How could this happen to someone his age?

God’s wrath.

He’d spent the first weeks in denial and lashing out at everyone around him. He’d quit his job. Why continue to work in a position he hated? He had some savings. Enough to feed himself and get by for a few years. It was oddly freeing. He could go live on the beach in Costa Rica if he wanted. He didn’t have close family to take care of. No one relied on him but his cat.

One of his motivations for survival pushed her head into his hand, searching for a scratch. He scratched at her neck and down her back to her happy spot in front of her tail. She arched her back in bliss.

Becky down the street would take her in when he was gone. The cat spent half her time over there anyway. He added a discussion with Becky to his mental “things to do before I die” list. The list wasn’t that long. And that fact depressed him a bit. Most people must have had long lists. People they wanted to say good-bye to, places they wanted to visit, goals they wanted to achieve.

But every time he came up with something to add to his list, he realized it wasn’t important. In the great scheme of life, what truly mattered?

Writing the great American novel?

Seeing the Taj Mahal in person?

Skydiving?

Nope.

None of those held any appeal. One month ago his philosophy had been that life was about doing the right thing. That a person should be able to look back on his life and see that he’d treated others with dignity and respect. And that if he’d made a mistake, he should own up to it and correct it.

But when the men he’d trusted tried to kill him, his philosophy had abruptly changed.

That was the drawback to secrets. People wanted them to stay secret.

No exceptions.

He’d started down a path the other night, the one these men’s actions had forced him to follow. They’d have no one but themselves to blame in the end.

Why didn’t they listen to me?

5

“I was right about the padding around the wrists,” Dr. Seth Rutledge said with a confident nod. “His wrists had been slit. He’d bled out and then been cleaned up and bandaged.”

Mason identified with the medical examiner’s satisfaction; he understood that great feeling when a hunch turned out to be correct.

He, Ray, Ava, and Zander stood in attendance as Seth showed them the long vertical slices in the wrists. Mason had seen people who’d tried to commit suicide by cutting across the wrist, but he’d never seen a case where it had worked. No doubt it worked sometimes, but he’d been told death needed a deep cut down the wrist, not across. Apparently Carson Scott’s killer knew the same fact.

“Look how clean these cuts are,” Seth continued, twisting the arm toward his stoic audience. “No hesitation at all. Whoever did this clearly succeeded on his first try. Usually with suicides there are several attempted cuts first. Murders, too. Our killer made a long cut, getting a wider section of the ulnar artery for a quicker bleed-out. If he’d just done a small cut at the wrist, it would have taken much longer.”

“So someone knew exactly how to do it?” Ava asked. She’d moved to the front of their little group and bent close to get a good look at the arm. Mason noticed she had no issues with getting right next to the table, compared to the three male detectives, who kept a polite distance.

“And had no fear,” added Seth.

Cops handled the medical examiner’s office in different ways. It’d taken Mason years of internal struggle to calmly handle an autopsy. He’d learned when to look away. Some detectives embraced the procedure and found it fascinating, and it appeared Ava was one of them. Other officers heaved over a garbage can. Mason had always kept his cool, but it wasn’t easy.

That smell.

Thankfully today’s autopsy had already ended when Dr. Rutledge called them in to review preliminary findings.

“Can you tell what was used to make the incisions?” Zander asked. He had a notepad in hand and had been taking notes as Dr. Rutledge spoke. Mason wondered if he was using the notepad as a crutch to focus on instead of the dead body with the giant stitched incision in its chest. Mason often did the same thing.

Seth held up the arm again. “After the first half inch at the start of the cut, it’s exactly the same three-quarter-inch depth for the remaining six inches.” He raised a brow at the group, clearly waiting for guesses.

“A utility knife of some sort,” said Ava. “Something with a guide to keep it from going deeper.”

The other detectives nodded, and Dr. Rutledge appeared pleased.

“So we’re looking for a very bloody scene,” suggested Ray. “Unless he kept the blood contained in some way.”

“Yes.” Dr. Rutledge nodded. “I would expect arterial spurting from the incisions, but perhaps your killer was prepared for that.”

“There’s still a chance Carson killed himself,” Ava argued. “Obviously he didn’t hang himself, but you’ve found a cause of death that could be self-inflicted.”

“Look up here.” Dr. Rutledge took a step toward the head of the body and indicated the skin of the upper arm. With a long-handled, tweezers-like tool, he picked at something microscopic stuck to the hair on Carson’s arm.

“Tape residue,” identified Ava. “He was bound for the actual cutting of his wrists.”

“The residue is across his palms, too.”

“Wouldn’t there be some white blanching marks on the backside of his arms? From them being tightly bound while the remaining blood settled?” asked Ray.