Into the Light (The Light, #1)(18)

“Stella, let’s go,” Dylan said. “This isn’t your story.”

I turned to face him. “Whose story or case will it be? Who’ll give a shit about her or what she suffered?”

“It’s an open investigation,” the technician volunteered. “The police are working on it.”

“If someone were to use an acid strong enough to take away her fingerprints, wouldn’t there be more damage to her skin?” I asked.

The young woman nodded. “If it were done all at once. However, if it’s done over time, each application takes away a little more. Then it scars, making the final result more effective. Some terrorist groups willingly do this to lose their previous identities.” She looked down. “I really shouldn’t say any more.”

“Stella, we need to go.” Dylan placed his hand on my shoulder.

I nodded as I scanned the features of the woman on the table. Briefly I wondered what she had looked like before she was hurt, killed, and left for rat food in an abandoned house. That was what some asshole had done. If drugged-out kids hadn’t gone into the house to shoot up or hook up in the middle of a Detroit summer, this woman would’ve been consumed by rodents, greatly reducing any hope of identification.

Shaking my head, I looked back at the technician. That’s when I saw it, a look in her eyes that seemed to plead for my help, asking me to use the resources at my discretion to do something.

I tested the waters. “Thank you for your help. What’s your name? I apologize for not asking sooner.”

“Tracy, Dr. Tracy Howell, assistant forensic pathologist.”

I stood straighter. “Doctor. Again, I apologize. I just assumed you were a technician.”

Dr. Howell smiled. “I’m used to it. It’s all right. When people enter our labs, they aren’t in the best place. I’m sorry, Miss Montgomery, that your friend is still missing. Thank you for stopping by.” Her eyes shifted to Dylan, then back to me. I got the feeling that Dr. Howell didn’t want to talk with others around.

“Call me Stella, please. Thank you again, Doctor.”

As Dylan and I walked through the door to the hallway, I took one last look over my shoulder and saw Dr. Howell cover the blonde woman’s head with the sheet. The vision of the woman settled into the back of my mind: her yellow hair combed away from her battered face; her eyes partially opened, irises hidden by the veiled lids; her fingers curved slightly, their distinguishing marks burned away.

And something else.

One of the earlobes, the one on the right, was split, as if an earring had been ripped from the ear. My feet stopped. We’d made it to the security gate but I’d suddenly forgotten how to move.

“What is it?” Dylan asked in a low voice.

I barely heard his question as I tried to make sense of the injury. Should I go back and confirm what I saw?

Mindy’s ears weren’t pierced. That was one of the things I’d specifically told the medical examiner.

Why did Dr. Howell call me down here if she knew it wasn’t Mindy?

Perhaps there was a simple explanation. With all the injuries the woman had, her ear could have gone unnoticed.

“You’re scaring me. Are you going into shock? What’s the matter?”

I shook my head. “I was just thinking about Mindy.”

Mindy and I used to joke about getting tattoos. Neither of us had actually wanted one, but we were curious. We’d wondered what the fascination was, why people continued to get them. The subject didn’t come up every day, usually only when we’d had a little too much to drink. Regardless, it always ended the same way, with Mindy biting her lip and recounting her fear of needles, telling how she’d reacted when her mom took her to a store in the mall to have her ears pierced.

She’d begged and pleaded with her mother for weeks. All her friends had pierced ears and she’d wanted them too, until she was there, sitting on the stool, watching the clerk pick up the silver gun. She’d usually start to laugh as she recalled how she’d been struck by an overwhelming wave of panic. How she’d screamed at the top of her lungs, completely out of control. She’d even fallen from the stool. Needless to say, she never had her ears pierced, and after we saw The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, we never again even joked about getting a tattoo.

Dylan’s warm hand rubbed a circle on the small of my back. “Why don’t I take you home? I’m sure if you call Barney he’ll understand. This is too hard on you. I don’t like that they keep calling. I think they should call me. If I’m not sure, then I’ll have you come down and confirm. That woman obviously wasn’t Mindy.”

I shook my head. “Thank you, but I want to be the one they call, and I can’t go home. I still have work that needs to be done at the station. Besides, I don’t think sitting in my apartment with only memories and a vivid imagination is a good idea.”

Dylan took my hand and walked me through the building. By the time we made it to the parking lot, I’d tucked Mindy away, to a safe place. “Where’s your car?”

Pointing to the left, he said, “It’s right over there.”

I turned and spotted his unmarked Charger.

“How about when you’re done with work, you come back to my place, instead of going home to that empty apartment?” Dylan leaned closer. “You left in a hurry this morning and besides, I’d like to learn more about that vivid imagination of yours.”