Good morning!
Today I'm gonna try something new and give you a tantalizing teaser. This one is for my most recent release - BloodFlow. I hope you enjoy it.
“I remember
my first autopsy,” Vic said as she grabbed the folder she’d been searching for.
“I threw up on a fellow student and then passed out. It was not a pretty
picture.”
“You or the
deceased?” Randi joked.
“It was a
floater. She’d been in Chesapeake Bay for a week or more. Bloated and little
nibbled. She was absolutely disgusting.” Vic laughed. “But there are worse
things.”
Randi could
only hope she wasn’t about to encounter one of them.
“What thirty
thousand pounds of metal moving at eighty miles an hour can do to the human
body…” The woman’s dramatic shudder hit Randi like an earthquake.
“I only
received the report from the first responders, but from that, I could tell it
was pretty nasty.”
“Needless to
say, skipping the coffee and Danish was probably a good idea.”
The doctor
didn’t know how right she was. The very concept of food combined with what
she’d probably witness this morning had her insides churning. Swallowing hard,
she tried to get a grip on her weak stomach.
Following
Vic down the hall, they went through a set of steel doors. There the medical
examiner donned her gear and helped Randi do the same. She started the voice
recorder to document every step of the procedure. The morgue’s staff had
already prepared the subject for the doctor and she strode directly to a body
that had been laid out like a Halloween buffet.
Randi had to
stifle her gag reflex when the corpse was unveiled. Lila Reynolds was hardly
recognizable as a human being, let alone the smiling woman on the YouTube
videos.
“Well, I can
tell you one thing straight off,” Vic said as she bent over the table. “She was
deceased before the accident occurred.” She pointed to damage along what had to
have once been Lila’s face. “This is post-mortem.”
“So it was a
heart attack?”
She tilted
her head to one side. “You know better than that. I’m not paid to guess.” Randi
mumbled an apology and changed her ‘baking cookies’ opinion to ‘headmistress at
a school for wayward girls’. “I should be able to have some close approximation
after I open her up.”
Inch by
agonizing inch, the examiner inspected the exterior of what used to be a human
being. Every few seconds, she stopped to note a particular cut or scrape. Every
mole or old scar got its share of attention, too. When Vic reached the woman’s
neck, she stopped. “Take a look at this for me, if you would.”
Not exactly
something she wanted to do, but it was the job. The examiner used an instrument
to hold back the deceased’s hair. In an instant, Randi knew what she was
looking at. “She’s been chipped.”
“Pardon me?”
“Sorry. Implanted.
My superiors would prefer people not call it ‘getting chipped’.”
“No, I was
asking ‘what are you talking about?’ not trying to correct you.”
“Oh. You
haven’t heard about this yet?” Randi didn’t think it was possible, considering
how often the news had been cheerleading for the project. Then again, Vic
didn’t pay a lot of attention to the news. She claimed she saw enough tragedy
at work without needing to see it at home. The woman’s tastes ran more toward The Food Network and BBC America.
“Project
Hermes. It’s supposedly the latest and greatest answer to illegal immigration.”
“Tracking
through electronic implant?”
“The chips
are only supposed to be accessed in case of arrest and potential deportation. Basically,
if you have one, you’re a citizen and get to stay. They’re very careful to
point out that people can’t be tracked with these things.” Which, for Randi,
meant they probably did exactly that.
“So they’re
like the kind used for pets?”
A grin played
under Randi’s surgical mask. She’d thought the same thing when she first heard
about Project Hermes. Honey had been chipped by the rescue agency she’d adopted
him from. “Exactly. They started the program a few weeks ago, but it’s all the
rage with politicians and their families. Get chipped for your country or some
such nonsense. It’s all supposed to be very patriotic.”
“I don’t
like it.” Vic’s ideas mirrored her own.
“It’s not
mandatory,” she added, suddenly feeling guilty. Her own employer said this
program was essential to national security. “According to Secretary Dougherty,
they’re implementing the plan as a precaution to protect citizens from being
mistaken for immigrants.” The whole idea seemed unrealistic, but Homeland
Security hadn’t put her on the list of people who got to voice their opinions.
“Doesn’t
make much sense if you ask me.”
Of course,
Vic wouldn’t be on that list either. In fact, Randi wasn’t sure who would be on
any such fictitious list. The project was simply one of those things that
politicians voted on while their constituents watched Wheel of Fortune.
“Although
apparently, it made enough sense for someone to float the idea and then a whole
bunch of someones to throw money at.” Vic looked from the minute scar to Randi
and back again. “And they’re saying it’s perfectly safe?”
“That’s the
idea.”
The doctor
selected a scalpel from the tools on a nearby cart. One quick incision and she
was holding the tiny device on the tip of her finger. “All the same, I’d like
to run some tests on this little beauty. If someone wants to put one in the
back of my head, I’d like to verify for myself it didn’t have anything to do
with this poor woman’s death.”
If you're tantalized and want to read more, BloodFlow is
available for purchase at Amazon (in every country where you can buy Kindle books) and at
Createspace.
