Doc pulled Brian’s lips back and looked down at his teeth, eyes narrowed. “Missing right front incisor. You’re right, Kara.”

I allowed myself a pleased smile. “All right, Doc,” I said. “Did he pull the trigger himself or was he murdered?”

“No fucking idea,” he said, narrowing his eyes as he picked up a scalpel and began to shave around the holes in the scalp and skull. “But I’m hoping to have an answer for you soon.” He peered at the wounds, lifting sections of skull that had been in the body bag and fitting them to the still-intact part of the skull. He put his hand out and Carl placed a long plastic rod in it without being asked—a sign of how long the two had worked together.

Doc poked the rod into the hole at Brian’s right temple, working it carefully until it protruded through the other side. Despite the morbid look of the thing, there was no better way to get a solid idea of what the trajectory of the bullet had been.

Doc peered at the rod, then shrugged and glanced back at me. “Well, the angle’s consistent.…” He frowned, then shook his head. “And he was definitely shot at close range, though I’m not seeing signs that the gun was flush against his head.”

“What do you mean?”

He pointed to the shaved area of scalp. “There’s plenty of stippling from gunpowder, but there aren’t any burns or blackening of the edges, and”—he peeled the scalp back to show the skull—“on a contact wound, you’d have a stellate-shaped entrance wound, and you’d see blackening on the skull as well.”

“So … he didn’t kill himself?”

He merely gave an infuriating shrug. “I can’t say that either. He could have held the gun a few inches away.”

“You’re no help,” I said sourly. “What about gunshot residue on his hands?”

“There could be GSR on his hands just from being in the same room when the gun was fired,” he pointed out.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Don’t give up hope yet,” he reassured me with a gesture toward the bagged hands. “I’ll check to see if there’s any blowback on his hands, plus I’ll ask the lab to swab the gun for contact DNA. It was his duty weapon?”

“Yeah.”

“Then if someone else’s DNA is found, that’s fairly telling.” He unbagged Brian’s hands, then lifted them for me to see and for Carl to photograph. “This isn’t much help either.”

I scowled. “Covered in blood.”

“Yep. He had his hands in a pool of his own blood.”

“So for now it’s undetermined?” I asked, knowing the answer already.

Doc nodded. “For now. Sorry.”

I stripped off my gloves and other protective gear. “All right. I guess I have to make some phone calls.” And continue to try to figure out what was eating essence. “You’ll call me if you find anything interesting on Davis Sharp?”

“You’ll be the first to know,” he replied.

Well, I wanted to bury myself in work, I reminded myself as I left the morgue. At this rate I won’t have time to worry about anything else.

Chapter 11

A visit to tessa was next on my to-do list, and I pulled into the parking lot of the Nord du Lac Neurological Rehabilitation Center shortly before noon. Nord Neuro, as everyone called it, was a three-story facility situated across the street from St. Long Parish Hospital. The owners did their best to make the place look warm and inviting—nice landscaping, clean exterior, fresh paint—but there really was no way to make that kind of place look nice. Still, I appreciated that it didn’t look like a total hellhole. I’d tapped heavily into my own savings as well as Tessa’s to pay for her care—grateful that I had the power of attorney to do so. Nord Neuro was a private facility, which meant that it was fucking expensive, even with Tessa’s insurance. But I knew that, one way or another, I would be paying the bills for only a couple of months.

I shut the car off but stayed where I was, gripping the steering wheel and listening to the tick of the engine as it cooled. I hated coming here, but more than that, I hated having my aunt here. Hated it with my entire being—and the only reason I could stand it at all was because I knew that she was completely unaware of her surroundings. Or is she? Rhyzkahl had said that an essence could return—sometimes on its own, but with more surety if coaxed along. That’s why I was here today—to collect what I needed for the ritual that would hopefully do that coaxing.

