Free Generation 18: The Spook Squad 2 by Keri Arthur

“Why don’t you sit while I check out the body?”
    “Why? Afraid I’ll fall over and contaminate the crime scene?” She crossed her arms and glared at him mutinously. His anger surged, made worse by the fact that he had only himself to blame for her reaction. If he hadn’t treated her like shit, she wouldn’t be flinging it back at him. “Check the damn desk, then. See if there’s anything there.”
    She nodded, and he squatted beside the body. Overhead, the CSM buzzed. “ID, please.”
    “Assistant Director Gabriel Stern and Agent Sam Ryan, SIU,” he replied absently.
    There was nothing patient, or gentle, in this woman’s death. The murderer had slit her throat before gutting her—and had probably done so while she was still alive. There was tape stretched across her mouth and a look of terror permanently etched on her face. If it was the work of the same killer, something must have gone terribly wrong. Either that, or the madness that had set the killer on this path was getting progressively worse.
    “It’s not madness; it’s anger,” Sam said softly.
    He looked up. She wasn’t even looking at him, but somehow, she seemed to read his thoughts. It was almost as if there was some kind of connection between them—yet that was impossible, given that he’d learned to raise shields so strong that not even his twin could share his thoughts. “What do you mean?”
    She motioned almost absently toward the victim as she continued to leaf through the paperwork on the desk. “The murderer was angry with this woman. There was no care taken here, no time. Look at the way the victim’s throat was slashed. Another eighth of an inch, and our killer wouldn’t have even hit the carotid.”
    He swept his gaze around the room. No ashtray full of cigarettes was sitting on any of the tables, and there was no immediate evidence that the killer had even stayed to watch this victim die. In fact, the only thing linking this victim with the other murders was the hole in her gut and the color of her hair.
    “Why the anger here, though?” He glanced back at Sam, interested in hearing her observations—or was it something else? Not the training of a cop, but a perception coming from her developing psychic talents? The clouded look to her eyes certainly suggested it was the latter. “Why not with the previous three victims?”
    “That’s presuming it’s the same killer.”
    He nodded. She pursed her lips, her gaze finally rising from the desk and sweeping the room.
    “Maybe in this case, it’s something as simple as the white coat the victim is wearing.” She hesitated, frowning. “I don’t think the killer was expecting a doctor.”
    He frowned. “Yet the precision of the wounds on the first two victims indicates the killer has some sort of medical background. Our killer might even be a doctor. Why react so strongly against a fellow practitioner?”
    Her gaze came to rest on his. Her blue-gray eyes were suddenly unclouded and amused. “Find the answer to that and you might just find your killer.”
    True
. He rose and crossed to the windows. Outside, rain had begun to sheet down, and on the street below, men and women scurried for cover. This street was always busy—surely someone, somewhere, had seen
something
.
    The killer hadn’t cut an escape hole in the smoke-colored glass, so if he or she was a shapechanger, the killer certainly hadn’t escaped that way this time. He headed into the doctor’s office to check the windows there, but there was nothing. Nor did anything appear disturbed or out of place in the room itself. Meaning their killer had come in and out through the front doors—either in human or nonhuman form—and
had
to be on the security tapes.
    He returned to the reception area. Sam was looking through the diary.
    “Anything?”
    She shook her head. “No appointments during lunch. Looks like the postman had just been here, though.” She motioned toward a stack of mail, half of which had