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Doc pulled Brian’s lips back and looked down at his teeth, eyes narrowed "Missing right front incisor You’re right, Kara"
I allowed ht, Doc," I said "Did he pull the trigger hi idea," he said, narrowing his eyes as he picked up a scalpel and began to shave around the holes in the scalp and skull "But I’ to have an answer for you soon" He peered at the wounds, lifting sections of skull that had been in the body bag and fitting them to the still-intact part of the skull He put his hand out and Carl placed a long plastic rod in it without being asked--a sign of how long the two had worked together
Doc poked the rod into the hole at Brian’s right teh the other side Despite the et a solid idea of what the trajectory of the bullet had been
Doc peered at the rod, then shrugged and glanced back at le’s consistent…" He frowned, then shook his head "And he was definitely shot at close range, though I’ainst his head"
"What do you mean?"
He pointed to the shaved area of scalp "There’s plenty of stippling fro of the edges, and"--he peeled the scalp back to show the skull--"on a contact wound, you’d have a stellate-shaped entrance wound, and you’d see blackening on the skull as well"
"So … he didn’t kill hi "I can’t say that either He could have held the gun a few inches away"
"You’re no help," I said sourly "What about gunshot residue on his hands?"
"There could be GSR on his hands just froun was fired," he pointed out
"Oh, yeah"
"Don’t give up hope yet," he reassured ed hands "I’ll check to see if there’s any blowback on his hands, plus I’ll ask the lab to swab the gun for contact DNA It was his duty weapon?"
"Yeah"
"Then if soed Brian’s hands, then lifted theraph "This isn’t much help either"
I scowled "Covered in blood"
"Yep He had his hands in a pool of his own blood"
"So for now it’s undeter the answer already
Doc nodded "For now Sorry"
I stripped off uess I have to ure out as eating essence "You’ll callon Davis Sharp?"
"You’ll be the first to know," he replied
Well, I wanted to bury ue At this rate I won’t have ti else
Chapter 11
A visit to tessa was next onlot of the Nord du Lac Neurological Rehabilitation Center shortly before noon Nord Neuro, as everyone called it, was a three-story facility situated across the street fro Parish Hospital The owners did their best to , clean exterior, fresh paint--but there really was no way to make that kind of place look nice Still, I appreciated that it didn’t look like a total hellhole I’d tapped heavily into rateful that I had the power of attorney to do so Nord Neuro was a private facility, whichexpensive, even with Tessa’s insurance But I knew that, one way or another, I would be paying the bills for only a couple ofthe steering wheel and listening to the tick of the engine as it cooled I hated co --and the only reason I could stand it at all was because I knew that she was cos Or is she? Rhyzkahl had said that an essence could return--so That’s why I was here today--to collect what I needed for the ritual that would hopefully do that coaxing
I got out of et your hopes up, I chided ly inevitable disappointets consu free at the moment, but if the balance were to shift too far, her essence would be sucked back into the "pool" instead of returning to her body
I didn’t like thinking about that
The glass doors slid open, and I ainst the feel of the place It didn’t have the sour food and urine sh of the over-antiseptic hospital smell that I had to shiver
Tessa was in a "no vent" section, which simply meant that she didn’t need a ventilator--at least not yet She shared a rooed woman who’d been there for severalnext to the bed when I entered He spoke in a low voice with a wo solely by her professional appearance--dressed in a stylish dark-blue suit, brown hair accented with honey-blond highlights coiled up into an elegant twist, and understated yet elegant jewelry
He looked up and gave ed between people who shared a difficult circuuilty He was there every ti to his comatose wife from a wide variety of books I could count on one hand the number of times I’d been to see Tessa