Tracy Hayes, P.I. for the Win by Susanna Shore

Author:Susanna Shore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: private detective, female detective, detective, amateur detectives, cozy mystery, crime fiction, private investigator, women sleuths, detective fiction, light mystery
Publisher: Susanna Shore

Chapter Thirteen

The Audi following us drove on when we pulled into the hospital parking lot, but I was sure they would be there when we returned.

“Do you think Crow sent them?” I asked as I followed Trevor and Jackson into the basement of the hospital where the forensic morgue was. Jackson had his arm wrapped around my shoulders to keep me from bolting. He knew me well.

“It takes a special sort of developer to have thugs at their beck and call,” Trevor said dryly. I shot him a sharp look.

“If they have thugs of their own, why would they hire an outsider to handle the arsons?”

“We don’t know yet that they did,” Jackson reminded me.

“Makes more sense though,” Trevor said, as he led us down the hallways toward the one place where I didn’t want to go. “We already know the arsonist has special skills. Any thug can pour gas on a building and light a match, but then the investigators would’ve been on them ages ago.”

Tessa was waiting outside the operating room, wearing protective gear with a plastic apron. She was thirty-three, the second oldest, and almost as tall as Trevor, but with a leaner body, naturally auburn hair cut short, and our father’s features, which on a woman were striking. Not that she’d ever cared for her looks, even though modelling paid for her education all the way through med school.

She offered a small jar to us. “Dab this under your noses before you go in.”

“Yeah … not gonna do that…” I said with a shudder, and she gave the jar a baffled look.

“It’s only menthol so you don’t have to smell the bodies. I remember you didn’t like it the previous time.”

I was amazed she’d noticed, as she usually only paid attention to her work. “No, I meant I’m not entering that room to witness another autopsy.”

“You can sit at the side of the room and not look,” Trevor said, dipping a finger in the jar and dapping a dollop of the turquoise goo under his nose. He made a disgusted face, his nostrils flaring. “I think I prefer the smell of bodies.”

Jackson followed suit, much with the same reaction, and then gave me a questioning look. “You managed the last time, and this way you’ll hear the results instantly.”

Curiosity was ever my sin…

With a sigh, I took an extra-large helping of the stuff and smeared it under my nose. The first inhale cleared my sinuses and made my eyes water. I wouldn’t be able to smell anything for a long while.

I followed my family into the operating room. The bodies were already on the steel tables, and I almost about-faced out of the room seeing the charred remains. But I gritted my teeth, located a chair by an office desk at the side, and took a seat, staring resolutely at the pale green tile floor.

“Let’s begin,” Dr. D’Addario said. She was in her late fifties and Tessa’s mentor as she studied to become a forensic pathologist. “What do you want to know, specifically?”

“The usual,” Trevor said.

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