Six(7)

Fucking worth it.

“So, who was the guy you ran off with last night?” Sandra asked, surprising me when she leaned on the counter right next to me.

I blinked at her. “What?”

“Don’t what me. I saw you sneak off with tall, dark, and handsome. His hands were all over you.”

My mind wandered back to said hands. “He had great hands.”

“So, you did do some in-depth examinations.” She waggled her eyebrows, her brown eyes sparkling.

“He puts all other guys I’ve been with to shame.”

Her eyes bulged. “Even Digby?”

I used to call my ex-boyfriend Digby my Norwegian pile driver. He was huge all over and known to bruise sensitive areas with how hard he pounded my *, but it was worth it. However, his memory was being eclipsed by Simon, though I wasn’t sure what about him made it better.

“Okay, he doesn’t put Digby to shame, but he may top him.”

“Damn.” She blew out a breath and fanned herself. “You, me, wine. Thursday at my place and you are telling me every last detail. I think the men in my life just met a new standard.”

I smiled at her and shook my head. “Wine sounds like an excellent idea.”

“Perfect. I’ll see you then.” She waved as she pushed off and headed out the door.

With Sandra gone and Damon staring at me, I grabbed the top bin and began to process another vial. With one down, three more appeared, and I stepped up the pace. Plugging in my earbuds helped get me in the zone and I was off.

“Hey, Paisley, got a good one for you,” Micah said as he walked up holding the basket containing a file and three vials of blood.

“Is it mutant?” I asked as I pulled out my earbuds and set them on the counter.

He laughed. “Better. John Doe.”

I didn’t often know patient names, even less about the person or how they died. They were all a series of barcodes attached to each vial.

I quirked my brow at Micah. “John Doe?”

“Yeah, Dr. Mitchell can’t ID the guy. He’s got no prints, no dental records, nothing.”

“No prints?”

He shook his head. “Burned off.”

“His fingertips are burned off? That’s weird.” So strange. It was the first I’d heard of it outside of Hollywood.

“Tell me about it. He showed up two days ago and there’s not even a hint. Wonder if he’s a spy or something.”

I rolled my eyes as he headed back out the security door and down the hall. Micah’s words came back to me, and a deep curiosity took over.

I loved a good mystery, after all.

Pushing against the floor, I rolled my chair over to a computer where I pulled up John Doe’s electronic file, and clicked on the ME’s report.

Almost everything about his physical aspects was average: height, weight, hair and eye color. Though his body composition noted an overly strong musculature. He was probably a fitness buff who spent a lot of time in the gym. Estimated age of late thirties to early forties. But, then there were the fingerprints, or finger smudges in his case.

His wounds consisted of a few scrapes on his knuckles along with bruising on his face and torso, indicating he’d been in some sort of fight. The killing blow was a single gunshot wound to the head from close proximity. The placement and angle suggested the oh-so-well-known, but rarely seen, execution-style.

I double clicked on his X-rays and stared in shock. I’d never trained in reading X-rays, but after looking at them for years, thanks to a combination of morbid curiosity and a constant need to know more, I’d learned to spot calluses: the signs of bone remodeling.

The extent of calluses on our Mr. Doe’s skeleton was staggering. I’d seen the X-rays of jumpers who didn’t have as many broken bones as this man had accumulated in his life.

Maybe Micah was right.

I wanted to laugh at the stupidity of that thought. A spy? In Cincinnati? Was he here to steal Skyline’s chili recipe? Or find out why people were obsessed with goetta? Because I’d like to know the answer to that one.

Then again, GE Aviation was based here and they did have government contracts…

Really, Paisley?

I shook my head and closed out the X-rays. There was one identifiable mark Dr. Mitchell found, so I pulled it up. When it opened, I squinted at the screen, trying to figure out what I was looking at and how Dr. Mitchell even noticed it.

Behind Mr. Mysterious’s left ear, underneath the backside of the concha, in the crease where the ear and the skull meet, were three dots. Permanent markings on the skin, almost like freckles, but they were black.

I sat back and stared at the screen.

What a strange marking.

I’d heard about gangs having a three-dot tattoo, but those were mostly in a triangle and in a noticeable place. His was in an almost invisible place. Plus, besides the bodily damage he’d suffered over the years, nothing about him—tattoos, apparel, et cetera—suggested any gang relations. Christ, the man was wearing a suit when he was killed.

For the next few hours, I went about my job and obsessed about John Doe in the back of my mind. Who was he?

Later, close to my clock out time, when the tests were done—thanks to my curiosity moving it to the head of the class—I pulled up the results and shook my head.

The tests brought up a startling and confusing combination of drugs in John Doe’s system. “This isn’t right.”