Marta gives me a light shove, and this time, I take the hint and back out of the room. I don’t look away from Grace until the last possible moment, and a small piece of my shattered heart mends when she doesn’t look away either.
Jasper, Connor, and Parker wait with the doctor in the hall. Reyes keeps his voice low as he motions for us to follow him. “I am sorry for the ruse, but Grace has done so well today, I do not wish to chance overwhelming her.”
“What’s this really about, doc?” Connor asks.
He takes us into a room with green tile floors and large surgical lights mounted over a metal table. It’s pristine—like everything else in this clinic.
“I do not know who left Grace at the clinic’s back door. Or where they found her. But once I realized she was alive, I did my best to preserve any evidence of what was done to her.”
Fuck. This ain’t gonna be good.
A thick padlock secures a stainless steel cabinet in the corner. “Only I have the key,” he explains as he opens it and then sets a large, metal tray on the operating table. “This is everything Grace was wearing.”
I can’t do more than gape at the pile of silky white material stained with so much blood, I don’t know how she’s still alive. Before I can touch it, Parker slaps a hand against my chest and steps between me and the table. “That’s evidence, boss.”
“That’s my wife’s blood. Get out of my way,” I growl.
Jasper sidles up next to her. “AJ, she’s right. Let us handle this. Or…at least put on some goddamn gloves.”
“And here,” Reyes says, sliding a second tray next to the first, “is the bag she was in. Gloves are in the dispenser behind you.”
The bag she was in.
This was a mistake. I should be with Grace. Not staring at her bloody clothes and a fucking burlap bag some asshole shoved her dying body into. But I can’t walk away either. I promised her I’d keep her safe. This is how I do it.
Jasper hands us each a pair of gloves. Connor and Parker focus on the second tray, while my brother and I carefully lift the white material. The long, sleeveless dress looks expensive.
“No label,” my brother muses. “Someone probably cut it out.”
“Goddamn it!” I shout as Jasper moves the dress enough for me to see what’s underneath. A pair of plain cotton panties and two lengths of white and gold braided rope. “She was tied up? In the fuckin’ bag?”
“Sí,” Reyes says softly. “Her wrists and ankles. If it helps, it did not appear that she struggled much against the ropes. The poison she was given would have caused paralysis.”
Poisoned. Paralyzed. Bound and stabbed.
For the rest of my life, I’ll carry the vision of my wife in this bloody dress, trapped inside a burlap bag and dumped in the middle of nowhere.
Jasper leans down to peer at the rope. “Are these…flowers?”
Pink and white petals litter the tray. A handful of stems are woven into the rope. “Yeah, but what kind?” I ask. “I don’t know shit about flowers.”
Connor peers over at the wilted blooms. “Doc? You got some plastic bags around here somewhere? Small ones. Like Ziplocks? And tweezers.”
“Sí.” In just a few seconds, he sets the bags and several pairs of forceps between the two trays.
“Bag all those petals and stems,” Connor says. “I know a botanist who can probably tell us what they are.”
Parker takes a step back, her sharp-eyed gaze sweeping over the trays. “Guys, this wasn’t ‘murder.’ Not from the unsub’s point of view. This was a ceremony. Hell, it could have even been some sort of demented wedding.”
I can’t tear my eyes away from the bloody silk. What kind of fucked up wedding ends with the bride dying?
God. Did someone really take Grace to be their wife? Then kill her for it?
The idea makes me want to punch a wall. Or vomit. No. Both. I swallow hard. “Explain.”
She waves at the two trays. “That rope was handmade. Someone took the time to weave the flowers into the braids. They’re fresh—or were a few days ago. And the dress…” Running a gloved finger over one of the seams, she shakes her head. “This was hand-stitched. No sewing machine.”
“How can you tell?” Jasper asks.
