Rapture

millimeter in her purse and that didn’t make her a suspect in every shooting downtown—

“Damn it.”

Tony looked over. “Huh?”

“Nothing. Just frustrated.”

“Maybe this will still work—” As his cell let out a Tweety Bird sound, he checked the text. “Oh, good, Suraj’s not going to leave us hanging. Let’s wait over in…Oh, look. Vending machines. What a surprise.”

Sure enough, across from the morgue there was a break room with all kinds of caloried slot machines. “You planned this.”

“Not the cops part.”

As they went in and Tony sized up the offerings, Mels paced around the tables that were bolted to the floor and the orange plastic chairs that were not—likely because the latter were so ugly and uncomfortable no one would want to steal them.

Remembering her promise, Mels took out her wallet and counted her dollar bills. “Don’t hold back. I got plenty.”

“This is just a snack before dinner, really. And I don’t like to eat alone.” He looked over his shoulder. “Hello? Wingman?”

It was sad that she found it relaxing to think of nothing but what kind of overprocessed, mass-produced, worse-than-nonorganic she wanted.

Sure sign she needed a vacation. And a life.

“Have you made your choices?” she said as that band saw down the hall got to screaming again.

“You’d better believe it.”

Seven singles into the machines later and Tony had a collection of nacho bags and candy bars in his hands.

“Now it’s your turn,” he said.

“I don’t have your metabolism.”

Tony rubbed his belly. “Neither do I.”

She picked M&M’s, the plain old-fashioned kind that she’d loved as a kid, but she’d run out of bills. Putting her hands into every kind of pocket she had, she brought out a palmful of loose coins and fished her way around for quarters—

Mels froze.

“What?” Tony asked from where he’d sat down.

A bullet casing. That was what.

In her frickin’ pocket?

Except then it came back to her as she picked the thing out of the mismatched coins…that garage out in the farm country. Where she’d found a Harley with a warm engine, Matthias with a lie on his face, and…something else….

Someone else—

A sudden sharp shooter went through her head, the pain clogging her thought processes, and shutting everything down…but for the conviction that she’d seen something important out there. What had it been, though?

Pushing hard, her mind just couldn’t seem to put a name to the proverbial song, and the more she tried, the more it hurt.

“Mels?”

“I’m okay. No, really, just—I probably need the sugar.”

Tony nodded as he popped open a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. “A pick-me-up is never a bad thing.”

A compact guy in a white coat came in. “Hey, sorry to keep you waiting.”

Tony got up to shake hands. “Suraj, hey, man.”

Shaking herself back into focus, Mels put the bullet in her purse and struggled to get through the hellos.

“We don’t mean to take you away from your work,” she said as they all clustered around one of the tables.

“Yeah, well, there’s hasn’t been much of that going on today.” Suraj smiled, his teeth white against his beautiful skin. “The police have been here grilling us about that body that disappeared since this morning.”

“What can you tell us?” Tony asked around a mouthful of crunching.

“Off the record, it’s the one that was found in the Marriott basement last night.” Suraj shrugged and settled back into his orange seat like his butt was well familiar with the ugly chairs. “I don’t know much. I came in at noon for my usual shift, and the CPD was all over the place. Rick’s been the guy on the front lines of the questions—he was the one who discovered the body was gone. Went to pull it out to do an autopsy, and…nothing. Not there. It’s too weird—I mean, it’s not like the dead guy walked out or something. But no alarms went off, and bodies are not easily hidden—not as if you’re going to smuggle one out under your armpit. Plus, this place? Eyes everywhere. Security cameras, people—”

“Has this ever happened before?” Mels asked.

“If it did, it was before my time. Then again, I’ve only been here a couple of years. It’s a mystery.”

“Will you let us know when you can give a statement?” Tony interjected.

“That’ll have to come from my boss, but I’ll keep you posted under the table as much as I can. Now, what can I do for you?”

Tony glanced over at Mels as he picked up a little Cheetos bag and motioned to the guy with it. “So, Suraj isn’t just good at what he does here. He’s also got a knack for photo analysis, which is why I think he can help you.”

Suraj smiled again. “I’m a jack of three trades, actually—I also make a mean chicken tikka masala.”

“With the garlic naan,” Tony added. “Pure awesomeness.”

“So what kind of image are we talking?” his friend asked.

Mels took out the folder Monty had given her. “Before you look at all this…I can’t tell you who gave these to me or in what context they came into his or her possession.”

“What you’re saying is, I should forget I ever saw them.”

“Exactly.”

As the man palmed the folder and opened it up, Mels frowned and looked around. That sense of being watched ratcheted up again, tingling her nape and making her clench her hands. Except there was no one in the entryway. No one in the hall beyond. Nobody lurking behind Tony’s vending machines or under the godforsaken chairs or the bolted-down tables—

“I know this case,” Suraj said as he flipped through the pictures, and Tony leaned in for a look-see. “Yeah, this is the prostitute who was found at that motel—I recognize the clothes. These markings were not on her abdomen when she came in here, though.”

“And that’s the issue.” Mels reeled her paranoia in. “The official photographs of the body don’t show anything, but these, which are claimed to have been taken before the CPD ones, do. So I want to know if these images are touched up in some way.”

Suraj looked across the table. “Do you have the files for these images? JPEGs? GIFs?”

“No, the printouts were given to me, and they’re all I’m going to get.”

“Will you let me take these into my workspace for a minute? I’ve got a microscope back there.”

Mels eased in closer. In a low voice, she said, “The police do not know about these photographs, and I’m not sure what their owner is going to do with them.”

“So keep it quiet.”

“But know that I will not obstruct justice if that’s what this comes down to. I haven’t had them long, and I will move fast with the authorities as appropriate.”

“But you probably don’t want me scanning these into my computer and doing an analysis that way, do you?”

“I’d rather not make any copies—especially not in e-form.”

“Okay, I can tell a lot under the microscope.” The guy got up. “Give me ten and I’ll see what I can do.”

As Suraj left and Tony played point-and-shoot with one of the rubbish bins, Mels rubbed the back of her neck and thought of what she’d found in her damn pocket.