I got out of my car, hefting my backpack onto my shoulder. Don’t get your hopes up, I chided myself. It was all well and good to hope, but the seemingly inevitable disappointment was bitter. And if more essence gets consumed, how will that affect my aunt? Her essence was floating free at the moment, but if the balance were to shift too far, her essence would be sucked back into the “pool” instead of returning to her body.

I didn’t like thinking about that.

The glass doors slid open, and I mentally braced myself against the feel of the place. It didn’t have the sour food and urine smell of most nursing homes, but it held enough of the over-antiseptic hospital smell that I had to shiver.

Tessa was in a “no vent” section, which simply meant that she didn’t need a ventilator—at least not yet. She shared a room with another coma patient, a middle-aged woman who’d been there for several months. Her husband was sitting next to the bed when I entered. He spoke in a low voice with a woman who I figured was either an attorney or a doctor, judging solely by her professional appearance—dressed in a stylish dark-blue suit, brown hair accented with honey-blond highlights coiled up into an elegant twist, and understated yet elegant jewelry.

He looked up and gave me a smile as I entered—the kind of smile that was exchanged between people who shared a difficult circumstance. I returned the smile and then felt guilty. He was there every time I visited, reading to his comatose wife from a wide variety of books. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d been to see Tessa.

“Good to see you, Kara,” he said. “This is our lawyer, Rachel Roth.”

The woman turned to me and gave me a neutral but pleasant smile. “It’s nice to meet you. I hope it won’t disturb your time with your aunt if we talk in here. If so, it’s no trouble at all for us to go down the hall.”

“No, that’s quite all right,” I said, suddenly realizing that this was Brian’s mother. No, his stepmother. I remembered Brian saying something about his birth mother passing away quite some time ago. I hesitated, then added, “I’m sorry for your loss. I worked with Brian.”

She gave a soft sigh. “Thank you. It’s been a hard few days. You’re with the PD?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Kara’s a homicide detective,” Mr. Roommate said. “She’s the one who tracked down the Symbol Man.”

Ms. Roth’s eyebrows lifted as she looked at me with renewed interest. “You must have some fascinating stories.”

“Too many,” I replied with a small shrug. “Excuse me. I’ll leave you two to your conversation. It was nice meeting you, Ms. Roth.” I quickly retreated out of the conversation and over to my aunt’s side of the room. I wasn’t about to tell Ms. Roth that I’d been the one to find Brian’s body or that I was in charge of the investigation.

The two resumed their low conversation, and I caught snatches about negligence, accident, and insurance. I’d gathered that Tessa’s roommate—whose name I kept forgetting—had been involved in some sort of motor vehicle accident. Apparently, Rachel Roth was handling a related lawsuit.

I set my backpack on the floor on the far side of the bed. There was a difference between Tessa and her roommate, though. The other woman was in a coma because of injuries from her accident. Tessa’s body was fine. She was just missing her essence.

I shifted into othersight to take a quick peek at the other woman. Yes, she was there, still in the body, waiting only for her body to heal and recover. I had no way to tell if that would ever happen, but I knew that it could happen. I sighed and switched back to normal sight, then sat in the chair beside Tessa and looked her over with worry. She looked paler, her cheekbones more pronounced. Her breathing seemed shallower as well, and I had to wonder how long it would be before she ended up on a ventilator. Her body was definitely declining. How much time do I have?

I swallowed back the knot of fear in my throat and pulled out a book. I started to read to her softly, trying not to disturb Mr. Roommate’s conversation with his attorney while hoping that they weren’t paying attention to me. I’d grabbed a book at random off the rack in the drugstore, a lurid and intentionally comedic romance about sex-starved vampires that had me stifling giggles by page three.

Finally what I was waiting for happened—the two finished their conversation and Mr. Roommate left to walk Ms. Roth out. I quickly pulled the curtain between the beds. It had seemed rude to do so earlier, but now it would give me time to hide what I was doing in case anyone came into the room.

Because they would definitely freak, I thought grimly as I pulled the syringe out of my backpack. I wasn’t medically qualified by any stretch of the imagination, but I needed some of her blood, and getting it in the traditional method for a summoner—a shallow slice on the forearm—would cause far too many questions. I figured a poke from a needle would go unnoticed, especially with all of the other needle sticks she was getting.

