Page 28 of Shrapnel

Noah managed to keep the lid on the deaths. Only a few key members of White Sand Mesa knew about the murders. But between them and the family members, it was only a matter of time before the rest knew. When that happened, the Mesa’s wouldn’t just be after Noah’s job—they’d want his life.

Solving these murders would protect Noah and solidify his position with White Sand Mesa. Their call for blood would be satiated with that of the murderers. It would prove his loyalty and capability.

Now they just had to find the guy.

Noah got out of his car and stomped over to Elijah. He was wearing a scowl eerily reminiscent of his uncle and Elijah had to keep from laughing.

“Is the pyromaniac coming?” Noah asked through clenched teeth.

Elijah sighed as he reached out to gently run his fingers along the back of Noah’s hand. It was the most he could do in public.

“Jamie is on his way,” Elijah answered.

Noah and Jamie had an interesting relationship. To listen to them, you’d think they were one veiled insult from throttling each other. But the truth was much more nuanced. Noah was a glowing ember, red hot and ready to blow into a raging flame at the slightest of touches.

And Jamie loved fire.

Despite their dissimilarities, they had a strange loyalty to one another. Elijah knew that Jamie texted Noah more often than he texted him. The two even had a weird Snapchat thing going.

“Let’s go in.” Noah began walking down the sloping concrete walk without waiting for Elijah. He was agitated. More so than usual. There were dark bags under his eyes and Elijah didn’t need to ask to know that he wasn’t eating well. He knew Noah had gone to visit Weaver Syndicate, too. Elijah made sure all the recordings of Noah’s visit were scrubbed.

The morgue’s first floor was a series of sad-looking cubicles. Without knowing what the building housed, it would look like any other office. Noah led them past the cubicles to a freight elevator. The rubber floors of the elevator were dull from use—perfect footprints where thousands of shoes had scuffed their footprint into the rubber.

As the elevator descended the chemical smell grew heavier. The concentration was abrasive, tickling Elijah’s nose and leaving an unpleasant aftertaste.

The morgue itself was a small space built into the building’s basement. A row of steel drawers was built up the back wall. The room had a pallid color scheme—clean, disinfected, and surgical. It was probably very comforting to the corpses rolled in.

A middle-aged woman looked up at their entrance. She was huddled over her desk in the corner, pen grasped in her hand as she scribbled on a precariously high stack of paperwork. Slender and severe-looking, her face was pinched as she took in the two young men walking into her morgue.

“Are you here for Andrews?”

Noah nodded, crossing his arms against the chill of the morgue.

The woman stood, brushing the tail of her lab coat back as she approached the wall of stainless-steel drawers. Without having to check, she unsealed the outer door and hefted the drawer out.

Andrews was covered in a white sheet. It fluttered as the drawer locked into place. The shifting fabric gave the impression of movement and for a long moment, Elijah had to remind himself that Andrews was dead.

“Dr. Fergus,” Noah inclined his head to the woman.

Her lips twitched but she acquiesced, pulling the sheet down to expose the upper half of Andrews’ body. Elijah had plenty of experience with dead bodies, but he rarely had the opportunity to see them like this. This was very dead.

Andrew’s skin was grey. Without touching it, Elijah knew it would be stiff and cold. Everything was unnaturally still. Even his hair was combed back and rigid looking. Elijah was grateful someone had closed his eyes. He hated that sightless gaze.

Without waiting for Dr. Fergus, Elijah began examining the body. The manner of death was obvious—even decomposition couldn’t erase the ugly-looking pustules all over Andrews’ face. His lips were parted, locked in place by Rigor Mortis. A Y-shaped incision was a stark contrast against his abdomen, stitched closed, it wasn’t readily apparent that all the internal organs had been removed. Andrew’s innards were probably ashes by now.

Pushing past the general ick, Elijah tried to be critical. The blood pooling on the back of his arms and shoulders indicated he was either killed in a supine position or placed there immediately after. Most likely he was killed, then transported to the alley where he was found.

“Doctor,” Elijah looked up. “When was he killed?”

She sniffed imperiously. “Body temperature and insect activity leads me to believe he was killed 6-8 hours before he was found.”

“And the manner of death?”

The bitterness in her demeanor seemed to dissipate at that. “That’s…” she began fiddling with the pens stuck in her shirt pocket. “It’s a chemical inhalant of some kind. It appears to necrotize the tissues in the lungs and trachea. Within an hour the victim would be unable to breathe.”

“Where would he have come across the chemical?” Noah asked tersely, deliberately not looking at the body.

Dr. Fergus was doing the opposite. She refused to meet either of their eyes.