Page 5

CHAPTER FIVE

I hung up my bag in the mudroom and then made my way into the kitchen.

My grandparents had lived on the third floor of the Colonial when they’d first opened the funeral home, up until my grandmother had met a tragic end by falling out of an open window. Knowing what I did now about the kind of family I come from, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find out that my grandfather had been the one to push her.

When my parents had taken over the funeral home, they’d done a remodel so the third floor could be used for extra viewing rooms at some point. Up until the last couple of years, we hadn’t needed the extra viewing rooms, so the third floor had been relegated to storage. But along with the population explosion in King George County and the increase of violent crimes, there was also an increase in deaths by natural causes. The funeral home was so busy I would have been happy for another one to open up just to take some of the business.

My parents also remodeled the first floor so the front office, a conference room for more sensitive matters, and the casket showroom were lined up on one side of the wide hallway and on the other side was a chapel and the largest viewing room.

Since they’d never done anything with pure intentions, they’d used the right side of the funeral home as their evil lair. Maybe I’m being dramatic, but flippancy was still how I coped with the truth of who they really were. They’d added a kitchen and office that were kept private from the public part of the funeral home, and they’d had a basement dug to create a lab that most forensics teams in the country would kill to get their hands on. No pun intended.

The lab was protected with a pressurized steel door that needed a code and a thumbprint to open. But my parents had needed the protection of Fort Knox for their illegal activities. I’d deactivated the thumbprint and just used a code since it was important to protect the bodies from any misdeeds. Attempted body theft was extremely rare in the mortuary business, but it was better safe than sorry.

I looked at the coffeepot with envy as I passed out of the kitchen, thinking that nine months seemed like a long time to survive with only one cup a day. I rubbed at the tension gathered at the base of my neck as I made my way to Emmy Lu’s office.

I’d hired Emmy Lu once business for the funeral home had gotten so busy that I couldn’t do it all myself. Emmy Lu Stout had been a godsend. She was a Bloody Mary native, and she’d babysat me a time or two in my formative years. She’d gotten married to her high school sweetheart the day after graduation, and had given birth to five boys shortly thereafter. She’d been a stay-at-home mom until her youngest had turned eighteen and her husband had walked out the door to go live with a younger woman. So she’d put on her pantyhose and come looking for a job. I told her to feel free to leave the pantyhose at home, but she’d been hired on the spot.

Emmy Lu was cute as a button, and looked like a slightly overweight Gidget with crow’s feet. She sat behind her desk with a pair of readers pushed up on the top of her head while wearing another pair from a chain hanging around her neck.

“What’s up?” I asked, knocking on the doorframe before coming inside.

“Just doing inventory,” she said. “We’re going to need to order new caskets soon. Especially the midrange models. Been a rough few months for the middle class.”

“I heard we’ll be full of Hells Angels tonight,” I said, taking a seat across from her desk.

“I went on a date with an outlaw biker once,” she said, her dimples fluttering in her cheeks and a flush coming over her skin. “Before Tom.”

My brows rose at that. I hadn’t known there’d been anyone before Tom. Emmy Lu and Tom Daly had been dating about a year now. Tom owned the Donut Palace. We tried to support Tom, but it was fortunate he had a day job. Donuts weren’t his gift.

“Who knew you were so rebellious,” I said. “I didn’t hear a word about it.”

“It’s a well-kept secret, so if everyone knows about it tomorrow I’ll know who blabbed.”

I put my fingers together and made a motion to zip my lips.

“I met him on that singles’ cruise I took after the divorce,” she said. “Best week of my life.”

“I didn’t know outlaw bikers went on singles’ cruises,” I said, brows raised in surprise.

“They go all over the world,” she said as if she were an expert.

“You weren’t scared?” I asked. “I heard you have to do all kinds of weird rituals to become one of their old ladies.”

“Nah,” she said. “I told him from the start I was just in it for the sex. I’d never been with anyone but my husband. He was real respectful of my wishes too. I think I’m naturally drawn to a bad boy. He wore jeans and leather for the whole cruise unless he was naked.

“I did get a little worried when I saw him on my flight coming home. I thought maybe he was following me. But it turned out the outlaws have a big presence in Virginia, and he lives in Richmond. My mother would’ve killed me if I’d brought him home. He had tattoos everywhere. And I mean everywhere .”

