Page 9 of Dirty Valentine
Jack was almost to the mudroom door when his phone buzzed against his hip.The sound cut through the kitchen’s warmth like a blade.He glanced at the screen and I watched his expression shift from heated promise to razor-sharp alert in the space of a heartbeat.
“What is it?”I asked, recognizing the look that meant our afternoon was about to take a very different turn.
“Text from Martinez,” Jack said, all traces of our earlier flirtation evaporating like morning mist.“They found something at the cemetery.”
The kitchen went tomb quiet.Emmy Lu’s coffee mug froze halfway to her lips, and Sheldon’s nervous fidgeting stilled completely.Even the old house seemed to hold its breath.
“What kind of something?”I asked, though my stomach was already dropping with the certainty that I didn’t want to know.
Jack’s jaw tightened as he scrolled through the message, his face growing grimmer with each word.“After the CSI team finished processing the scene, they expanded their search.Found a fresh carving on another headstone about twenty yards away.Jonathan Blackwood, died 1725.”
“Same year as Bridget Ashworth,” I said.“That can’t be a coincidence.”
“Someone carved a message into his headstone.”Jack’s eyes found mine across the kitchen, and the blue depths held shadows I didn’t like.“It said,The first stone has been cast.”
A shiver worked its way down my spine.“The first stone?”
“Could mean anything,” Jack said.“I need to get back out there and see it for myself.Martinez is securing the area.Call me the second you find anything unusual with our victim.If someone’s defacing graves and staging murders, every detail matters.”
“Jack,” I called after him, my voice smaller than I intended.“Be careful.”
“Always am,” he said, and then he was gone, leaving nothing but the echo of his footsteps.
I stood there in the kitchen, surrounded by the familiar comfort of afternoon sunlight and the gentle hum of the refrigerator, but something had shifted.The very air felt charged with possibility—and not the good kind.Whatever had started with our John Doe on Bridget Ashworth’s grave was connected to something much older and infinitely more dangerous than a simple murder.
Behind me, Sheldon cleared his throat with the nervous precision of a man about to deliver bad news.“Did you know that the practice of public stoning was designed to distribute guilt among the community?No single person was responsible for the death because everyone participated.”
I turned to face him, watching his face grow pale behind his thick glasses.“What are you saying, Sheldon?”
“I’m saying,” he stammered, adjusting his glasses with fingers that trembled like autumn leaves, “that historically speaking, when someone carvescasting the first stoneat a murder scene, they’re probably planning to cast more.”
CHAPTERTHREE
The lab welcomedme like an old friend, all gleaming steel and antiseptic comfort.Down here in my domain, surrounded by the tools of my trade and the familiar hum of refrigeration units, the world made sense in ways it rarely did above ground.Death might be a mystery to most people, but to me it was simply another puzzle to solve, another story to piece together from the evidence left behind.
I pulled my hair back into a tight ponytail and scrubbed my hands at the deep sink, letting the hot water and surgical soap wash away the lingering tension from the cemetery.
My John Doe lay waiting on the examination table, covered by a crisp white sheet.The preliminary photographs were already uploaded to my computer, but I took a moment to review them on the large monitor mounted on the wall.The staging at the cemetery had been elaborate, theatrical even.But down here, stripped of context and drama, he was simply a man who’d died too soon.
I moved to my desk and pulled out a fresh autopsy form, then picked up my digital recorder.The familiar weight of it in my hand was comforting—a talisman that helped me focus on the scientific rather than the emotional aspects of what lay ahead.
Music was essential for this kind of work.Something to fill the silence without demanding attention, sophisticated enough to match the gravity of what I was doing without becoming a distraction.I scrolled through my playlist and selected Norah Jones—her voice was like velvet, smooth and unobtrusive, perfect for the painstaking work ahead.
“Come Away With Me” began to play softly through the lab’s speakers as I switched on the recorder.
“Autopsy case number twenty-four dash fifteen.May fifteenth.Time is 2:37 p.m.”My voice sounded steady and professional in the quiet lab.“Victim is an unidentified white male, approximate age fifty to fifty-five years, discovered this morning in the historic section of Olde Towne Cemetery.Body was found in an elaborate staging designed to mimic historical execution by pressing.”
I moved closer to the table and pulled back the sheet, revealing the man who’d lain so peacefully atop Bridget Ashworth’s grave.In the harsh fluorescent lighting of the lab, details that had been obscured by morning shadows and crime-scene chaos became starkly visible.
“Subject appears well nourished and shows evidence of good personal care.Height approximately five feet ten inches.Weight approximately one hundred eighty pounds.Hair is brown with significant graying, cut in a conservative style.Facial hair has been recently trimmed.”
I continued my external examination, noting everything from the condition of his fingernails—neatly manicured—to the small scar on his left thumb that spoke of some long-ago accident.These details painted a picture of a man who took care of himself, who had people in his life who mattered to him.
But it was his hands that told the most interesting story.
“Subject’s hands show calluses consistent with regular manual labor,” I said into the recorder.“Palms and fingertips show evidence of work with tools or rough materials.However, the overall condition suggests this was skilled labor rather than purely physical work.Maybe an artist?”
I photographed each finding meticulously, building the visual record that would become part of the permanent file.Every scar, every mark, every detail that might help identify him or explain what had happened.
