The NightShade Forensic Files: The Atlas Defect (Book 3) by A.J. Scudiere

Author:A.J. Scudiere [Scudiere, A.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781937996673
Publisher: Griffyn Ink
Published: 2017-05-03T21:00:00+00:00

26

Donovan sat on the edge of his finely upholstered but uncomfortable chair. The table in the middle of the suite surely had seen a few meals, and probably many businessmen and women working on laptops or tablets, but it likely hadn’t seen this before.

He set the needle down and reached for the forceps.

The suture set was just part of his usual medical kit. He’d fully expected to use them on himself, but right now, he was just grateful he had it. Donovan pushed the needle into the skin at Eleri’s temple. It was swollen both from the original injury and with the Xylocaine he’d injected. The edges looked raw even though he’d cleaned them.

“I’m only passably decent at this,” He told her again.

“I know. You suture Y-cuts in dead bodies.” She managed to dismiss him without moving her head in the slightest. “It’s in my hair, so no one will see it.”

“Thank goodness,” he mumbled. He’d have been mortified if he had to see this on her face or even her arm. Stitching was a skill and one that should be kept up. He hadn’t. It was a pretty crap job. He knew it even as he tied of the last stitch. “It will get the job done.”

She reached up to touch it, but Donovan pulled her hand away. “Keep it clean.”

He added antibiotic ointment from a portable squeeze pack. Eleri had some stretchy headband already around her neck that she pulled up and over the squares of gauze he held in place.

After tossing what was used and putting his kit back together, Donovan looked over to see Eleri talking to Walter. She was just a woman in a headband, not someone who’d recently been chasing random people in the wilderness in Michigan. Certainly not someone who did all of it while actively bleeding from a head wound.

They passed papers back and forth, organizing them into separate piles. Then, they weren’t just stacking the papers, they were following by date. Two of the most intelligent and highly trained people he knew, and they were performing ridiculous clerical tasks.

He went to pick one pile up and Eleri quietly pushed his hand away and handed him a different stack. Taking them, he began thumbing through the pages.

They were invoices, just as she’d said. The shipments were all coded. “How did you figure out they were for people?”

“Look at the dates. These are birth dates, and honestly, they correspond a little too well to the dates of the Disappeared. And then look at the listings with the invoices. They don’t say ‘people’ per se, but age, height, weight, gender. That could only be a person.”

Donovan was looking. “Children. Not just people but specifically small children.” He’d seen enough of them in his work as a medical examiner. Too many of them, actually. He knew what a toddler looked like by the numbers. He then fanned through other pages. “These are infants.”

“Yeah.” Her voice was solemn. She’d already figured it out. “Check this.”

She handed him a page that made him want to vomit.

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