My eyebrows rose at that. This was information about Emmy Lu that I didn’t need to know.

“He had a tattoo of a hundred-dollar bill right on his penis,” she said.

“Why?”

“I have no idea,” she said. “But it was a little off putting to stare face-to-face with Benjamin Franklin. He wasn’t an attractive man.”

“I can’t even imagine,” I said, horrified. “Have you seen Lily?”

“She’s in the conference room studying, though when I went in to take her a cup of coffee she’d fallen asleep in her textbook.”

“Ahh, the old learning by osmosis trick,” I said. “I did that a time or two in medical school.”

“Very comforting, Doc,” she said sarcastically.

“I guess it’s a good thing my patients are already dead,” I said, getting to my feet. “I’ll go get her. I’m about to start the autopsies. I hate to miss the outlaw party tonight.”

“It’ll probably be the biggest crowd we’ve ever had. All the locals are real curious what happens at an outlaw wake. I’ve been fielding calls all day. There will be a lot of locals here.”

“Good Lord,” I said, trying to imagine the townspeople of Bloody Mary integrating with the Hells Angels.

“Tom’s coming as soon as he’s done at the office.”

“Jack will be here too,” I said. “But between you and me he’s making sure Sheldon doesn’t end up pierced and tattooed and wearing nothing but a pair of chaps.”

“I’m so glad I voted for him for sheriff,” she said wide eyed, her little Kewpie bow mouth pursed. “I know he’s got the citizens’ best interests at heart.”

“You’ve developed a real sarcastic streak since you started working here.”

“I’ve been practicing,” she said. “And don’t worry about Sheldon. We’ll make sure the funeral home is still standing when everyone leaves at eight o’clock. We’ve got reinforcements.”

“You almost make it sounds like the citizens of Bloody Mary are going to take on a bunch of outlaw bikers.”

“Like I tell my boys,” she said. “Always be prepared.”

I smiled grimly and decided the best thing to do was bury myself in the basement with my autopsy saw.

I waved goodbye and made my way toward the conference room, wondering where Sheldon was lurking. I didn’t have to look far. He was sitting at the conference table with Lily, his head leaned back against the chair and his eyes closed. His earbuds were in and his finger was tapping against the chair.

I looked at Lily and she was staring at me over the top of her laptop like a deer caught in headlights.

“Everything okay in here?” I asked, brows raised.

She closed her laptop, and stood stretching her neck from side to side. “We’re good. Sheldon’s listening to the soundtrack from Sons of Anarchy . He wants to be prepared for tonight. You ready to start the autopsy?”

“If you can break free,” I said.

She grinned and shoved her laptop and books in an oversized backpack that looked like it weighed more than she did.

Sheldon’s eyes popped open and he jumped when he saw us, his face pale and clammy. His hand was clutched to his heart.

“You startled me,” he yelled, trying to talk over the music blaring in his ears.

I pointed to his earbuds and he jerked them out.

“You okay?” I asked.

“I think I was dreaming,” he said. “And then the bass started pumping and my heart started pounding. Outlaw life is intense.”

“You have everything under control for tonight?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, wiping the sweat from his upper lip. “Victor is laid out in the blue room and I opened up the connecting doors to the chapel to make more space. He looks good for a guy who got shot in the neck. His mom insisted he wear a turtleneck with his leathers and that we cover his face tattoos with makeup. He’s real presentable.”

“It’ll be great,” I said, not sure if I believed it. “Is the burial still set for Monday?”

“Yes,” he said. “The family wanted a private burial. I think Mrs. Mobley got some pushback from his outlaw brothers, but she’s no pushover herself. They seemed a little scared of her. Just between you and me, I think she was someone’s old lady back in the day.”

“King George County does love family legacy,” I said. “It’s important to pass on the traditions of those who came before us.”

“My mom told me that it’s well known the Hells Angels have a secret support club here,” Sheldon whispered, as if the Hells Angels were listening at the door. “And they’re using this funeral as an excuse to recruit.”

“What’s a support club?” Lily asked.

“It’s like a farm system,” Sheldon said. “Like in baseball.”

“Gotcha,” she said. “Is that a bad thing?”

