Page 27 of Black Orchid Girls (Detective Amanda Steele)

“The undressing came afterward,” she said, ruminating on that. “Could also have been an effort to remove evidence that could implicate the killer.”

“Could be. Maybe something would match up with another crime scene,” Trent kicked out, and she really wished he hadn’t. Her mind was running wildly enough on its own. “And there’s something that’s occurred to me now. We’ve been trying to figure out why Chloe was at the park so early, which we still don’t know. But if she was meeting up with someone she knew, why didn’t she wait for that person in the lot or even carpool there with them? Does that mean something? Did her killer follow her?”

“A stalker? Two stalkers? The person driving and the one who actually stabbed her?” she theorized. “It’s sad when that sounds like the better option, but compared to a serial killer, it is.”

“I didn’t think we were supposed to go there—a partnership or a serial killer,” he volleyed back. “Besides, I thought we were hoping the second car was a taxi or driving service?”

“You’re right—not that I like the direction any of this takes us.”

“Me neither,” he said.

But they had to explore all the angles in an investigation. She hated that one of these raised the possibility of a serial killer, let alone maybe two working together. Was it a matter of time before they’d find more young girls stabbed and laid out, a black orchid on their torso? She took a deep breath and rested her gaze back on Chloe. “Were you able to figure out which stab was the fatal blow?”

Rideout pointed to the wound near her heart. “I still believe this was the one.”

Was the killer sending a message by stabbing her in the heart, or was it just coincidental? Amanda wanted to ask whether Chloe would have suffered for long but hesitated. Some questions were better left unanswered—some even unconsidered.

Rideout wheeled over a table with his autopsy tools on it. “Shall I get started?”

Amanda crossed her arms, hugging herself lightly. “I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be.”

She and Trent stood by as Rideout performed the autopsy on Chloe, dissecting her and weighing her organs, cataloging her as an inventory of parts. It was something Amanda had witnessed too many times to count. And while she could stomach the sights and smells, she always hated the thought that in the crassest of terms, humans were glorified machines. A cold, unfeeling viewpoint, to be sure, but it was an observation she had made over the years. It was also something she tried to put out of her head the moment she left the morgue. Easier said than done.