What the fuck?Jericho typed out his response with shaking hands.What?
Atticus’s response was very quick that time.Just trust me.Followed by:Please.
Please.Just that word sent a shock of awareness through him. He’d been so loath to say it the other night. Had fought until he couldn’t take Jericho’s teasing anymore. Was it just easier for him to say it in the light of day? Somehow, Jericho didn’t think so. Some part of him wondered if Atticus had realized how easy it would be to manipulate him with just that one word, but he pushed the idea aside.
This was about his sister. This was about Mercy.
Hello?
Jericho pulled himself from his thoughts.Sorry. Yeah. Okay. I’ll be there at noon.Atticus’s only response was an address.
He was useless for the rest of the morning. When the time came to leave, he left the shop in Arsen’s hands and tried not to run to his old Ford Bronco. It wasn’t a long drive, but it felt like there was a lead weight on his chest, like each breath was sucked through a straw. He turned up the music, hoping the sound might drown out the voice in his head screaming that whatever he found would change his life forever.
Last time, when he arrived at the morgue, a sharp-nosed man in scrubs had ordered him to wait on a bench until Gabriel arrived. This time, a middle-aged woman behind the desk flashed him a sympathetic smile. “Jericho Navarro?”
“Yes?” he asked, not sure why he hesitated.
“They’re waiting for you right through those doors.”
“They?”
“Yes. Dr. Mulvaney, Professor Blackwell, and Dr. Abbot, our Chief Medical Examiner.”
“Oh,” was all Jericho could manage.
When he pushed through the doors, the knot in his chest loosened when he saw Atticus, even though his expression was grim. He swallowed hard when he noted they stood at the head of an autopsy table, a body laid out before them. Mercy.
“He—” He cleared his throat and tried again. “Hey.”
Atticus nodded. “Jericho, this is Dr. Abbot. He re-examined your sister’s body to make sure the initial medical examiner didn’t miss anything.”
“Did he?”
The doctor nodded. “Yes, but I’m afraid it doesn’t offer much insight. When Dr. Mulvaney informed me that your sister had a history of drug use, I decided to test a hair sample for any indications of drugs in her system.”
Jericho swallowed the lump in his throat. “And…”
“It appears your sister was a heroin user.” Jericho tried not to wince, but he wasn’t sure he managed it. “However, it appears she’d been clean for at least five months.”
“How can you tell that?” Jericho asked.
Dr. Abbot shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “When tested, each centimeter of hair reflects around one month of time. So, the farther down the hair strand we go, the longer it was since the last time the victim ingested drugs. For your sister, it appears to be five months or so.”
Jericho’s face twisted in anguish. “You’re telling me my sister was a drug addict for eight years, then got clean and died?”
The man looked sympathetic, more so than Atticus, who watched Jericho with an unreadable expression. The professor’s face most reflected how Jericho felt—this strange mixture of sorrow and resolution. Like the outcome had been foreseeable but still heartbreaking.
Jericho once more cleared his throat, hoping he could get rid of the lump that seemed to live there now. “Is that it? Is that what you wanted me to know?”
Atticus turned to the medical examiner. “Tim, do you mind if we have a few minutes with the body?”
The man shook his head. “Take your time.” When he passed Jericho, he clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“Jericho, this is my brother-in-law, Lucas.”
“The former FBI psychic?” Jericho asked.
“Current psychic, former FBI guy,” Lucas clarified without humor.
