Read The Dying Breath: A Forensic Mystery for Free Online Page A

faint sickly sweet odor masked by disinfectant. Noisome traces of the dead. If she believed what Lyric told her, the human cells floating through the building were already being pulled into the soil to be reborn through the leaves in an endless cycle of rebirth in an endless succession.
    Cameryn, though, had been raised on the certainty of science intertwined with the mystery of her Catholic faith. It was through these diverse filters that she attempted to explain the uncertainty of justice. How was it that two people had died while Kyle roamed free? She had to believe Kyle would be caught because of forensics, and if science didn’t nail him she’d settle for the hand of God, Old Testament style.
    After making their way down the hallway they stopped at a desk made of blond wood. A woman Cameryn vaguely recognized looked up.
    “Hey, Justin. Who’s your little friend?” She eyed Cameryn’s pink Swatch watch and her chewed fingernails. Cameryn quickly shoved her hands in her coat pockets.
    “This is Cameryn Mahoney,” he answered. “Patrick Mahoney’s daughter. She’s assistant to the coroner. Dr. Moore asked her to come.”
    “Oh, right.” There was the barest of nods. “I remember now. The child prodigy.” The woman wore a name tag that read Amber Murphy . She was about twenty-five, with short red hair and a heart-shaped face. Her eyes slid back to Justin and she gave him a bright smile. Cameryn noticed Amber had dimples.
    “So, Justin, where have you been hiding?” Amber asked. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
    “I’ve been on duty, protecting the good people of Silverton.”
    “We could use a little of that down here in Durango, cowboy. There’s a lot of wild things going on in our big city.”
    “Did you just call Durango a big city?” Justin asked, laughing. “Remember, I moved here from New York—”
    “Excuse me, can we go back now?” Cameryn interrupted. “Dr. Moore made it sound like the case is time sensitive.”
    Amber blinked, as though she had already forgotten Cameryn was there. Clearing her throat, she said, “Of course. But I’m supposed to ask you a question. Dr. Moore’s having a holy fit about security, so . . . did anyone approach you about the decedents at any time before you got here?”
    Justin said, “No,” while Cameryn shook her head.
    “Good. I feel stupid asking, like I’m one of those security people at the airport. I mean, who doesn’t know by now not to take packages from a stranger, and who’d be dumb enough to say yes if they actually did? But Moore told me to grill everyone, so that’s what I’m doing.” She leaned forward, and Cameryn noticed that Amber lined her mouth outside the edges. A glossy lipstick glittered on lips painted the color of maple sugar. “Do you even know who we got back there?” Amber gave Justin a cloying look. She was talking to him directly while simultaneously erasing Cameryn.
    “Not a clue,” Justin replied.
    But Amber was all smiles. “You’ll see.” Another knowing look, this time accompanied by a wink as she waved them toward the swinging doors. “One thing’s for sure, when this gets out, the paparazzi are gonna go wild,” she called after them.
    The last words cut in and out as the door swung behind them and Cameryn stopped just beyond their reach. Crossing her arms, she stared up at Justin and hissed, “Little friend?”
    Justin gave a wicked, faunlike grin, his eyebrows arching into his too-long hair. “Amber’s all right.”
    “I’m sure you think so, cowboy .”
    He cocked his head and she felt her heart kick sideways. Get a grip, she told herself. She was about to do an autopsy and she had no business musing over the color of Justin’s irises, water mixed with sky.
    “Is something wrong?” he asked.
    “No! It’s just that Amber mentioned the word paparazzi . Cases that have a lot of media attention are always harder,” she lied, aware of how much she disliked Amber and her glossy lips.