I managed to find a vein on the third try, exceedingly glad that my aunt wasn’t awake to berate me on my total lack of skill. I breathed a sigh of relief as I drew the syringe full of blood, then carefully dropped the whole thing into an evidence tube, capped it, and put it into my backpack. Then I went after her hair and pulled about fifty strands, complete with root. These I dropped into an envelope, folded it, and stashed it in the backpack. I pulled the two cotton swabs out next and quickly swiped inside her cheeks. Just like doing a rape kit, I thought.

I finally opened the curtain, then took nail clippers out of the backpack and started trimming her nails, though they really didn’t need it. One of the staff must have recently clipped them, but even the slivers I was able to gather were sufficient for what I needed. Mr. Roommate came back during that process and gave me an approving smile. I gave a small smile and nod back, and hid the fact that I was saving all the nail clippings in another small envelope.

I had just stuffed the little envelope with the clippings into my backpack when a young, slender redhead in a nurse’s smock bustled in. She gave Mr. Roommate a smile that could only be described as perky, but when her gaze shifted to me she blinked in what was obviously surprise.

“Oh, hi! I don’t think I know you,” she said with a bright smile. “Are you family?”

“I’m her niece,” I said, prepared to be defensive about how seldom I visited. “I’m Kara Gillian.”

“Oh, of course!” she chirped. “You’re the one listed on her chart.” As if to prove her point, she picked up the chart from the end of the bed, eyes flicking over it. “Well, Miss Kara, I’m Melanie.” She grinned and proudly pointed to the name badge pinned on her chest. It made me wonder if she sometimes forgot her name and had to look down and check. “And you can be assured that I’m doing everything I can to make sure that Miss Tessa is as comfy as she can possibly be!”

“I … uh, appreciate that,” I replied, feeling almost cowed by her exuberance.

“Well, I used to go to Miss Tessa’s store for lunch darn near every day,” she continued. “She would always put extra sprouts on my turkey sandwich, just the way I liked it, and never ever charged me a single dime extra. So I feel like it’s fate that she’s here for me to take care of now!” Melanie beamed at me while I struggled to think of some sort of coherent response. Behind her, I could see Mr. Roommate hiding a broad grin behind his hand. I gave him a despairing look, but he merely gave me a helpless shrug as if to say, She’s a nut, but she’s harmless.

I suppressed a sigh. “Well, Melanie, I’m sure she’s much happier knowing that she’s in such caring hands.”

Her smile grew even wider, if that was possible. “Oh, thank you for saying that! And I sure am glad to see y’all coming in. Maybe it’s my imagination, but she sure seems perkier after each visit.”

I blinked. “Wait. Is someone else visiting besides me?”

“Sure is! There’s a man who’s been stopping by late in the evenings. I figured it must be another family member, since visitors are restricted to immediate family only at that hour.”

What the fuck? “Can you describe him?”

She bit her lip. “Wow. Um … well, he’s older than me. And he’s kinda tall, I guess.” She shook her head and gave me a bewildered look. “I’m sorry. I tried to talk to him and introduce myself, but he just kinda looked at me and didn’t say much. I assumed it was her husband or brother or something.”

“She doesn’t have either,” I said with a frown.

Melanie’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, no. He must have lied about being family!” Then her face brightened. “Maybe it’s a boyfriend, and he lied so that he could be near her! Y’know, out of love. And he was so subdued and quiet and eerie and all because he was so sad she was here.” She put her hand on her chest and gave a tragic sigh.

I stared at her as Mr. Roommate was overcome with an inexplicable coughing fit that sounded suspiciously like laughter. There was a part of me that wanted to shake her and demand to know how anyone could be that naïve, but a slightly more rational part of me pointed out that there was a dearth of innocent exuberance in the world, so physical violence probably wasn’t the best option here.