Free The Next Chronicle (Book 2): Damage by Joshua Guess

evidence...”
    “Was not what it appeared to be,” Nunez said. “An easy mistake to make given the circumstances, and one we should be thankful for.”
    “What evidence?” Kit asked.
    Nunez waved a hand at Ray. “I should get back to work, actually.”
    Kit turned her attention back to Ray. “What evidence?” she repeated.
    He pointed at the branch sticking out of the skull. “That was the first red flag. Most teleporters essentially open a gateway between two places. That stick is fused through the skull, though, as if the body had been broken down into energy and reformed.”
    Kit nodded in understanding. “That's what happened with the earthquake that caused the tsunami. Somehow a huge chunk of foreign matter materialized right inside the weak spot in the crust, which set off the quake.”
    Ray shrugged. “The other thing was that the body looks like it's been in the ground for a long time since most of the flesh is gone, but we found a smart phone in his hand that only came out four days ago. Oh, and the weird patterns of Surge energy I saw are apparently some kind of marker for teleportation and time travel. Nunez said matter that has been dematerialized always has predictable readings.”
    He had listened to the techs chatter to each other as they studied the readings on their scanners. It was amazing how much you could learn by simple observation, so long as you kept quiet and listened.
    “Do we have any idea whether this was intentional or not?” Kit asked.
    Before Ray could form a response, Archer's voice cut across the makeshift room.
    “The bad news is, this looks like a murder,” he said. The room fell silent except for the gentle hum and low beeps of busy machines. “The good news is that we already have a suspect.”
     
     
    Half an hour later, Ray sprawled on the couch in Kit's office with a company laptop nestled beside him. While Archer remained at the site to oversee the removal of the body and every molecule of dirt touched by it, Ray had ridden back with Kit to get a head start on researching their suspect. Kit had given him use of her laptop while she darted off to shower, and Ray found himself fascinated by the hastily-gathered dossier.
    The suspect's name was James Shane, though the idea of him merely being a suspect was deceptive. According to Nunez even the very small number of Next capable of teleportation had proved enough of a population for serious study of their abilities, and every one of them was different. The strangely geometric nature of the residual energy Ray had seen was like a fingerprint, every pattern unique to the Next who had done the teleportation. While the scanners used at the scene didn't interpret the pattern visually as Ray did, they were able to distinguish properties specific to records which matched James Shane.
    Ray's interest didn't lie with how efficiently the analysts in Ops had put the file together—though they had done so in minutes—but instead with how unlikely a suspect Shane appeared to be at first glance. The man had only been registered with the OSA for two months, had no criminal record, and was apparently an artist of some note. A summary of his public online activity, complete with screen shots of conversations on social media, painted a very clear picture.
    He was a nice guy. Then again, Ray had been much the same before his powers erupted in Fairmont.
    The major difference was that Ray's powers had to be tightly controlled, while James Shane, like all other teleporters, had to focus to make his work. Which meant the location of the body and its partial dissolution was at least partly intentional. It was possible Shane had teleported the man beneath the ground on accident, causing his death by the accidental collision of two separate forms of matter trying to occupy the same space, but Ray had his doubts.
    He heard Kit walking down the tight spiral stairs leading up to the small sleeping quarters and bathroom attached to her