was held down… The bruising is too deep to be from hands and too inconsistent to be from restraints.” Lilith took a step back, eying the patterns of bruising. “If there were several attackers, using their knees to hold him down… that would also explain the abrasions on the back of his head.” She was almost willing to bet that if they recovered trace from the scratches, it was probably just dirt and gravel.

“There is also some bruising and abrasions on the victim’s knuckles, perhaps from whatever altercation ended up giving him a black eye.”

Lilith took a deep breath and glanced up at Dr. Winslow before moving on to the main event. The guy on the table might have died from a completely crushed larynx, but that wasn’t the most extensive damage to the body. The doctor’s eyes were shinning a little brighter and his lips were curved into a slight grin. He was definitely curious to see what she’d make of the massive trauma to the man’s chest. By the look on his face, he expected she’d come up with the same steaming pile of nothing that he had.

“There is massive tearing to the tissue of the thoracic region, definitely postmortem, specifically around the pericardial cavity.” If the body hadn’t been cleaned, she wouldn’t have been able to tell much about the wounds. It would have just been a bloody mess of ragged flesh. Lilith leaned in close, using her probe to push and pull at the tattered edges of the gaping hole. “There are some thin streaks of light to heavy abrasions inferior and superior to the major tissue damage.” She wasn’t quite sure what to make of them. They could be the result of a tool or maybe even fingernail scratches. The wound itself was far more puzzling.

“There appears to be no discernible tool marks in the trauma itself. The flesh is simply shredded as if something punctured the victim’s thoracic region and just ripped the tissue away over and over. The sternum has been removed along with a good amount of the costal cartilage.” Lilith grabbed the pen light again and clicked it on before peering down into the man’s open chest.

“There are stress and greenstick fractures on several of the true ribs indicating that a torqued wrenching motion was used to remove the sternum.” She was baffled and she was willing to bet Dr. Winslow was as well. She couldn’t think of anything that would have enough power or force to accomplish these injuries without leaving tool marks. It just didn’t make any sense.