Murray—in a meeting. Adam had mentioned that a “prospect” was coming through the academy.
If she was on Adam’s radar, there had to be a reason.
“Well, then, there’s hope,” Adam said. “Meg? Don’t you agree?”
She’d been looking at Matt with an expression of relief mixed with horror. She turned to Adam and shook her head. He stepped forward with her, urging her closer to the corpse.
“You’re sure?” he asked, just as Matt had.
Meg seemed frozen for a minute or two, then reached out and gently touched the dead woman’s arm. “Yes...”
“My heart bleeds for this poor girl,” Adam told her quietly, “but as Matt said, at least there’s hope for your friend Lara.”
Matt sent Adam a silent question, gesturing toward the door.
“Shall we go?” Adam suggested. “Dr. Wong, thank you.”
Matt followed Adam and Meg out to the hallway, thanking Wong for coming back in at a moment’s notice that night.
“It’s difficult, huh?” Wong shook his head. “I’m very glad for Agent Murray—but it means other people out there will mourn this woman. I wonder sometimes what I was doing when I decided to become a medical examiner. There’s an old joke about doctors who go that route. As an ME, you can’t make fatal mistakes—because your patients are already dead. But...I like to think that at least we speak for the dead, that we’re a voice. The voice that may lead to justice.”
“Yours
is
the voice that leads to justice,” Matt declared.
Wong nodded slowly. “There’s something off about this. I can’t quite figure out what it is.” He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “When I have both bodies here, maybe I’ll see it.”
“Keep me posted.”
“You heading this one up?”
Matt glanced at Adam and Meg as they moved down the hall toward the exit. “So it seems. Jackson Crow officially, but definitely our unit.” Jackson Crow spent long hours in the office. He was in charge of supervising the Krewe and overseeing the unit in New York. He coordinated data searches that came to them, organized specialized work as needed and kept his expert eye on every case in motion.
Since Matt had been summoned to the morgue that morning, he assumed he was now responsible for this one.
“I’ll call you immediately with anything I have,” Wong promised him.
Matt thanked him and hurried after the other two.
While Jackson Crow did the real supervisory work, Harrison was the creator of their unit and the overall head; Harrison dealt with the Bureau chief, mayors and other law enforcement—paving the way for Krewe members when that was needed. Adam and Jackson made a good team; Adam Harrison left Jackson Crow free to concentrate on the work at hand.
Matt had thought Adam and Meg would leave, but they were waiting for him, speaking quietly.
When he reached them, they left the building.
“What made you think your friend might have been one of the victims?” Matt asked.
“I received a strange message from her, saying that she was going home,” Meg replied.
Matt couldn’t help it; he raised his eyebrows at Adam. He said, in what he hoped was an even tone, “Then, perhaps, she
has
gone home.”
Meg Murray stiffened. He almost smiled. His reaction might be a whimsical one, but he felt she had the look of a dark-haired pagan queen—not a fledgling agent—at that moment. She might become a force to be reckoned with, if she wasn’t one already.
“She
didn’t
go home. I called her cell phone, her landline and her home in Virginia. She always has her cell—and she’s not answering it. Her parents have both passed away, but I’ve spoken with her aunt, who hasn’t heard from her, either. And now, of course, she’s worried, too.”
“But she might have taken a longer route...”
“Home could mean two other places,” she broke in, “aside from her apartment, and she’s definitely not there. Harpers Ferry is where she spent half her time, or it could mean Richmond, where her aunt