He stepped to the side to head back over to Nader, and Cade’s voice pulled him up.
“How dirty were you?” he asked. “For reference.”
Marlow stopped. He was surprised at the sour pinch of anger behind his breastbone at the doubt. The bile of it stung the back of his throat. He’d thought that years of that question had worn his reaction to it down until it was see-through and brittle.
He’d been wrong.
“Like I said, ask O’Hara.”
He stalked away and nearly tripped as his heel sunk into a loose patch of dirt. The bloody mud sucked at Marlow’s boot as he pulled it out with a muttered curse. So much for a dignified exit. He scraped his boot on the grass to get most of the mire off and then… stopped.
Something bright blue, iridescent as a peacock feather, glittered at him from the thick black mud. He knew what it was right away, but he still knelt down and brushed the dirt out of the way.
Her last manicure must have been just before rehab. It was half grown out, stubs of blue on the end of her nails. Dirt was worked into the pores and lines of her hands and scabbed in a crust over the raw knobs of bone at her wrists.
It wasn’t like there could have been any other end to the story. Haley’s body was at the morgue; Marlow knew a happy ending was ruled out. It still felt… unfair. She’d gotten away from Parker, avoided the wolves, and made it further than expected through the woods… only to die like an animal in a trap.
“Poor kid,” he said as he sat back on his heels. “Not a good way to die.”
Cade put a hand on his shoulder. “None of them are,” he said.
The hands got their own body bag.
Marlow wasn’t sure if it showed respect or just made them more pathetic. Sun unzipped the plastic shroud and peeled it back.
“I’ll need to do a proper examination,” Sun said as she peered at them over her plastic glasses. When Marlow nodded that he understood, she picked up the left hand in gloved fingers. “But a cursory examination would support your theory. These wounds are consistent with being caught in a trap of the sort that you brought in.”
Cade stepped forward to peer at the hand as Sun turned it toward them so they could see the damage dirt had disguised before.
“Did someone sever them postmortem?” he asked.
“I don’t believe so,” Sun said. She pushed her glasses up her nose with her knuckle. “I had a look at the trap in evidence, and it’s a heavy-duty piece of equipment. Compressed, double-spring loaded, twice the size of a normal foothold trap, and the jaws aren’t offset with inward-facing teeth.”
She crooked her free hand and snapped her fingers together as if that would help them follow.
“It was built for big game,” Marlow said. He knew he had missed something obvious, but some stubborn part of his brain was determined that was for the best. “Bears or—”
“Wolves,” Cade interrupted. “Right, Doctor?”
Sun set the hand back down and grimaced with the same unhappiness that Marlow had felt.
“Those traps are banned,” she said. “Here. In Europe. It’s illegal to make or use any sort of snare or trap designed for people, even if they’re wolves at the time.”
Cade’s smile was tolerant. “Of course,” he said. “But if you were going to design one—”
“I wouldn’t,” Sun said sharply. Then she deflated slightly as she looked down at the sad gray hands of the dead child star. “But yes. It’s… possible… that the trap started as a normal bear trap but was altered to make it more effective if used during the full moon.”
“Against wolves,” Cade repeated.
“It wasn’t silver,” Sun hedged.
“It didn’t need to be,” Marlow said. “Sever a wolf’s paw, and it won’t grow back, doesn’t matter what you used to make the cut.”
This time Sun had to nod. She touched her finger to the heart of Haley’s palm. “From the angle of the wound and the scrapes on the heels of her hand, I think she fell, put her hands out to catch herself, and triggered the trap. It wouldn’t have taken long after that, without medical treatment, for her to bleed out.”
Cade muttered, “Fuck,” loud in the sterile tile-and-metal lab, and stalked out of the room without bothering to excuse himself. The doors slammed shut behind him. Marlow turned back to Sun.
“Anything else?” he asked.
