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H er ride-along week officially ended Friday afternoon at five p.m., but Livia managed, with a favor from Kent, to finish by noon.

After the sequestration and transport of a forty-year-old suicide victim who had started his car in his closed garage and waited for the carbon monoxide to kill him, the morgue van pulled up behind the OCME where Sanj Rashi drew the gurney from the back and wheeled the body through the rear door of the morgue.

In all, Livia recovered twelve bodies during ride-along week while learning the intricacies and tricks of scene investigation from Kent and Sanj.

Although the past week had been fascinating, Livia found herself aching Friday morning to get back to the morgue.

Back to her autopsy table and her tools and the controlled environment of the autopsy suite.

What she learned during her first week of ride-alongs would prove invaluable as she continued her training, and she would return Monday morning more knowledgeable than when she left.

She would also be refreshed and ready for her next case .

After Sanj wheeled the body inside, Livia stood outside with Kent. He pulled out a cigarette.

“You sure you don’t mind if I take off early today?” Livia asked.

“You outrank me, Doc.”

“Thanks. And I’d appreciate it if Dr. Colt didn’t hear about my heading out today.”

Kent smiled. “What happens in the morgue van, stays in the morgue van.”

“I owe you one.”

“Careful what you promise. I cash in on my favors. Trust me.”

Livia pointed at his cigarette. “You know what this job’s done to me in just three months?”

“What’s that?”

“It’s made me see people from the inside out.

Or in reverse, I guess is a better way to say it.

I see you dying of lung cancer as you suck on that cigarette.

I see your lifeless body on my autopsy table, and I see all the necrotic tumors in your stenosed lungs.

I see your trachea scarred and ash-strewn.

I see your lips and tongue black with waiting death that crept down your throat and found your lungs.

I see white pockmarks of cancerous tumors throughout your abdomen, and I feel your fattened lymph nodes swollen with—”

“All right, for Christ’s sake,” Kent said, dropping the cigarette and stomping it out.

“Sorry,” Livia said. “I’m just telling you the perils of my job. Since when do you smoke, anyway? I’ve known you three months, first time I saw you stick a cigarette in your mouth was two days ago.”

“Old habit,” Kent said. “Just picked it up again. ”

Livia walked over to the van and leaned against it, taking a spot next to Kent.

Ride-along week, much of which was spent in the van, provided many opportunities to talk.

Fabricated beliefs about medical examiners were rampant, especially the idea that all MEs were tight with detectives, which Livia was finding to be a myth.

The MEs worked most closely with the medicolegal investigators, and these were the people they got to know best. After five days, she realized much could be learned from sitting in the back of the morgue van.

Kent was unhappily married to his high school sweetheart.

His kids were the only reason he and his wife stayed together, and they had openly discussed the best time for divorce.

Maybe when the kids were in high school, but that presented an awkward transition for the kids at an already challenging time.

College was the next best time, but this was far off and the thought of “existing” together for that long was difficult.

He didn’t believe in counseling and straight out refused to confess his annoyances and disappointments to a shrink.

After all, Kent said in the middle of the week as he grumbled in the front seat and blew cigarette smoke through the barely open window, he had a never-ending supply of bodies that would listen to the stories of his shitty life.

“Things any better at home?” Livia asked.

“You can only stack a pile of shit so many ways, Doc.”

Livia smiled. “Try a stress ball instead of cigarettes. They’ll keep your hands occupied while you’re in the van.”

“I’ll give it a shot.”

“You talked all week about your wife, I wanted to make sure you knew I was listening. ”

Kent smiled, lifted his chin. “Noted. Just remember when you settle down, Doc. Wait for the right person, because once you have kids you’re stuck with them.” There was a short pause before Kent spoke again. “So, you seeing anyone?”

Livia shook her head. “This job is all-consuming. Sadly, I’m more interested in impressing Dr. Colt than a boyfriend. And my current outlet for pent-up energy is kicking a hanging Everlast bag held by a large black man named Randy.”

Kent pursed his lips. “I’m not going to touch that answer.”

“Good. It was meant to get me off the hook.”

“You’re off. So what do you have cooking today? Why are you cutting out early?” Kent asked.

