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The Manhattan Office of the Chief Medical Examiner looked exactly like what it was – a building designed to warehouse the dead. Ella sat in the reception area and watched Luca tap out the baseline to 'Another One Bites The Dust' on his thighs. Once upon a time, she'd found his musical interludes endearing. Now, she wanted to break his fingers.

‘You going to do that all day?’

‘Do what?’

‘The… tapping.’

The waiting room smelled of industrial cleaner and something underneath that no amount of bleach could mask. Ancient magazines littered the coffee table – issues of National Geographic from when people still thought the millennium bug would end civilization.

‘Oh. Sorry.’ Luca switched to humming Sweet Caroline instead.

‘That’s not better.’

‘Well, what do you want me to do? Humming helps me think.’

‘About what? The Red Sox?’ Ella had recently undergone a crash course in NASCAR and baseball, but everything she’d learned about them had been against her will.

'About what we're going to see.' His legs began jittering. Another nervous tic that had gone from cute to criminal. 'Two bodies. Both killed in completely different ways. Both connected by symbols older than America.'

Ella had to admire how his mind worked even while she wanted to tape his hands to the chair. 'You're taking this pretty well.'

'Am I? You know why I’m nervous.’

'Because you hate seeing bodies?'

'No. Because I hate morgues.' He finally stopped jittering. 'You do, too.'

He wasn't wrong. Ella had grown accustomed to morgues over the years, but that didn't mean she had to like them. The fluorescent lights that made everything look like a bad TV show. The hum of refrigeration units keeping flesh from returning to the earth too quickly. The way sound seemed to die in these halls, like the dead absorbed noise along with heat .

The receptionist's phone buzzed. She was about eighty, with cat-eye glasses and enough rouge to supply a circus. Her nameplate read 'Gladys' and she had photos of twelve cats arranged around her monitor.

'Agents? Dr. Zhao will see you now. Room 3.'

Ella nodded her thanks then made her way down a corridor that seemed designed to make people uncomfortable. No pictures on the walls, no plants, nothing to remind you that life existed outside these halls. She and Luca found the set of steel double doors marked AUTOPSY ROOM 3 and knocked twice. A muffled voice called them in.

Dr. Zhao turned out to be a tiny Mexican woman who looked about twelve years old until you noticed the lines around her eyes. She wore purple scrubs under her lab coat and had dyed streaks of electric blue through her black hair. Two examination tables dominated the room, both occupied by sheet-covered shapes that were trying very hard not to look like bodies.

'Agents Dark and Hawkins? Sorry about the wait. Budget cuts mean we're running a skeleton crew.' She caught herself. 'Poor choice of words.'

'No problem.' The medical profession always had the weirdest sense of humor. ‘Where do you suggest we start?’

'Ladies' choice.' Dr. Zhao moved to the first table. 'Though I'd recommend starting with Mr. Thornton. He's been with us longer.'

‘Alright. What do we have?’

The sheet came away with a whisper of fabric on flesh. Marcus Thornton lay exactly as nature intended, minus a few basic dignities like a heartbeat. Four days of death had started their work, but the refrigeration had slowed the process. His skin had taken on that specific shade of gray that meant the blood had settled, pulled down by the same gravity that had killed him.

Dr. Zhao picked up a metal pointer from a nearby tray. 'Main trauma is here.' She indicated his legs. 'Bilateral compound fractures of both tibias and fibulas. Based on the break patterns, I'd say he landed feet-first.'

'Conscious?' Ella asked.

She moved the pointer up. 'Almost certainly. Secondary impact here. The force traveled up through his legs and into his thoracic cavity. Massive internal hemorrhaging, particularly around the liver and spleen.’

Ella looked over at Luca. His face had gone a few shades paler. 'How long did he…? '

'Live? Eight to ten minutes, tops. The internal bleeding would have sent him into hypovolemic shock within five. After that, brain death was inevitable due to loss of blood pressure. We call it traumatic shock syndrome – when the body sustains injuries so severe that the cardiovascular system just gives up.'

Ella studied Marcus's face. Even in death, he looked like he was trying to maintain dignity. 'Any defensive wounds? Signs of struggle?'

'None that I could find. Just a man who fell a very long way.'

Ella winced at the thought. She’d seen some horrific causes of death over the years, but rarely were they as simple as a man falling onto rock. 'What about the second victim?'

Dr. Zhao re-covered Marcus and moved to the other table. Sarah Chen's sheet came away to reveal what multiple days in reservoir water could do to human flesh. The skin had started to take on that specific bloated look that water gave its victims. Her face was mostly intact, though, which somehow made it worse. Like she might open her eyes at any moment and ask what all the fuss was about.

'Cause of death is pretty straightforward.' Dr. Zhao indicated the chest cavity. 'Classic drowning sequence. Victim inhales water, triggering laryngospasm – that's when the vocal cords snap shut to prevent more water entering the lungs. Eventually, oxygen deprivation forces them to relax, allowing water in. We can tell by the presence of diatoms in the pulmonary tissue.'

'Diatoms?' Luca asked.

'Microscopic algae. Different bodies of water have different species. Helps us confirm drowning versus body disposal.' She pulled up an image on a nearby screen. 'See these? Specific to Kensico Reservoir. Means she was alive when she went in.'

Ella frowned. 'No ligature marks? Nothing to suggest restraint?'

'Nothing obvious.’

'What about weights? Something to hold her under?'

'If there were any, they were removed post-mortem. Though drowning someone without restraints isn't impossible. Get them in deep enough water, disorient them somehow...'

'Or drug them,' Ella finished.

'Exactly. Still waiting on the full tox screen, but preliminary tests show traces of something in her system. Won't know what until the lab's done their thing.'

'What about the time of death? '

‘Hard to say with the elements. But anywhere between 24 to 48 hours ago.’

Hard to say with the elements. Ella couldn’t agree more. ‘So, barely a day or two after Marcus. Our unsub is working fast.’

Ella's phone buzzed. A text from Ross lit up her screen. Got Blackwood's address. 442 Old Mill Road, Bedford Hills. Some kind of farm.

Ella's pulse kicked up a notch. Finally, something solid. She showed the text to Luca, whose face hardened into something that didn't look like him at all.

'We need to go.' She turned to Dr. Zhao. 'Thank you for your time. Send me everything you've got?'

'Already typing up the report. I should get toxicology reports back sometime tomorrow.’

Ella thanked Dr. Zhao again and stepped into the corridor. The smell of antiseptic followed them out, clinging to their clothes like cigarette smoke in a dive bar.

‘A farm.’ She waited until they were well clear of the autopsy room before speaking. ‘You thinking what I'm thinking?’

‘The dead animals Ross told us about.’ Luca's face had gotten some of its color back, but not much. ‘The ram they couldn't trace.’

‘Exactly. What are the odds that our prime suspect lives on a farm, and some poor ram ends up carved with the same symbols we found at both murder scenes?’

‘The kind of odds I’d bet on. Call for backup?’

‘Already texting Ross. But they’ll be 20 minutes behind us at a minimum.’ Ella hurried down the corridor and pushed through into weak November sunlight. After the morgue's artificial chill, even New York's autumn felt tropical. ‘We're not waiting. If Blackwood's there, he might run. If he's not...’

‘He might be choosing his next victim.’

They rushed toward Ella's car. Every second felt precious now, because someone out there was collecting elements in human form, and they might have just found his laboratory.