late-night invitation. Maggie had met and grown attached to Luc Racine while working a case practically in his backyard. Despite Luc's early onset of Alzheimer's, he and Maggie had exchanged favors, sort of coming to each other's rescue. Her fondness and concern for the older Racine had created a connection with the younger Racine, one Maggie didn't necessarily want. Sometimes she wondered if she and Julia Racine had met and gotten to know each other under different circumstances, circumstances that didn't include an almost botched case and an unwanted sexual advance, that maybe they would have become friends.
She watched Racine check out the reflection of her spiky blond hair in a dissection tray. Behind all the cockiness and bravado, Maggie knew there had to be a vulnerable and insecure woman, walking a fine line, trying not to screw up, hiding any hint of fear or doubt. She had seen glimpses and in those few and brief fleeting moments Maggie realized that she and Julia Racine had that in common. They were both very good at hiding who they really were.
Maggie handed Racine a pair of latex gloves and Racine raised an eyebrow at their purple color.
'I have to hand it to you, Stan,' Racine said as she pulled on the exotic-colored gloves. 'You always have the newest and coolest toys.'
He scowled at her over his shoulder as he slid the bagged head out of the wall refrigerator and onto a tray. Maggie realized Stan had taken Racine's attempt at making light of the situation as an insinuation that he spent department funds in a frivolous manner. Hadn't he realized by now that Racine's inappropriate behavior and remarks were simply her way of masking her discomfort at autopsies? Perhaps he was too used to working with the dead to notice, or to have patience with something as simple as human emotion or inane idiosyncrasies.
'Do you need any help?' Maggie offered, rolling up the double-gown sleeves and hoping to relieve the tension in the suite. But a second scowl from Stan, this one leveled in her direction, immediately telegraphed her mistake.
'Last time I had to rig up a device.' He ignored her offer, and instead, pointed to a contraption on the autopsy table that looked like a clamping device made of PVC pipe and aluminum. 'I didn't think I'd be using it again this soon,' he said and he didn't sound happy about it.
He fumbled with the plastic bag, a miniature version of a body bag. Maggie stopped herself from reaching over to help. It would be so easy to start the zipper that was closer to her side. Her medical background allowed her to assist with autopsies, but common sense usually told her which M.E.'s or coroners would welcome her help and which would be insulted. She already knew Stan was in the latter category even before his earlier scowl, yet his fumbling and slow-motion pace constantly challenged her patience.
She glanced at Racine, expecting her to be just as impatient with Stan. Instead, Racine looked distracted, her eyes examining the shelves of specimen jars and containers. Maggie watched the young detective tighten her gown's belt and check out her shoe covers, then go back to the room's contents. Her focus seemed to be anywhere and everywhere except on the head Stan finally had unwrapped and was now propping up with his makeshift device.
The maggots had retreated deep inside, huddling to keep warm. As a result, the woman's eyes were now clear, staring straight ahead, her tangled hair plastered to one side of her head. Suddenly, a cloud of steam escaped from her opened mouth. And despite it being packed with the slow-churning worms, it looked almost as if the poor woman were taking one last breath.
'Jesus.' Racine had noticed, despite her attempt not to look. 'What the hell was that?'
'The little bastards' metabolism can keep them about ten to fifteen degrees higher than their surroundings ' Stan explained. 'It's similar to walking outside on a subzero day and seeing your own breath, the clash of warm with cold.'
'Pretty freaky,' Racine said.
Maggie noticed that this time Racine's eyes didn't leave the woman's face, as if she didn't dare look away for fear of missing the next 'freaky' revelation. She couldn't help wondering how long it would be before Racine would be checking her shoe covers again. Would it be the removal of the eyeballs or that sucking sound when the brain is pulled out after the top of the skull is sawed off? She actually found herself feeling bad for Racine. She wanted to tell her to think about ocean waves and listen for the sound they make lapping against a white sandy shore. Something, anything tranquil that would calm her nerves and settle her stomach. It had worked for Maggie during her first autopsy, a gunshot blast that ripped away the victim's face, leaving behind what seemed like a cavernous hole of bloody cartilage and shredded tissue. The waves had been crashing in her head by the time the M.E. had finished.
'Let's get started,' Stan said, grabbing a pair of forceps and a scalpel from his tray, 'before these bastards start climbing up our arms and legs.'
Maggie saw Julia Racine's face go white. That's when she realized what Racine's real problem was. So it seemed they had something else in common, because it wasn't the autopsy Racine was dreading. It was the maggots.
CHAPTER 13
Gibson McCutty sat in front of his computer screen, watching the clock in the lower right corner _ watching and waiting. He was exhausted and trying to find something, anything, to take his mind off last night. The game wasn't supposed to start for another twenty minutes, but some of the players checked onto the site early.
The game was by invitation only. He still remembered the day he received the e-mail. He had been depressed and angry, surfing Web sites, searching for answers, when suddenly the e-mail came through with an address he didn't recognize. He almost deleted it as spam except that the call name caught his attention: TheSinEater. It sounded like something from a game of Dungeons and Dragons, something that promised, or rather suggested, to take away his sins.
Could it be that easy? Play a game and feel better? Sorta like going to confession in cyberspace. And the message had been simple, easy, enticing:
DO YOU WANT TO PLAY A GAME?
The rules were strict, though, prohibiting players from exchanging any personal information and using only their given code names. But before each game they were allowed to chat, to discuss strategy and talk about their characters, sometimes slipping in information about themselves disguised as information about their characters.
Not everyone participated in the chats; some rambled, some threw in only a comment here and there, others just sat back and watched. Gibson was in the last category. He learned more by sitting back and watching others, taking mental notes, keeping track of what each one said outside of the game when they had their guard down.
The first time he felt like a voyeur, feeling guilty for listening in and not participating. You had to log on to participate. Actually you had to log on to have access to the chat messages as they instant-messaged back and forth. But Gibson figured out a way to watch the chat without logging on. So none of the players knew he was listening. They didn't even know he was there, until later when he really did log on to play the game.
today was no different.
He waited and watched for them to begin. Anxious to see where the conversation would go. Ready to take notes, feeling almost safe again now in the light of day and from his comfortable hiding place. That is until a knock at his bedroom door startled him.
'Gibson, what are you doing in there? It's a beautiful day outside.'
His hands immediately closed the lid of his laptop, not that she could see from behind the door,
'I'm just playing a few computer games.' Without the computer keyboard, his fingers were already probing his face, looking for new targets to erupt. It was a nervous habit he couldn't seem to control.
'Don't you want to go to the pool or maybe play ball with some of your friends?'
He found a new pimple on his forehead underneath his bangs. He knew his mom was trying. He had to give