“I’m making a run up to Richmond to meet with the chief medical examiner up there.”

“Oh yeah? What about?”

“Probably nothing. It has to do with that jumper you dumped on me a few weeks ago.”

“The one we pulled out of the bay?”

“That’s him.”

“That case still pending?”

“Yeah. I’m not involved with it any longer. Homicide guys have it. I’m just curious.”

Kent ran his tongue along the inside of his bottom lip. “About what?”

“It’s a long story, Kent. If we had a couple hours together in the van, I’d fill you in.”

“We don’t have that, so you can fill me in some other time,” he said.

“You’re on vacation next week?” Livia asked .

“Yeah. Heading up to Tinder Valley to fish for a few days.”

“I’ll see you when you get back?”

“For sure. You did good this week, Doc.”

* * *

After her Emerson Bay runs to track down Diana Wells and Nate Theros, Livia had spent the past two nights concentrated on Nancy Dee, the girl profiled in articles she found in Casey Delevan’s drawer.

After two nights of researching the girl’s disappearance, the search to find her, the leads that came and went, the people who were questioned, and, six months after she had vanished, the grisly discovery of her body in a Virginia forest preserve, there wasn’t much Livia didn’t know about Nancy Dee.

After Nancy’s abduction from Sussex County, Virginia, in March of 2015, there was at first a group of the usual suspects that included her father and boyfriends.

But the case quickly evaporated as everyone of interest provided solid alibis.

An intensive search lasted for the first few weeks, and as Livia read Nancy’s story the words took her back to the previous year when the folks of Emerson Bay looked for Nicole and Megan.

Their search, too, was frantic. Filled initially with hope that there would be a simple explanation to their disappearances, the hunt slowly fell under a cloud of dread as the days stacked up.

When Megan McDonald miraculously resurfaced, wandering down Highway 57 two weeks after she disappeared, a joy filled the town and elation flooded the country, sweeping from east to west like a rolling tsunami.

Details soon followed about Megan’s crafty escape from the dreaded bunker in the woods and her resilient character during her captivity.

It was all everyone wanted, and the fact that Nicole was still missing fell into the shadows of Megan’s celebrity.

There was nothing in particular that pushed Nancy Dee’s story into the background other than time.

The public’s attention span was short, and there were plenty of other stories that came along to distract them.

Until Nancy’s body turned up in a shallow grave near the Virginia border in Carroll County, most had forgotten about this poor girl.

Then, for a short, final burst, Nancy regained the headlines before she was gone for good, remembered only by family and friends and fetish groups that got off on such horrors.

Livia gathered everything she had on Nancy Dee and dropped it all on the front seat of her car.

Virginia, like North Carolina, had a statewide medical examiner system in place, which meant any suspicious deaths would be handled by the OCME, as opposed to the smaller, coroner-run local facilities scattered throughout the counties.

Livia had placed a call the day before to Dr. Angela Hunt, the chief medical examiner of Virginia, to inquire about Nancy Dee.

Dr. Hunt had agreed to meet with Livia if she could manage to get to Richmond by four p.m.

The ride from Raleigh to Richmond was two and a half hours, and a straight shot up I-85.

Livia found the Madison Building and parked under two tall flagpoles where the American flag and Virginia state flag flapped in the afternoon breeze.

It took a few minutes of introductions and displaying her medical examiner’s badge until Livia was finally ushered to Dr. Hunt’s office.

“Dr. Cutty?”

“Yes. Hi, Livia Cutty. ”

“Angie Hunt.”

They shook hands and Dr. Hunt motioned for Livia to sit in one of the chairs in front of the desk. Taking her place behind the desk, Dr. Hunt asked, “What brings a Dr. Colt fellow up north?”

Livia smiled. “Not Dr. Colt. I’m on ride-alongs this week, and finished early so the timing just worked out. I wanted to ask you about that case from last year.”

“Right,” Dr. Hunt said, pulling a file from her bottom drawer. “Nancy Dee.”

“Correct.”

“I went back through it after you called. I’m happy to let you have a look. It was a sad case, but when I reviewed it I didn’t see anything that jumped out at me.”

