He laughed shortly. “You’re not the only one,” he assured her. “But allow me to point out that Aurora has the best low crime rate for a city of its size in the entire country.”
He wasn’t telling her anything that she didn’t already know. Aurora’s exceptionally low crime rate was well-known. “I know,” she told him. “But low isn’t the same as nonexistent.”
And all it took was one killing if it involved her—or Nikki, she thought.
“No,” he agreed, getting off the elevator as it opened on the lower level, “it isn’t. But you have to focus on your odds,” Morgan advised. “And they are damn good.”
They continued walking until they reached the morgue. Morgan looked at the bulletin board. He had been right about his cousin Toni being the ME who was on duty.
They came in. Before he could make the introductions, Toni looked up from the autopsy she had just completed. The moment she did, she appeared surprised.
“Nikki?” Dugan’s wife cried, stripping off her rubber gloves. “What are you doing back so soon? And why are you here of all places?”
Shaking her head, Krys offered the woman a tight, patient smile. “No, I’m not Nik. Nikki is hopefully still on her honeymoon with Finn and completely oblivious of this whole thing.”
Toni drew a little closer, taking another look at the woman that Morgan had brought into the morgue with him. “Then Dugan wasn’t kidding,” she remarked, properly impressed as she circled around Krys. “He mentioned seeing you when he’d delivered that pizza last night. You do look exactly like her.”
Krys tried not to sigh. This was getting old. She and Nik didn’t usually travel in the same circles. “I get that a lot.”
She really had to be tired of saying that, Morgan thought. He was definitely going to have Andrew throw that get-together. That way everyone could meet Krys once and for all and finally stop remarking how much she looked just like her twin. He knew that Krys would appreciate that.
“I bet you do,” Toni said, agreeing with Krys.
“What about the dead woman?” Morgan prompted, trying to move this along.
“She doesn’t look a thing like Nikki—or—Krys, is it?” Toni asked, looking at Krys.
“Yes, it’s Krys,” Morgan confirmed, “and I realize that she doesn’t look a thing like the body those hikers found today,” he said patiently. “What I want to know is if you have any information about the victim’s time of death or the way she was killed?”
“That I can give you,” Toni said, becoming all business. “The time of death was early this morning, between six and seven,” she told Morgan. “From the looks of it and what she was wearing at the time, I’d say that the victim was jogging.”
“How did she die?” Krys asked quietly.
Toni raised her eyes to look at the other woman. “She was shot,” she answered simply. Slipping on another pair of gloves, she turned the dead woman’s head to display the wound at the back of her neck. “Most likely by a sniper.”
“A sniper?” Morgan repeated, somewhat surprised. “What makes you say it was a sniper?”
“There was just one shot,” Toni told him. “Taken at an impressive distance,” she pointed out. “To me that definitely says sniper.”
The fact that this was the work of a sniper made Morgan feel that Krys was in even more danger and was more vulnerable than he had initially thought. He was not about to take any more chances with her life.
“That settles it,” Morgan declared abruptly. “I’m keeping you under lock and key.”
Krys was instantly up in arms. “I can’t live that way.”
“Well, you might not be able to live any other way,” he pointed out. “Did you think of that?”
“He has a point, you know,” Toni told her.
“I’ll be all right,” Krys assured Morgan as well as the medical examiner. “I’ve got sources I can count on to warn me. People on the street who could put the word out,” she elaborated, “and see who might have made use of a sniper in order to get rid of Claire.”
Morgan looked as if he was very close to losing his temper. “Kowalski, you can’t—”
But she immediately cut in before he could complete his thought. “I can and I will,” she informed Morgan. “Look, don’t you see? The sooner we find out who did this, the sooner we can find out the name of the person who paid to have this hit carried out. I am not going to live in fear,” she insisted, incensed. “I can’t,” Krys underscored.
For a moment, it was as if they had both forgotten that they were not the only ones in the room. “I’m not telling you to live in fear,” Morgan said, his voice growing louder. “I’m telling you to let me do my job—and I can’t do my job if I’m worried about you.”
He suddenly realized that Toni was in the room when he saw the stunned look on her face. He had obviously said too much. But no one had ever managed to push his buttons the way this woman did, and he couldn’t even begin to explain why, not even to himself.
“You know, Morgan, we do have a lot of resources available to the police department that can be put to good use,” Toni reminded her brother-in-law.
“I know that,” he said.
“Then why don’t you use them?” Krys asked. “Between the two of us, maybe we can come up with some answers,” she said hopefully. With the prospect of possibly regaining some semblance of control over the situation, Krys was beginning to feel better.
Morgan frowned slightly. “I liked it better when you were being vulnerable,” he told her.
Krys shot him a less-than-pleased look. “I didn’t,” she told him. “Vulnerable people get taken advantage of. That isn’t my style.”
Time to wrap this up, Morgan thought. “Anything else?” he asked the medical examiner.
Toni shook her head. “Not right now. I’ll let you know if I find anything else,” she
