3. Lila
3
LILA
“ E arlier assessments of the heart being cut from the chest cavity have been ruled out.” I stared at the dead body before me where it lay on the table as I spoke into the recorder.
“Autopsy report describes injuries as ripping. While the edging flesh of the wound remains smooth and cut lines consistent with a knife being used, autopsy suggests a small peri knife. Pooling of blood within the cavity suggests this was a perimortem injury.”
I stepped back from John Doe number one. His face was in perfect condition. A middle-aged male, neatly cut brown hair, body fit and flawless. No signs of struggle. “You were awake while your heart was ripped from your chest… Why didn’t you struggle?” I whispered to him.
“Well, I asked myself the same thing,” Patty, the elderly mortician, stated. Patty was a forensic pathologist in her prime. She’d stepped down from her position and ran the local funeral home with her eldest son. Now and then, the town employed her to examine bodies, if bringing a pathologist from the city wasn’t feasible. “At first, I figured drugs were involved.”
“The toxicology report came back negative,” I said. I had read it the moment it came in weeks ago. John Doe number one was about to be buried in an unmarked grave tomorrow, which was why I was in today—to get one more look at him.
“Yes. As did John Doe number two. Now, that doesn’t mean they weren’t drugged. It simply means drugs weren’t detected in their system. There are a number of drugs with anesthetic qualities that are not detectible.”
“So, we are right back to the start. All we know is this man went into the woods willingly or heavily sedated, had his chest cut open, his ribs broken, and then his heart ripped out.”
Patty frowned. “I wrote in the report about his ribs, did I not?”
“Yes.” I picked the report back up and thumbed through it. “They had been broken and pushed outward, right?”
“No, my dear.” She tapped on the page that held the information. “The ribs moved; they aren’t set anatomically properly. At first, I concluded he must’ve had them broken at some point and they didn’t heal correctly. That was, until John Doe number two came in.”
I glanced up at where John Doe two lay under a white sheet on the table next to us. “What was wrong with him?”
Patty opened her mouth to answer when banging at the front door caused us to jump. “My heavens. One minute, dear.” She rushed out of the room to answer the front door.
I turned back to John Doe one, pressing on his ribs. My eyes went wide as they moved under my fingertips. Patty was wrong. There was no injury. His ribs moved willingly, as if they were designed to be rearranged.
I rushed over to John Doe two, but before I could pull back the sheet, chaos ensued.
Two large men wearing black suits burst into the autopsy room with a very angry Patty on their heels.
“Excuse me!” she yelled at them. “Have you no manners?”
“We are not going to run through this again,” one of the men said. “Lila Evans, you are to remove yourself from this room, so these bodies can be properly relocated.”
“Relocated?” I stepped to the side, blocking one of the square doors to the refrigerators that was currently labeled John Doe three.
He held out a stack of papers. “These men have been identified and will be relocated to their respective homes, so they can be buried where the family requests.”
I quickly flipped through the papers. “Who are they? How were they identified?” No key information was listed, just a notice of seizure.
“That is classified.”
“Classified?” I scoffed. “It’s my case.”
“Not anymore.” He covered up the cadavers with the sheet. Four more men pushed their way into the room, pulling gurneys with them, despite poor Patty’s objections.
Behind my back, I pulled the label off the refrigerator door. “This is ridiculous,” I argued with them.
“This case is now being taken over on a federal level,” he stated.
I tried to rein myself in, since I could feel my heart rate increasing, my body itching for a change. These guys definitely were not feds. Before I could do something that would put everyone in the room in harm's way, I left.
“Lila!” Patty ran after me.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths. It had been nearly a decade since I’d lost my temper and shifted. Luckily, back then, I had made it into the forest before anyone could see.
I turned to face Patty, and she froze, her eyes taking me in. “Don’t let them take number three,” I whispered through my teeth. I didn’t wait for her response before I was running out of there.
The fresh air was exactly what I needed, ensuring all the bones stayed in their respective spots. This didn’t make any sense, even with the paperwork. I had worked with the federal government on more than one occasion, and they didn’t just swoop in and take over. They would work with me, create a task force if needed, and if the case required, they would assist financially. They’d never just taken the case and shut me out before.
I pulled out my phone and tried to call Rodney a few times, but each time, it went to voicemail. I eventually gave up when they started wheeling the bodies out and into the hearses.
The drive down to the station was short, but it still gave me enough time to think about what I was going to say to Rodney and how I was going to figure out this entire clusterfuck.
I didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to see that shit had hit the fan. I wasn’t sure what in the report I had sent the city precinct set things on fire, but a brigade of five black SUVs parked around the station was a massive red flag.
Had I blown things out of proportion? No. I mean, I was glad we had the help and could solve this case, but this seemed like total overkill.
I parked and rushed into the station, only to be completely overwhelmed with scents and sounds. “Lila.” The receptionist called me over the moment I keyed through the locked door. “You should go to Chief Nix’s office. I think they are working at your desk.”
“My desk?” Oh, deep breaths, Lila . I took a few steps into where all the officers had their desks in an open communal room, and sure enough, three men wearing black suits crowded around my computer.
I didn’t know how well I held my speed, but one minute, I was across the room, and the next, I was behind them.
“This is a complete breach of privacy!” I yelled at them.