“Yeah,” Sheldon said, his face pinkening. The more knowledge he was able to share the more animated he became. “It’s real bad. Everyone knows this is Vagos country. They control the entire East Coast, and technically the Hells Angels had to get permission to even be here. There could be a turf war if the Hells Angels aren’t careful and they’ve been recruiting in Virginia, right under the noses of the Vagos.”

“Wow,” I said. “I had no idea.”

“Most people don’t pay attention to the one percenters,” Sheldon said stoically. “They can’t handle the truth.”

“Sheldon, do me a favor,” I said.

His eyes lit with excitement. “Anything.”

“Turn off that music for a little while and give your brain a break. I’m not going to be happy if I come into work Monday and you have a teardrop tattoo and you’re wearing their colors.”

He swallowed hard and nodded, and I could tell he’d been imagining himself doing just that.

“Good luck with the viewing tonight,” I said, and Lily and I escaped the room.

“He needs a keeper,” Lily said.

“He lives with his mother,” I countered.

“Then he needs a wife. That man has no street smarts. It’s almost criminal to let him out on his own.”

“Fortunately, he loves his work and that keeps him occupied,” I said.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Lily said. “I do not like the funeral home side of death. When it’s my turn just burn me to ash and put me in a cool container on the shelf—maybe an hourglass or an ant farm. Working a homicide or suspicious death gives me a lot more satisfaction than filling people up with formaldehyde and sticking them in the ground. I don’t know how you switch back and forth between the pure science and dealing with living people’s emotions.”

“It’s not so difficult,” I said. “That’s the part the science gets wrong. We need to have compassion, whether we’re working on the homicide of a nineteen-year-old bride or whether we’re burying a hundred-year-old who died peacefully in his sleep. The compassion is what drives us closer to justice. Death is loss, no matter if it’s by man’s hand or God’s hand. And there are always people left behind who suffer because of it. The least we can do is be a safe space where they can grieve.”

Lily hmmmed, but didn’t say anything and I knew she was thinking over what I’d said. We made another pass through the kitchen, and I kept my eyes averted so I wasn’t tempted by the coffee maker.

“No coffee?” Lily asked, making a detour toward the fridge to grab one of the diet sodas she lived on.

“I’ve got water in the fridge downstairs,” I said.

“You’re being weird today,” she said, eyeing me suspiciously as I typed in the code for the lab door.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I lied.

The door whooshed as the pressure seal was released, the metallic sound echoing in the concrete stairwell. We stepped onto the landing, and a rush of cold air hit us like a physical wall. It was like stepping into an icebox—an intentional design to slow decomposition and preserve evidence. The sharp smell of antiseptic assaulted my nostrils. The fluorescent lights flicked on automatically, casting everything in a harsh, unforgiving glow.

“I want to do Chloe first,” I said, my shoes clicking a steady rhythm on the metal stairs as I made my way down into the cavernous lab. The sound bounced off the tiled walls, emphasizing the emptiness of the space. “Derby found her background check lacking.”

“Lacking?” Lily asked, heading to the walk-in refrigeration unit. Her breath formed small clouds in the chill air. “In what way?”

“As in she didn’t really have one,” I said, watching as Lily’s gloved hands grasped the handle of the large stainless-steel door. “Jack sent me a copy of her file. She’s supposedly a nineteen-year-old kid. No medical or tax records. Got her first job last year. Parents are named John and Jane Matthews, but they died in a car crash somewhere just before she got her first job. I’m hoping her body will give us a little insight as to why someone separated her from her husband and shot her six times.”

The heavy door swung open with a soft pneumatic hiss. Cold mist rolled out at ankle level, curling around our feet like ghostly tendrils. Inside, the bodies of Theo and Chloe Vasilios lay on separate gurneys, covered with white sheets, their forms creating eerie topographical landscapes under the fabric. Lily wheeled Chloe out first, the wheels of the gurney squeaking slightly against the polished concrete floor.

I put on my lab coat, feeling the familiar weight settle across my shoulders—a professional armor of sorts. I prepped the paperwork, getting out forms and my digital voice recorder, setting up my workstation with practiced precision. There was a lot of bureaucracy when it came to the dead, and I was a stickler for keeping organized files on everyone that passed through my lab. I shuddered to think of the consequences if I didn’t. It hadn’t been too long ago that the FBI had raided my parents’ home and business, and that was an experience one wasn’t likely to ever forget.

