Do you go back to your regular life after that?
I didn’t have much experience carrying on after major life-changing experiences. When Noah got Arcana, we’d run away from home and completely rebuilt our lives. When I’d gotten it, I’d ended up halfway across the country in the arms of a lover I wasn’t supposed to have feelings for—but did. Not that circumstances hadn’t improved both times—they definitely had—but did I really want to start all over again now? Would I have to?
I reminded myself,again, that it had only been two weeks. Two absolutely horrible and insane weeks, but still only two. You didn’t get over things that fast.
Especially not if the circumstances surrounding them hadn’t actually been resolved. Were still unfolding, in fact.
“My understanding,” Cabell was saying, “is that the body is…” He paused, then glanced over at me. I tried to look suitably upset. “Traumatized,” he finished, his cheeks going blotchy from the stress of trying to think of some politic wayof sayingdamaged beyond recognitionthat wouldn’t be wildly inappropriate to say to the victim’s boyfriend.
“So then dental,” Hart put in. “DNA if you’re telling me his teethmelted.”
I almost opened my mouth to say that teeth wouldn’t melt in a fire fueled by the gasoline in a car’s engine, but decided against it. That was probably the point Hart had been making. Even a hot car fire that reached 1650 degrees Fahrenheit wouldn’t melt teeth—damage them, sure, but notmeltthem. And even then, there was usually available particulate evidence that could be extracted. And given what I knew aboutmycar, it wasn’t likely to hit that temperature. Which meant that as… badly damaged as a body burned inside it would be, odds were in favor of teeth that were intact enough to check dental work.
And even if they couldn’t do a dental match, there would definitely be enough left to do a DNA test.
Cabell stared at Hart.
“Did you attempt to confirm identity using dental records?” Raj asked Cabell.
“I—That decision is the purview of the investigating officer,” he finished.
It was a lame, bullshit excuse, and everyone in the room knew it.
“So you have no idea why you won’t show us the body, no idea whether dental or DNA has been run, and no idea when or if the body will be released?” Raj asked, and Cabell’s face went blotchy again.
“What was the name of the IO, again?” Hart asked casually, examining the fingernails on one hand, as though he didn’t know the answer.
Cabell didn’t answer, exactly. Instead he got up, walked to the door, opened it, took a step outside, and bellowed “Mosby!” as loudly as he could.
I exchanged a look with Hart.
This was about to get interesting.
Cabell waited until Mosby had crossed the bullpen, then pointed into his office, following behind and nearly running into the other man when Mosby froze, staring at Raj.
Raj’s lip curled, just slightly, then went back to where it had come from, closed over his teeth and pressed together in a grim, serious line. Mosby’s narrow eyes were fixed on Raj’s warm brown features, and the bigger tiger shifter stared back, unblinking, a predator assessing, and then dismissing, another animal as inconsequential. Neither prey nor a threat.
When Cabell spoke again, it was clear Mosby had completely forgotten about his boss in the less-than-five-seconds since he’d walked through the door.
I suppressed a smirk.
Hart didn’t even bother trying.
“Where’d you send the bod—” Cabell stopped, cleared his throat, and started again. “Where are Mr. Crane’s remains being kept?”
Mosby turned away from Raj, his shoulders tense. “They’re not identifiable,” he answered.
“I didn’t ask you if they wereidentifiable,” Cabell all but growled. “I asked you where the he—where they were.” Cabell shot a sidelong glance over at me, as though I would be offended if he used anything even borderline profane, despite the fact that Hart had, as usual, been cursing up a storm.
Mosby shot a look in my direction. “Ah, sir, I don’t think it’s, uh, appropriate?—”
“Where the hell’s the body, Mosby?” Cabell snapped.
Mosby swallowed, his sunburned skin going pale under the pink.
“Oh, I don’t think he knows, do you, Mosby?” Hart drawled.
Both Mosby and Cabell turned to stare at him.
