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but we followed.
    “They found her under the footbridge that leads from Treasure Island to the mall,” Lauren said, like I should know where that was. She didn’t go too fast—not that she could have outwalked two metas—but she didn’t look back to see if we were behind her, either. She brushed through the double doors and the smell of the morgue got heavier. I didn’t gag, but I felt the urge. “Skull was busted open, bruising around her throat like she’d been throttled. Laceration on her abdomen.” She glanced back at me. “It’s not pretty. I’ve seen worse, but it’s not going to be for the weak of stomach.”
    I bristled a little that she didn’t look at Scott as she said it. “I’ve seen dead bodies before, thanks.”
    “Just giving you a warning,” she said with a shrug then looked to Scott. “You too. If you give me a couple minutes, I could put a sheet around the back of her head so you don’t have to see the—”
    “It’s fine,” I said, a little tense. “We can handle it.”
    “If you say so.” Her eyes flared in a way that told me—when coupled with her tone—she thought we were both going to be dry-heaving on her floor in a matter of moments. She led us over to a wall of stainless steel drawers and scanned for a second until she found the one she was looking for. She slid it open and then pulled the table out with nothing more than a squeal. The outline of a body was visible beneath a white sheet. “So, are you here just to identify? Because generally I don’t get FBI agents from Minneapolis in here to check out local homicide vics.”
    “She’s my aunt,” I said, glancing at Lauren. “I’ll need to know some details on—”
    “I can give you the report,” Lauren said. Her tone was muted, as if it was her way of being sympathetic for my loss. “No toxicology results yet, though, and the forensics will be a few days.”
    “We can expedite that,” Scott said. Though I’m sure he was trying to be helpful, I saw Lauren blanch subtly at that, and watched her expression harden. Probably a territorial thing.
    “Okay,” she said, indifferent. “Here she is.” Her fingers were clenched around the top of the sheet. “You sure you want to see her in all her gory glory? I cleaned her up, but she died of massive blunt force trauma to the skull and there’s only so much—”
    “Just show me,” I said. She did, lifting the sheet and folding it back under Charlie’s collarbones.
    And it was Charlie; that much there wasn’t any doubt about. I tried to keep my eyes on her face, stopping them from looking any farther down than her ears. Her head rested low on the steel table, impossibly, unnaturally low for any normal person who had a fully-formed skull. It was blatantly obvious even without doing anything more than glancing that Charlie no longer had a fully-formed skull, though. At least the back half was missing, maybe more.
    I looked away from her and ran my tongue up, inadvertently making a clicking noise against the back of my teeth. It felt horribly inappropriate given the circumstances. “Did they … uh … did her killer … take the back of her … uh …” The smell of death, of rot and stink, filled my nose. It was almost overwhelming.
    “The back of her skull? Nope,” Lauren said and, unprompted, covered Charlie back up. I watched my aunt’s blank, pallid face disappear beneath a sheet of white that was only a few shades off from the same tone as her flesh. Considering how tanned and vibrant Charlie had been in life, it was a dramatic change. “Not sure how much you want to know, but we have the pieces of it—and her brains. They’re all accounted for, just not—ummm—I couldn’t put her back together. That’s really more a mortician’s area of expertise.” She looked a little abashed at this admission.
    “Good God,” Scott breathed from next to me. I didn’t look at him because I didn’t want to see if he was affected the way I was.
    “Have