Page 4 of Cooper’s Passion

“Hey, Maya. So that’s her, huh?” He’d never seen a dead body so pale. Her blonde hair was long, but tangled, her cheeks hollow. Other than that, he couldn’t tell much else.

Maya nodded grimly. “There isn’t a single ounce of blood left in her.”

“Puncture wounds?”

“Yes.” She turned the woman’s head, and Cooper was able to see two small round holes on the side of her neck.

“He didn’t hide what he did,” he murmured to himself. “Why not lick over the incisions so the flesh would mend without leaving any evidence that a vampire did this?”

“He probably tried,” Maya suggested, “but if she was already dead by the time he withdrew his fangs, his saliva wouldn’t have been able to heal her skin. Even vampire saliva can’t heal what’s already dead.”

“He gorged himself on her.” Disgust rose in Cooper, together with the need to hand out punishment for this crime. “What can you tell me about her?”

“Not much. She has blue eyes, good teeth; she’s five foot eight, pretty tall for a woman. As to her weight, I can’t really say, because she looks to me like she lost weight before her death. Her skin is sagging in places, but that can also be from the fact that he sucked her dry.”

“Age?”

“In her late thirties I’d say. She had sex in the last forty-eight hours, but I can’t tell if it was consensual or not. If the vampire who killed her had sex with her, he could have used mind-control to make her comply, which would explain the absence of wounds around her genitals.”

“Still makes it rape.”

“Agreed.”

“Can you tell me when she died?”

Maya looked at the large clock on the wall. “Around 4 p.m. today.”

Cooper contemplated her words. “That means Nicholas was right when he said that she wasn’t killed in that alley but somewhere else, and then just dumped there.”

“Makes sense,” Maya said. “He would have had to wait until nightfall before he could move her.”

“Nicholas said she had no ID on her. When do you think you’ll have her DNA for us to run through CODIS?”

“Buffy is in the lab right now, working on it.”

“Buffy? I didn’t realize she was doing that kind of work yet.”

Maya smiled for the first time since he’d entered the room. “She’s been with me for over a year now, and she’s a great student. She’s very capable.”

“I don’t doubt that. You’re a great teacher.”

“Charmer,” Maya said with a smile. “Now, go, and let me take an impression of her teeth in case we don’t get a hit on her DNA or her fingerprints.”

“That reminds me: Nicholas is on his way down here—just as soon as he can find the fingerprint scanner.” Cooper rolled his eyes.

“Cut him some slack. Doing your first shift as the leader in the command center is nerve-racking. Ethan was a mess when he had to coordinate every emergency that landed at Scanguards.”

From what Cooper remembered, Maya’s youngest son, Ethan, had done fine in the command center and everything had gone like clockwork. “Ethan had everything under control.”

“And Nicholas will too. Just be patient with him. Trust me: he’s getting enough flak from Zane for not being one-hundred-percent perfect one-hundred-percent of the time.”

Cooper sighed. “You’re probably right. Zane is a slave driver.” Then he pointed to the body. “Keep me posted.”

“I’ll call you as soon as I know more.”

Cooper left the morgue and made his way to the elevator. When the elevator doors finally opened, he heard a sound from the end of the corridor and saw Sebastian coming toward him, transporting two heavy looking wooden boxes on a dolly.

“Hold the elevator,” Sebastian called out. The half-Asian twenty-five-year-old was Oliver’s son. Oliver, a pure-blooded vampire, had been with Scanguards for decades, and Sebastian, like so many other sons and daughters of vampires was following in his father’s footsteps and working for Scanguards.