Page 50 of Sinister Secrets

First up is the external examination. Gordon’s height, weight, and identifying features, which besides the tattoo I recognized include a handful of scars. Dr. Monroe describes the condition of the body, a healthy adult male with no signs of defensive wounds, which makes sense if he’d been drugged.

The locations of the mud that had smeared his body are noted, including that Gordon’s tattoo was completely concealed, a fact that I have no doubt was intentional. The doctor details the stippling of gun powder burns surrounding the entrance wound, the beveling on the surrounding bone that indicated directionality, the measurements of the holes on both the front and back of the skull. The livor mortis I’d noticed on the posterior of the body was fixed, indicating that the remains had been moved a minimum of six hours after death.

Next is the internal examination. This section is incomplete. Though it contains the size, weight, and visual appearance of each organ removed from the body, there are specifics still missing. The contents of the stomach are described, but the actual determination of what those contents are have not been added yet.

Like the toxicology report, Dr. Monroe needs the test results to supply these answers. Anxiety dries my mouth and tightens my throat at the thought of having to wait. Depending on how backed up the lab is, it could take weeks, months even, for the rest of the information to come through.

It’s time I don’t have. I could find myself in a jail cell by then.

I scroll down, making my way to the Scene Investigation Report that’s been appended to the medical examiner’s preliminary notes. The day is described as clear, the pond as murky, the location as remote, with no structures within sight. Dew was moderate, with no indications that it had rained the night before.

Time of discovery is noted as approximately 5:45 a.m., with the medicolegal investigator arriving on scene at 8:27 a.m. The ambient temperature was seventy-nine degrees, the temperature of the water seventy-two. No insect activity was noted on the remains. Given the severity of the injury, predation on the wound area by aquatic lifeforms could not be ruled out. Algor mortis, or liver temperature, was seventy-one degrees.

My heart kicks like a mule against the wall of my chest.

I read the last paragraph again, then open a new browser.

Because it’s located in the center of the body, the liver is one of the last organs to cool, meaning it gives an accurate estimation of a body’s core temperature. And because a body cools at a known and fairly predictable rate, liver temperature is often used to help establish time of death.

According to a quick search, that rate of cooling is roughly one to one and a half degrees an hour for the first twelve hours before it slows. This is it—exactly what I was looking for. Actual, scientific evidence that shows that I couldn’t have killed Gordon.

Jake and I didn’t get back from our trip to Virginia until after five the night before the discovery, as our surveillance cameras will show. Even if the Rohypnol Gordon was given lowered his temperature, say to ninety-five degrees, which is considered hypothermic and highly unlikely, it still would have taken more than the thirteen hours since we’d been home for his body temperature to drop to seventy-one degrees.

I think back, trying to recall the gas stations and restaurants we’d visited on the drive home. Surely some of them had security cameras, but all it will take is one—one place with a clear image of my face caught on film—to prove my innocence.

Opening a new email, I make a list of the names of the places we stopped, as well as the locations and approximate times. Then I outline my case in the simplest way possible. When I’m done, I hit send, forward the medical examiner’s report for good measure, take out my phone, and dial.

“Sheriff Kingston here.”

“Sheriff, it’s Agent Knox.”

There’s a long pause where the only sound is the blood in my head pounding behind my ears. Just as I’m about to check if the call has dropped, he clears his throat.

His tone is wary as he asks, “And? Why are you calling?”

“Because I want to clear up any doubt or confusion that might exist about me having anything to do with Gordon’s death. I don’t know what evidence his mother was talking about, but I have some of my own.”

“What type?”

“The irrefutable kind.”

I can hear his uncertainty as he asks, “And how’s that?”

“I just sent you an email. It lists all the places Jake and I stopped at the day before Gordon’s body was discovered, including the gas station down the street from my old apartment where we filled the U-Haul before the drive down. If you compare that with the information in the medical examiner’s preliminary report, which I also sent you, especially concerning Gordon’s liver temperature and what that indicates concerning time since death, it proves that I couldn’t have taken part in what happened.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

My fingers curl tight, fisting around the phone. No doubt he wouldn’t hesitate for a second to arrest me if Gordon’s mom presented him with something he thought gave him the grounds to do so, but I provide him something that proves he doesn’t and he wants to be difficult?

“How about look at it? Request surveillance footage from the stores for the time ranges listed?”

“All right. What else?”

“There doesn’t need to be anything else. It’s a fifteen-hour drive from my old apartment to the Sanctuary. Our stops for gas and meals added another three hours to the trip. Given that it would have taken over sixteen hours for Gordon’s body to reach the temperature it was when the medicolegal investigator arrived and took a liver temp, the evidence will show that I was still in Virginia when Gordon was murdered.”

“If you say so.”

My teeth grit together so hard it’s a miracle they don’t crumble into dust. I’ve been incredibly foolish. I didn’t have to agree to help him when he asked, but I did. And though I thought we had reached an understanding, had made strides beyond our prickly past, I was wrong.