Wrath's Storm: A Masters' Admiralty Novel Mari Carr (great books of all time .txt) 📖

the house. She noticed everything you did for her, even if she’ll never know the house was designed and remodeled with her in mind. Her safety, her happiness, her pleasure.

Maybe he could sell it to her and her trinity. Then at least she could appreciate it while she was happily married to two people worthy of her.

Dr. Adamicz was standing across the table from Walt and Annalise, who were both suited up in disposable white gowns, gloves, and plastic face shields. Dr. Adamicz reached across the table, grabbed the corpse’s arm closest to Annalise and Walt, and tipped the body up.

“Feel here, along the back of the neck,” Dr. Adamicz invited, pointing with his free hand. “Dr. Hayden was right to point out that the killer had to understand the human spine. If you are dismembering an animal to transport after a kill, you take the head off at the base of the skull.” He pointed to the top of the corpse’s neck, just under the hair. “On a human, it would be here. Now, would a hunter try for that point? Possibly, but hunters usually do not go between vertebrae like that one did.” Dr. Adamicz let the body flop down.

The sheet slid off and Jakob was treated to a view of a flaccid, dead dick. He wondered who this poor fucker had been.

Annalise grabbed the medical drape, placing it back over the dead man’s crotch. Shit like that was why he loved her. He could trust her to cover up his dick if he was dead.

Thinking about his dick and Annalise at the same time was a very bad idea. He stared hard at the Y incision on the corpse’s chest.

“You ruled the cause of death as asphyxiation.”

“Yes, due to the swelling of the right side of the heart and…” He paused, took a phone from his pocket, typed something in, and then held it out. “I had to look up the word in English.”

“Cyanosis,” Walt read aloud. “Lack of oxygen. Skin, mucus membranes, will turn blue. That’s a classic sign of strangulation.”

Dr. Adamicz raised a finger. “Or suffocation. The decapitation trauma to the neck obscured any ligature or finger marks there might have been. But dilation of the heart, the blue skin, and a small amount of petechial hemorrhage could be from strangulation or suffocation.” He raised one hand. “Asphyxiation.”

“And you haven’t had any other bodies here in Krakow that were dismembered?” Annalise asked.

“Not like that. Back when the mafia was more prevalent, we had some mob-style torture and killings. They cut off bits. If it’s dropped in the woods in Wolski Forest, animals might eat the body. But they start with the soft bits. Face, guts.”

This was so gross.

“Nowadays, we’re dealing with gang kills. They’re more straightforward. Shoot, bang, dead.”

Jakob sucked in a breath, through his nose, and was overwhelmed by the smell of formaldehyde and…verdammter Mist…he didn’t want to know what else.

“If you are here, you’ve found another body?” Dr. Adamicz rubbed gloved hands together and stared at Annalise, whose name he’d recognized based on a few papers she’d written. “A serial killer?”

“Possibly. But the geography is unusual.”

“Where else were bodies found?”

Annalise smiled at the doctor, but it wasn’t her real, good smile. It was polite, neutral. “We’re keeping that information private.”

“Yes, yes. In case I am the killer.”

Dr. Adamicz seemed a little too excited about the idea he might be a suspected serial killer.

“Is there anything else you think we should know?” Walt asked. “Anything you didn’t put in the report?”

Dr. Adamicz pursed his lips, then hustled over to his computer, which was on a rolling stand in the corner. How the fuck anyone could work with dead bodies just behind them was beyond Jakob’s understanding. This…this was how zombies happened.

A few clicks later and the doctor had the now familiar images of Alicja’s body up on the screen. He flicked through those, then pulled up the report itself. Annalise and Walt had wandered over to stand by him.

“I didn’t have her all at once. Never did find the last few pieces. She came in bit by bit. The last few bits…” He raised and wiggled a hand. “They had to send cadaver dogs to the landfill. Actually, we ended up with an extra foot after that. But the head, which we found first, was wrapped in plastic, and then put in a wooden crate with a lid, before going in the garbage. The people who found it actually wanted the crate. It was a nice crate.”

“Interesting. What makes you call it a nice crate?” Annalise asked.

“Good quality, finish still on it. Cedar, I believe. Like something your grandmother kept blankets in.”

“A blanket chest,” Walt said.

“Chest, not crate. Yes, that is the right word.” They were speaking English, and though Dr. Adamicz was fluent, there were some words he’d stumbled over.

“I didn’t see pictures of the crate in the file,” Annalise said. “Do you have photos?”

“No, I saw it in the forensics lab when I went to flirt with Dr. Banik.” Dr. Adamicz gave Walt the once-over, and then winked suggestively.

Walt didn’t look put off or shocked.

He returned the wink with a playful grin.

Huh. Interesting.

Jakob rarely thought about other people’s sexuality. It didn’t matter to him for a number of reasons, first of which it was none of his damned business. Second, once he’d joined the Masters’ Admiralty, he had started diligently watching gay porn so he was prepared if he got a husband and a wife. Jakob would do his duty toward his spouses, and if, at least at the beginning, he would be thinking of Annalise, that was something no one ever had to know.

And yet, the fact that Walt was interested in men intrigued him, and he wasn’t entirely sure why.

He also wasn’t worried about the fact that Walt was standing shoulder to shoulder with Annalise. He trusted the other man, based on nothing more than instinct. Well, that and his behavior toward her. He’d taken care of, and cared for