Nothing Left to Lose: A Novel by Dan Wells

Author:Dan Wells [Wells, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Amazon: B01N74PPQ7
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 2017-06-06T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

If you want to drown somebody, you have to drown them in something, right? Simon Watts, under the sway of the Dark Lady, had tried to submerge me in the canal, and he or someone else had probably submerged Kathy Schrenk in something as well, even if it was only her head in a bucket. And if someone had brought a bucket to Crabtree—or probably something bigger, like a tub or a barrel—and then forced him into it, then that might explain the splash pattern we’d seen etched into the dust. His whole body had been soaked, so he’d obviously been immersed in something. Maybe he’d fought back and sprayed water everywhere. So that much was obvious: someone was using large quantities of water to kill people.

The bigger question was: why?

I looked at Jasmyn, who was pulling on a pair of latex gloves as we prepared to work on Crabtree’s corpse. My backpack had dinged and beeped and sang occasionally over the last few days, but Margo was understanding of it, and she’d assured the others that they could be as well, so life had gone on, and now the body was here. I finished tying my apron and pulled on some gloves of my own.

“Why is she doing it?” I asked.

“Why is who doing what?” asked Jasmyn.

“The serial drowner,” I said. “Why is she drowning them?”

“Why do you think it’s a she?”

I couldn’t exactly tell her about my inside information on Rain the Dark Lady, so instead I shook my head. “I’ve had about enough of your gender-normative stereotyping, young lady.”

She raised her eyebrow. “Blaming this on a woman without any shred of evidence is not the proud blow for equality you seem to think it is.”

“Excuse me for trying to be an ally.”

“An ally to what?” asked Margo. She came into the room wearing full medical scrubs and a mask over her face, ready to get to work.

Jasmyn smirked. “Robert thinks our serial killer is a woman.”

“And I suppose she might be,” said Margo. “A serial killer can be a woman just as easily as a man.”

“Are you saying that serial killers can change genders?” I asked. “Or that men in general can change genders? Your grammar was fuzzy.”

“I’ll knock you fuzzy,” she said, and pointed at the body bag. “Open that with your teeth if it’ll keep you from talking.”

Jasmyn grabbed the zipper and pulled it open. “Do you think we’ll see any black goo?”

Margo frowned at her. “Why do you ask that?”

“Robert said drowning victims have black goo.”

Margo looked at me, and I shrugged. “I’m really bad at small talk.”

Jasmyn looked at the corpse inside the bag. “Would you rather an alligator ate you, or a gorilla?” She pulled the zipper all the way to the bottom. “I’d rather the alligator ate the gorilla.”

“What on earth has gotten into the two of you this morning?” asked Margo

“Grammar,” I said.

Margo scowled and dismissed the topic with a contemptuous wave. “I’d rather the alligator ate both of you,” she said, “but you’re all I have, so get to work.

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