A Deadly Influence (Abby Mullen Thrillers #1)(87)

“Sure, send it over.”

“I’ll tell Gomez. Thanks.” He hung up.

“Carver.” Gomez stood in the doorway to the autopsy room. “Come take a look.”

Carver followed her back inside. Gomez sat down by the computer in the corner of the room. An x-ray of the skull was displayed on the monitor.

“There’s our fracture,” Gomez said. “We’ll probably be able to say if that’s what killed our victim in a few hours.”

“Okay,” Carver said, inspecting the large dark spot at the back of the skull.

“But that’s not the interesting part.” Gomez shifted to a different image. An x-ray of the ribs. “The second intercostal space. See these spots here? And here?”

She pointed at two spots on two adjacent ribs, one dark and one white. Carver would never have noticed them.

“What are those?”

“This is where the attacker stabbed the victim. And the blade jammed between the ribs.” Gomez pointed at the light spot. “The white spot is almost certainly metal. A chip from the blade.”

Carver imagined the scene of the crime. The smears of blood on the floor. Two murder weapons. The attacker had stabbed the victim, then bashed his skull with a dumbbell he’d found nearby. “He couldn’t pull the knife out, so he went for a different weapon. The dumbbell.”

“That would be my guess,” Gomez said grimly. “And then, after the victim was incapacitated, the killer really wanted his knife back. So he flipped the victim to his back—”

“Put his foot on the victim’s shoulder and yanked the knife out,” Carver said.

“Exactly.”

“Can you give me any details about the knife?”

“It was a long blade. I can’t say how deep it penetrated, but once we remove the ribs, I’ll be able to give you a good estimate. At least five inches. And to get stuck in that intercostal space, it would have to be between 0.7 and 0.8 inches wide. And sharp. Very sharp. Not just the tip—I think the entire blade would have to be sharp to cut like that. And like I said, it’ll probably be missing a chip.”

“A steak knife?”

“Something like that, could be, but not necessarily. I have a knife at home I use to cut tomatoes that could do this.”

“Okay. Oh, listen, can you send that mud sample from the shirt to forensics?”

Gomez rolled her eyes. “What do you think I was going to do with it? Flush it down the toilet?”

Carver raised his hands in a conciliatory manner. “Sorry, just making sure.”

He took one last look at Eric Layton’s face. The kidnappers had killed twice. Nothing would stop them from killing again. Getting Nathan back home safely was more urgent than ever.





CHAPTER 60


Abby paused to collect her thoughts before knocking on Gabrielle’s door. She was there to talk to the girl about Eric’s death, hoping Gabrielle hadn’t heard about it yet.

Due to the wiretap on Gabrielle’s phone, which had been placed with her consent in case the kidnapper called her phone instead of Eden’s, Abby knew that Eric had called Gabrielle repeatedly before his murder. Abby thought of the half-empty scotch bottle on the desk. Of the evil queen meme he had been working on. That meme couldn’t be anything but Eric’s accusing finger, pointed at Gabrielle. Had he just been angry because she hadn’t returned his calls? Or had he found something?

Gabrielle’s followers had tripled since Nathan had been kidnapped. Each post had been liked thousands of times, garnering endless comments of support.

Like many parents, Abby had done some superficial research when her daughter had first used social media. Instagram and Facebook, she’d found out, literally rewired your brain. Likes and comments on a user’s post were found to release bursts of dopamine, which made the user happy. That made sense; everyone enjoyed getting likes on a Facebook post. But this essentially turned the phone into a personal dopamine stimulator. Brain scans showed that in cases of people who were addicted to social media, the brain rewired itself, making them desire more likes, or retweets, or smiling emojis.

Abby had seen drug addicts do terrible things to get their next fix. Young girls prostituting themselves, kids stealing from their parents, men stealing from their jobs. Crack-addicted parents leaving their kids hungry because they could either afford a single rock or dinner. But that was for crack or heroin. Not for a heart emoji.

She tried to imagine what Gabrielle had gone through. Two years ago, her Instagram account had gone ballistic after one viral photo. It must have been an extraordinary feeling, tens of thousands of people suddenly vying for her attention, showering her with what she perceived as love. And then, as time went by, they trickled away. She got fewer and fewer responses; the number of likes per post dropped significantly. No more dopamine for Gabrielle.

Could she really have something to do with Nathan’s disappearance, just to get her fix?

Abby knocked, three sharp taps.

“Yeah?” Gabrielle’s muffled voice sounded tired.

Abby opened the door. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

Gabrielle sat on her bed, leaning against the wall, a tablet in her hand. As Abby stepped into the room, she let the tablet drop into her lap, and Abby caught a glimpse of the ransom contribution page.