Killing Hour - Lisa Gardner [29]
“I’m not saying that.”
“Pretend I’m just another accountant, looking for a little more excitement in my life?”
“Kimberly—”
“I found a corpse! Is that what this is about? I found a blight on the Academy’s front porch and now you’re kicking me out!”
“Stop it!” His tone was stern. It finally shocked Kimberly into silence and in the next instant she realized everything she had just said. Her cheeks flamed red. She quickly looked away.
“I would like to go back to class now,” Kimberly murmured. “I promise not to say anything. I appreciate the task NCIS has before it, and I wouldn’t want to do anything to compromise an ongoing investigation.”
“Kimberly . . .” Her supervisor’s tone was still frustrated. It appeared he might say something more, then he just shook his head. “You look like hell. You obviously haven’t slept in weeks, you’ve lost weight. Why don’t you go to your room and get some rest? Take this opportunity to recuperate. There’s no shame in slowing down a little, you know. You’re already one of the youngest applicants we’ve had. What you don’t accomplish now, you can always accomplish later.”
Kimberly didn’t reply. She was too busy biting back a bitter smile. She had heard those words before. Also from an older man, a mentor, someone she had considered a friend. Two days later, he’d put a gun to her head.
Please don’t let me tear up now. She would not cry.
“We’ll talk again in a few days,” Watson said in the ensuing silence. “Dismissed.”
Kimberly headed out of his office. She walked down the hall, passing three groups of blue-clad students and already hearing the whispers beginning again. Were they talking about her mother and sister? Were they talking about her legendary father? Or maybe they were talking about today, and the new body she of all people had managed to find?
Her eyes stung more fiercely. She pressed the heels of her hands against her temples. She would not give in to pity now.
Kimberly marched to the front doors. She burst back into the blistering hot sun. Sweat immediately beaded across her brow. She could feel her T-shirt glue itself stickily to her skin.
But she did not return to her room. NCIS would want to talk to her. First, however, they would want to finish up at the scene. That gave her a solid hour before anyone would come looking for her.
An hour was enough.
Kimberly made a beeline for the woods.
CHAPTER 8
Quantico, Virginia
11:33 A.M.
Temperature: 89 degrees
“TIME OF DEATH?”
“Hard to tell. Body temperature reads nearly ninety-five, but the current outside temp of eighty-nine would impede cooling. Rigor mortis appears to be just starting in face and neck.” The white-clad ME paused, rolled the body slightly to the left and pressed a gloved finger against the red-splotched skin, which blanched at his touch. “Lividity’s not yet fixed.” He straightened back up, thought of something else, and checked the girl’s eyes and ears. “No blowfly larvae yet, which would happen fast in this heat. Of course, the flies prefer to start in the mouth or an open wound, so they had less opportunity here . . .” He seemed to consider the various factors one last time, then delivered his verdict. “I’m going to say four to six hours.”
The other man, probably an NCIS special agent, looked up from his notes in surprise. “That fresh?”
“That’s my best guess. Hard to know more until we cut her open.”
“Which will be?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
The special agent stared at the ME.
“Six A.M.?” the ME tried again.
The special agent stared harder.
“This afternoon,” the ME amended.
The special agent finally cracked a smile. The ME sighed heavily. It was going to be one of those cases.
The investigating officer returned to his notes. “Probable COD?”
“That’s a little trickier. No obvious knife or gunshot wounds. No petechial hemorrhages, which rules out strangulation. No bleeding in the ears, which eliminates some brain traumas. We do have a large bruise just beginning to form on the left hip. Probably occurred shortly before death.” The ME lifted up the girl’s blue-flowered