Bree hung up the phone. Nerves rattled inside her. Did she go solo or take Matt up on his offer? Nausea turned her stomach at the thought of going alone. It wasn’t weakness. She wasn’t a robot. Seeing her sister’s body should disturb her. Her hands trembled as she texted him.
He texted back in a few seconds. Pick u up in 10.
As cold as she was outside without her coat, the last thing she wanted to do was go inside. Should she tell the kids? She wanted to be honest with them, but there were details they did not need to know.
She schooled her face and went inside. “I need to run a few errands.”
“But you just got here,” Kayla protested, her lip quivering.
“I know, and I’m sorry.” She hugged her niece.
“I want to go home.” Luke frowned at the studio. Adam had not emerged.
“Me too,” Kayla said.
“Let me take care of some business, then I’ll see about getting you home. I need you to hang here with Uncle Adam for a little while longer, OK?”
The kids nodded, but they looked disappointed.
“Luke, do you remember Justin’s friend Matt Flynn?” Bree asked.
“Yeah,” he said.
“I need to talk to Uncle Adam for a few minutes. If Matt comes to the door, would you let him in?”
“Sure.” Luke nodded and bowed over his phone.
A news report interrupted Kayla’s TV show. Bree saw her sister’s photo and Justin’s on the screen. Under the images, a headline read ESTRANGED HUSBAND WANTED IN WIFE’S DEATH. Kayla stared, her eyes wide open with horror.
“The Taggert family has a long history of violence and tragedy,” the journalist began.
Rushing to grab the remote from the table, Bree pressed “Guide.” A grid of channels replaced the news report. She tossed the remote to Luke. “Can you put a kids’-only channel on, please?”
“Sure,” he said, but the pain in his eyes told her that the damage had been done.
Bree went into her brother’s studio to let him know she’d be leaving for a while. Adam stared at his painting.
“Adam,” Bree said.
“Yeah,” he answered without looking at her.
“Look at me.”
“What?” He blinked away from his work.
Bree sighed. “I have to go out. Keep the TV on channels that won’t play the news and try to distract the kids.”
“How do I do that?”
“Interact with them.” Bree stopped, realizing her voice had sharpened. “Look, I know how you get when you’re painting, but they need you. Not just to be in the same house, but to be there.”
“OK. I get it.” His eyes drifted back to the canvas. “I’ll be finished with this section in a few minutes.”
No, you won’t.
Someone cleared his throat, and Bree turned to see Matt standing in the doorway.
“I’ll be back as fast as I can,” she said to her brother’s back. She returned to the kids and put on her coat. “Lock the door after I leave.”
She followed Matt outside and waited until she heard the deadbolt slide into place before she climbed into his SUV.
She could barely juggle the kids and their grief for a few hours. How would she help them get through Erin’s funeral? And what would happen afterward? Bree put the future out of her mind. This afternoon was going to be hard enough. She was going to have to deal with one task at a time. Unable to converse, she stared out the passenger window as he drove.
The medical examiner’s office was in the municipal complex, not far from the sheriff’s station. The ride was short, and she was nowhere near ready when they arrived.
But she doubted it was possible to prepare to view her sister’s body.
After climbing out of the SUV, she stood on the sidewalk for a few minutes, letting the chill sink into her bones.
Matt stepped out of his vehicle and stood next to her. “There’s no rush. Take all the time you need.”
Bree doubted an additional ten minutes would make any difference. “Let’s go.”
They went inside. Matt walked up to the reception counter and spoke to the woman behind it. Before Bree could blink, they were ushered into an office. It felt like time was speeding up, moving too quickly, out of her control.
An African American woman in clean black scrubs moved out from behind the desk. “I’m Dr. Serena Jones. I took care of your sister.”
Matt did the introductions, but Bree’s hearing sounded muffled.
Dr. Jones turned to face her. “You can see your sister on a monitor—”
“No.” Bree cut her off.
“I didn’t think you’d take that option, so I had your sister moved to a private room,” Dr. Jones said as if Erin were her patient instead of a corpse. “This way.”
The sense of impending doom grew heavier with each footstep down the tiled hallway. Bree kept her eyes on the back of Dr. Jones’s shirt. They went into a small room. In the center of the space, a sheet-covered body occupied a gurney. Dr. Jones walked around to the opposite side of the gurney and faced Bree over her sister’s body. Matt stayed at Bree’s side.
The doctor waited until Bree lifted her eyes to hers and nodded. Then Dr. Jones folded back the sheet to reveal only Erin’s face. She carefully smoothed the sheet above Erin’s collarbones, covering the wound that had killed her and the autopsy incision. Either Dr. Jones or her assistant had taken care to arrange Erin’s hair to cover the scalp incision.
Bree tried to block all the autopsies she’d witnessed. It served no purpose to imagine the insult that had been inflicted on her sister’s body. Erin wasn’t in there anymore. What lay on the table was just a shell. Organs had been removed and examined, then stuffed back into the body in a plastic bag. But as Bree stared down at her sister’s face, it didn’t feel as if that mattered. Erin’s eyes were closed, her face waxen and gray. Her cheekbones were sunken and stood out in sharp relief, as if her body had deflated when her soul left it. Until that moment, her death had felt abstract. Now reality and grief struck Bree like a full-body blow.
Once, when Bree had been a patrol officer, she’d been shot in the ribs. Her body armor had absorbed the bullet, but the impact had knocked the air from her lungs. Her legs had folded like an accordion ruler. The sight of her sister’s face felt like a similar punch.
Matt’s hand under her elbow saved her from hitting the floor. She closed her eyes for a few seconds and breathed through her mouth. She appreciated that neither Matt nor the ME said a word until she’d regained her balance.
“I know that you’re a homicide detective,” Dr. Jones said in a soft, low voice. “I’ll answer questions about your sister’s death. But I want you to let yourself be a human being first.”
As if Bree could have formed a coherent question.
She’d delivered death notifications. She’d escorted family members to the morgue. She’d held their hands during this exact instant. But the shock and power and overwhelming nature of the moment had been lost on her.
Until now.
Waves of grief, helplessness, and anger threatened to upend her balance again. Dr. Jones moved a chair from the corner and set it next to Bree.
Three breaths later, Bree recovered her voice, though it rasped as if she smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. “Tell me the truth. Did she go quickly?”