I put on a heavy leather apron that was easy to clean, the thick material cool against my clothing. I moved to the sink and scrubbed my hands thoroughly, the water scalding hot against my skin—a contrast to the chill of the room. The ritual was as ingrained as breathing: forty seconds of scrubbing, careful attention to the spaces between fingers, under nails. I dried my hands and put on nitrile gloves, the snap of latex echoing in the quiet lab.

Lily went through the same ritual and then we lifted Chloe’s body from the gurney and placed her on the metal autopsy table. The sheet fell away, revealing what remained of the young bride. I flipped on the overhead light, adjusting it to focus directly on her body.

Death never looked good on anyone, but under the harsh, clinical lights, it was even worse. The victim was covered in dried blood, the dress she’d carefully chosen as wedding guests waved the happy couple goodbye a dark, rusty brown. Her blond hair was matted with crimson, her youth and beauty obscured by the violent manner of her death. I took additional pictures to document her condition before beginning the autopsy, the camera’s flash highlighting gruesome details that the naked eye might miss.

“Even with all I’ve seen, this still gets to me,” Lily said quietly, her face solemn as she arranged the instruments on the tray beside the table. “Murdered on her wedding night.”

I nodded, pushing aside the emotional response to focus on the task at hand. “Normally, we would start with a visual examination, checking for birthmarks, tattoos, and wounds. However, she’s so crusted with dried blood that it’s difficult to see anything. Let’s clean her up first.”

I carefully cut off the dress and undergarments she was wearing, the fabric stiff with dried blood. The scissors made a soft crunching sound as they cut through the material. I set the clothing aside for further analysis—sometimes the smallest fiber or stain could break a case. Next, I took scrapings from under her fingernails and swabbed her skin for DNA evidence, labeling each sample meticulously.

“Hand me the saline solution,” I said to Lily, who passed me a squirt bottle. I began the process of removing the dried blood from the body, using warm water, saline, and a soft sponge. The water ran pink and then clear as I worked, revealing pale skin marred by the violence of her final moments.

The gunshot wounds stood out in stark relief against her clean skin—one to the center of her forehead, one to the throat, three clustered in her chest, and two in her pubic bone. Each wound was a small, puckered hole, the skin around them powder burned and discolored.

I stared at the two bullet holes in the pubic region. “Whoever did this wanted to make a statement.”

I took her fingerprints, the ink dark against her pale skin, and wondered if they’d show up in any system. Then I turned on my digital recorder, my voice filling the silent lab.

“Autopsy case number 23-142, April 12. Time is 3:15 p.m. Subject is identified by driver’s license and passport as Chloe Anne Matthews, also known as Chloe Vasilios. Caucasian female, blond hair, blue eyes. Weight is fifty-four kilograms. Height is one hundred and fifty-eight centimeters.”

“She’s very petite,” Lily commented, helping me position the body for a full-body photograph. “Especially to take that many bullets.”

“After the first one to the head, it wouldn’t have mattered,” I said, adjusting the camera. “She would have been gone instantly. The rest were…excessive.”

I pulled the overhead surgical light down and turned on the bright examination lights. The harsh illumination cast deep shadows across the contours of her face, making her look almost skeletal.

“Evidence of professional spray tan and recent makeup application,” I noted, examining her skin under the magnifying lens. “Eyelash extensions professionally applied. Acrylic nails with a French manicure, work done within the last week. She was preparing for her wedding day.” The observation hung in the air, a reminder of the celebration that had been violently interrupted.

I used sterile scissors to cut a small section of hair from different parts of her scalp, placing each sample in a labeled container. Under the microscope, the truth was clear.

“The blond hair isn’t natural,” I said, adjusting the focus. “I’m seeing dark roots. She was a brunette, probably with regular bleaching and toning treatments.”

‘None of that is uncommon,” Lily said, making notes on the chart. “Especially for a bride on her wedding day. Most women want to look their best.”

I continued my methodical examination, checking her skin for unusual marks, birthmarks, or scarring. Nothing notable appeared until I reached her feet. Something caught my eye on the sole of her right foot.

“What have we here?” I pulled the light closer and put on my magnifying loupe so I could see better. The 3.5x magnification brought the small mark into focus.

“What is that?” Lily asked, her head bowed close to mine, her breath warm in the chilled air of the lab.

