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cheek in frustration. “The second one.”
    “I thought so.” He sat down in his chair, his fingers lightly steepled. “You get me corroboration inside CPD, someone I can contact for verification, and I’ll run your story.”
    Yes. The words she’d been waiting to hear for two long years. “Where?”
    His grin was quick and slightly mocking. “Don’t be greedy, Miss… Carmichael, wasn’t it? You get me a statement I can verify and we’l talk.”
    It was fair, she decided. Not ideal, but fair. For a split second she considered using the other trump card she carried. Her father. But that would not be fair, to Schmidt or to herself. She gathered her pictures, frowning when he put his hand on the first one, the one with the teenagers and the body taken just moments after impact.
    “I don’t want to get sued for false information,” he said smoothly, “but I still can use the pictures. They don’t lie.”
    Joanna gritted her teeth. “Neither do I. I’l be back.” She hit the street at a brisk walk, headed for the police station. She had no idea how she’d get corroboration. But she would. Fate had tossed a story into her front yard, so to speak. Now she had to make good on the gift. Sunday, March 12, 12:30 P.M.
    Aidan hated the ME’s office. Even on a good day the smell was enough to turn his stomach. This was proving not to be a good day. For anyone involved. He stopped just inside the door, his gaze resting on the body on the exam table. Least of all for Cynthia Adams. If she had committed suicide, it was assisted. They knew that now. Someone had systematically tortured this woman with pictures and gifts. Anything bearing a signature was signed “Melanie.” Murphy thought she was probably the woman in the casket picture and Aidan was inclined to agree with him.
    The ME hadn’t heard him come in, so engrossed was she in her study of Cynthia Adams’s hands. Merciful y she’d covered Adams’s torso with a sheet. He cleared his throat and Julia VanderBeck looked up, her eyes covered by plastic glasses. He didn’t see how she could stand the smell, especially being so obviously pregnant. His regard for Julia climbed a notch or two. “You rang?” he asked and her lips quirked up.
    “I did. Where’s Murphy?”

    18
    Karen Rose

    [Suspense 5]

    You Can't Hide
    “Listening to the victim’s voice mail and watching security video of the victim’s apartment lobby.” Apparently building super McNulty’s appreciation hadn’t extended to disabling every video in the building. “He’s trying to find who carried up all those lilies.”
    Julia nodded briskly. “Remind me of the lilies before you leave,” she said, “but first you’l want the tox screen.”
    “Which one was it?” Aidan asked, reaching for the clipboard she passed over Adams’s body. They’d found seventeen different prescription bottles in the woman’s apartment. Four were prescribed by Dr. Tess Ciccotelli. The other thirteen bottles bore the names of other doctors, the dates going back more than five years.
    Julia stretched, supporting her lower back. “You’re lucky I owe Murphy a favor. I wouldn’t come in in the middle of the night for just anybody.” She blew out a breath and lowered herself onto a stool next to the exam table. “Her urine tox screen didn’t show any of them. The most recent prescription was through Ciccotelli for Xanax. It’s used to treat anxiety and depression. It’s what I should have found in her urine tox. What I actually found was high levels of PCP.”
    Aidan frowned. “She could have been a user.”
    She pushed herself to her feet. “Come here. I want to show you something.”
    She led him out of the morgue and into the lab itself. The smell was better here. Aidan sucked in a deep breath, ignoring her wry chuckle. “So show me.”
    She shook a few capsules from two different bottles onto a white piece of paper. One of the bottles he recognized from Adams’s apartment. The other bore the