The Dying Breath: A Forensic Mystery

down the hallway on the left, consisted of a small outer office with two desks. Behind the office was an another chamber that contained a single jail cell. The cell that would hold Kyle.
    She began to pace, slower this time, as he dialed. They heard a sharp rap on the glass that made them both jump. The doorknob jiggled but didn’t open since Justin had locked it. Still holding the cordless phone, Justin made his way cautiously to the door and peered through the glass.
    “FedEx,” he said as he tossed her the phone, which she caught easily in her hand. “Cammie, you talk to Jacobs while I get this—”
    He didn’t say any more.
    Cameryn saw the blade before Justin did, his head turned ninety degrees toward her as the sentence died in his throat. Was that what had cost him, the looking at her? In that second she saw the slash of silver and the spurt of blood. She stood frozen. What she saw could not be happening. It was impossible. And yet it was.
    Time did indeed slow to a crawl right before death.
    She had read about the phenomenon of the near-dead, the way seconds stretched into minutes when the end of life flashed before a victim. What she hadn’t known was the same rule applied when you watched someone else in the throes of dying. Each millisecond became a second, each second an eternity.
    The blade was long, curved at the end, and the thrust was instantaneous and hard. It took only a moment for the weapon to pierce Justin’s ribs, and a moment more for the sick sound of steel cutting flesh as the blade jerked up. She’d heard Justin’s sharp intake of breath and a hiss of air escaping. Wide-eyed, he’d looked at Cameryn as though he didn’t understand what had happened, his mind too slow to comprehend. The man used the thrust of his knife to push Justin back into the office, where he collapsed onto the floor, a disjointed bundle of legs and arms, as though someone had cut a marionette’s strings. Justin’s eyes rolled back into his head. Blood, black against his jersey, spread scarlet onto the floor. With a chortle, the man stepped inside and looked at her with a smile just discernible beneath the bill of his FedEx cap.
    “Hello, Cammie,” he said, flipping off the cap.
    In a dream, in a nightmare, she saw the aquiline nose, the glittering, controlled anger that appeared in Kyle O’Neil’s hazel eyes. Quickly, he shut the door behind him.
    “You promised you’d be there for me when I turned myself in. But you lied.” His voice, cool as winter wind, was just above a whisper. “Don’t worry, I knew you would. I’m an Eagle Scout, remember? I’m always prepared. Which is more than I can say for your boyfriend here.” He kicked Justin’s body with the toe of his boot. “Don’t make a sound or I’ll cut him again.”
    Could he tell she was going to scream? She could feel it surge inside her, a bubble of horror rising up, ready to burst out of her throat. Staring at the knife, she registered the blade, scarlet with Justin’s blood as he lay twitching on the ground.
    “You look surprised to see me. Aren’t you going to say hello? I thought I meant something to you and you don’t even extend me a common courtesy.”
    Justin, stabbed. Justin, dying.
    And then her body unlocked itself and she screamed, flailing toward Justin, but Kyle grabbed her arm so hard she thought for a moment he’d cut her, too.
    “Not him,” he hissed. “Me. Come on, Cammie. Our own little adventure is about to begin.”

Chapter Fifteen

    THE COUPLE COMING toward her in the county courthouse hallway might save her! Their footsteps reverberating thunderously along the honeyed wood, the woman, her hair cut short and spiked, leaned her head against the man, whose own hair hung in a dark braid. Cameryn’s heart beat so loud in her ears it almost drowned out any other sound, and she wondered if someone outside her body could actually hear the panic she felt. But the couple, too engrossed in each other, took no notice as they approached.
    “Shhh,” Kyle breathed into her ear in a sickening mimicry of Justin’s soothing whisper. And then, as though he and Cammie were involved in a conversation, he said loud enough for the couple to hear, “FedEx delivers on Saturdays but we charge a heck of a lot more for the service.” He kept his voice light, conversational, all the while keeping his eyes trained on the man. Beneath Cameryn’s coat, Kyle’s arm encircled her in an iron band, the blade of the knife