“Maybe just dirt,” I said, squinting through the magnifier.

There was a smudge of blood that I hadn’t completely removed in the initial cleaning. I took a cotton-tipped applicator and dipped it in isopropyl alcohol, then gently rubbed it across the area. The blood came away, revealing something underneath.

“It’s a tattoo,” I said, feeling a small thrill of excitement. “Looks like a pattern of dots.”

I took a photo, adjusting the camera to capture the small mark clearly, then enhanced the image on the computer monitor so the tiny marks were distinguishable. I sketched the pattern on my autopsy form: two dots stacked vertically at the top, a triangle of three dots in the middle, and two dots side by side at the bottom.

“Not your typical tattoo,” I said, frowning at the pattern. “It’s crude—almost like someone did it by hand rather than with a professional tattoo gun.”

“Maybe it’s tally marks or something like that,” Lily suggested, studying the pattern on the monitor. “Maybe gang activity or some kind of identifier?”

“Could be,” I said, my mind already racing with possibilities. “Let’s do full x-rays. If she’s got unusual markings on the outside, who knows what we might find beneath the surface. Maybe there’s evidence of childhood trauma or abuse that isn’t immediately visible.”

We carefully moved her body to the x-ray table, and I rolled the portable machine into place. The apparatus hummed as it powered up, the familiar sound oddly comforting in the sterile environment.

Lily looked at me with poorly concealed excitement when I handed her the lead apron.

“Why don’t you do this part and I’ll observe? You’ve been through the process enough to get all the angles,” I said, noticing how her eyes lit up at the opportunity for hands-on experience.

She nodded eagerly and got to work, positioning the machine with confident movements. The x-ray machine clicked and whirred as she captured images from multiple angles, her face set in concentration. When she was finished, we transferred the digital images to the computer system and pulled them up on the high-resolution monitor.

“She’s got a break in the ulna,” I said, pointing to a faint line in the bone of her forearm. “See the remodeling? That shows it would have been from more than a decade ago, when she was a child.” I frowned as I studied the x-ray more closely. “But it wasn’t set properly. And then look at the distal radius. It was crushed at some point. There should be surgical pins in this, but there’s nothing. An injury like this would have limited her mobility and continued to cause her pain for the rest of her life.”

“Could she have been from a third world country?” Lily asked, leaning closer to the screen. “That would explain the lack of proper medical treatment.”

“Maybe,” I said, scrolling through the other x-rays. “That could also explain why we’re not getting much information on her stateside. But let’s check her teeth—they can tell us a lot about someone’s background.”

I returned to the body and gently opened her mouth, using a dental mirror and penlight to examine each tooth carefully. What I found—or rather, didn’t find—was telling.

“She has two molars missing and several untreated cavities,” I said, my voice tight with concentration. “There are no signs that she’s ever been to a dentist. No fillings, no sealants, nothing. Her teeth are fairly straight naturally, but she’s definitely never had orthodontic work.”

“More signs of poverty or limited access to healthcare,” Lily said softly, a note of sympathy in her voice.

“And her wisdom teeth haven’t fully erupted,” I added, examining the back of her mouth. “That’s consistent with her age. So she is likely around nineteen to twenty-one, as her identification claims.”

“If she was creating a fake identity, wouldn’t she have made herself at least twenty-one?” Lily asked. “What can you do at nineteen?”

“Get married to a middle-aged man without raising too many eyebrows, I guess,” I said grimly. “Though that still attracts attention, as we’ve seen.”

I continued my examination of her mouth. “She’s missing the first molar on her upper left side and the second molar on the lower right. They likely became infected and had to be pulled by someone with minimal training. The second molar typically emerges around age twelve, so that extraction would have been fairly recent—within the last few years.”

“That’s pretty fast decay for someone so young,” Lily observed, making notes on the chart.

“Not if you have deficiencies in your drinking water,” I said, my brow furrowed in thought. “Lack of fluoride, or even contaminated water sources, can accelerate tooth decay dramatically. But it’s very odd to see this pattern in someone her age in the United States.”

“Any other theories?” Lily asked, watching me closely.

