Circle of Blood (Forensic Mystery)

discussing blowback on the gun’s barrel, and the nicks left inside the skull by the ricocheting bullet. The voices grew softer as the door swung in and out; with each pass she could still hear the words “hard to interpret” and “slaying” until she was too far down the hall to make them out. She thought she’d escaped, but the words trailed after her like smoke.
    It wasn’t a restroom she needed—just time to think. She went as far as the lobby before dropping into an institutional chair. The chrome frame gleamed in the light, as shiny and cold as an autopsy instrument. She crossed her legs and watched her foot jiggle in the half-light until she commanded it to stop. If she was going to keep secrets, she’d have to become less transparent.
    For a moment she stood, and then, with no place to go, she sat down again. The material on the chair was a rough, institutional fabric with an out-of-date, stain-hiding pattern. Cheap magazine tables bisected the rows of chairs. A copy of Field & Stream adorned one, while a House & Garden lay open on the other. A battered copy of I Wasn’t Ready to Say Goodbye: Surviving, Coping and Healing after the Death of a Loved One lay splayed on a laminate coffee table. When she leafed through it, she saw the pages were puckered; salted—she guessed, by tears. She picked up the Field & Stream , read the cover, and set it down again.
    “I would have pegged you as more of a House and Garden type,” Justin said, surprising her from behind and then slipping into a chair beside her. “You know, cutting, stitching things up.” While his arms rested on chrome, his blue jeans-clad legs spread wide, unfolding as if to take up as much space as possible.
    “Very funny. Actually, out of these choices I’d have to say I’m more of a Field and Stream kind of girl. My mammaw still makes us eat fish every Friday, so for a while I got into catching them. But I don’t like to clean fish,” she said, wrinkling her nose. It was amazing, she realized, the way she could flip her internal switch and hide what she was feeling. Not only from others, but from herself. “Gutting a fish—that’s where I draw the line.”
    “You want to open up bodies but you’re girly about a fish. You are a mass of contradictions, Cameryn Mahoney.”
    “Yeah. Maybe it’s because I have to eat the fish. No such problem with the decedents.”
    He studied her a moment before saying, “If people knew what happened to their bodies after death, they wouldn’t die.” Justin waited a beat. “Something’s happened with you,” he said. “I could tell when you had the brain in your hands. That stuff never bothered you before. What’s going on? ”
    “Nothing. I think I’m just hungry,” she told him, shaking her head. “I’ve only had one hot chocolate today.”
    “What a coincidence. I was just about to see if you’d like to have dinner.” He was smiling his Cheshire-cat grin. Justin, at times, could look every inch the bad boy he’d been before reinventing himself as a lawman.
    “What do you mean?”
    “For a forensic superstar you’re a bit slow on the uptake. I mean you’re hungry and we’re here in the big town of Durango, home of some truly great restaurants. I was thinking of Francisco’s on Main. It’s only eight thirty at night, still well within the accepted dinner hour in towns with a population of over, say, ten. I’ll take you home afterward,” he said. One eyebrow rose on his forehead, partially hidden by his fringe of dark hair. “Come on, I’ll even pay.”
    "Why?”
    “Because I want to talk to you,” he said. “About this case and . . . other things.”
    Cameryn felt her stomach flutter. “Um, I’ll have to ask my dad.”
    “I already did. They’re pretty much done in there. He said if you want to go, you’ve got the ‘all clear’ from him. Which is actually quite nice, since he hated my guts when I first came to town.”
    “Not hate. You’re exaggerating. He disliked you intensely, but it was never hate.”
    “Well, here’s the thing. When you’re at the bottom, there’s no place to go but up.”
    She smiled at this, her first real smile in what felt like forever. When she stood, Justin helped her with her coat, which he’d brought from the autopsy suite. “Your bag,” he said, presenting it to her, and soon they were out in the cold Durango night.
    “Hold on—you’re going to slip in those boots,” he warned. When he extended his arm, she took