Skin Trade(52)

I nodded. “Yeah, stupid fucking me.” I walked away then, shaking my head. I had to get away from Olaf and Edward and Bernardo’s interested eyes. I’d had enough testosterone for the day.

Dr. Memphis called from down the hallway. “Marshal Blake, may I speak to you for a moment?”

I looked past the other men to the doctor. He was still in his gown, no gloves, like Olaf. Shit. I’d let Olaf spook me; I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. I walked past them all and pointed a finger at the big guy. “You stay here. The two of you keep an eye on him, so I don’t have to.” Then I walked past all of them and went for the doctor. I’d put another gown on, another mask, more gloves. I’d look at the damn bodies on my own because Olaf was right-I knew lycanthropes better than any of the rest of them. I would look at these bodies on my own, and God willing, I’d learn something that could help us figure out what the fuck was going on.

“Is Marshal Jeffries coming back in?” Memphis asked.

“No,” I said, and walked back through the doors.





19




THEY HAD FINISHED undressing the body when Memphis walked me back inside the room. It lay bare and very unalive. It looked like a body now, without the clothes, and the wounds like bright tears on the skin.

From across the room I could see that the groin was bloody. I couldn’t tell how bad the damage was from here. I didn’t really want to know how bad it was, but as usual I had to see it all. Crap.

Rose either had taken all the pictures he needed or was too shocked to take them. He stood there, with his camera forgotten in his hands. The other two techs were no better. Dale had busied himself with something at the cabinets. Patricia went to stand by Rose and turned her back.

“Anyone who needs to leave can do so,” Memphis said.

Dale went for the door without a word. “They were friends,” Rose said, and that was enough.

“Patricia,” Memphis said, “do you need to go?”

“No, doctor, no, I’ll stay. I didn’t know him as well as Dale did, and there are some of the… I did know some of them better. I don’t want to work on them, so I’ll stay.” She turned around, pale, lips thin, but a determined look on her face. She’d do.

“Rose?” Memphis asked.

“I’m okay, doctor. It’s not that I knew him. I’m being all wimpy about the wound. Sorry.” He nodded. “Sorry, I’ll do better.” He raised the camera back up and started snapping.

I walked around the body so I could see the wound closer. Not that I wanted to see it, but it was an odd wound. Of course, once I was on the other side, I could see the inside of the right thigh clearly. Someone had sliced it open from groin to almost knee. The femoral artery would have been toast. You bleed out from that in fifteen, twenty minutes tops. You can save yourself if the wound is low enough for a tourniquet and medical help is coming. But whoever sliced him up didn’t want him saving himself with first aid.

Whatever he might have been once as a man, now he was just bloody, but… the genitalia were intact, or looked it. The only way to be certain was to touch them and see, and I didn’t want to know that badly. I had to peer a lot closer than I wanted to, but I was right, the wounds didn’t actually go across the genitalia, more around them. “When are you going to wash the blood away?”

“Yes,” Memphis said, “we’ll be able to see those wounds more clearly when we’ve finished cleaning the body, but we wanted you to see it first.”

I looked up at him. “Why?”

“You’re our shapeshifter expert,” he said.

“You have shapeshifters in Vegas,” I said.

“We do, but they wouldn’t be allowed near a lycanthrope kill.”

“Yeah, same at home, so you have to make do with me.”

“If half your reputation is real, Marshal Blake, we aren’t making do.”

I looked away from his too-intense eyes. He wanted me to solve this. He wanted me to help them catch the thing that had killed their people. I wanted to help, but I hated that feeling of pressure. The sensation that if I missed the clue there was no backup. I thought about calling Edward in, but wasn’t sure I could call in part of my backup without getting the rest of it back. I was done with Olaf for the day if I could manage it.

I peered as close to the wounds as I could. “It looks like the claws were driven in around the groin, deep, but straight in and out, no tearing.” I stood up and gestured at the thigh wound. “Not like that.”

“Was it more than one shapeshifter?” Rose asked.

It was a good question. “Could be, but I don’t think so. This up close and personal, there just isn’t room for two to fight. I’m not discounting it, but all these wounds are so debilitating that once it happened, there wouldn’t be any need for two shapeshifters to fight this man.”