Page 15 of The Bone Code
“They aren’t monozygotic.”
Blank stare.
“In their case, two little swimmers found two separate eggs.”
“Right. Different genes. Chromosomes. Whatever.”
Anne disappeared into the kitchen for another chardonnay fill-up. Her fifth? A text pinged in as she was coming back through the door.
I glanced at my phone. Herrin.
“Is thatmonsieur le détective?”
“No.”
“Katy?”
“No.”
“Brad fuckin’ Pitt?” Boozy chuckle at her own joke.
Herrin’s corpses were not my preferred topic of conversation. But my absence the next day would need justification.
“It’s the Charleston County coroner,” I said.
There are two types of people in this world: those who wish to avoid all reference to my work and those who relish every grisly detail. Like my mother, my BFF rolls with the latter.
Anne leaned forward, eyes luminous with reflected moonlight. “Dish.”
“She wants my help with a case.” He?
“A murder?” Entirely too enthused.
“It’s no big deal. Some remains washed ashore during the storm.”
Sensing I wasn’t being straight with her, Anne’s antennae went live.
“If it’s no big deal”—hooking slightly sloppy air quotes—“why have you been tense as a bedspring all evening?”
What the hell? Herrin hadn’t shared top-secret intel. And discussing my fears might ease them.
I outlined the basics. The container. The remains. The plasticwrapping and electrical wire. The trauma. Anne listened without interrupting.
When I’d finished, “Sounds grisly, but nothing you haven’t seen before.”
“That’s the problem. It sounds exactly like a case I had in Quebec.”
“When?”
“Fifteen years ago.”
“Are you serious?”
“I am.”
“That’s a long time back and a long way from here.”
I shrugged.
