Page 175 of Forever Dead

He handed back the phone.

“How did you know it was the left flank?” she asked.

“Because that appears to be what you’ve shown me.”

“The photograph was cropped and rotated.”

Foss paused, then adjusted his glasses.

“There are characteristics you learn to recognize.”

“Which ones tell you it’s the left side?”

“The direction of the tissue. The curvature.”

Selena lowered the phone. Nothing in the image explained his certainty. Perhaps there was a feature she did not understand, but she needed an independent answer to that question.

Beside an instrument tray at the far end of the table sat a small open box.

2-0 BRAIDED SILK, BLACK.

A length of dark thread lay beside its opened packet. It resembled the stitching in Price’s close-up, though resemblance was all she could establish here. A pathologist owning surgical thread proved nothing.

His knowledge of the wound was harder to dismiss.

Foss moved toward the worktable.

Selena slipped the phone into her jacket pocket. She needed to get outside and call Chuck before asking anything else.

The laboratory door stood beyond Foss’s shoulder. Her cane rested against the table, within reach. She took it in her left hand and kept her right free.

“That gives me something to take back to Blethan,” she said.

“You’re leaving?”

“Chuck will want an update.”

“Of course.”

Foss stepped aside.

Selena made herself walk at the pace her knee allowed. Her pistol remained beneath her jacket. Reaching for it would turn his attention to her hand before she had it clear, and he was only a few feet away. For now, the doorway was open.

“Thank you for your help,” she said.

“My pleasure.”

She passed him.

Blethan had sent the first fragments here. Foss had examined them, explained their altered structure and offered human skin as a possibility. If her suspicion was right, he had known far more than he told them.

She wanted to turn and check where he was. Instead, she kept moving toward the hall.

Her right knee caught as she reached the threshold. Selena planted the cane and shifted her weight.

Behind her, a shoe scraped across the floor.

She started to turn, her right hand moving beneath her jacket.