Chapter Two - What Doesn't Break Skin
Dr. Naomi Ruth hooked a finger under the edge of the first sheet.
“Start here,” she said, as she peeled it back.
The officer beneath looked… wrong in a way that took a second to register. Uniform intact. Face slack. No blood. No obvious trauma.
Then my eyes found the neck.
It had been violently turned, which sent a stab of fear through me.
Too far. Too clean. Like someone had decided the correct direction for a human head was optional—and demonstrated.
“Name?” I asked, hoping I kept my voice level to hide my unsettled nerves.
“Officer Daniel Ruiz,” Naomi said, no hesitation. “Time of death between 2310 and 2325. There’s no lividity pattern consistent with collapse on the pavement. He died seated.”
“In the car,” I said.
“Yes.”
She stepped aside, giving me a better angle. I didn’t need it.
The uniform collar had been tugged slightly out of place. A faint crescent of pressure marked the jawline.
“Grip here,” I said, pointing.
Naomi nodded once. “Sudden rotation. Cervical dislocation at C2-C3. Instant.”
“Instant,” I repeated.
Jacob didn’t say anything.
He didn’t have to.
He’d gone still in that way he did—like the air around him had decided to stop moving out of respect.
Naomi reached for the second sheet. “This one is nearly identical.”
She pulled it back.
Officer number two.
Same stillness. Same display of terrible violence.
The neck again—twisted in the opposite direction this time, as if whoever did it had simply… switched hands.
“Robert Farris,” Naomi said. “Same timeframe. Same mechanism.”
I stepped closer, crouching slightly, studying the shoulders. “No defensive wounds.”
“None,” Naomi confirmed. “No bruising on the forearms. No abrasions. No sign they had time to react.”
“They didn’t see it.”
Naomi didn’t answer.
“Okay,” I said. “So somebody gets into a squad car—two trained officers inside—and kills both of them before either can draw, shout, or breathe wrong.”
“I don’t think so.”
I looked at her.
Jacob rumbled, “How?”
Naomi glanced at him—just a heartbeat longer than necessary—before answering.
“From the glass at the scene, the attacker punched through the window, broke the first officer’s neck…” she paused, choosing her words, “…then somehow did the same to the second officer on the opposite side. Faster than either could react.”
I let that sit for a second.
“Then,” I continued, “dragged them out through the windows.”
“Yes.”
“Glass lacerations?”
“Plenty,” she said. “But consistent with postmortem movement. Along the back and sides. After death.”
Her eyes flicked to Jacob again.
It was quick, and supposed to be subtle, but I noticed.
Great. Even in a morgue.
Jacob, for his part, didn’t react. Didn’t acknowledge it. Didn’t even seem aware of it.
Which, somehow, made it worse.
I cleared my throat. “You said three bodies.”
Naomi’s attention shifted back to me. “Correct.”
She moved to the third table.
Naomi didn’t reach for the sheet right away, which told me everything I didn’t want to know.
“This one,” she said carefully, “is different.”
Something settled low in my stomach. “Define different.”
She didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, she pulled the sheet back slowly.
The man beneath looked like he’d been dipped in shadow.
For a second, I thought it was the lighting. After viewing for a moment, I wish it was the lighting.
Every inch of visible skin was discolored. Deep purples, blacks, sickly greens bleeding beneath the surface.
Like one massive bruise.
His face was swollen, features distorted, lips split—but not from cuts.
From pressure.
“Detective Marco Espinoza,” Naomi said quietly.
I didn’t respond.
I stepped closer, focusing, but my brain resisted what I was seeing.
“No lacerations,” Naomi continued. “No punctures. No tearing. Not a single breach.”
I leaned in.
She was right.
The skin was completely intact.
“Internal?” I asked.
Naomi nodded.
“Extensive,” she said. “Every long bone fractured. Radius, ulna, humerus. Femurs. Tibia. Fibula. Ribs—multiple breaks on both sides.”
I exhaled slowly.
“Blunt force trauma?”
“No.”
That got my attention.
I looked at her.
“No?” I repeated.
Naomi shook her head. “Blunt force leaves impact patterns. Localized damage. This—” she gestured over the body “—is distributed. Precise. Controlled.”
“Controlled,” I echoed.
“Yes,” she said. “As if force was applied exactly where needed. Sequentially.”
I stared at Espinoza’s arm.
The skin wasn’t broken.
But beneath it…
Everything was wrong.
“Organs?” I asked.
Naomi’s jaw tightened—just slightly. She was a professional, but what she had seen disturbed her too. I took some comfort there.
“Pulverized,” she said. “Heart, lungs, liver. All compromised by external compression. No internal hemorrhaging consistent with penetration. Just… collapse.”
I let out a slow breath.
“So somebody,” I said carefully, “decided to break every bone in this man’s body… and crush everything inside him…”
I glanced up at her.
“…without leaving a mark.”
“Other than the bruising,” she said, “yes.”
Silence settled over the room.
The hum of the lights felt louder.
I became aware of Jacob again.
Occupying space like the Rock of Gibraltar.
Naomi glanced at him again.
There it was.
Quick. Almost involuntary. No, not involuntary, calculated, but trying to maintain that professional demeanor.
I leaned casually against the counter, folding my arms.
“Let me ask you something, Doctor.”
“Yes?”
“You ever seen anything like this before?”
“No.” She said after pausing a moment.
I nodded slowly.
“Because this isn’t someone losing control,” I said. “This is someone who has it.”
Naomi’s eyes narrowed slightly. Not disagreement.
Suddenly, I felt as if I’d ascended a few levels with her.
“I would agree,” she said.
Jacob spoke.
“Strength.”
Both of us looked at him.
He hadn’t moved. Hadn’t shifted his gaze from Espinoza.
But his voice carried certainty.
Naomi watched him a few moments, using his words a reason to openly study him.
I noticed that too.
Fantastic.
I pushed off the counter.
“Okay,” I said. “So we’ve got something strong enough—and fast enough—to kill two armed officers before they can react…”
I nodded toward the third table.
“…and patient enough to do that.”
Naomi crossed her arms, glove snapping softly.
“There’s more,” she said.
Of course there is.
“Go ahead.”
She stepped closer to Espinoza, pointing to his chest.
“Look at the pattern beneath the bruising. You can see symmetry.”
“That’s not random.”
I felt as if I’d lost my earlier gained levels with that obvious comment.
“No,” Naomi agreed. “It isn’t.”
I straightened slowly.
“Sequential force,” I murmured. “Applied in a pattern.”
Jacob finally looked up and met my eyes. He was troubled.
I glanced back at Naomi and she was watching Jacob again.
Like she’d just realized she was standing in a room where not everyone was playing by the same rules.
Jacob spoke again, quieter this time.
“He was alive.”
Naomi met his gaze and seemed to soften a touch.
“For quite some time,” she said quietly. “This was deliberate. Methodical.”
I felt the color drain from my face.
God…
Please comfort him.
Something heavier settled on me, a missing thought I was wrestling with. Partners.
“Wait,” I said, the word catching slightly. “Where’s the other detective?”
Naomi didn’t answer.
Didn’t move.
The silence stretched.
“Alicia Reddings?” I asked.
Silence.