Shifters: A Samantha Reece Mystery Book 1 by Jaime Johnesee (libby ebook reader txt) 📕

least seven police cars and two crime scene evidence recovery vans. It was nearly double what we had at the last victim. I spotted James talking with Josh by one of the room doors. I walked over to them.

"What's the haps, gentlemen?"

"Haps?"

"Yeah, I thought I'd give it a try, I know better now." I grinned.

"Another Grisly vic. There's more to this one. He left a bloody handprint right on the doorjamb." James sounded excited.

"Yeah, but we've already hit a dead end with his prints."

Unless James knew something I didn't, that handprint was currently worthless. It'd be helpful at Grisly's trial, if there ever was one, but for right now it didn't do shit to help us.

"The blood type doesn't match the vic!" Josh and James were wearing matching grins.

"That's awesome! If we can assume the blood is his then we can type it and check DNA. It'll be easy to detect if it is his blood; we think he's a shifter, right? We just run the test for the viruses."

"How much easier will narrowing down suspects be if we have his DNA? Man, this is the break we've been waiting for. Hey, where's Quinn?" Josh looked around.

"He's staying with a witness."

"There’s a witness?" James took a swallow of coffee and gave a disgusted grimace. "Ugh, this coffee is horrible."

"Welcome to my world. Now you know why we all love you so much back at the Bureau. As to the witness, someone saw Grisly leaving the last murder. We have him in protective custody." I took a coffee that a young uniformed officer handed me and gave him a nod of thanks.

I took a sip and immediately regretted it. However, it was warm, it was coffee, and I needed the caffeine. I took another sip and am sure I gave my own grimace that mirrored James’s. I took a deep breath, steadied myself for what I knew would be awaiting me inside the room, and then stepped in.

The smells of death and bodily secretions hung heavy in the air. No doubt it would linger for weeks afterward. I crossed the worn brown shag carpet to the bathroom door. There was three men and a woman standing around the bathtub debating who was going to be the poor soul that had to take the drain apart.

"Hey, guys. How bad is it?"

"Hey, Sam, it's the worst one yet. I'm thinking we lost a lot of our vic down the drain. We were just debating who would be the one to actually pull the pipe." Grace gave me a halfhearted smile.

I loved the forensic techs, but I couldn't tell them apart in their Tyvek suits and respirators. Except for Grace. She was easy to spot. She was more terrifying and obviously the one in charge.

I peeked over their shoulders and saw what amounted to little more than hamburger. The violence was getting worse. Grace held up a dismembered toe that had been sitting near an evidence tag. Everything had been photographed, and tagged, it just needed collecting.

"I'm not a coroner, but I'm fairly sure this one wasn't sedated when she was shredded." Grace's halfhearted smile disappeared completely.

"How do you figure?"

"There is far more blood at the cut ends than in any of the other bodies."

"Hey, put that down!" The coroner had arrived.

"Excuse me?" Grace raised an eyebrow at the man.

"It's part of the remains which means that is my toe. I'd prefer it if you didn't screw everything up by touching it all and moving it out of place." The young man was dead, he just didn't know it yet.

Law enforcement is still mostly a man's world. Grace had earned her position as head of forensics for our office and I knew she wouldn't let anyone give her any disrespect.

"I think you had better consider who you are talking to very carefully, son. Do you understand me?" She had a bit of a growl to her words.

I only spotted it because I tend to growl myself from time to time.

"It doesn't matter who the hell you are, lady, what matters is that you don't contaminate evidence, or did they not teach you that at charm school?"

Oh, boy. This poor kid wouldn't be able to sit right for a week when Grace, and then his SA, got through with him. Supervisory Agents really didn't like dealing with petty bullshit like this.

"My name is Dr. Grace Fujishima. I am the Director of the ERT." Her words hung in the air along with the stench of death.

The other cops and agents stopped talking and stared at the coroner who’d dared to piss Grace off. Upsetting the Evidence Response Team head was a really bad idea. There is so much evidence being logged in on a daily basis that they'll be happy to drop you to the bottom of their list and you can wait for your results for days, weeks even.

"Oh, I didn't think—”

"No, I can very clearly see you didn't bother to think. Let me guess, you simply saw a woman and assumed I was an idiot. Let me tell you one thing here and now, you little miscreant, if you ever speak to me, or any of my people, like that again I will make sure Franklin fires your ass." She had been in a crouch to better look over the evidence in the tub. She stood and handed him the toe.

"I'm sorry." He was bright red with embarrassment.

"Good start. Since you are so protective over the remains, we will leave you here to bag and tag all this yourself. Enjoy." Grace called her team away from the bathroom and I walked out with them.

Normally the ERT would have stuck around to help the coroner deal with the bits and pieces Grisly left behind. This time Grace was going to make the kid learn a lesson the hard way.

She turned around, looked at the kid with a mean hard stare and said, "By the way, you're going to need to cut the drain out of