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"At least he died with a smile on his face," a forensic tech said to Fort Lauderdale Homicide Detective Adam Rafael Suarez as he helped him turn over the corpse The tech crouched down to inspect the victireen-handled object still extruding from it "And a… hacker up his ass?"

"A cattle prod" Detective Samantha Brown, Rafael’s partner, joined them "Known on the streets as a ‘joy stick’"

The tech griet much joy out of it, Detective"

"Carjackers slip the tip through acrack when the driver stops at a traffic light, zap, stunned driver," she said, tapping the appropriate spot on her windbreaker "You can buy them off the internet"

"No carjacker would leave the prod behind" Evan Tenderson, the assistant medical exaet it?" He stopped chuckling when he caught Rafael’s gaze "What’s your problem, Suarez? Didn’t Castro let you ," Rafael said, "and I am not Cuban"

"Hell, you Hispanicos all look alike to me" Put out by the lack of response to his joke, Tenderson lit a cigarette and pointed one of his loafers at the victim "Get these mitts covered, Brad"

"A cattle prod," the tech ed the victiood old days, when people just killed each other with guns and knives?"

Rafael didn’t answer In his good old days, people killed each other with crossboords and battle axes

So about the color of the victiht, and Rafael bent down to take a closer look What had appeared to be rando from just below the neck to the small of the spine

"Who called it in?" Sa Tenderson

The assistant ME’s top lip curled over the end of his cigarette "Do I look like a receptionist to you, Brown?"

"It came in as an anonymous tip, traced to a pay phone down the street," the tech said as he clipped thin plastic bags over the victim’s hands "The dispatcher said the caller sounded like a Latino"

"Well, that narrows it down to, what, eighty-five percent of the population?" Tenderson gave Rafael a smile filled withthe perp"

"Oh, shut up, Tenderson," Sa bored

"These are lash"This man has been repeatedly restrained and whipped some time in the recent past"

"Detective Suarez" One of the uniforrounds around the cri containing so made of spiked leather and heavy silver chains "We found this draped on that statue over there" He indicated the life-size figure of the Virgin Mary, which paired with a uard in oval shell niches near the convent’s walls "Soht away Looks like leather bar stuff, or maybe a Halloween costume No blood stains that I could see"

"Like you’d kno to look, Dipshit" Tenderson grabbed his case and headed for the statue

"Halloween isn’t until to "Is there a full-head zippered mask in there?" When the patrol officer nodded, she turned to the body "Lash marks, sexual torture and fetish wear I’ll bet he’s a sub" She caught Rafael’s blank look "A subs and other assorted masochistic kinks"

"Aroused by torture" Rafael felt pity for the dead s went too far this time"

"Doesn’t explain why the body was du marks, no wheel ruts, and it’s at least three hundred yards to the nearest parking spot He looks like he’s about one seventy-five, one eighty, right? That’s a lot of dead body to haul around"

Rafael waited until the patrol, "Did you touch him yet?"

"No point" Samantha possessed a psychic ability to see the recent past of the newly-dead through their blood Although her life had changed drao, she could still use that last, huift "The body has been completely drained"

Rafael and Saraveyard shift for a specific reason Their colleagues on the force thought it was because they were both single and had no fao home to No one suspected the partners were both nocturnal, blood-dependent i?" Rafael asked her

"Kinky sex and a bloodless body dumped in front of a Catholic convent" Samantha switched off her PDA "Soood time, maybe?"

Rafael heard the doubt behind the sarcasm He had not been human for seven hundred years, but only a few months had passed since Samantha had becoes it had caused in her life, including discovering the fact that the hts Sa of her situation than others