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you had any other bodies come through like this?” It was the only thing that came to my mind. I kept my eyes anchored on Lauren, refusing to even look at the sheet that covered the body.
    “Nope,” Lauren said as she slid the body back into the drawer and locked it. “Lots of homicides lately, but nothing like this. You see this kind of thing in high-speed car accidents or in suicides, if they jump from really high. Saw a guy one time that got murdered with a candlestick across the back of his head. Like Colonel Mustard got him in the drawing room or something. It did some nasty damage. But someone slammed into a wall like this? Nah. Whoever did it had to be hella strong.”
    I put my hands over my face, rubbing my skin, not caring what Lauren thought of me at this point. “And the bruising around the neck?”
    “Happened before death,” she said. “She was probably hanging by the neck for a little bit. Usually if there’s bruising happening at the time of death or near it, contusions don’t form. By her bruising, someone had her good and tight before she got her head caved in. It might have even resulted in her death absent the trauma to her skull.”
    I looked at the morgue drawer, the stainless steel glowering back at me in the faint glare of the fluorescent lights. I could see the outline of the three of us staring at it. I had no love lost for Charlie, but she hadn’t deserved to die like this.
    “You want that postmortem report?” Lauren asked, and she popped her gum so absently I doubted she even knew she did it.
    “Yeah,” I said, turning away from the drawer my aunt was lying dead inside, missing half her skull. “Why don’t you get that for us?”
    “Sure,” she said, and looked back at us as she turned to leave. “I’m afraid I have to ask you to come with me. I can’t leave anyone alone in here.”
    “Why not?” Scott asked with a note of amusement that was belied by how waxy he looked. His usually ruddy complexion was ashen. “They’re already dead.”
    “Exactly,” Lauren said, like that explained everything. “Necrophiliacs are everywhere.”
    There was a moment of silence after that. “You’re joking, right?” Scott asked, his jaw hanging loose.
    Lauren shrugged like it didn’t matter. “Follow me, please.”
    “Come on,” Scott said, and he put his hand on my shoulder to steer me out. I wasn’t exactly having trouble getting going under my own power, but it felt good anyway. I let him guide me gently along, a comforting weight that was different than the one that was on my shoulders the rest of the time—the weight of responsibility.

 
     
Chapter 9
     
    I read the autopsy report while Scott drove us to our hotel. Our rental was a mid-sized SUV, which Scott kept reasonably steady save for when some maniac cab driver cut in front of us with inches to spare before a traffic light. Scott let fly an obscene gesture and then a helpful dose of profanity that caused me to look up at him for a moment before I returned to my reading. The AC was blowing full power and the dashboard thermometer told us it was over a hundred degrees outside.
    “Anything interesting?” He eased the car into a gentle turn onto a boulevard marked Spring Mountain Road. He was following the GPS on his phone, which was resting in the cup holder in the black plastic center console between us.
    “Not much more than she already told us,” I said, thumbing to the last page and skimming. When I was done, I shut the thin booklet. “It kept telling me to refer to the enclosed pictures while describing the wreckage of her body, but thankfully she left those out.”
    Scott grunted and didn’t say anything. The buildings were growing taller around us, casino towers sticking high into the air, impressive facades with more industrial-looking buildings behind them. There was minimal foot traffic here, just a few people now and again who looked like casino employees heading toward bus stops after their