“Maybe,” I said, removing my gloves and reaching for a fresh pair. “I once did an autopsy for an Amish man in his forties. You’d have thought he was in his seventies by looking at his body. He had no modern medical or dental care—bones that had been broken and healed incorrectly, teeth pulled rather than saved, arthritis that could have been treated but wasn’t.”

“I thought the Amish didn’t believe in modern medicine?” Lily asked, handing me the clean gloves.

“They do, actually,” I said, snapping the gloves into place. “It usually just comes down to cost and accessibility. Many of those communities can’t afford to seek professional medical treatment, so they make do the best they can. If a tooth gets abscessed, you pull it. If you break your arm, you bind it up and hope it heals straight.”

“Geez,” Lily said, shaking her head.

“But I don’t know,” I said, looking down at the young woman on my table. “There could be multiple explanations for how she ended up here in the condition she did. Including something more sinister like torture or captivity. Pulling teeth is a common method of inflicting pain without leaving visible marks. But somehow she got connected to the son of a former Greek ambassador, and ended up in a million-dollar home in Newcastle. Whatever her background, moving to King George only to be murdered shortly after is suspicious at best.”

“Any idea where they lived before?” Lily asked, helping me move the body back to the main autopsy table.

“Theo Vasilios’s background is protected by the State Department,” I said, positioning Chloe’s body carefully. “A cursory background check on him just shows current information. Jack will have to pull some strings, but I’m sure he’ll end up with whatever information he needs. Let’s get back to work.”

I examined the gunshot wounds more carefully, noting their precise locations. There were no exit wounds on her body, which wasn’t unusual for a .22 caliber weapon. Sometimes it was better to be shot by a larger caliber weapon because the bullets would pass straight through tissue, creating a cleaner wound channel that a doctor could treat. But .22s were a crap shoot. Once they entered the body, they could tumble and ricochet off bones, scrambling someone’s insides like eggs.

“Hand me the probe, please,” I said, and Lily passed me the thin metal rod. I carefully inserted it into the head wound, tracking the bullet’s path through the brain tissue. “Bullet traveled upward through the frontal lobe and lodged in the parietal region. Death would have been instantaneous.”

I took more photographs, documenting the precise pattern of the wounds. The three chest shots were grouped tightly together over her heart, and the two pelvic shots were perfectly symmetrical.

“Whoever did this knew what they were doing,” I said quietly. “This wasn’t a crime of passion or a random attack. This was calculated, deliberate.”

Next came the delicate task of removing the bullets. I used a pair of long forceps and a scalpel to carefully extract each one, Lily holding a small evidence container ready for each bullet I retrieved. The soft ping as each bullet dropped into the metal container punctuated the quiet humming of the ventilation system.

“All seven accounted for,” I said finally, labeling the last container. “We’ll send these to ballistics, but they look like standard .22 caliber rounds. Different from the 9mm that killed Theo.”

I made detailed notes and drew diagrams in my chart, marking the exact position of each wound. Finally, I was ready for the Y-incision, the moment when the body would truly reveal its secrets.

“What music are you feeling like today?” I asked Lily, our traditional question before beginning the central part of the autopsy. Music helped maintain focus during the long, sometimes gruesome process.

“Something classic. And definitely no outlaw biker music. I need to be in a better headspace than that for tonight’s viewing.”

I grinned and said, “Alexa, turn on Dusty Springfield radio.”

The smooth, soulful tones of “Son of a Preacher Man” filled the lab as I picked up my scalpel. The blade gleamed under the surgical lights as I positioned it at the top of Chloe’s right shoulder. With a steady hand, I made the first incision, drawing the blade in a curving arc down toward the center of her chest. The skin parted easily beneath the sharp blade, revealing the pale yellow fat layer beneath.

As I worked, I felt the familiar detachment settle over me—not a lack of compassion, but a necessary professional distance. Chloe Vasilios was no longer a bride cut down on her wedding night—she was evidence, a puzzle to be solved, a story to be pieced together through the marks on her body and the secrets held within.

And as her body revealed those secrets one by one, I would give her the only thing I could now—a voice that would speak the truth of what had happened to her. Justice might come too late for Chloe, but if I did my job right, it would come.

The music played on as I continued my work, the rhythm of Dusty Springfield’s voice a counterpoint to the methodical movements of the autopsy. Outside, life went on—people laughing, loving, arguing, living. But here in this cold, quiet room, Chloe Vasilios would have her final say.