Unseen (Will Trent / Atlanta Series)

feng shui.
    “You coming?” Nell asked.
    Sara pushed open the door. The air felt chilly compared to the stuffy cab of the truck. The police officers at the end of the streetstared with open curiosity. Sara waved. She got two nods in return.
    Nell told Sara, “I’m’ll call Possum and see if he checked in with the nurse yet.” She flipped open her phone and dialed the number. Her hand went to her hip. She looked up at the house as she waited for Possum to answer.
    Sara hoped Nell was reconsidering her plans. The first thirty minutes of their drive had been spent discussing the realities of what cleaning the crime scene would entail. Sara hadn’t held back toward the end. She’d been fairly brutal, which only seemed to galvanize Nell’s resolve.
    Nell spoke into the phone, “How is he?”
    Sara walked away from the truck to give her privacy. A breeze stirred the air as she headed toward the crime scene van. Sara rubbed her arms, wishing she’d thought to bring a jacket.
    “Dr. Linton.” Charlie Reed smiled at Sara. He was a nice-looking man except for a well-groomed handlebar mustache, which gave him the appearance of a lounge singer. “Please tell me Amanda finally managed to snag us your services?”
    “Lord no.” The last thing on earth Sara would ever want to do is work for Amanda Wagner. “I’m here with a friend.” She indicated Nell. “Her son’s Jared Long.”
    “Oh.” Charlie’s smiled dropped. “Surely, she doesn’t want to see …?”
    “Worse than that. She wants to clean it up.”
    Charlie indicated for Sara to follow him to the front of the van. He glanced at Nell, probably to make sure she couldn’t hear them. “It’s pretty bad in there. I mean, not as bad as most, but they used a shotgun and there was quite a struggle. The volume of blood—”
    Sara held up her hands. “I would gladly leave right now if I thought I could get her to go with me.”
    Charlie looked at Nell again. Her determination must’ve beenapparent. “Well, it’s good that she has you here to walk her through it.”
    “I’m still trying to change her mind.”
    “She doesn’t look like the type who does that,” he noted. “I can give you a quick rundown if you like?”
    Sara nodded, ashamed that she was so eager to hear the details.
    Charlie’s voice took on a practiced tone. “The man we’re calling Assailant Two entered through the front window.” He indicated the window in question. Black fingerprint powder smeared the white trim. “He more than likely used a pocketknife. Slid it between the frames, pushed open the thumb latch.”
    Sara nodded. The entry method was typical for burglaries.
    He continued, “We can assume from fingerprints that Assailant Two then opened the front door, letting the man we’re calling Assailant One enter the house. From the gunpowder residue on the floor and walls, we can conclude the first assailant was standing in the front room at the mouth of the hall when he initially fired the shotgun. Sawn-off Remington 870, twenty-eight gauge.”
    Sara knew from past cases that a shotgun blast from that distance could rip apart a half-inch piece of plywood. The sawed-off barrel had spread the pellets, which was probably the only reason Jared hadn’t dropped dead on the spot.
    Charlie said, “I’ve read the hospital admitting report. My preliminary field investigation supports the shotgun pellets mostly clustered in a twenty-centimeter circle in the victim’s thoracic region, roughly T-2 through T-7, with some penetrating the skull. At the scene, a few pellets were found lodged into the wood around the doorframe. We can assume that the majority of the pellets went into the victim.”
    Sara had gotten out of the practice of listening to people talk as if they were giving testimony. “Jared was standing in the doorway?”
    “Yes. The victim’s body was almost exactly centered in thedoorway. He likely had his arms crossed or in front of him. According to the hospital report, he had no wounds on the back of his arms or hands. He was wearing a toolbelt, which we can surmise is where Detective Adams got the hammer.”
    Sara had been wondering about that detail. She didn’t imagine Lena kept a hammer in the bedroom, though who knew what the hell she got up to.
    Charlie continued, “Adams used the hammer to take out the first assailant, the shooter, at the doorway to the bedroom.” He pointed just below his eye socket. “Claw went in here. Got lodged in the