Page 59 of Chosen Path
“Um, that’s right.” She cocked her head and gave him a quizzical look. “Do we know each other?”
He evaded the question. “Have you seen Mike? The barber?”
She was still side-eying him, but she shook her head. “No. If he’s not in there, he must be running late.”
“Oh, thanks.” He stepped the side to let her pass, then continued down the hallway.
He met up with Officer Booth and Molly outside the stairwell.
“Just in time,” Molly told him. “Officer Booth was about to put out an APB.”
“Let’s get out of here already,” Booth replied.
He pushed open the door and held it for them, then followed them down the stairs. They didn’t speak until they were back outside in the parking lot. Booth gestured for them to walk around to the side of the building where they wouldn’t be seen from the street.
“Well?” Booth demanded.
“Two injection sites.” He pulled out his phone and they clustered around it, peering down at the screen.
“Crap on a cracker,” Booth breathed. “Why two?”
“Likely because he’s a fair bit larger than Corrine. If you’re trying to kill someone, it’s always better to overestimate the dose. You don’t want to just make them mad. I mean, I would imagine.”
“Hold on. That’s Nikolas. I recognize his favorite shirt. I don’t understand. You disrobed a corpse?” Molly’s eyes were wide.
“Partially disrobed,” the police officer corrected her.
“You two were in on this together? What did I miss?”
“Either Officer Booth gives unusually detailed directions or she realized I wanted to sneak a peek at Mr. Lundgren’s arm. ‘Make a left at the end of the hall’ would have sufficed for finding the bathroom. Instead she gave me step-by-step instructions for finding the green room and bluffing my way into and/or out of it. Thanks for that, by the way.”
“You run into Mike?”
“No. Lindsay.”
“Wait. You lied? Buddhists lie?” Molly was spiraling.
“Buddhists practice right speech. A simplified version of that would be ‘no lying.’ But the Buddha recognized the complexities of life. There’s a funny story about the Buddha himself giving an answer that while, technically true, was misleading. I did not say anything that wasn’t technically true.”
She looked unconvinced. “You sound more like a lawyer than a Buddhist.”
He laughed because she wasn’t wrong. Then his laughter faded. “There’s one more thing.”
Officer Booth raised her eyebrows. “Of course there is. Hit me.”
“Ed seemed concerned about Laura Gardener’s death.”
“He should be,” Molly interjected. “The family member who denied the request for the autopsy lacked the authority to do so.”
“That’s true, and Ed did ask about that. He said he didn’t know and, for what it’s worth, I believe him. But he was particularly bothered by his mistake because the staging of Laura’s death and Corrine’s were, as he put it, ‘eerily similar.’ He stopped himself before he said too much, but the implication was clear.”
“The implication being there’s a serial killer running around Scandia Bluff jabbing people with insulin?” Booth asked.
Bodhi gave her a look that he hoped spoke volumes.
It must’ve, because she groaned loudly. “I need to talk to Hope again. She also said finding Corrine was ‘just like’ finding her mom. I didn’t think she meant that literally.”
“She’s at my office, organizing files. Or trying to.” Molly pulled a face at the thought of her patient records.
