McGee woke up with drool on her chin.
The tea was still on her lap, somehow unspilled. The news had moved on to weather. Afternoon light was coming through the blinds in hard slats.
She wiped her face with the back of her hand, picked up the cup, and drank.
Cold. Still good. You don't waste tea.
---
She sat at the kitchen table with Kane's file spread out in front of her, the bills pushed to one side. The crime scene photos stared up at her — Kane upright in his chair, hands folded, eyes open.
What did he do for three hours?
She ran through it. Torture? There were no marks on the body — at least, none visible in the photos. Did he talk to him? Sit across the desk and have a conversation with a man who couldn't move? Or was it all staging — three hours of arranging and rearranging, stepping back, checking the angles, like a photographer on a shoot?
Every option was worse than the last.
*The ME will know more,* she thought. The body always knows.
She tidied the paperwork into a neat stack, showered, and got dressed. Business casual — dark blazer, white shirt. There was a small mustard stain on the shirt, right near the second button. She'd tried everything to get it out. Soaking, scrubbing, some internet remedy involving baking soda that just made it worse.
She liked that shirt anyway.
---
The morgue was in the basement of the county building, and it was always too cold. McGee showed her badge at the desk and followed the signs to the examination room.
The man waiting for her was in his mid-fifties, with graying hair and the relaxed posture of someone who'd seen everything twice.
"Detective Summers?" He held out a gloved hand. "Mark Campbell. You're the new kid, right? Eleven days?"
"Twelve now," McGee said.
"A couple of weeks and they give you a stiff. Lucky you." He gestured at the table, where a sheet covered a shape. "Victor Kane. Come on over."
McGee stepped closer. Campbell pulled the sheet back.
Kane looked smaller than he had in the chair. Paler. The staging was gone — no suit jacket, no folded hands. Just a body.
"Time of death?" McGee asked.
"Around 11:30 PM." Campbell picked up a clipboard. "But here's where it gets interesting. He was injected twice."
"Twice?"
"First one's a sedative cocktail — knocked out his motor function but left him conscious. You know what that means?"
McGee didn't want to know. "He was awake."
"Oh yeah. Wide awake. Couldn't move, couldn't talk, but he was in there." Campbell tapped his temple. "Front-row seat to his own murder. Guy probably had opinions about the staging."
*Cruel and unusual.* Her father had a phrase for it — he'd been a lawyer, he had phrases for everything. She wondered what he'd call this.
"Campbell."
"What? I'm just saying — if someone's going to arrange me like a dinner party centerpiece, I'd want some input." He grinned, then saw her face. "Too soon?"
"A little."
"Fair." He set the clipboard down. "Second injection came around 11:30. Lethal combination of pharmaceuticals. Stopped his heart in minutes. Clean, professional. Whoever did this knew what they were doing."
"So he was alive from — when? The footage shows the suspect entering at 9:14."
Campbell did the math. "Then your guy had about two hours and fifteen minutes with a conscious, paralyzed victim before he killed him." He paused. "You want my professional opinion?"
"Please."
"This is the creepiest thing I've seen in thirty years, and I once autopsied a guy who died in a mascot costume." Campbell pulled the sheet back up. "Most killers want it over fast. This guy wanted it to last. He sat in that office with a man who couldn't move and just... took his time."
McGee stared at the covered shape on the table.
"He staged the body after," she said quietly. "Sat him up, folded his hands, opened his eyes."
"Opened his eyes?" Campbell raised an eyebrow. "After death?"
"That's what the scene looked like."
"Jesus." Campbell shook his head. "You know what's bothering me? The eyes. Everything else is about making him look dignified, right? Peaceful. But the eyes open — that's not peaceful. That's..." He searched for the word. "Confrontational. Like he wanted whoever found the body to feel watched."
McGee thought about the security footage. The figure looking up at the camera. Adjusting his tie.
"He did," she said.
Campbell studied her. "You've got a theory."
"I've got a feeling. Guy spent three hours in that office. He wasn't hiding — he looked at the camera. He knew the cleaning schedule. He wanted the body found." She met his eyes. "This wasn't a murder, Mark. It was a performance."
Campbell was quiet for a moment. Then: "Well. That's the most disturbing thing anyone's said to me all week, and I work in a morgue."
"Thanks."
"Anytime, Detective." He handed her a folder. "Full tox report's in there. Cause of death, injection sites, timeline — everything I've got. You need anything else, you know where to find me."
McGee took the folder. At the door, Campbell called after her.
"Hey. Summers."
"Yeah?"
"Be careful with this one. Guys who take their time?" He nodded at the table. "They're not afraid of getting caught. They're just getting started."
McGee walked out into the hallway, the folder heavy in her hand.
Two hours and fifteen minutes. Awake. Unable to move. Watching a masked man arrange the room around him like it was a stage.
She'd wanted answers from the ME.
She wished she hadn't gotten them.
Chapter 5