Page 161 of Forever Dead
Selena surveyed the room.
The overturned table, folded rug and displaced chair suggested a disturbance extending into the living room. Nora might have caught the rug while backing away or been pushed against the furniture. Selena could not establish the sequence yet, but there was reason to search beyond the kitchen.
Selena followed the imagined movement toward the wall beside the couch.
Something dark showed beneath the lowest edge.
She stopped.
“Matt.”
He followed her attention. “Where?”
“Under the couch. Near the back leg.”
Price crouched.
A black-brown fragment lay partly hidden against the floorboard.
Nobody moved for several seconds.
Price stood. “Everyone stay where you are.”
He retrieved his camera.
The next two minutes were methodical. Overall photograph. Mid-range. Close-up. Scale placed beside the fragment without touching it. Another photograph.
Only after documenting the position did Price take a pair of sterile forceps from his kit.
He lifted the fragment.
Selena’s stomach tightened.
It was larger than anything recovered beneath Eleanor’s or Patricia’s nails. Roughly the size of two fingers laid together. One edge was irregular and torn.
The other contained stitching.
Dark thread passed through a folded seam, several loops still intact. Along the torn side, empty puncture holes showed where more thread had pulled free.
Chuck swore quietly.
Price held it over an evidence tray.
“It resembles the earlier fragments,” Selena said.
“Gross appearance does,” Price replied. “We’ll need a comparison before calling it the same material.”
Selena studied the torn edge and the surviving loops of thread.
“Connor described separate pieces sewn together. This could be one of them.”
Chuck bent slightly to see the tray. “Part of the mask?”
“Part of it. Not the whole thing.”
“But he was still wearing it when he attacked Connor.”
“A missing section wouldn’t necessarily stop him wearing it. Connor saw narrow openings beneath the stitching around the eyes. They worked.”
