Free The Body Reader by Anne Frasier Page B

her need for proof of death, she imagined putting up flyers that said, Have you noticed an ungodly stench coming from your neighbor’s house? Below that would be tear-off phone numbers. How long would it take for the numbers to be gone? Days? Hours? Because who didn’t have a suspicious neighbor?
    She searched for a certain building style because over the years she’d constructed a layout and design in her mind, but the house could have been made of wood or brick or stucco or straw. It could have been one story or two stories. She had no memory of her arrival, and she’d escaped in darkness, not a star in the sky, her mind a tangle, her body so weak she could barely put one foot in front of the other. Taking note of any small landmark hadn’t seemed a priority. Escape, getting home, had been a priority. But now . . .
    She didn’t know what the house looked like, but that didn’t stop her. Almost every evening she rode the streets, coming home to mark off sections of the detailed city map she’d taped to the wall of her apartment as she methodically took her search into new, unexplored areas. And every evening she failed to find anything that felt right.
    Despite the grimness of her quest, she was encouraged by what she saw riding through neighborhoods touched by the blackouts, and she took a vicarious pride in the signs of returning culture: the street vendors and food trucks, the bohemian cafés, the diners and bars and sidewalk gardens.
    Back home for the night, she ran into Will in the hallway.
    “How’s the bike running?” he asked.
    “No problems.” After selling her the motorcycle, Will had helped her find a class and get a license. He’d also taught her several things about maintenance, but she understood he was using the bike as a way to interact with her. She made a point of being polite, but not overly friendly.
    In her apartment, without removing her gun from her belt, she ate a solitary meal of grocery-store sushi. When she was done and her plate rinsed, she washed her face and brushed her teeth. Upon returning to the kitchen, she grabbed a can of cat food from the cupboard for the feral she’d been feeding, tucked a pillow under her arm, and looped a finger under the nylon strap of her rolled sleeping bag. She left her apartment, locking it behind her and pocketing the keys, to head up the narrow stairway to the roof.
    Outside, she unrolled the sleeping bag, dropped the pillow, and settled under the night sky.
    From the street below came sounds of traffic. In the distance, shouts. A restaurant had opened down the block, and she could smell the grill exhaust.
    It was never dark on the roof, and there was rarely a night when she could see many stars. Too many city lights, their number increasing in the fight to stop vandalism, but tonight the moon was visible. Half of it, anyway.
    She slipped her gun from the holster and placed it next to her sleeping bag. Then she peeled off the metal top from the can of cat food. Stretching, she placed the can a few feet away, rolled to her back, stared up at the moon, and thought about the girl in the lake.

CHAPTER 12
    D ressed in protective gowns, face shields in place, Uriah and his new partner followed the Hennepin County medical examiner into the autopsy suite, where the body of the young girl waited under a white sheet.
    They now had a full ID. Delilah Masters. From a wealthy family, attended a private school.
    Uriah made a choking sound behind his plastic face shield. The ME, a big blond woman of about fifty, named Ingrid Stevenson, didn’t bat an eye at the overwhelming stench. Jude didn’t seem to notice either, but then again he couldn’t recall her physically reacting to anything other than the visit from her brother. Her current lack of response to the odor told a darker story of abuse conditioning. Captives learned the art of no reaction in order to remove the cause and effect of torture, the joy experienced by the torturer.
    “I have to