“Just the same,” Livia said. “I’d like to see it. For my own personal reasons.”

Dr. Hunt smiled. “Whatever you need. You’re welcome to use my office. Let me know if you need anything or if I can answer any questions.”

“Thank you.”

When Dr. Hunt was gone, Livia pulled the file toward her.

She opened the front cover of the manila folder to find photos of the scene where Nancy’s body was located.

Livia had just witnessed hundreds of these photos being snapped by Kent and Sanj during the last week when they documented the bodies they were called to investigate and transport.

Livia pulled the photos from the folder and laid them out in front of her.

Depicted in them was Nancy Dee’s lifeless body, as it lay partially covered by leaves and dirt.

Her eyes closed, skin pale with death and pocked with dirt, hair matted and caked down like a sculpture.

Livia could not help but superimpose Nicole’s face onto the photos.

The image caused her insides to ache and her stomach to sour.

A morning jogger, whose dog had taken off in front of him and raced through the woods apparently with a beat on the body’s odor, had discovered Nancy Dee. She had been missing for six months, and the identification came quickly when the body was transported to Dr. Hunt’s morgue.

Livia turned to the autopsy photos and perused the findings, cruising through the report like a speed-reader.

She’d read hundreds of autopsy reports over the last four years, and had written plenty of her own in the first three months of fellowship.

She expected to find this poor girl, abducted from the streets of Virginia and abused by a monster, to have died from some barbaric act of violence.

Indeed, the autopsy revealed sexual abuse.

But the photos Livia saw of the body were unremarkable.

The external exam noted chafing and bruising to the ankles and wrists, likely from restraints, but otherwise there were no signs of physical abuse.

Livia paged through the autopsy report until she reached its conclusion.

The cause of death made Livia’s mind stumble.

She turned back to the toxicology report and read it again.

Her finger streaked down the page and came to rest on the sedative discovered in Nancy Dee’s bloodstream.

Because it was found in such high concentration, it was determined that Nancy’s body did not have the chance to fully metabolize it, meaning she died shortly after it was ingested.

Such a large amount was consumed that this drug had seized her respiratory system and caused fatal respiratory arrest. Whoever held Nancy for six months, by accident or with intent, had OD’d her on a drug called ketamine.

Livia looked at the name of the drug for several seconds, drawing on her recently polished knowledge of pharmacology from her binge studying after her debacle with the elderly fall victim in the cage.

Ketamine was used mostly by veterinarians for sedation before surgery, but had a limited role in traditional medicine.

Called Special K by kids, it was also occasionally abused for its hallucinogenic effects.

When combined with diazepam, as it was with Nancy Dee, the sedative effects were intensified.

Livia looked up at the ceiling of Dr. Hunt’s office. Something else about the drug gnawed at her. She put her finger on the page and ran her nail under each letter. K-E-T-A-M-I-N-E.

When it came to her, it came quickly and with little doubt.

She hastily reassembled the chart and pushed it across the desk.

She tried briefly to find Dr. Hunt, but gave up after a few minutes of wandering the halls.

Outside, she climbed into her car and let her phone’s GPS take her to the nearest bookstore.

She walked into the Barnes & Noble and, surrounded by the latest titles from popular authors, walked to the nonfiction best sellers display and plucked Megan McDonald’s book from the shelf.

Livia skimmed to the middle, where she thought she remembered reading it.

It took a few minutes to find it, Megan’s first-person recollection of her time in the hospital after her escape from the bunker.

Her memory of that night had been foggy, Megan wrote, and much of what was recorded about her trek along Highway 57 and her reception at the hospital was documented with the help of Mr. Steinman, the man who had found Megan barefoot and bleeding and who had carried her away in his car and brought her to safety .

Livia skimmed the pages, frantic to find a single word, until she found the passage she was looking for.

Megan’s memory was altered that night, and she spent the first twelve hours of her hospital stay in a near-comatose state.

Part of her trance was blamed on shock and dehydration.

But mainly, the doctors determined, it was due to the large amount of sedative found in her system.

A drug mostly used by veterinarians. A medication called ketamine.