Free Dead Shall Speak (An FBI/Romance Thriller Book 10) by Morgan Kelley Page B

“I scanned them. There’s no microchip. When the body farm gets a corpse, they implant tiny chips to track it. They’re clean, but there’s also another reason I can tell that these were left by our killer and not someone’s donation.”
    He had their attention.
    “How, Doctor?” Ethan Blackhawk asked.
    Chris gingerly picked his way across the bodies to the third and last one. When he knelt beside her bloated, decaying corpse, he pointed at what remained. “She was abused before death. If the university is going to take a specimen, it has to be perfect. It can be riddled with cancer, but for decaying purposes, they don’t want any open wounds. They like to inflict them to keep the case studies controlled.”
    Callen was disgusted by that idea.
    Chris continued, “Plus, had they seen this kind of abuse, it would, or should have thrown up red flags. Someone would have notified the authorities that they had a wonky body. There are lots of regulations to running a body farm.”
    Standing in a pit of death, Callen was shocked that the abused body was the only ‘wonky’ thing Chris Leonard noticed. To him, it was all insane.
    “She was abused?” Blackhawk asked.
    Chris Leonard wasn’t one to give too much away before an autopsy, but he knew that the bosses needed something to go on at first. “Just from my initial check, she has had some facial damage. I can feel the bones shifting beneath my fingers. The skull doesn’t do that unless it’s pummeled.”
    That was good enough for Ethan. “So, the university wants nothing to do with this.”
    Tony Magnus shook his head. “This could be a blessing,” he stated. “Now, we don’t have to jump through academic hoops to do our job.”
    Yeah, they could run it their way.
    It wasn’t like Blackhawk could blame them. This was bound to be a media firestorm once it leaked. It was just one more part of his job that he knew he needed to be on top of the entire time.
    Jaxon moved closer to the edge to stare down at Tony. He was kneeling beside the same victim that the ME was discussing, but his eyes were on her.
    He intently watched her, and Jaxon felt better. Tony would keep her safe, even as her emotions were whipped into a frenzy.
    “If I was part of the university, I wouldn’t touch this with a ten foot pole either. This could scare away donations,” she stated. “They already found a mass grave dating back three decades or more, and now a fresh set? They’re going to want to keep this as quiet as possible. It takes a lot of money to fund an anthropology department. If they lose funding, the big wigs get a pay cut.”
    Blackhawk got that. He was responsible for their budget, and it was a pain in his ass .
    Chris Leonard agreed. When he gave money to the universities back home, he liked to make sure it went to the programs, not the president’s paycheck. This was exactly the publicity you didn't want when you ran a giant university.
    Tony continued, “That’s why they’re not going to want to house the victims there. While they have the medical facilities, they won’t be offering them up. For now, they’ll want to bury this, so to speak.”
    Blackhawk got that. It wasn’t like he was shocked or surprised in the least.
    They were on their own when it came to procuring a place to work. This was yet one more part of their job that sucked. Oh, and to top it all off, his wife generally handled the shitty jobs like this.
    Blackhawk had one more reminder of how vital his wife was to their team.
    “I’ll have to head into town and find the local sheriff’s department. We’ll have to go from there. Hopefully, they have a facility that we can use.” Ethan knew if they didn't, they were basically screwed. He’d have to head to the university and beg for their lab.
    “And if they don’t?” Chris Leonard asked.
    “I’ll pull an Elizabeth. What choice do I have?”
    Chris went back to work, wishing he could be a fly on the wall for that one. Ethan Blackhawk was