It should go without saying, but reading the previous entries to this series helps understand what is going on.
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Dr. Shevade found herself nervous at the prospect of seeing Detective Riley again. It had barely been a day since the incident in Sandra Miles' room, and Karuna had hoped she'd be able to avoid seeing the detective for a while. While she was appalled at Riley's actions, she was more appalled at herself, and she realized she was no match for the detective's forceful personality. She knew she had to regain some ground there, but she wasn't currently in a position to do that; her findings were disappointing even after their little stunt, and the idea she wanted to talk to the detective about played right into her hand. Also, Riley had mentioned she had something to tell the doctor, so it was possible she held all the cards, in a social sense.
The detective came in wearing the same outfit as usual; nice blouse and slacks with low slung pumps. She had her weapon and badge prominently on display, with her phone on the opposite hip. Her hair was secured in a bun, pulling the rest of it tight across her scalp. Karuna noticed the detective almost always had very tight buns and ponytails and wondered how she avoided constant headaches.
"So my news sucks," Riley said, holding up the manilla folder in her right hand.
"Oh, do you want to go first then?" Karuna said.
"We found another victim, or at least we think we did."
"How can you possibly be unsure about it?" Karuna asked.
"She's dead," Riley said, dropping the folder on the table. Karuna opened it and saw photos of an accident scene.
She didn't usually do trauma victims but she'd done ride-alongs and assisted EMTs and ambulance runs so she knew a little about how to read an accident scene. It seemed clear this car had hit a guard rail and then went over an embankment at high speed. Unfortunately on the other side of the embankment was a construction site of mostly bare concrete and rock.
More photos focused on one of the victims who'd been thrown from the car. Her injuries made it hard to be certain, but she looked around the same age as the other victims. The amount of blood and the nature of some of her injuries, as well as where her body was, told Karuna she'd been thrown from the car.
"So why is she a victim of anything other than a car accident?" Karuna asked.
"This happened two days ago," Riley said, "It was sent over to me after I opened this investigation and spread the word about what I was looking for. This girl was mostly naked. Now that can happen, especially if they're thrown from the vehicle; road rash shreds clothes and the bouncing and rolling can make them fly off. But this girl was only missing her shirt and her panties; her skirt was still intact."
"Still possible," Karuna said, "A skirt, especially a loose one, is going to resist shredding and tearing."
"Right, but here's the kicker. They found the shirt, and her bra. Both in the car, both intact, or they probably were before the car turned into a mess."
"She took them off beforehand," Karuna said, "But lots of people try to do crazy stuff in a moving car without being afflicted with this."
"Yeah, but not usually with their parents," Riley said triumphantly, "They were the only other people in the car. I'm thinking miss hornball here tried to jump her Mommy or Daddy like Sandra did, except they were driving and it knocked them off."
"Okay, I'll grant you this girl was probably a victim," Karuna said, "But how does this help?"
"Well it helps me because more victims is better for me eventually getting the big agencies involved. But isn't this good for you too? You can do an autopsy and stuff."
Karuna shook her head. "Autopsies are only helpful because we can grab fluids and do tests we'd normally need a bunch of permissions for, or just couldn't do, like getting the vitreous humor."
"The what?"
"Eye juice," Karuna said, gratified to see the detective flinch a little. "But that mostly helps in figuring out cause of death. We know this...condition isn't killing people-"
"Yet."
"Well it didn't kill this woman, clearly."
"Fine," Riley sighed, "so more exciting for me than you. What did you want to talk to me about?"
"Nora Sancho's gone into hibernation," Karuna said.
"That's the one we found in the strip club," Riley said.
Karuna nodded. "We're going to lose Lydia Gardner tomorrow, if the pattern holds. I wasn't able to draw any conclusions from our...experiment yesterday. But we have an opportunity to try something different with Lydia because she hasn't gone into hibernation yet. So...you want to come back tonight?"