Page 103 of Hard Evidence
“It has to be Amie, right?”Spider said.
Sin shrugged.“We don’t know that for sure.”
“Oh, please.With the orchid?Isn’t that the plant Justin claimed he put on Ruby’s grave?”
“Two words: Dobie Carter.”
Jez groaned.Spider groaned.Dobie Carter had been an informant, an asshole, and a pain in the rear.Instead of testifying against a corrupt chemical manufacturer, he’d fled witness protection and taken refuge at his brother-in-law’s hunting cabin.The Choir had tracked him to the Montana wilderness and tripped over a skeletonised body just yards from the driveway.Which was weird because he’d spoken to his sister a week previously.With further investigation, they’d realised the body was in fact female, which was how they’d accidentally solved a case that had gone cold two years previously, and the young woman’s husband was sent to prison where he belonged.
Dobie himself had been found in a ravine nearby, or rather, half of him had been found.A bear had eaten the rest.The moral of that story?Not everything was as it first appeared.
Also, don’t forget your bear spray.
“Okay, fine, I’ll check.”Jez opened her switchblade with a quietsnick.“You call the Cleaners.”
Jez was done talking.She crouched by the body and sliced into the plastic, peeling it back to reveal the bloated face of Amie Carlson.Her eyes were closed.The weather had been kind, and the plastic minimised insect activity, but her skin had turned greenish black as decomposition advanced.
“Tell me again why I do this job,” Jez muttered.
Spider obliged.“Because justice, blah blah.”
“If Levi did this, he’s a dead man.How difficult do you think it is to break into a level four prison?”
“A men’s prison?Hard to blend in without balls.”
Huh.Amie’s skull looked relatively intact.Jez had bet on a stab wound, and…what the fuck?She pulled out her phone and messaged Ari.
Jez
You owe me $8
Ari
Why?
Jez
Come see for yourself.I’ll go to $6, but no lower.
Ari appeared thirty seconds later, jogging along the track, slightly out of breath.
“What’s going— Ohmigosh, is that Amie?”
“Sure looks like what’s left of her.”
“Why did you unwrap her?What about forensics?”
“What forensics?We can’t trust anything here—the whole scene is staged.”Jez waved a hand toward the body.“Voila—exhibit A.”
Ari had avoided looking at the body closely—a tad squeamish?—but now she focused on the dead woman.On the knife sticking out of her chest.On the star carved into her torso.Her shirt was torn open, her skirt had been pushed up around her hips, and her underwear was missing.Ari’s skin took on a greenish pallor not too dissimilar from Amie’s.
“Do you want to go back to the car?”
The rest of the Choir was used to death—both seeing it up close and causing it—but Ari was a freelancer.She did investigation, not assassination.
“Yes, but I’m not going to.Wait a second… Is that the Star of David?”
“Yup.”
