Chris was ready.
As he approached, he saw where the individual who had disturbed the person in the casket had stepped, and he lowered himself down to the same place to minimize wrecking the scene.
Then, he straddled the victim, to assess the situation. He already knew what was coming.
“Before you ask COD, I swear to God, I’ll take Christina away from you.”
She snorted.
“I already know COD originally. She died from an Insulin OD. One that I’m betting wasn’t accidental.”
Chris listened, and took the time to assess what was left of her body.
“Steph had been buried and was at peace,” Elizabeth stated. “Ethan thinks that this person wanted her head and eyes, and then was going to rebury her. The skull won’t be hers. I’m betting it, and the eyes, are someone else’s. Possibly whoever he bothered before this.”
He understood.
“I’ll get you as much as I can as quickly as I can. What I can tell you is her head was roughly hacked off. The satin beneath her is filled with embalming fluid. The bone is damaged. I’m going to say that from the angle of the marks in the flesh and spinal bone, he stood above her and made little swings. The tool was sharp, but the range of swinging prohibited it from being a clean removal, so he hacked.”
Gene was making notes from beside Elizabeth, as she and Callen listened.
Chris stood on the edges of the coffin, keeping his balance. As he turned, he needed to assess what they all assumed had happened. Steph’s skirt was askew, and that likely meant one thing.
Sexual assault postmortem.
When Chris pulled her skirt up, he saw the problem.
“We have semen, and her panties are missing. It’s safe to say he’s collecting them too.”
Well, that was nasty as fuck.
Elizabeth sighed.
“And the pit of nastiness gets deeper by the second,” she admitted, not the least bit shocked. “As a heads-up, Chris, Ethan warned us that this person will be absolutely genius-level intelligent. You aren’t going to find his DNA in the system. He is leaving trace because he can.”
Chris didn’t doubt that she was right. Already, they’d come up with nothing on the semen from the scene and on the skulls.
“I don’t like when they’re smart,” he admitted.
Yeah, her either.
When Chris held out his hand, Callen pulled him up, and they all stared down at the headless corpse of Steph Lewis.
“We have a lunatic on our hands.”
Yeah, that didn’t bode well for them.
Not.
One.
Bit.
* * *The Blackhawk Family* * *
Washington, DC.
Same Time
