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into a red biohazard bin. “Your case is next on my list.”
    She led him through a glass door with a double helix etched on the window. The main DNA lab was two stories high and half as long as a football field.
    “They just sent up the evidence,” she said over her shoulder.
    He followed her past several heavy-duty fume hoods to the walk-in refrigerator, where evidence bags were lined up on a shelf. The entire opposite wall of shelves was filled with rape kits, thousands of them, all awaiting testing. Each kit fit into a box not much larger than a VHS tape, and it would take an army of Mias working around the clock for years to wade through them all. But she didn’t seem daunted by the size of the job. Or if she was, she didn’t show it.
    She read several of the bag labels, then rattled off a case number.
    “That’s the one,” he said. “We’re thinking it’s connected to another rape-homicide that came in last week.”
    She lifted three bags and took them to an empty table. Ric scanned the immaculate laboratory. Lining the walls were glass cabinets containing rows of beakers, test tubes, and other supplies he couldn’t identify. On the opposite end of the room, several white-coated men peered into microscopes that probably cost more money than Ric took home in a year. The Delphi Center operated on hefty fees and a private endowment, so it could afford the best of the best as far as staff and equipment.Delphi was rumored to be every bit as good as the FBI lab at Quantico. Mia claimed it was better.
    “Let’s have a look.” She spent a few minutes at the sink washing up, as if she was scrubbing in for surgery. Then she tore off a sheet of clean white paper from a roll at the end of the table and spread it out to create a work surface. Finally, she pulled on fresh gloves and eye shields before unsealing one of the evidence bags.
    The first held the duct tape.
    “Who did this?” she exclaimed, instantly zeroing in on the same problem Ric had when he’d first seen the evidence photos. Whoever had removed the binding from the victim’s wrists had cut through the tape in three places.
    “No idea. Could have been the crime-scene techs. Maybe the ME. Although I doubt it. He’s pretty meticulous.”
    “You didn’t attend the autopsy?” She continued to look surprised.
    “Wasn’t my case then. Burleson caught it. He did the crime scene, the autopsy. But then the chief tossed it over to me. Thinks it might be related to a motel murder on I-35. Woman in that case had her hands taped, too.”
    Mia shook her head. “Well, I hope you have pictures. This is a mess.”
    “We do,” Ric said, but pictures weren’t going to be enough if this thing went to trial. The sort of knots or bindings used by a perpetrator could reveal a lot, provided some idiot didn’t recklessly saw them off the body and destroy the evidence. Photographs were okay, but they weren’t as effective in court as the real thing, which was why Ric had given Burleson a ration of shit over this.As the lead investigator, he should have kept an eye on the crime-scene techs and even the ME every step of the way to make sure the evidence stayed intact.
    Mia was turning the chunks of tape over slowly with a pair of tweezers. “I should be able to get some skin cells off the adhesive side if the perp wasn’t wearing gloves. But even if he was, he might have torn the tape with his teeth and deposited saliva.” After a few moments, she replaced the tape in the evidence bag. “What else did you have?”
    “I haven’t seen the rest of it. Her shoes, I think. And her dress. I understand there was a lot of blood.”
    Mia resealed the bag and replaced it in the refrigerator before shifting her attention to the second bag. A new sheet of paper came out, new gloves. Mia unsealed the bag and, to Ric’s surprise, pulled out a big white envelope. It was one of those waterproof bubble-wrap mailers.
    Her gaze flashed to his. “Who packed this?” she asked,