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Walker had
been the proverbial knockout blonde. Even in death, she was beyond
striking. Measuring five-feet nine-inches, she would have been
described as statuesque. From what was visible, her shape fit the
criteria for the much sought after hourglass figure, and the Mother
Goddess had been more than kind to her in the area of endowment.
Still visible along her shoulders and upper arms were the subdued
lines of trim musculature. Her stomach was tight and flat. All of
this gave silent testimony to her superlative physical condition.
Soft but powerful, which is exactly what clients seeking her
particularly specialized services would have been after. It was
also a fact that told me she wouldn’t have gone down easily. This
woman would have fought for her life if given half a chance.
    Her natural blonde hair was cropped neatly,
shoulder length; and what had been a stylish coif was matted with a
dried crust of her own blood. The back of her head had impacted
violently with the stone inlaid courtyard in front of the hotel but
not before the rest of her body had won that final race. According
to the medical examiner, the x-rays showed countless fractures
along her spine and each of her limbs. Like Ben had wryly
commented—it wasn’t the fall that killed her, it was the sudden
stop at the end. Cliché, but then everyone had their own way of
dealing with the horrors that they saw. Defense mechanisms are what
the psychologists like to call them. Clichés and dry humor just
happened to be Ben’s. Brianna Walker’s fine Grecian features and
clear complexion bespoke of an austere beauty combined with a cold
arrogance that exuded supreme confidence. She knew she was
beautiful, and she had not hesitated to use that fact to her
advantage.
    Now, however, her lifeless blue-grey pallor
contrasted hideously with the painted face of fantasy she had worn
that night. Once full, pouting lips sagged flatly, still lacquered
a garish red. Dusky steel-greys coated her now sinking eyelids in
sharp contoured lines. Thick blue-black mascara still clung in
places to spidery lashes, but only where both it and eyeliner
hadn’t run in dirty streams down her rouged cheeks. She had cried
beyond the threshold of waterproof makeup.
    She had sobbed in pain.
    She had whimpered for mercy.
    She had died in unfathomable fear.
    No longer the cold seductress, she now wore
the mask of a weeping clown, and her pain reached past her cloak of
darkness to tear at my very soul.
    I felt Ben’s large hand rest lightly on my
shoulder. “Hey, Kemosabe. You okay?”
    “Yeah, Ben.” I whispered past the frog that
had made a home in my throat. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
    “You aren’t gonna try anything, are ya’?
Ya’know, like...” He allowed his voice to melt into silence.
    I had previously worked side by side with Ben
on a gruesome serial killer case almost every step of the way. It
was then that he had seen me exhibit abilities that until that time
he had discounted as pure invention. Among those talents had been
the capacity to channel and witness the death of a victim first
hand. However, he had also learned that in doing so, I could run
the risk of joining the victim on the other side permanently. It
was to this that I knew he was now wordlessly referring.
    “I don’t know,” I answered. “I’ll try not to
without warning you first.”
    “Good enough.” After a brief, brotherly
squeeze, he released my shoulder and stepped back. I could hear him
flip open his notepad, and the rustling sound was punctuated by the
metallic click of a ballpoint pen. “Go ahead, Doc.”
    Ben spoke to the medical examiner who stepped
around my motionless form and pulled back the pristine white sheet
to reveal the rest of the nightmare.
    I slipped my glasses back on to my face and
adjusted them down the bridge of my nose with slow determination,
and only then did I allow my eyes to roam across the rest of the
young woman’s body.
    “As you can see,” the M.E. began as if