The crowded room, once stifling with chatter, now fell silent.
“We have a seizure order,” the man in black, who was on my computer, said.
“Okay, yes, maybe for the homicide case, but I have other active cases on my computer you have no rights to.”
“Actually, we have the rights to your entire computer.” Once again, I was hit with another goddamn notice of seizure.
I spun around and marched to the chief’s office, banging the door open as I shouted, “Roddy! What the hell is going on?!”
It wasn’t the fact that a man who wasn't Rodney stared at me with the utmost surprise and confusion that made me pause. There was a feeling I wasn’t used to that cooled my anger almost instantly.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, I fought with myself to keep my claws from slipping out, and my legs burned. Everything inside of me screamed, run.
My eyes locked with the man across the office, leaning against a cabinet. He wore a dark grey suit with an off-white shirt. He had his hands tucked into his pockets. A lock of his dirty-blond hair fell into his eyes, which had been locked on me the moment I stepped through the door.
A smirk spread across his lips as I kept my gaze on him, afraid if I looked away, he would attack.
“Lila.” Rodney cleared his throat. “Detective Evans. This is—”
“Weylin Cridhe.” The man stood, and, instinctively, I stepped back. Shifter. I tried to pinpoint his scent, but there were so many new people all around me, I couldn’t figure it out. I didn’t miss the flare of his nostrils, though, or the slight dilation of his pupils. He had scented me.
Weylin pulled his hand back to his pocket, having extended it with the intent to shake my hand. He gave a tilt of his head, and I knew from his body language that he was assessing me.
“Sprinkles?” Rodney asked, holding out a half-eaten box of donuts. “The walnut ones are fantastic, but if you’ve never had Miss Becky’s donuts, then I would really go for the coconut.”
For fuck’s sake, Roddy. I was torn between running out of here or getting ready to throw hands with another shifter, and here he was talking about donuts. Ugh. He was the reason police officers got a bad rep.
The smirk on Weylin’s face turned to a smile, his tongue running over his canine tooth briefly before he turned and took a coconut donut out of the box.
“Detective…Evans, is it?” Weylin asked, taking a bite of the pastry.
“Yes, yes. Lila is our best detective. We don’t have many cases around these parts, missing children in the forests, at times. She’s fairly quick at finding them. She’s had a number of solved cases in other jurisdictions now, haven’t you, Lila? Lila?”
“Hm?” I couldn’t take my eyes off this stranger. Though He acted so calm and collected, everything inside of me told me he was anything but. That I couldn’t turn my back on him. “Yes. Cases. I’ve solved many.”
Weylin smiled at this, taking another bite of the donut, finishing it off. “Yes, well. Sorry about your lack of leads on the John Doe files. Rest assured, they will be solved.”
A short, perhaps slightly hysteric, laugh left me. “You think you can solve it? Just like that?”
Weylin stepped forward, invading my space and taking a deep inhale through his nose. “On the contrary. I believe we have already solved it. Just a few things left to…finalize.” Weylin nodded towards Rodney. “Chief Nix.”
Chief gave him a nod back.
Weylin walked towards the doorway, causing me to fall back against it, so I could avoid touching him. “We’ll be seeing you soon,” he practically growled under his breath as he walked out.
I leaned out of the doorway, watching his back as he strode confidently out of the precinct. Members of his team, all wearing black suits, moved out of his way as he left.
“I mean, it’s not that I don’t like the sprinkles, but the way she does the walnuts. Do you think she rolls the donuts in the nuts?” Roddy asked.
I rolled my eyes, then took off after Weylin. I ran outside and still didn’t see him. All five SUVs remained where they were. I walked to the back of the parking lot, where it was lined with trees. Had he shifted? He was a wolf, I was sure of it. I trusted my gut.
That afternoon, I stayed at the precinct for as long as I could, watching the new federal task force tear apart my files, taking pictures and packaging things back up again. One of our local officers stopped and handed me a coffee, and it was at that moment I realized how pathetic I looked watching them with broken-hearted eyes.
I had lost one of my cases. I was kicked off it, and through zero fault of my own, but perhaps it was my fault. Weylin said he practically had the case solved. They knew who the victims were. How? Why?
I rehashed every moment from the crime scenes, from the bodies to the locations. I recalled all the results from forensics and still couldn’t see it.
I was still up in my head when I left the precinct, the sun just starting to set. I was ready for a cup of coffee and to snuggle in my bed with Max. I really needed Max right now; he always cheered me up.
The snap of a branch from the woods brought me out of my head. The air felt different outside, thick and heavy. A tingling spread down my back, and my heart began thumping rapidly in my chest. I was being followed.
I rushed to my car while simultaneously trying to act calm about it, despite jumping in and slamming the door shut quickly, afraid something might grab my leg. Maybe I should've looked under the car, but maybe not. In the movies, that was always a mistake.
I didn't relax until I checked the back seats and locked all the doors. Still, the feeling never left me. Even as I drove around the block a few times, taking different side roads and backtracking, I knew in my gut I was being followed. However, I saw nothing, no one.
I was left with two options: drive to a public area and hope that kept me safe until whoever was causing this feeling leaves me or go home.
Bystanders were in public, and the chance of them getting caught in the crossfire churned my stomach. But Max was at home, and, well…
I turned down the main road toward the local bar.